Archive of Our Own

Dean leaned against the car, watching bugs fly around the lights overhead while the gas pump ticked through the gallons, filling up the tank so that he and Sam could keep moving. Moving where, Dean didn't have any fucking clue. The tank wasn't even close to empty, but Dean didn't trust the random cars he'd been driving, didn't know when halfway below a quarter of a tank meant he could go another couple hours and when it meant that sputtering to a stop on the roadside was imminent.

This particular night Dean was even less interested than usual in being stranded. All he wanted was enough distance from the hospital for him and Sam to be able to breathe, then a room with a bed for Sam and some dark, quiet space for Dean to get loaded in peace. And some food. Dean looked across the parking lot to the bright interior of the gas station convenience store and decided it might be their best option at this point. When the gas pump clicked off, Dean went inside, expecting Sam to be in line for the men's room or poking through the refrigerated case for salads or something.

No. Sam, his shoulders still slumped with exhaustion, stood in front of the coffee machine holding a giant cup under the dispenser. Dean shook his head and strode over.

"What do you think you're doing?"

Sam looked at Dean without turning his head. "Um, getting coffee. What's it look like?"

"Yeah, coffee. The last damn thing you need."

Sam shook his head and reached out for the disgusting French vanilla creamer, but Dean blocked his hand. Sam sighed and closed his eyes, looking like he was ready to fall asleep where he stood. Then he opened his eyes and straightened his shoulders. "I'm fine, Dean. I slept before they discharged me."

"Oh yeah, absolutely, I'm sure that a few hours of napping made up for missing a week of sleep. You might start looking like a real live person if you sleep for a couple days so skip the creamer because that coffee is mine." Dean swiped it from Sam's unsteady hand and slapped on a lid. "We're stopping at the next motel so we might as well get some food. What d'you want?"

"Nothing."

"Uh-huh, whatever. I'll meet you in the car."

Dean watched Sam as he sloped out the door and out to the car, folding himself into the passenger seat, before he turned to check out the food options. The sandwiches didn't look bad, so he picked up ham and cheese for himself, turkey for Sam, a few bags of chips, a couple bottles of water, and a six pack of Heineken. It should keep them until whenever Dean decided to go looking for breakfast. Or lunch.

Back behind the wheel, Dean pitched the turkey sandwich into Sam's lap. "Eat."

Sam just looked at the package for a moment, staring at it like it might come to life, then batted it back over to Dean's side of the car. "I can't eat that," he said, sounding like he was being strangled, and Dean looked over to see his face washed pale, sickly white under the lights from outside. He swallowed hard and put his hand on the door handle but didn't open it.

"What the hell, Sam?" Dean felt annoyed and worried and seriously? Couldn't Sam just eat the damn sandwich?

"I can't. They fed us sandwiches at the hospital and Lucifer, whatever. I know it wasn't real but right now I just can't."

"Okay, alright. Jesus. Be right back."

Dean shrugged at the cashier as he walked back inside the convenience store, then grabbed two bottles of Muscle Milk from the drinks case, paid and stalked back out to the car.

"If you don't drink one of these I'm going to wrestle you down and make you. I can't be driving around with some guy who looks like he's going to pass out from hunger, okay?"

"Okay," Sam replied quietly. "Okay, fine."

When Sam shook the vanilla bottle and cracked open the lid, Dean started the car and pulled back out onto the road.

Half an hour later, Dean steered into the parking lot of a motel with "vacancy" lit up like a beacon. He paid for two days with most of their cash on hand and got Sam and all of their usual crap set up in the room. Sam headed straight for the shower, no surprise there, and Dean sat down at the table. The coffee he'd taken from Sam was still passably warm, and the addition of a couple slugs of whiskey in the space Sam had left for creamer made it perfect. By the time Sam left the bathroom Dean had finished the coffee, the caffeine and alcohol balancing the weariness and worry inside him, making everything just a little closer to okay. Some kind of illusion of okay.

In his boxers and t-shirt, Sam climbed into one of the beds but he sat up against the headboard and pulled the laptop onto his knees. He looked like something that had been half-dead for years, and he thought it was a good time for research. Typical. Dean had left the room dark on purpose, only the dim light by the table casting shadows around the furniture, but Sam flicked on the bedside lamp like he was planning to stay up for a while.

"I know your geek brain likes to be connected to the internet at all times, but even you need to sleep sometimes."

"I'm fi--" Sam's body betrayed him, turning the lie into a yawn that stretched his jaw wide, and by the time it was over Sam had to wipe at his eyes. He sighed and looked down at the keyboard. "Okay, okay, I'll try." He closed the laptop and put it on the bedside table, then slid down between the covers without turning off the lamp.

Dean knew there wasn't going to be any kind of trying going on, and sure enough Sam's face went slack with sleep less than a minute after he closed his eyes. Dean crept across the room to steal the laptop, then opened a beer. They'd be stuck in place for a couple days, but Dean needed to figure out where to head after that and he needed something to distract himself from the memory of Castiel's face as they'd left him there in Sam's place.

Dean was only on his third beer, the edges of sobriety just starting to unravel themselves inside of him, when Sam started to make noise. His head was bent back, the cords of his neck straining against his skin, and he sounded like he would've been screaming if the screams hadn't been locked up inside his clenched jaw. Dean took a deep pull on his beer then walked over and shook Sam's oversize foot where it moved under the covers.

"Sam. Hey, Sammy, wake up." Dean jostled Sam's foot again, and finally he came awake with a gasp, pushing himself up on his elbows as rough breaths shook through his chest and his eyes looked wild until they settled on Dean.

"Oh, fuck," Sam breathed as he sat up, rubbing his hands over his face, long fingers tangling in his still-damp hair.

Dean sat down on the foot of the bed. "You okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah," Sam repeated unconvincingly.

"Don't tell me that Lucifer's still taking up residence in your dreams."

Sam shook his head and looked down at the ugly bedspread. "No, actually. In the hospital, when the demon was giving me the shock treatment."

"Full-on Jack Nicholson." Dean thought about Cas again, about how he must have healed that damage before he realized how broken Sam's head really was.

"Yeah. I could just, you know, feel it on my head." Sam put his hand on his head, covering the faint marks on his forehead and temple. "Felt the current start to tear me apart." His hand shook as he let it fall back to his lap. "I think I'm done with sleep tonight."

"Are you kidding me?"

"I'm gonna, I don't know." Sam turned around and sat with his feet on the floor next to the bed. "Going for a run, I think."

"I don't--" Dean jumped up to grab Sam's arm as he stood and swayed in place. When Sam looked like he wasn't going to immediately keel over, Dean let go. "You're going to run your face right into the floor, looks like."

Sam dropped back down to sit on the side of the bed. "I'm just tired of not having any control over what's happening inside my head."

"Maybe you're just tired. You know, get some Z's and then maybe you'll be able to straighten out shit inside your melon."

"I just don't know how."

The exhausted, pleading edge to Sam's voice tore at Dean's chest, and he walked back over to the table, turned out the light and moved his beer and one of Bobby's books over to the bedside table. He kicked off his shoes and sat down next to Sam, wedging himself between his brother's slumped shoulders and the bunched-up pillows. "You remember when you were in 8th grade and you couldn't stop having nightmares about the shifter?"

"The one I shot. The man."

Dean patted Sam's shoulder. "The one you shot at; Dad killed it. But remember you fell asleep at school and everything."

Sam laughed, a mirthless, breathy sound. "Got kicked out of class for creating a disturbance."

"You always were a hell of a loud snorer."

"I'm not thirteen years old anymore, you know."

"You're still my baby brother, and I swear to god I'm gonna go crazy right along with you if you don't get some decent sleep."

Sam sighed and pushed himself backwards up to the top of the bed. He tucked his long legs under the covers while Dean turned himself around and punched up the pillows until they let him sit back against the headboard comfortably. He pulled the covers up and smoothed them down before putting a pillow over his lap.

"You sure?" Sam asked, his voice quiet and aching with the need for sleep.

"Shut up already and get comfortable."

Sam curled himself up awkwardly, head on the pillow on Dean's lap, boney knees bumping against Dean's feet. Dean looked down at him and thought that there wasn't enough alcohol in the world to make everything okay but that just for a while maybe he could pretend that there was some kind of possible future where okay was in the cards for him and Sam.

He let his hand drop to Sam's hair and brushed it back from Sam's face, his thumb tracing a path over Sam's temple, again and again until the hair went smooth and Sam relaxed into deep sleep. Dean realized with a pang of regret that his beer was almost empty and his flask was across the room, but nothing short of an emergency was making him move before Sam was ready. He shifted his shoulders against the pillow and closed his eyes, one hand on Sam's shoulder so he could feel the rise and fall of his brother's breaths.

The sound of Sam's snoring followed Dean down into sleep.