Archive of Our Own ^beta

Dean cracked his window just a little, so that cool, piney air filled the car, and just drove for a long time without pressing Sam. He stretched his arm across the back of the seat, elbow bent a little, and they weren't touching but they could be. Sam wouldn't need to do more than scoot an inch or so to the left and he knew, from the past few days of trying it, that Dean would straighten his arm out before he drove another mile, or another eighth of a mile, and slip his fingers through Sam's hair like it was nothing at all.

Noon found them at a rest stop, taking exaggeratedly huge steps to try to work the feeling into the backs of their thighs again and filling their collection of empty Coke bottles at the water fountain outside the bathroom. Dean leaned against the roof of the car while he waited for Sam, and Sam watched him, standing with his elbows bent and shoulders relaxed.

"You want to get going?" Sam asked, once he caught up.

Dean shrugged. "In a while. Good to be out of the car for a little bit."

Sam frowned and glanced at Dean's face, but he kept staring over the roof, at the tall trees and the sunlight filtering through the branches, so Sam shrugged and joined him. He rested his arms on the roof, matching Dean's pose, and stood there next to him.

The sun was still high above them when they headed out again, pointed west — mostly aimless except for how Bobby's was that way. Sam repeated what Becky told him in between towns, in a stretch of road without an accompanying radio station.

"Well hell," Dean said when Sam finished. "We shoulda gone through the books ourselves."

"Probably," Sam said, but then he turned and looked out the window. The books were still in a cardboard box in the trunk. Although the two of them spent one afternoon with the dregs of a fifth of Jack and a pair of Sharpies, fixing some of the more unfortunate titles (Dean went after Route 666 first and renamed it simply Cassie; Sam scratched through No Rest For The Wicked with thick, slow lines and stared at the cover for a long time before replacing it with Achilles' Last Stand, which Dean never mentioned but never changed, either), neither of them wanted to read the entire series.

"I am not looking forward to that." Dean shook his head. "After this weekend, the very last thing I want to do is read about some fake version of my life."

"Pretty sure it's not fake."

"Like that makes it better? That it's a real version of my life that's overshadowing what things are actually like?" Dean snorted. "Thanks but no thanks."

"They didn't even fill up all the chairs in the room," Sam said. "If that's our hardcore fanbase or whatever, I don't think we're in the shadow of anything."

He snorted again.

"Well, not the book's shadow at least," Sam amended.

Dean rolled his eyes. "Don't even try to tell me that whole thing wasn't one of the weirdest things we've ever gone through. And you know as well as I do that that's saying something."

"Not arguing with you there," Sam said, and sighed. There wasn't alcohol enough for having run into Chuck as he snuck out of the homosexual subtexts talk early. Dean had gotten some fake cobwebs in his hair, Sam had been trying to pick them out while they walked, and Chuck had barreled directly into Sam's chest as he slipped out the side door of the conference room. They could all hear the speaker while the heavy door swung so slowly shut — "opinions differ on whether this tension remains unresolved, or whether it..." —, and, yeah, shots.

It wasn't like he and Dean had done anything yet, except for the whole incestuous kissing thing — but that kept on happening, and so Sam guessed other stuff would eventually, too. That had sort of been the plan. In any case, he suspected Chuck knew exactly why they didn't want the later books to be published.

"You ever heard of this Crowley before?" Sam asked instead.

Dean looked at him full-on, turning his entire head away from the road, and watched Sam for a long moment before turning back. "No," he said, enunciating clearly even though it was just one word. "Have you?"

"No," Sam said easily. Dean glanced at him again with one eyebrow raised. Sam caught on and hissed the next exhalation out through his teeth. "I'd've gone after him if I couldn't get to Lilith easy enough, and Ruby probably knew that. She didn't mention him at all."

"Didn't mention a lot of things," Dean said, and Sam bit his tongue because it was true.

"We should stop somewhere with wifi tonight," he said. "Maybe a college town, if there's one on the way, see if we can get into their library tomorrow."

Dean sighed heavily but didn't say anything. Sam already knew they'd be stopping.

The sun started sinking into their field of vision eventually, inching its way beyond the top of the windshield and then low enough that the visors didn't block it any more. They started picking up radio stations again while Sam was digging for their sunglasses. It sounded like some Delilah knock-off and Sam grabbed a tape at random while he poked around the junk in the foot well. He barely glanced at the title, A Day at the Races, before shoving it home.

It started playing in the middle of some track and Dean took up one-handed wheel drumming right away. Sam rolled his eyes but slid Dean's sunglasses carefully onto his face, managing to get them onto his ears without poking him. Dean shot him a smile, full and genuine, and when Sam sank down against the seat, Dean stretched out his right arm to cup the back of Sam's neck.