Archive of Our Own ^beta

Dean bounced his leg for almost half an hour before Sam did anything about it. Sam was pretty sure he had the patience of a saint for letting it go on as long as it did, but eventually, he reached over to lay his palm on Dean's thigh, just above his knee. Dean looked up at wide quickly, almost wide-eyed, and glanced towards the other side of the table, where Bobby sat working, before raising his eyebrows at Sam.

"Quit it," Sam said. He squeezed gently before letting go and Dean rolled his eyes before getting back to work.

He'd been jittery all day long, full of nervous energy and always looking over his shoulder. Sam couldn't make any sense of it — he and Dean had been at Bobby's for a while now, but this was new. He would have expected this a week ago, but not now.

It wasn't as if Sam wanted Bobby clued in to what they did when he wasn't around; Sam wasn't going to feel Dean up in the living room while they all researched. He glanced up at Bobby, just to make sure, but he was working like nothing was wrong. Or at least, like nothing was wrong in a ten-foot radius.

Dean closed his book a while after that, though, and pushed himself to his feet. "I'm gonna get some air," he said, and was out of the room before either of the other two could say anything.

Bobby raised his eyebrows at Sam when he glanced over, then shrugged and went back to work. Sam checked his watch, just curious, and started reading again himself. He finished another section of the text without Dean coming back, and when he checked the time again, almost half an hour had passed.

"I'm gonna go see where he is," he said, marking his place and standing.

Bobby shrugged. "Knock yourself out."

Sam found him outside, leaning against the hood of the car with his hands in his pockets. He glanced over when Sam came into his field of view but went right back to staring at whatever he'd been watching, out in the junk yard. Sam came up next to him. He bumped their shoulders together but didn't otherwise touch him. Dean sighed pretty heavily and Sam frowned.

"What?" he asked.

He sighed again before answering. "This is weird, you know? Even for us, it's weird."

Sam couldn't argue with that, so he shrugged. "Yeah."

Dean shifted his feet and swallowed. Sam waited a minute or two for him to say something, but Dean never spoke up.

Sam had been through a conversation like this before, when Stacy Kulesz broke up with him his second semester in California. The relationships he managed to have in high school all ended because he was leaving town, not because anyone involved wanted to end things, but he clearly remembered Stacy's cryptic statements and awkward silences.

"Not too weird." He didn't make a question out of it.

Dean snorted and looked over at Sam. "No, it's pretty fucking weird."

"Yeah, okay, but." He shrugged. "Not so weird I can't deal with it."

"Pretty fucking weird," Dean repeated, then turned and stared off at the cars again. "What if this just messes us up worse, Sammy? It's not like I can dump you if we don't work out."

"I dunno if you noticed, but we're pretty messed up in the first place. We never would have gotten here if we weren't."

"That's a crappy argument," Dean said. "It's okay that we're —" He cut off and looked around for a second before continuing. "It's okay that we're fucking because we're messed up enough to be fucking in the first place? I'm glad you're not actually a lawyer if that's the best you can come up with, dude."

Sam snorted and shook his head. He settled more firmly on the hood of the car and crossed his arms, staring off in the same direction as Dean, before going on. "Look, do you wanna keep doing this or not?" Dean froze next to him and didn't answer, so Sam kept going. "Because I do. I mean, I know it's weird as hell and it could just blow up in our faces, but I don't think it will. I think it's gonna be good."

Dean shook his head, but he was fighting down a grin when Sam looked over.

"What?" Sam asked.

"You," Dean said, and laughed. "You taking the whole love-will-save-us-all thing literally. It's cute."

Sam shrugged. It seemed an obvious step, going from better together to better together, and he couldn't understand why Dean was never as ready to at least admit that as he was. It was weird, yeah, okay, Sam would give him that, but it wasn't unbearable. There was more good than bad out of it, at least.

"Yeah, well," he said, "I don't know about all that, but it'll at least help. It has to help."

"Doesn't have to do anything," Dean said. "Cosmos doesn't owe us shit."

"Us, you jerk." Sam rolled his eyes and leaned into Dean, resting his weight on his brother's arm. "It'll help us."

Dean glanced towards the house again, just for a moment. Sam knew he'd have to look harder and longer than he did, if he was actually worried about Bobby seeing them. Bobby's place had plenty of hidden vantage points, and probably some that Sam and Dean didn't know about. If Bobby was watching them, they wouldn't be able to tell.

Dean wrapped an arm around Sam's waist and tugged them even tighter together than Sam already had them pressed. He turned his face and kissed Sam's jaw, then leaned up to kiss his temple as well. Sam smiled and stayed put after Dean turned back to stare at the cars again. They stayed there for a while, listening to the birds chattering as the sun started to set, then headed back inside, not touching but walking in step.