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Following the ruckus he's been hearing for a while now, Sam finally abandons the newspapers scattered on the table and steps out of the bunker to see Dean putting things into Baby's trunk.
“Do we have a job I'm not aware of?”
“This morning, I decided that today was a picnic day!” is all his brother says, arms wide open as he shows the contents of the trunk.
Sam stays dumb for a few seconds, looking at it, before he squints. “What?”
“Come on, Sammy, don't you like it? It's totally within your apple pie life taste! Look, a small blanket to put on the grass —in the shadow of a tree so your girly skin doesn't get sunburned— and a cooler with sandwiches and drinks.” Then he whispers the next sentence as if he was telling him a secret, “There's even a basket of fruits just for you.”
“Why? I mean—”
“Man, that's your perfect little dream!”
“If I remember correctly, it's actually yours…” That shuts his brother up and Sam immediately feels guilty. “Sorry, I didn't—”
“I know. The truth is that you're totally jealous of me, so…” Dean shrugs, nonchalant, and somehow, Sam feels that a shift occurred without him having seen it happening.
“Dean?” he tries, wary, one step closer as he suddenly needs to touch him.
“What, dude? It's only for a few hours! You've been glued to your papers for days now, you need fresh air.” Which is entirely fair, Sam thinks, but then Dean adds, “And I need chicks.”
Okay, although it could be adult-Dean speaking, Sam knows it's not this time; his brother's gone to his adolescent self, the flirty bratty pain in the ass one. Great. Just great.
“Dude,” he starts, a headache already making an appearance, “you can't do whatever you want without telling me first. We're a team, yeah?”
“Well, duh. That's why I'm doing that for you.”
And, you know, all things considered, Sam could use a break so he shrugs and eventually goes with it. He rolls his eyes for show but it still brings joy to his brother, which is always worth anything if he's being honest.
*
“Ooh, there's a basketball court!” is the first thing Dean notices once they arrive at the park. “Can we play?”
His eagerness being contagious, Sam feels like playing as well now and so he agrees, though he has priorities.
“We'll just choose our spot and put everything out first, okay? Maybe eat a little before?”
Rolling his eyes and mocking him, Dean sighs but he's still thoughtful enough to find a good spot and to carefully place the food on the blanket that Sam can't help but feel proud— having an adolescent to manage can both be hard and easy. He's lucky Dean can be good when he wants to— still bratty but well-behaved nonetheless.
They sit on the blanket, facing the basketball court and watching the men already playing. They're eating their sandwiches in a comfortable silence when giggles reach them. Sam ignores them but Dean turns to their origin before he elbows him.
“Hey, look. They're hot,” he says between his teeth, a flirty smile in place for the two girls seated not too far on their side, a little behind.
They're watching them with a blush on their cheeks, and Sam has to agree; they're kinda hot for young chicks. When they wave, he returns the gesture before catching himself and wincing at his own move. It doesn't seem to bother them since they giggle again, and he hears his brother chuckle as well.
“Come on,” he tries to divert his attention, grabs his forearm and tugs gently at it, “let's get back to our meal, then we'll ask to play with the boys over there.”
But Dean doesn't listen and instead leans on him to whisper right into his ear, “The brunette's mine.” Then he taps a couple of times on the hand on his arm as to seal the deal.
Sam immediately backs off to lock their eyes together. “No, she's not. We're not even sure they're legal, Dean!”
“So what?”
He watches him for a while, dumb struck, before he regains his senses. “‘So what?’ Dude, you're actually thirty-two, that's what!” Dean looks a little upset at his words so he clears his throat and continues, gentler this time, “Sorry, I mean— I'm going to acknowledge it, don't be mad, please.” He barely waits for Dean to nod stiffly before continuing. “I know you need to be fifteen right now, and I'm very happy to indulge, always, you know I am, but—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Dean interrupts him with a slight pout and that lessens his worry. “Spoilsport…” he mumbles then whilst still getting back to his sandwich, now ignoring the giggling girls.
Sam smiles, feeling a little sorry still, so he bumps their shoulders together and says, “You're a good kid, dude, you know that, right?”
The playful smirk curving Dean's lips is all he needed to see.
*
Picnic space forgotten, the brothers are now on the basketball court. The other boys left not long ago, praising them for their dodging skills, and Sam and Dean decided to just take turns at throwing shots; they're sweaty and breathing heavily thanks to the games before so they're taking it easy now.
The two girls from earlier are still there. They approached the court and are now seated on the bench next to it, still giggling and looking very interested. Sam can see that his brother does his best not to engage with them and he feels suddenly so proud that he has to ruffle his hair when Dean stops next to him to dribble before his next shot.
“Sam!” his brother complains, having missed the hoop, but he doesn't say more, just trots to get the ball back.
“Hey, my turn.” Sam shoves him when he sees that he's lining up another shot, making Dean miss again.
“Come on, man!” he yells from across the court where he's recovering the ball on its bounce.
Sam only laughs, hands up in surrender, and he hears the girls talk between them. He doesn't understand what they say but he thinks he heard something about how cute Dean was when he was annoyed. Which is totally fair, he thinks. His brother is cute, in any way, but you should never let him hear you say it.
“What about we forget about basketball and spar instead?”
Dean stops short on his way back, his face unguarded and big eyes open, overall looking as surprised as Sam feels, and Sam suddenly wants to facepalm.
“Uh. Why not.” His brother shrugs and grabs the ball as it bounces back before he sharply throws it into Sam's chest.
He barely has the time to stop it from slamming into him that Dean is already at arm's length, a fist drawn and swinging close, too close.
“Cheater,” he groans as he dodges the punch and retaliates by grabbing Dean's arm to twist it and force his brother to kneel with his back to him.
“Anything goes,” Dean snorts, a smile showing white teeth to the girls watching in awe, then he winks at them before he glances up to him, an image of innocence under fluttering eyelashes. “That's what we always do, right?”
Dean forces his fall to roll over and stand back up in a crouch, and Sam easily goes with it, flying over his brother to do the same, smirking as well.
“Anything, uh? In that case…”
With Dean following his every move, he crouches a bit more, a hand feeling the ground for a few misplaced gravels that he saw earlier. He's obvious enough for his brother to catch his train of thoughts so in the next second, Dean is protecting his face right before the tiny rocks touch him. It was all Sam needed to charge and tackle him, hearing the muffled sound of his brother's lungs harshly letting go of their air when his back violently meets the ground.
“Gotcha,” he breathes in his face, hair falling into Dean's eyes.
But then he's got legs around him and he's rolled over until he falls flat, barely preventing the back of his head from hitting the concrete. Dean's hand is on his sternum, a knee on his chest and a foot next to his elbow; he's already grabbing the hand on his throat to stop an eventual pressure.
“Yeah, me too.” His brother smiles again, way too smug.
Sam chuckles, agrees, then slams his elbow into Dean's neck, feeling the knee on his chest slide to the ground with his brother's jerk, and he uses the opening to punch him in the ribs. With Dean stumbling to the side and failing to get back up fast enough, Sam takes advantage and swipes the air with his legs, effectively getting up while sending his brother back to the ground.
“Still wanna flirt?” he asks, laughing when Dean groans for all response. “Come on, I know you're better than that.”
“Nah, I'm sure you got me bad enough to need healing.” He raises his voice for his next words, glancing back to the benches. “I'm gonna ask for the hotties over there to patch me up.”
It's Sam's turn to groan now; he got played like a rookie. For a moment there, he forgot he was sparring with a regressed Dean. The adult one would have done everything to win just to show off —that's how he flirts— so it was obvious that being able to beat him up like that was all a ploy from his pain in the ass adolescent-stade brother.
“You're insufferable,” he sighs and he goes to help him stand up, seeing from the corner of his eyes that the girls are walking to them, a mix of eagerness and worry on their faces.
“I think I'm adorable actually.”
“Yes, you are.”
Sam turns to the new voice, and the ‘brunette’ shyly shrugs as if she didn't really know what she was doing there.
“I'm Layla,” she says, “this is Irene.”
“We heard you needed help for your bruises. My mother is a nurse, I can assist.”
*
The girls know shit about patching someone up. They know about plasters and bruise cream, which reassures Sam, but as Dean said, he got him bad; his neck is starting to show a deep red bruise the size of Sam's elbow, his side is tender where he punched him, and Sam thinks that the knee that fell on the ground is surely bleeding or it's at least grazed enough to burn if Dean's slight wince with each step is any indication. A bump is also growing on the back of his head, as well as faint cuts on his shoulder blades from when Sam swept his legs from under him.
“How do you know that when he still has his clothes on?” Irene asks and Sam wonders if her mother is really a nurse if she can't think of anything despite everything she saw.
“We're used to it,” Dean says in that flirty tone of his and Sam stops himself short of slapping him upside the head. He's already bruised enough as he is.
“I just know it. But you said it, I'll need to undress him so if you'll excuse us…”
And just like that, he forces Dean up from the bench, making Irene let go of him in a heartbeat, and feeling probably too happy to see that his brother doesn't resist him. He never likes when people ogle his brother— he always feels uneasy to see what they want to do to him. And those girls, they were too young, too innocent looking; they didn't feel right. Even less knowing Dean's current state of mind.
“Are you angry?”
Crap. That tiny voice… He's not fifteen anymore, he might not even be ten either, which means that Sam probably fucked up again if he regressed that much in the blink of an eye. Sam doesn't stop walking when he turns to him, a gentle smile ready to appease whatever he might see on his brother's face and his hand loosening around his wrist.
“No, Dee, I'm just— upset. I hurt you, baby, and I'm sorry about that.”
“But I kinda asked for it…”
Sam can't help the small chuckle. “Yeah, you were. You were so into those girls back there, trying to show off so bad. But I still didn't need to hurt you.”
“That's the game, Sammy. I'm sure I hurt you too. Aren't you angry about that?”
“Never, baby, you fought real good. I'm proud of you.”
The blinding smile he gets in response is worth it, he thinks.
“Come on, let's head back and gather everything into Baby. Then we'll get the manly boy plasters and I'll check your more serious wounds when we get back home. How's that sound?”
“I want Batman on my knee and Spiderman on my shoulder!”
“Okay then. What about a hot chocolate to keep you warm when I put cream on your bruises? It always makes you shiver.”
“Oh, yes, please, Sammy. Do it, do it, do it!”
Sam is laughing out loud when he opens Baby's trunk and he's still basking in Dean's happiness when he sits behind the wheels, ready to drive back home.