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Dean hasn’t slept in three days, and he’s tired. Sam feels him nod off again, his shoulder colliding with his and then, unexpectedly, his head following suit. Dean slides on down for a little bit and it takes that much for Sam to realise that this time, he’s actually falling asleep: it comes as a relief to him, and he pokes out his arm, letting the other’s weight balance upon it and then keep moving down more gently, without the abrupt falls that could wake him up again. He watches the rain fall outside as Dean’s head finally makes contact with his thigh and he removes his arm from the mix, reaching out to tug Dean’s long legs onto the seat, straightening out his weird twisted pose with some effort. The man lets out a soft grunt, perhaps waking up a little, but he doesn’t open his eyes or pull up again.
Sam’s palm rests over the other’s arm and he wishes the blanket was here somewhere, but it’s inside the trunk and he can’t go get it now. What they have now just has to do the trick.
“There you go,” he says absently, finger moving lightly over Dean’s skin, just below the hem of the sleeve of his dark grey tee.
“I’ll wake you up if something changes.”
He adjusts his own pose in the driver’s seat that he only conquered through what seemed like an endless verbal fight where the final, victorious blow was delivered in the shape of a question: you really think you can drive us there, and not into a tree or some truck?
He remembers his angry voice, and the sudden silence of Dean where a rebuttal should have been. He remembers the way his brother shrugged, turned away and slammed the door on the passenger’s side closed behind him, then didn’t talk to him before asking for coffee half an hour later in a desperate attempt to delay the inevitable for a few minutes more.
It’s been raining for hours now, but Sam doesn’t mind it. There have been an endless number of days like this, with Dean’s restless mind finally letting go to the sound of water drumming the roof of their childhood home. He smiles at his pale reflection in the windshield and leans his head back, closing his eyes for a moment. Unlike Dean, he’s not tired; he’s slept a good seven hours the night before, plenty for his conditioned body, but the weight of his brother resting over him makes him want to loosen up a little, too. Relaxation spreads like warmth into his neck and back as he breathes in deep, his finger still moving over the same old track over Dean’s arm. Down and up again. Down and up.
“Held on for long enough there, didn’t you.”
He doesn’t know why he’s still talking. Maybe he’s just trying to keep himself company - he sure needs it when he looks out of the window again into the cold blue-grey morning light and the endless downpour ahead.
“I have an ass for a brother. At least you’re stubborn like one.”
The first fifteen hours went in the tune of no, I’m not tired. The next fifteen were more along the lines of stop asking if I want to sleep, Sam. The next fifteen, well, Dean wasn’t really communicating anymore at that point. Just grunts and growls and the occasional eye roll, as if everything Sam said to him was a waste of time. The next fifteen… that’s where the bickering really started. The final stretch before Dean’s body started shutting him down with force.
“I don’t really know where I would be without you.”
Guess I knew once. Guess letting go was an option then.
“Who the hell would I fight with if you weren’t constantly getting on my nerves?”
Dean breathes out a long, restful breath. Sam’s finger stops, then starts moving again. He doesn’t notice it. What he does notice is the large, red-and-blue bruise over Dean’s cheekbone, leftover from yesterday’s fight. He thought that might cut off the insomnia, but it didn’t; Dean stayed up all night pressing an ice pack over his face, eyes unblinking over the white glow of his laptop screen. Even while Sam slept, thinking Dean would have to go to bed eventually, he somehow refused to even to lie down.
“I don’t know what’s been keeping you up lately - and you know that anytime you need an ear, I’m right here - but I’m just… happy you’re still with me, you know? That you don’t just walk away when you feel like this. That you’d rather stay and yell at me than leave. Even if I yell right back at you. Maybe it helps, I don’t know.”
Down and up again.
There’s no one in the mist, no shape blurred by the falling rain. It’s likely they’re waiting for nothing, and the higher up the sun rises, the smaller are the chances of anyone showing up at all. Maybe next time. Under any other circumstances they’d be pulling off by now, driving back to the motel, but leaving would mean waking Dean up and Sam’s not going to do that. Not yet.
“But it’s not just that. I keep thinking - where I’d rather be, you know? Sitting in a courtroom somewhere or burying myself in paperwork at an office, or here, bruised and bleeding in the same Impala I grew up in at half past six in the morning with you, waiting for someone to gut another cow. And for some reason, being here beats anything else. And I’d never tell that to your face, but it’s you that makes this life bearable, something I want to keep waking up for in the morning. No matter what.”
He runs his hand through Dean’s hair, waits for him to react, waits for anything to happen but nothing does. His arm relaxes, the ache and trembling in the muscles subsiding. No, he’s not without his bruises and cuts either.
“Maybe it’s screwed up. Maybe we’re screwed up. Maybe there’s a boy somewhere in my past that wishes he would rather die than grow up to be here today. But I’d rather be here now than anywhere else. Be here with you than somewhere else with somebody else. Maybe I just don’t know any better. Maybe I’ve given up hope and maybe I’ve been hurt one time too many, maybe this is all just - a big old symptom of something I should be diagnosed with. But right now? I’m happy this way. I really am.”
Sam’s gaze stays upon his brother again, the gentle rise and fall of his chest, his fisted hand with some light redness and swelling over the knuckles, the freshly-washed fuzz of his hair around Sam’s palm still resting on his head, and the faded freckles over his skin where the bruises don’t drown them out. He loves him. He loves him. Every inch, every cut, every freckle, everything.
“You’re worth the fight,” he says, and he looks away just in time to miss the smile that Dean can’t hold back anymore.