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Sam was sure, really really sure, he could talk Dean into it. Pretty sure. Well – positive thinking was better than negative. And if he could talk Dean into it, Dean could talk Dad into it, because even if Dad was the Captain of their little squad, Dean was the Gunny who always knew better somehow.
He'd talked Dad into staying put an extra week, once. He'd argued Dad into seeing that soccer could so be helpful to honing mind and muscle. Dean could make a stupid joke and duck his head, looking sideways through his lashes and make Dad shake his head, grin back – let it go. Well, Dean was the favorite, after all; Dean was so fucking perfect sometimes it made Sam's teeth hurt. So, work on Dean, even if it looked like he was working on them both, because Dean was the lynch-pin, Dean was the (gut, heart, soul) key to their whole operation.
Dean woke him up with Princess and a grin on his birthday, a whole hour later than usual because there was no morning PT, and Sam just sat there, stupid-sated from extra sleep, cream-with-coffee warm in his hands. Dean humming something vaguely hard-rockish under his breath as he poked dirty socks out from under the dresser and dragged his blanket back up onto his bed. Muscles moving silk-liquid-smooth under his skin, t-shirt with the hole in the neck and the chewed hem from the defective dryer three towns back, bleached-out blue, getting too tight. The light slanting and creamy gold and it was like...a dream.
Sam took a long shower, and went to school.
And it was different. It was. Dinner conversation was school and music and the crazy bee-hive-hair-do lady who cashiered at the Smitty's. No ghosts, no guns and no occult phenomena. Mornings felt lazy, drawn-out – homework wasn't rushed so they could dig through moldy clippings or ratty books or graveyard dirt.
Dean took Sam out to a movie and Sam sat there with his leg pressed, knee to mid-thigh against Dean's. They fought with little grins for control of the armrest and ended up with his arm on top of Dean's, heat all through him and the movie nothing but color and light against Sam's retinas. Background static compared to the fireworks in his brain, Milk Duds sweet on his tongue.
Dad gave him weird looks over the dishes and skulked off to secretly pore over his notes in the bathroom but Sam blithely ignored it. Dean – Dean was pretending right along with him, giving him all the room he needed to imagine, to believe....
Feels different, Sam told him, sitting with their feet tangled under a table at the Maid Rite, French fries and onion rings and a strawberry concrete for Sam, peanut butter for Dean.
Felt different right down to the bone, so that Sam grinned his head off at school for the entire last hour, knowing Dean was waiting for him, knowing Dean was gonna hang out and talk about cheerleaders and baseball and homework with him. Was gonna sprawl on his bed like a barely-leashed lion or one of those Mastiff dogs, all long muscle and predatory grin, sheathed claws and velvet mouth, because Dean didn't get it, but Dean got him, Dean got Sam, and that was all Sam really needed. Dean was all he really needed, and Sam didn't flinch any more from the gnarled, crooked scar across Dean's belly. He really had almost died, and Sam....
Sam had imagined Dean dead – had imagined just him and Dad in this shotgun house – in the car. Had imagined that it would take a week, maybe a day – maybe a hundred beats of his shattered heart – for him to pack his stuff and kick his way out into the world.
Chick breaking the egg and leaving blood-red shell behind because without Dean, without the (gut, heart, soul) steadying, insulating, dampening shield between them, he and Dad would have been on each other like junkyard dogs. Snarling and biting and tearing each other in an effort to drown out the pain. The grief. The unholy terror and razor-hot guilt because Dean....
The last night, Dean drove them out to a field, nothing but the wheeling stars above, nothing but late spring grass, fragrant and lush, below. Beer between them, the glass slippery with wet and chill, and Sam drank and sighed and turned his face up to the sky, gaze searching in lazy arcs for constellations – satellites – falling stars.
Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight....
A whole week of different, a whole week of normal, a whole week of nothing anybody else didn't have, and it had made Sam's heart race; had made him feel light as a feather, dizzy and frantic. It had been – was – really damn good.
But it hadn't been real. It hadn't been anything but a dream – sweet and insubstantial as cotton candy.
Wish I may, wish I might, have this wish I wish tonight....
It's not so bad, Dean said, his voice low and querulous and a little hurt. Baffled, and maybe a little angry, and Sam just didn't have the energy to tell him why it was, to tell Dean that he felt like he was suffocating, all the time. Drowning – pulled under, again and again, rip-tide rolling over him and dragging him down. And no matter what he said, it came out wrong, it always came out wrong, so that Dad just yelled, and Dean shut down but Sam....
All he could see was the blood and the bruises, the snarling mouths of the monsters that waited in the dark. The invisible world all around them that had already dug claws and fangs into his family and shredded it, efficient as any wolf – as remorseless as any shark. Every time Dad left, Sam's heart kicked in his chest like a gut-shot deer. Every time Dean shrugged on that stupid, beautiful jacket and smiled that stupid, beautiful smile, Sam wanted to scream.
They ran toward the dark like kids after fireflies, nothing between them and death but sodium chloride and superstition and God, Sam was scared. He was so damn scared. Scared of the monsters and scared of the dark. Scared of losing what was left of his family – scared of losing himself.
But mostly he was scared of himself, and he lay there in the grass and stared at the sky, dizzy with terror and need and guilt. Falling into the stars, fingertips digging into the dirt. The spring peepers were chorusing from the tree line, and Dean was breathing soft and slow.
And then it was done, it was over. That little bubble of Never-Never popped, soundless and unremarked, and Dean's watch-face glowed for a moment, will-o-the-wisp blue.
Twelve-oh-three, Dean said. You tired?
Not tired, Sam said.
His hand on Dean's chest, on soft cotton and bone, Dean's heart under his palm, little rabbit-thump that jumped and jumped. Dean's mouth, wet and warm and tanged with beer, leather and gun-oil and Dean, Dean....
Life started again three minutes ago, Sam whispered. This is my life, he said, and pressed them together from (gut, heart, soul) knee to shoulder. Pressed his mouth down onto Dean's again, feeling the last of that bubble shiver away into nothing.
Under him, Dean didn't smile, but he was steady and strong and so solidly there, and Sam knew he'd been fooling himself, thinking he could step out of his life and leave it behind. Thinking he could do anything but what he was doing right now.
This is my life. This is Dean, this is me. This is mine.