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“Hey, ummm Dean? Can we spend the night at a motel instead of driving straight through?”
His brother shot him a curious glance before returning his gaze to the road. “Your head bothering you, Sammy?”
“Nah,” He shook his head, “Not really. .. Just, I’m exhausted, man. You must be too.”
“Yeah, okay.” Dean agreed, shifting lanes so that they could take the next exit that came up.
Sam sighed and relaxed back into his seat, the impala long molded to the contours of his body. It was truly home in a way the Bunker could never be. Not least because they had their own rooms back at the Bunker.
He didn’t mind… but still, it was easier when he could hear Dean’s soft breathing. He knew his brother wasn’t dealing as well as he’d pretended with Mom’s leaving; but Dean would never actually say anything and if Sam needed to feign feeling more tired than he actually was to keep a closer eye on Dean, then so be it.
They checked in and Dean went to take a shower while he sprawled on the bed. Dean’s confession that Mary had never wanted her sons to be hunters and might choose not to return echoed in his mind as he tried to figure a way to ask his brother about it. Dean had always had abandonment issues- maybe it had something to do with witnessing Mary’s death- and Dad leaving them to fend for themselves on a regular basis had not helped matters; but Sam’s subsequent departure for Stanford had been the deepest cut on his brother’s psyche and Sam knew he would never forgive himself for it. He hadn’t known then- hadn’t intended to hurt his brother the way he apparently had, but he still regretted it every time something happened to make Dean reveal even a bit of his scarred heart.
“Gonna get us some grub. Pizza okay?” Dean announced, picking his jacket and phone and heading out after they were settled.
Sam nodded and continued to stare at the ceiling for a moment before rising to retrieve his phone impulsively. Maybe… just maybe, he could convince Mary to return. She was their Mom, after all. She would come if he asked, wouldn’t she?
He thought back to Magda and her mom’s twisted ‘help’. He had never had a ‘mother’ before now, but he’d been blessed with a brother who loved him unconditionally; who had stood like a bulwark between him and anything that threatened him even after the discovery of his powers. Dean, being a hunter of the supernatural and witnessing Max’s murderous rage had had more than enough reasons to abandon Sam … and if not outright kill him, he should have attempted purifying rituals like those tried by Magda’s mother. But his brother had done nothing except repeat how Sam was not evil. Even when he’d been possessed by Meg and hurt humans, Dean had refused to shoot him, allowing himself to get shot and tortured in the process.
He shook his head; maybe that was why Mary’s departure didn’t bother him so much: he’d never known Mary, but he’d received the kind of unconditional and unflinching love mothers are famed for from a different source.
Dean had never had that. He’d always been responsible for Sam, for Dad, for the civilians… ever since Mary had died, Dean had had to fill in for her. And in the brief time the three of them had spent together, he could see that Dean was a mama’s boy. If Sam was like John Winchester, Dean had molded himself in the image of Mary Winchester. Having lost her at four, he’d had limited memories of their mother and he’d built her up until she was perfect. It was no secret that Dean missed their Mom, and watching him now; Sam guessed that all his life, he’d tried to live up to that impossible ideal in hopes of making her proud… being abandoned again had to have hurt.
Sam sighed as he unlocked the phone, realizing instantly that it was Dean’s phone, not his- his brother must have picked the wrong phone on his way out. He was about to put it back when he realized that it had opened in the messages page and the name on top of the screen said ‘mom’.
Dean had been messaging with their mother?!
He looked closer and found it was only two messages: one from Dean and a reply.
He felt like an eavesdropper as he read his brother’s message; his heart shattering at Dean’s offer to call her Mary. Dean had wanted Mary alive so desperately… Sam remembered that case with a djinn back when he was still fresh from Stanford, where Dean had been captured. Even back then, the wish-world the djinn manufactured had had Mary alive. And then the time they had been sent back to the past, Dean had asked her not to give birth to him just so she might live… and now that she was alive, he was offering to let her go?
Sam shook his head, no one could play martyr like his brother.
Hoping she wouldn’t break his brother’s heart even more, he read her reply and felt himself smile: Mary’s reply warming his heart.
The door opened before he could replace the phone.
“You took my phone, Jerk!” He grumbled before Dean could comment.
“I did?” Dean asked in surprise, prying the phone out of his pocket and shaking his head, “I guess I did. Sorry.”
Sam waved him off and grabbed the box of pizza, setting it between them and taking a slice.
“How’s your head?”
“Better.”
“Still gotta be careful of concussions,” Dean mumbled and Sam knew he would be woken every hour.
He sighed. Yeah, he had a ‘mom’. He just called his mother ‘Dean’.
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The end.