Work Text:
Sam nudges Dean’s foot with his notebook.
His brother is sprawled out on the floor with his arm over his eyes like that could possibly shield him from the smothering heat of the cramped motel room. He abounded his shirt a long time ago. When he doesn’t respond or move, Sam wants to check if he’s still breathing.
He throws the book at him instead.
“Dude, what?”
“Do you love me?”
“You’re my little brother Sam.”
“Doesn’t answer my question, some people hate their brothers. In fact, most do.”
Dean rolls his eyes and groans. Sam has been real difficult since he reached the magic age of thirteen. He doesn’t get it honestly; he was never that insecure or moody.
Never lashed out at Dad or got mopey when he didn’t immediately take his side during every nit-picky ass argument.
There was not a whole lot to fight about. Dad said jump, he said ‘how high’ that’s what a son is supposed to do.
Now, if Dad told Sam to jump, it would be ‘Why? What is the exact reason I am jumping? Why can’t you jump instead? If I were to jump where would that get me?’ very annoying. Then it was a never-ending loop of Dad saying Sam should just listen to him because he’s the adult and Sam would just ask more finicky questions.
Whether it was his father or his brother, he always managed to be dragged into these arguments. Which, in his opinion, is never any of his fucking business.
He could never just be the median, a voice of reason; they were too stubborn. They both wanted to pit him against the other and flaunt his loyalty like some trophy. It was the equivalent of living with two alpha wolves who are constantly trying to stake claim and assert dominance.
It doesn’t matter that they were supposed to be a family, stick together, come together despite differences, all that mattered is one had the upper hand and the other didn't.
They have no luxury items they can fight over or money they can show off, so Dean is really the only thing they can not so subtly fight for control over.
“I hate your face” Sam frowns and moves to sit on his knees facing the older boy.
“So, you don’t love me?”
“Never said that.”
“Hate is the absence of love, and what better represents me if not my face?”
“Not true smart ass, ever seen those movies where the girl is like ‘I hate you’ and her boyfriend is all ‘I hate you more, now let's fuck’ and they have a little tussle that turns into really hot sex?”
That makes Sam stand up and walk towards him. He can’t even give his brother the dignity of looking into his eyes for this extremely riveting conversation because that would require him to move. It was way too hot to do anything but exist.
“How is that relevant like at all?”
“I’m just saying, there’s two sides to every story”
“So, you hate me and you love me? Sorry but I'm not in the mood for hate sex” Sam all but chuckles out as he lowers himself on top of Dean, straddling his waist.
“It’s hot as balls get off me man” He complains but settles his hands on either side of the lanky body in his lap anyway.
“Do you love me?”
“Nope” He pops the P and raises up to rest his head between his little brothers bony shoulder blades.
“You’re a bad liar.”
“Then stop asking stupid questions.”
“Do you love me more than Dad.” Of course he went there. That earns a real groan out of Dean.
“What did I just say about stupid questions?”
“It’s not stupid if I don’t know the answer.”
“Different categories of love Sammy, I love him like a father, and you like an ugly pug I can’t get rid of.” Sam clamps his hands on his shoulder to let him know he isn’t fucking around, he means business.
“If you had to choose, me or him?”
“Jennifer Anniston” He pushed Dean off and started to get up but was stopped by an increasingly tight grip on his thigh that dragged him back down.
“Jesus Sam you are such a girl chill out.”
“Me or him.”
“That’s an impossible question”
“No it’s not you just don’t wanna tell me the answer.” Sam pulls out the signature bitch face, that lets him know he’s not getting out off the hook that easy. So, he tries his own tactics against him.
“In what capacity?”
“If you had to choose between me or Dad, gun to our heads, who would it be?”
“Is there not a third option here? This seems a little improbable.”
“Just answer the fucking question Dean.”
“It’s a little morbid, even for you Sammy.”
The second time he tries to get up, Dean rolls him onto his back and pins him down, holding his wrists above his head.
“Why are you so flighty?” Sam just turns his head to avoid his older brother’s wise cracking smirk.
He couldn’t stand the way Dean refused to be direct with him on anything even slightly emotional.Honestly, it’s a simple question he won’t be hurt by the answer he just wants to know.
Well, he won’t be hurt by the answer as long as the answer is him.
They live in each other's pockets for God’s sake. He couldn’t ask anyone else on earth these kinds of questions. Wouldn’t care enough about their response anyway.
The cause of his inner turmoil at all times leans down and presses his nose against the underside of his jaw. Dean moves his hands to cage him in instead of pin him down and whispers against his neck,
“Obviously you, bitch.” That’s all he ever wanted to hear. He brings his hands to the back of his older brother's neck and grips the strands of hair like a lifeline as Dean collapses on him.
He couldn’t possibly think of a more peaceful death than being crushed to nothing but dust at this very moment.
He squeezes the same confession out of Dean in various ways at different points in their life. One time in Denver, he gave him the cold shoulder for six whole days before Dean finally gave up his resolve.
Sam asked him if there was anyone, he loved more than him and Dean gave a few bull shit answers like ‘Angelina Jolie, your Spanish teacher’ even ‘Brad Pitt’ which was not as surprising as it should have been.
After school he went straight to his bedroom, locked the door, and ignored his older brother until it was time to eat. He said nothing as he quickly came and got his food then fell asleep to Dean purposely making loud noise and turning the TV up to the loudest setting to see if he could provoke him into talking.
On the night of day six he was studying for his AP chemistry test. Dean didn’t even knock before he came slinking into his room and plopped his head on top of Sam’s legs.
“I love you more than anyone, ever. Thought you knew that.”
“I do.” Sam slid his fingers through dark blonde hair that he silently notes is getting longer by the day.
“Then why do you do this to me?”
“Because I need to hear it.”
He runs these fleeting moments back in fourth in his mind as he sits with his knees to his chest. It’s cold and rainy and he just wants to be somewhere nice and warm. They aren’t in Denver anymore, but it feels close enough to give him déjà vu.
This time Dean is clinging to his feet by the edge of the bed and crying into his shins. He’s trembling as powerful sobs wrack his solid form.
When Sam told him he was leaving, he was catatonic for a few moments before he dropped to his knees and began clutching Sam like if he held on tight enough, he could never leave.
He said he’d pick Sam over Dad, obviously. Said he loved him more than anyone, obviously. Obviously, he’s a liar.
“Thought you said I was your boy? That you loved me the best?” Dean shook harder and threatened to burst at the seams. When he replied his voice was so tear-broken you’d think that he’d been screaming for his life.
“I do- course' I do. You’re supposed to be my boy, mine. And you’re just- just gonna leave?” Dean shakes his head left to right, as tears rush down his puffy cheeks he’s been rubbing all over Sam since he took place beneath him. As if somehow, he could take ownership off scent alone; they really are brothers.
Constantly trying to show they belong to each other, no one else. It had always been his thing, but in times like these he could see it peeking through Dean.
He never got the chance to admire what a pretty crier his brother was before this.
Dean had never been the crying type; a good soldier never was. He wondered distantly what his father would think if he saw how he could turn Dean from a strong, obedient son ready to dive in the line of fire if asked, and reduce him to a small heap of tears clinging to his little brother.
Wonders if he’d still think he owned Dean, had the right to drag him across the country, make him throw away his life to hunt everything under the sun. He was looking to rectify a lost cause. Mom was dead, but Sam wasn’t.
Couldn't he live for the alive boy underneath him, instead of dying for the dead woman they barely knew?
“Couldn’t love nobody more than you, just not built that way.” He lets out a wet chuckle and clutches hard enough to fracture.
“Come with me Dee, please. I need you, need my big brother, don’t know how to live without you.” A few stray tears escaped his own eyes. He knows how futile it is to convince Dean; he won’t leave, but he can’t stop himself from trying anyway.
“I can’t go Sammy, you know that.”
“Won’t.”
“What would I do, huh Sam? Sit on my sorry ass and wait for you to come home from your classes till ya’ get bored of me, ditch me for some real ever-day norm of the norm college buddies? Wait and worry and tap my foot to the bone wondering if Dad’s okay?”
He takes Dean’s face into his hands and attempts to wipe some of the tears streaming down his face while his own start to cloud his vision.
“I wouldn’t leave you Dean, ever. You could- fuck I don’t know you could go to trade school or something, you have a GED.”
“Sam I couldn’t leave Dad on his own, he’s not getting any younger. If something happened to him, shit I don’t know what I’d do. It’s not like anyone else cares for the old man.”
He’s nearing his brother’s level of hysteria, desperately clutching at his face and refusing to let go. Refusing to let Dean look away from the face of the man he’s letting slip away. His brother. His son. His boy.
“So you choose him, you gonna choose him over your baby boy?” Dean leans up and wraps his arm around Sam, the boy he will never accept is a man.
The boy that’s been a bigger man than him for years now.
He buries his head between a large firm shoulder that used to be sharp and slender.
It feels a few degrees hotter, like they’re in a stuffy motel room in the swampy south and not a damp run down house in the middle of Missouri.
“Do you love me?”
“Obviously, you bitch.”
The difference between now and then is the acceptance letter scorching a hole through Sam’s bag and the tears running down Dean’s face.
He'll be somewhere warmer soon.