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Like most things in their life, it started without warning.
On Monday they were fine, normal.
On Tuesday Dean looked across the diner table while Sam was talking and explaining something about the current case, some detail he had found, and something changed in Dean’s expression. Small, almost nothing. Sam pretended not to notice and kept talking about their plans.
It wasn’t loud, at first. They were the usual comments, little casual jabs that were precise in a way only Dean could do, Dean, who had known Sam his entire life and knew where everything was, every soft place and every old wound.
You're overthinking it, Sam. You always do that.
Yeah, I read that too. Three years ago.
Must be nice, having an opinion about everything.
All said so lightly, it almost felt like the usual back and forth they’d be doing since Sam was old enough to argue back. Except it didn’t feel like that at all. There was no warmth behind his words, no pull towards him, just words dropped on his lap coldly as Dean looked away.
Sam told himself he was being sensitive, he told himself that a lot during the following week.
By Thursday it wasn’t light anymore.
They were working on a case- they were always working on a case, that was the foundation of their lives, a case, their car and a motel room- and Sam had a theory that he made the mistake of talking about, ever so carefully and methodically, as always.
Dean listened with his arms crossed.
“‘You know what your problem is?” He said, when Sam finished talking.
Sam looked at his brother, caught completely off guard, giving no response.
"You can't just work on something. You have to turn it into a whole- a whole production.” He waves his hands around as he talks, looking annoyed “This whole thing where you have to explain your reasoning to everyone like we're in a classroom." He picked up his coffee and brought it to his lips. "Not everything needs to be a thesis defense, Sam."
Sam was quiet for another moment, heart thumping loudly. "I was just walking through the theory."
"I know what you were doing." Dean said flatly, still looking at him as if he did something wrong, something worth all this hostility.
"Dean-"
"I got it the first time." He stood up, dropped cash on the table, and started to make his way towards the door. "Let's go."
Sam followed him out to the car and didn't say anything else about the theory. Later that day, it turned out he'd been right, but Dean didn't mention that either.
Friday Sam finally called Bobby.
Not about anything specific. He just needed to hear a voice that sounded like it was glad he had called. He listened to Bobby’s complaints over mundane things, replied to some questions about the case he and Dean were working on, and nodded (to no one) as Bobby told him to not do anything stupid. He sat in the motel bathroom with the door closed and a rolled up towel on the gap of the door, and he felt the tightness in his chest getting a little loose.
He didn’t really tell Bobby what was happening, he wouldn’t have the words to describe it. ‘Dean is here but he keeps looking at me like I’m something that disappointed him’ didn’t sound right, and ‘I feel like I'm failing a test I didn't know I was taking’ felt even worse.
So he and Bobby said their goodbyes, Sam washed his face, looked into his reflection for a moment and finally went back out to the room.
Dean was still in the same place as thirty minutes ago, on his own bed watching TV, and he didn’t look up when Sam came out of the bathroom. Sam got into his bed and stared at the ceiling while listening to whatever trashy show his brother was watching and, for the first time in weeks, he thought about Stanford. The first weeks there, that specific feeling of being somewhere that was entirely his, and the guilt that came with it, that wrapped itself around everything like a second skin.
He wondered if Dean knew that. That there had been so much guilt.
On Saturday Dean found three things wrong with the way had acted on the job.
He listed them in the car ride back to the motel, loud and clear. The way he deals with the witness (Too strong, people don’t trust that), a moment of hesitation (hesitation will get you killed, haven’t I told you that?), and jumping to conclusions (you think you’ve got it figured out before you got it figured out).
“Okay” Sam said, after the last one, not much emotion in his voice.
“Okay?” Dean seemed taken aback, glancing towards his brother with confusion.
“Yes. Okay.” He looks straight ahead, pretending not to notice the attention. Dean kept looking at him, and then at the road, something shifting in his expression as he decided what to say next, maybe frustration? Sam wasn’t sure. He didn’t want to look.
"You’re not even going to-”
“What do you want me to say, Dean?” He finally looked at his brother, angry and confused, his hands closed tight on his lap.
“I just want you take things seriously”
“I am.”
“You’re-” Dean laughed with no humor in it “You’re doing that thing where you agree with whatever the fuck I say so the conversation ends” His smirk was cold, like everything else these past few days.
Sam looked out the window, propped his elbow on the car door and rested his face on his hand. He sighted but it came out shaky.
“I’m tired,” he started. “Can we just-”
“Yeah” Dean cut him off, “Sure.”
They didn’t speak for the rest of the drive, and that night, when Sam laid in the dark and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, he did not cry, because Dean was four feet away and some things were his alone.
On Sunday Dean was almost normal.
That was somehow the worst day. He made a joke at breakfast, not directed at Sam, just a general observation about the waitress's terrible handwriting on the chalkboard menu.
Sam laughed, and Dean glanced at him with something almost warm. Sam thought, for a moment, maybe it's over. Maybe it passed.
He let himself think that for most of the day.
On Monday it felt like Dean was trying to rip everything apart.
They were in the motel room, the case had just ended and there was nothing left to do but to pack and move to the next one. Sam was sorting through his research, papers spread on the bed, his laptop open on his lap, and Dean was moving around the room doing nothing in particular, just filling all the space with a restless, buzzing energy that Sam had learned during that week to be very wary of.
“‘You know what I was thinking about?” Dean finally said.
Sam looked up, not sure if he wanted to hear what was coming.
“Stanford” He said, casually, hands in his pockets and a calm expression. “Do you ever miss it?”
He looked at Sam, who was very carefully putting his computer down on the bed, caught completely off guard by the sudden topic. “I-” he looks down at the papers “Sometimes?” He decided, carefully.
“Mmh” Dean got closer to the bed, picked one of the papers, glanced at it, set it back down. “Must’ve been nice. The different environment. People who could actually keep up with you” He smiled, so fake.
“Dean-”
"I’m just saying!” He threw his hands to the air, in rendition. It felt way too casual. “You had- You know, people on your level. Instead of your stupid brother.”
Sam frowns at that, not sure where this is all coming from, tired of not knowing what he did to trigger everything he heard this past week “I don’t think you’re-” He tries.
“I mean, it makes sense, why you liked it” Still so conversational, so even. Dean wasn’t planning to listen, and this was anything but a conversation. “Finally somewhere you fit in, somewhere that wanted you.”
Sam went very still, feeling like he was punched in the stomach, and it took everything in him to not get up and hit his brother back. “What is that supposed to mean, Dean?”
“Nothing.” He shrugged, walking towards the armchair in front of the TV, and sitting down. “Just an observation.”
“It didn’t sound like nothing.”
"It's not a big deal, Sam, I'm just-" He had the nerve to look bored, aloof, like he wasn’t just being the cruelest he had been to his brother.
"No, say it." Sam's voice came out way steadier than how he actually felt. "Whatever you're actually trying to tell me, just say it."
Dean’s expression sharpened, anger plastered on his face for reasons unknown to Sam. “Fine. Fine. Well-” He gets up quickly, gesticulating aggressively as he spits his words. “I think you liked- no, loved, being somewhere that had nothing to do with us. With this” He gestures to the room, the hunt, their life. “I think you fit so well there because there was nothing to remind you where you came from” He crosses his arms, sneering expression on his face.
“That’s not true, Dean.” Sam replied, simple. Still trying to reason.
“No?” Dean tilted his head, a fake expression of surprise in his face. “Because from where I was standing it just looked like you figured out really fast that you didn’t need any of it. You didn’t need dad. You didn’t need the job.” His voice stayed level, which was almost worse than if it didn't. “Didn’t need me.”
“Dean, I was eighteen”, he frowned further, sounding exasperated.
“I know how old you were,” his brother scoffed.
Sam’s hands pass through his hair, as he tries to calm himself down. "I didn't leave because I didn't need you-"
“You did, though.” So certain. He walks closer to Sam with hard steps, and presses his finger accusatorily on Sam’s chest. “You packed a bag and you left and you didn’t look back, and look-” He takes a step back “That's fine, Sam. I’m not- I’m not saying it wasn’t your right, or something like that. But let’s not pretend it was ever complicated.” He looks Sam in the eyes, serious. “You wanted out, and you got out, just like that. The rest of us, we just-” He pauses. “I stayed.”
“Dean.” Sam felt breathless, heavy, his legs were weak under him “Stop.”
Dean shrugs, like he doesn’t know what Sam is talking about. “I’m not trying to start a fight, Sam.”
“You’ve been starting a fight for a week-”
“I’ve been honest for a week,” Dean says, voice filled with venom. “Maybe that’s what's bothering you so much. Maybe you’re just sooo used to everyone just buttering you up that-” He said something else after that, maybe another thing that was precise and mean in a way only Dean could be because he had known Sam for 22 years, inside and out.
Sam didn't hear anything He felt his face crumple, involuntary and too sudden for him to catch himself and save some of his dignity. His vision went blurry and then he was crying, suddenly and with no warning, in the middle of a dusty motel room with Dean three feet away and nowhere to hide.
The silence was immediate.
He turned away, his instinct to preserve his pride coming too late, and he pressed a hand over his mouth, breathing heavily, and he just couldn't stop.
Through the corner of his blurred vision he saw Dean entering the bathroom and closing the door behind him. It was better like that, he just wanted a moment to compose himself and try to understand what the fuck Dean even wanted with all of this. Was he done? With this? With them?
Sam walks a couple of steps until his knee hits the mattress, and he lets himself sit down with no care, his face buried in his hands as stubborn tears roll down his face slowly. It's fine, it's fine. He tried not to think of Dean's words, not the ones he just said, and not the ones he's been saying for days. He wondered, with a breathed laugh, how much he had softened up during his years in college that just a week with an asshole for a brother broke him down.
By the time Dean left the bathroom, Sam's face was dry, but he had the characteristic blush of someone who spent a good time crying, eyes still glossy, and lips red and a little raw from biting. He still was still sitting on the edge of his bed when Dean kneeled down in front of him, between his knees. And when Dean spoke, it sounded different. Entirely different
“Sam.” All the emotion he seemed to have forgotten these days showed itself in his voice.
“Don’t.” Sam’s voice came out in pieces. “Just- give me a second” he rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand, avoiding the other’s gaze.
He didn’t get a second. Dean was in between his legs, kneeling on the stained carpet floor and just, there, too close, the way he wasn’t all week, and Sam couldn’t bear to look at him.
“Hey,” Dean said, quieter than he had all day. “Look at me” His hand resting lightly over Sam’s right knee
“Dean I-”
“Look at me.” And it felt like a plea, so Sam did as he asked. Dean looked at him in a way he only saw when he got hurt during hunts, the steadiness and the practiced aloofness completely gone, and all that remained was just Dean, raw and young and looking horrified. His face was dry but Sam could tell that whatever he did in the bathroom, he had also been crying.
“Im sorry,” Dean said, without hesitation. “Sam, I’m so sorry.”
Sam shook his head, not really rejecting the apology, but just too overwhelmed to properly understand the switch in behaviour.
“What I said- none of that was-” Dean stopped, looked down and breathed deeply, then tried again. “I don’t know why I said any of that. I don’t- I don’t actually think-”
“Then why?” Sam asked, finally. “Dean, what did I do? I’ve been going back through everything all week trying to understand, to figure out, what I did that hurt you so badly, and I just can’t find it. I don’t know what I-”
“Nothing.” Dean said it hard and certain. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Sam. It was all me, everything was just-” He rests his forehead on the hand over Sam’s knee, so very close to his brother. Suddenly, Dean feels like a fog has been lifted from his eyes and at the same time, the weight of the world fell over him, and he is simply exhausted.
The next day starts slow. Sam stays a little too long in bed before being forced by his own sense of responsibility to get up and start the day, marking it as a little strange that Dean wasn’t in the room as he got dressed and ready to go out, noticing how everything seemed to had been packed and already taken to the car.
As he walked through the door, he noticed his brother talking to a young woman in a uniform that showed she worked in the motel, and he made his way to the car without thinking too hard about it.
While he waited outside, leaning on the side of the impala, he tried to calm his still sensitive nerves and make himself believe that today was going to be normal. As normal as it could get, if it depended on him. So when Dean got closer and unlocked the car, Sam got in without saying anything, and when Dean turned on the radio and the music was a little lower than normal, he just closed his eyes and let his brother drive to wherever they were going now.
As it seemed, they were headed to a diner not too far from the motel, but the drive was enough to lull Sam into a light sleep. He woke up with his name being called in a soft tone, almost inaudible, and a gentle hand on his hair. And as he stretched and came back to his senses, Dean had already gotten out and was waiting for him.
The silence was strange. Not uncomfortable, but heavy. Both of them filled with things they wanted to say but, there’s no such thing as opening up easily in the Winchester family, not anymore. So they sit in front of each other in a booth by the window and wait in silence as a waitress comes by.
Dean orders for the both of them, something that caught Sam off guard, having been years since he was too embarrassed to talk to people outside of his dad and older brother, and Dean used to talk for him when John wasn’t close to reprimand him for “coddling” Sam. He looked at Dean with a questioning look, but was met with something close to embarrassment, so he decided to drop it and just wait it out.
He thought about the night before, how Dean kneeled by his feet in silence, looking miserable, how he grabbed Sam’s ankle in a clear attempt to ground himself, to have Sam close. He thought of him taking his older brother and coaching him to bed, as he was almost falling asleep himself. Dean, who laid down looking so small, after all the things done and said, and who confused Sam even more.
Sam looked across the diner table and found that Dean’s eyes were red rimmed, his face looking tired. He wondered if his brother had been sleeping well these past days, he wondered if he was sleeping at all. He cursed himself for not noticing, and as Dean seemed to open his mouth to say something, the waitress that talked to them came back with their orders. Dean’s orders.
Dean got nothing out of the usual for himself, a burger, a portion of fries and a slice of pie. As he looked in front of himself, he was served with a surprisingly good looking cobb salad, and a red-ish smoothie. He looked at Dean, who was already two bites into his sandwich, and wondered if this was his way of trying to make amends.
As he took a bite of his salad, he couldn’t help but notice the relieved expression on his brother’s face, and he felt his chest tight with an emotion he couldn’t identify. They ate quietly, with a few comments about the food being good, enough to make the silence feel lighter as they walked back to the car.
“Next case is in Ohio” Dean says as he unlocks the impala, and Sam nods as he gets in.
When they get back on the road, Sam takes notice that the radio is on a classic rock station, but the volume is even lower, low enough to talk over it without the need to raise your voice, a thing they don’t do for hours yet. But it’s there, an open door if they so want it.
When they’re almost two hours into their trip, and Sam is on the verge of sleeping with his head leaning against the window, so he almost misses Dean's soft spoken words. Almost.
“I-” He starts, and Sam doesn’t move for a long time, waiting for his brother to find whatever words he needs to say. “I’m glad you’re here, Sam”, he finally says. “I want you here.”
And despite being so simple it feels heavy with emotion, heavy with the guilt and the hurt and all that Dean feels and won’t ever open up about with Sam, or anyone else. So he reaches out to his brother’s hand on the gear shift and squeezes it gently, as he keeps looking outside. And that’s that.
Sam leans back in his seat and watches the road as he closes his eyes and thinks to himself once more that this is how Dean apologizes, and that this is how Sam accepts it, and there’s not much more to it. The road goes on and on as he drifts to sleep, knowing his older brother is there once again.