Dean loved almost every kind of music. With many obvious exceptions, he would be happy with anything his dad would put in the tape player. He was a pro at the air guitar, a master at drumming (on the dashboard), and could carry a semi-decent tune. The first time he had bought a tape for his own, at about the age of nine, was one of the happiest days. Whenever John was proud of Dean for doing something responsible, or something that any father could be proud of, Dean would ask for another tape instead of candy. Rock-and-Roll was all of the sugar rush he could ever want. The time when Dean had gotten a walkman cassette player for his very own was about the only way Dean knew what a Christmas miracle was. When Sam was 13, Dean finally began to allow him to use the player on occasion, like when the little guy was doing homework while Dean wanted to watch TV.
It was on October 15th, 1997, when Dean's blood froze. He and Sam were going to a new high school. He was a senior again, and Sam was a freshman again. Sam was slaving away at Honors Geometry on his bed in the motel room. Dean was flicking through channels every two minutes. Absently, he could hear his brother opening the case of a tape. There was the tell-tale click of the tape being shut into the player while Dean changed to the local weather for a few seconds. He heard Sam press fast-forward for a little while, and then play. Dean's heart seized up the second that he began to hear the first chords of "Story to Tell" by Death coming softly from the headphones. There was a pain in his chest; impossible to describe and crushing him. No, not Sammy. Why was he listening to this? What made him think that death metal was so worth hearing?
Dean knew that sound, the screaming and the roaring of the vocals. The growling that he subconsciously compared to Cookie Monster's voice, the harsh repeating guitar chords, the hammering drums. He knew it because he had listened to that very tape a few times himself. When he was feeling hateful of this life, when he was angry or horrifically sad, when his memories of every monster and every drop of fear and self-loathing and despair threatened to drown him, he could listen to this. Death, Venom, Obituary, Carcass: they made things clearer, like someone was doing all the screaming for him. He knew that there was a dark part of him that found relief in this. But he had never thought that Sam would feel that need to revel in that temporary darkness like he did. He could accept that it existed in himself, but it could not, should not exist in his Sam. It killed him that Sam was beginning to feel as he sometimes did.
He wanted to beg Sammy, "Please, turn it off. Listen to something else. Anything else. Sammy, please. Let me, but not you." But he couldn't. His brother was allowed to have this freedom, at least, even if he were denied so many others. He was not someone who could easily deny his brother anything. Instead, he said quietly, "Sam?"
There was no answer.
Louder, "Sam?"
Nothing.
"Sam!"
The kid pulled out one ear bud. "What, Dean?"
He faltered for a second. The look in his brother's eyes, the innocence in his question. There was no anger anywhere, just curiosity because he wanted to know what his brother wanted.
"Turn that thing down, would ya?" he managed to force out.
Sam smiled and gave an amused huff, blinking once before his finger dialed down the sound. "Didn't know listening to the weather was so important," he said, trying to be snarky about the whole thing. It was obvious that he was just faking it, though.
Dean turned back to the TV, only slightly taken aback. He smiled too, though, and promptly changed the channel to a talk show. "Bitch," he murmured.
"Jerk," was the level reply.