"I'll be back in a week," John said gruffly, throwing some clothes and supplies unceremoniously into a black duffel. "Heading out to Flagstaff to hunt down a few leads. You make sure Sam gets to school, alright? Some food in the fridge. You can order."
Dean stood in the frame of the open door leading into the living room with a newly-opened bottle of beer in his hand.
He hesitated for a moment.
"What are you after? You sure you don't need an extra set of hands?"
John grunted, digging around in a drawer for a minute before pulling out some crumpled-up newspaper clippings from the very bottom and shoving them into his pocket.
"Bobby's in the area. He'll be meeting up with me in two or three days after he helps finish off a nasty vamp nest a few miles out from Boulder. A couple of young go-getter-type hunters got in over their heads. Lucky for them, Bobby was hunkered down right across the border in Santa Fe collecting supplies."
Dean shrugged.
"Sure, of course," he said, shifting his weight a little nervously, "But, you know, if you can stick around for a few more hours, Sammy is getting that award today at 2:30. The one for his English class. It's a poetry thing, or something about writing. You remember I was thinking it would be nice if we showed up and surprised him? He's been pretty down lately, and I thought he might appreciate the support."
John's posture stiffened a little, but he continued to pack, making a small noncommittal noise that Dean knew from experience translated to, "not gonna happen."
"But, it's no big deal," Dean continued quickly, wanting to avoid the awkward moment. "Now that I think about it, we'd probably just embarrass him. You know how the kid is."
John nodded, finally turning to face his oldest son.
"Right," he said with a strained smile. "I just want to get in as much driving as I can before dark. You tell him I say congratulations."
John paused for a moment, bending to grab a stray sock on the floor.
"And I'd like to see that focus of his put to good use. Maybe a little less time with a pen and a little more time in target practice. You tell him that, alright?"
"Yes, Sir," Dean lied, taking a swig from the bottle in his hand.
Well, the first part of the message would be delivered, but the last thing Sammy needed right now was another lecture, even though Dean happened to agree with their father on this particular point.
Sam had always been a pretty moody kid, but lately, he had been taking the whole teen angst thing to a whole new level. He seemed to always want to be alone, locking himself in his room for hours on end and taking long, mysterious walks in the woods at least a few times a day.
Whenever Dean so much as put a hand on his shoulder, Sam would start violently as if he'd been electrocuted.
Dean suspected that his little brother might have a girl in his life, or a girl that he wanted in his life, and he probably felt like he had no one to confide in about it. It would be a cold day in hell before he would admit it to Dean or their father, but there was no mistaking that nervous, jumpy, moon-eyed look that he was catching more and more often on Sam's face.
"I should probably have the how-to-handle-girls talk with him," Dean thought half-heartedly, not looking forward to the prospect of it at all.
It wasn't that he didn't want his little brother to have something like that. I mean, the kid was sixteen years old for god's sake, but the thought of it made him feel a little sick to his stomach for some reason, like he had come down with a sudden, intense bout of food poisoning.
"Sammy doesn't know the first thing about dating," he told himself. "I don't want him getting wrapped around some girl's finger and strung along like a poor, lovesick puppy."
"You look like your brother when he's got his head stuck in the clouds," John said suddenly, interrupting Dean's train of thought. "You with me?"
Dean snapped his gaze down from where he had apparently been staring up at the ceiling and cleared his throat again.
"Yes, Sir," he responded hastily, horrified that for some strange reason his cheeks were burning with a rush of blood. "I was just looking at-…I thought I might…put a fresh coat of paint up there while you're gone. You know, cover up some of that water damage…"
He trailed off, and John cast him an odd look.
"Dean, we're renting here," he said with a sigh like Dean was always suggesting stupid things like that. "We won't even be here past next month. Why don't you take on a useful project like reorganizing all of the maps and notes that Sam threw into the hall closet when he needed new school folders?"
He was pinning Dean with a scrutinizing squint, but after glancing down at his watch, he waved his hand dismissively.
"Either way, I'm hitting the road. You know how to reach me. Don't burn the place down. Alright?"
"Yes, Sir," Dean repeated, attempting a casual lean against the wall. "I'll take care of things. Good luck on the hunt. Oh, and tell Bobby he still owes me $50 dollars from that poker game in Burlington."
"Mm," John replied, already half-way out the back door. "Will do. See you in a week, give or take."
And with that, he closed the door with a little click.
Dean's shoulders relaxed from their tense hunch, and he walked over to sit on the end of the bed, wondering if he should go alone to Sam's event in a few hours. It would mean a long walk, but he could use the fresh air.
Someone should be there.
Sam hadn't even told them that he was getting the award. Dean didn't blame him. He had seen the slip of paper wedged into one of Sam's notebooks that had been left open on the kitchen table and had felt an odd rush of pride that his little brother was being recognized for something so…normal.
Okay, so he didn't necessarily see the point in any of it, but he knew how much this kind of thing mattered to Sam, and he was proud nevertheless.
Deciding definitively that he would be there for his brother's big moment, he hopped up and headed toward the bathroom to begin the process of making himself look presentable for the afternoon ahead.
Three hours later:
Dean felt tangibly uncomfortable in the crowd of students, parents, and teachers who were gathered in the auditorium of Sam's high school, and he shoved his hands roughly into his pockets, second-guessing his decision to come at all.
He felt like everyone was staring at him and wondering what he was doing there, like they all somehow knew he was an uneducated delinquent who wouldn't know a good piece of writing if it bit him in the ass.
That wasn't entirely true, and he forced himself to relax a little and stop being so paranoid.
"This is about Sam, not you," he reminded himself as the first student was called to the stage.
Her name was Emily something, and she recited what seemed like an awfully long poem about a fall leaf that Dean personally thought was contrived and cliché.
See? Not entirely clueless.
Next up was a panicked-looking boy who choked out a poem about the death of his grandmother.
Dean listened and nodded and made little sounds of approval like everyone else.
It was an okay piece of work.
Nothing to write home about.
When the lady called Sam's name, he straightened up in his chair, peering over the heads of the couple in front of him to watch his brother take his place at the microphone.
Sam looked cool and confident up there staring down at them, and Dean was relieved that he hadn't been noticed sitting there in the middle of the crowd. He didn't want Sam to lose his focus on the task at hand.
But, my god, when had Sam gotten that tall?
Dean found himself staring at his little brother in an entirely new light as Sam introduced himself with a heart-stopping smile and what must have been a joke that Dean had missed because he had busy thinking to himself that there was really nothing little about Sam anymore…
Chuckling appreciably with the rest of the crowd at whatever he hadn't heard Sam say, Dean's chest felt a little tight.
Sam looked…well, he looked more in his element than Dean could ever remember seeing him, and it was a heady, disorienting experience to witness it, almost like he was spying on some secret part of his brother that he wasn't supposed to see.
Sam started to speak again, and Dean pushed the thought from his mind, now more curious than ever to hear this award-worthy thing that Sam had created.
"This poem is called, 'Swimming With The Stars,'" Sam spoke, his voice projecting steadily out into the audience. "It's actually, well, it's lyrics, so…I don't have my guitar, but I'm going to sing it for you all if you can bear with me."
Another one of those dazzling smiles…
Wait, what guitar?
But Dean barely had time to register the thought before Sam began, and then…everything else just…faded away…
"You grab a towel, and I'll turn out the light.
We're headed down the ramp now,
Disappearing in the night…
Into a darkness
Softened by the fog.
We make a pile of our clothes down on
The corner of the dock,
Holding hands as we stand ready
To embrace the coming shock,
And then in a moment,
We just fall into the sea.
The first breath is desperate.
The second one's a gasp.
The third one's coming easy, now,
And it's followed by a laugh.
After, echoes the moon.
And I am, for the moment, unconcerned with where we're going,
Where we've been.
I only wish that we were orphans,
So the sea would take us in.
We could travel into darkness,
Knowing nothing of goodbye,
Going easily unnoticed…
To slip out, ever softly,
With the tide.
As you dive beneath the waves,
I can finally taste the truth,
And may the world fade out around us, now,
Because all I need is you…
All of your edges,
Reaching out and reaching in.
But the moment flies unchecked again,
Ever-distant, ever-sought,
Leaving nothing but the dream to touch
And the skin that I cannot.
I want your center,
But I will settle for your shade.
I am, to the bone, awake with this want that burns within,
But you say, "Man, it's getting late. I think we'd better head on in."
But there is a deepness
Making questions of your words…
Too brief to translate,
Going quickly and unheard
And I'm feeling kind of tired, and it's getting kind of cold,
But I'm scared that if I fall asleep,
I'll wake up when I'm old,
With nothing to wager, and nothing left to lose.
And you'll never know I'd gamble everything
For you.
You grab the towel, and I'll turn on the light.
There are things to say and to leave unsaid
In these shadows here, tonight.
But, like the tide, you're drifting quickly
From my shore.
I want to fill your spaces
Like a God without regret…
To understand you from the inside,
Rip you open,
Make you sweat.
I want you to know me like you never have before.
The future's full of shadows, and the past is full of pain,
And I believe that you could love me
If you could just forget my name.
If we could only just be mysteries,
Not wrapped up in who we are…
Exposing naked glimpses of ourselves
When we're swimming with the stars.
When we're swimming…
With the stars…
It took Dean what was probably only a few seconds (but felt like a small eternity) to come back to reality enough to realize that the song was over.
He wasn't the only one who had fallen into a kind of awed and otherworldly trance.
The entire auditorium, in fact, had slipped into a hush that was only broken when Sam took a step forward and curled his torso into a subtle bow that somehow came off as unfathomably-endearing instead of arrogant.
It could have been the lopsided grin he broke out in while straightening up that helped, but in any case, the room suddenly erupted in an overwhelming onslaught of cheers and applause unlike anything Dean had ever heard.
And it was all for Sammy.
Little…not little…Sammy.
Sammy, whose voice was nothing less than angelic (had it always been?) and whose words were filled with a raw passion to rival the Greats.
Sammy, who-
Dean very abruptly felt like someone had kicked him in the throat, hard, and he struggled to suck in a mouthful of air.
Sammy, who had just been singing about…well, who had been singing about…
Sneaking down onto old Mr. Grady's dock after he was asleep…
Laughing and breathing in the salty air and forgetting about Dad and monsters and the thing that killed Mom, for a little while at least…
Holding hands while they jumped as a sort of insurance policy to make sure one of them didn't chicken out at the last second…
Swimming under the stars…
That was…their thing.
That was Sammy's and his thing.
It was…their place.
Not even Dad knew about it.
But he couldn't have meant…he couldn't have been talking about…
A hot rush of anger suddenly flooded Dean's gut.
Had Sam been taking someone else to their place? Some girl from school, maybe? To do…their thing?
He gritted his teeth as his hands tightened into fists by his sides, overwhelmed again by that same nauseous ache that had come over him earlier in the day.
But, no. That didn't make sense.
Sam didn't go out at night. Not without Dean. Not ever. Dean was sure of it.
But then that meant…what?
That Sam was…
Dean's nausea was rapidly increasing, now coupled with a kind of roaring sensation in his head.
Tripping over the legs of several disgruntled parents, he untangled himself from the crowd at near warp speed, backing out of the auditorium with his eyes glued on Sammy, who had dismounted the stage (when had that happened?) but was surrounded by a throng of congradulaters who were thankfully forming a human wall between them.
"You're being paranoid again," he tried to tell himself firmly, but his mind was spinning.
Sprinting out of the school parking lot, he replayed some of the choice phrases from Sam's song in his head.
There was a logical, uncomplicated explanation, here. He just knew it. He had to be reading into the whole thing, which caused him to feel sick again as he wondered if he was seeing something abnormal where there really wasn't…and what that said about him.
Creative license. Storytelling. Metaphors.
"Now you're just throwing out random literally terms," he panicked, feeling close to hysterics. "Put a lid on it, come on now."
But the 45 minute walk back to their cabin had never seemed shorter, and Dean irrationally debated on just continuing down the dirt road indefinitely to avoid having to ever face his little brother again.
Aborting the thought almost immediately, however, he forced himself through the front door, making a beeline straight for the bathroom, where he violently threw up the contents of his stomach for several long minutes.
Afterward, he felt a little better.
Exhausted, but renewed by a powerful determination to put the afternoon behind him forever, he flung himself down onto the couch and fell into a restless sleep.
He was awoken by the sound of the door slamming, and he jolted to a sitting position as if he'd been doused with a bucket of cold water.
"Hey, I'm home," Sam called from the kitchen, and Dean could hear the thud of his backpack being thrown onto the floor.
For what seemed like a horrifying eternity, Dean couldn't respond, unable to do anything but gaze dumbly at the space in front of him while his heart pounded painfully in his chest.
Sam poked his head into the living room.
"Dean," he said, looking at his brother with a perturbed expression on his face, "What's up? You finally get that lobotomy I've been recommending?"
Dean stared for a moment before giving himself a hard mental slap.
Say something. Anything...
"What? Did I what? No. No, I…"
Fuck. What had Sam even asked him?
"So…yes. You did, then," Sam said with a little frown, striding into the room and draping himself across one of the beaten-up armchairs. "Jesus. What's the matter with you? Did you and Dad have a fight? Where is he, anyway?"
Dean cleared his throat, forcing himself to calm down and regain at least a little of his composure.
"No, no, everything's fine. We didn't. We…everything's fine. He got a call and had to leave for a hunt out in Arizona a few hours ago. He'll be back in a week. Didn't tell me what it was all about. Seemed important, so…"
He trailed off.
"Okaaaaaaay…." Sam responded sarcastically, casting Dean a quizzical look. "Fine. Don't tell me what's wrong, then. Just thought I would ask."
He took a big bite of the apple he had apparently grabbed while in the kitchen.
"Did he leave any beer?"
Dean choked a little on a breath of air and narrowed his eyes at Sam, momentarily distracted by the unexpected question.
"What? Since when do you drink beer?"
Sam huffed in annoyance.
"I'm not a kid anymore," he said, crossing his arms over his chest and cocking his head in a way that made Dean's stomach suddenly feel very hot. "I've had beer before. I'm almost seventeen, you know. I've done a lot of things that you don't know about."
Dean felt his teeth clench and his pulse quicken.
"Yeah? Where was I?" he managed, quite suddenly feeling a little more angry than uncomfortable. "You didn't ask for a beer last month when Dad was in San Francisco for three days. And what kind of 'things' are we talking about, here, anyway?"
Sam rolled his eyes skyward.
"When Dad was in San Francisco, you spent the entire time out with Lacey from the convenience store. I finished off Dad's six pack on the first night, and you were so drunk when you came in that the next day you thought you had drank them."
Dean's jaw dropped.
"What…you….Christ, Sam. What the hell?"
Sam shrugged casually.
"It's not a big deal," he said, stretching in his chair. "You're pretty oblivious, Dean, that's all. You still think I'm, like, eleven years old, and I'm not."
Dean gaped, completely thrown by the words that were coming out of Sam's mouth. It was like Invasion of the Body Snatchers but much more unsettling.
"Where is this coming from?" he spluttered. "You barely give me the time of day for a month, and now this? What…what the hell?"
Sam took another bite of his apple and chewed it before responding.
"Yeah, well, I've been busy. I've been working on a project…for school. It's kind of been…taking a lot out of me. Sorry about that. I didn't mean to make you feel like I was mad at you, or something."
Dean's heart suddenly plummeted and rose into his throat simultaneously.
The project…for school…
God dammit, the "project" for school…
"No, it's fine," he said gruffly, standing up from the couch and turning as if to look out the window. "I didn't mean it like that. I get that you've had…a lot on your plate. It's fine. Just…sure, you can have a beer. Go-go grab one. You can have a few. It's fine."
He shoved his hands into his pockets, feeling the heat of Sam's stare on the back of his neck.
"Yeah, okay," Sam said slowly, not moving from his chair. "Sounds good."
There was a little pause.
"Hey, Dean," he continued, his voice a little too calm to be believable, and Dean felt like throwing up again. "You want to…uh…go swimming in a bit? It's supposed to be a pretty warm night, and we won't have many more of them before the cold rolls in. I don't have any homework, so…do you want to? It'd be nice not to have to sneak out."
He was smiling when Dean turned back to face him, and Dean was not pleased by the fact that his own palms had broken out into a clammy sweat.
No. Of course they weren't going to just "go swimming," not after everything, no fucking way. It just wasn't going to-
"Sure, why not?" he heard himself speak, and his fists tightened in horror at the betrayal of his own damn words.
That was NOT the plan. NOT the plan in any way, shape, or form.
But Sam was already leaping up like an over-rambunctious puppy and striding toward his room.
"Great!" he called over his shoulder, and Dean's stomach did an uncomfortable flip-flop. "I'm gonna go find my suit. I think Dad packed it away a few days ago with the rest of the summer stuff. You have yours?"
Dean pressed his hand to his forehead in defeat, overwhelmed by thoughts of "No. Don't. Yes. C'mon. NO. NO. No to the thousandth power. No, no…."
"Yeah. It's in my closet," his mouth said like it had taken on a mind of its own. "I'll, uh, grab it in a minute."
Panic was building up in his throat even as he tried to convince himself that everything was fine, normal, the same as it had always been.
But…had it really ever been?
He suddenly no longer knew.