Dean knows.
Sam weeps. It's nothing new. Every night, after they turn from each other into their separate beds, when Sam thinks Dean has fallen asleep, he curls into himself like parchment thrown into a fire and sobs, his body wracked with grief.
Sam lets the memories take him; Jessica, the hitch and sigh of her breath when she drifted into deepened state of sleep, the notes she left for him, a bubbled I-Love-You scrawled in red ink hiding in his back pack or on a plate of homemade chocolate chip cookies.
The terror and confusion that fought for dominance in her face and the graceful curve of her mouth as her body clung to the ceiling, belly slit, trying to comprehend the impossibility of her own death in the seconds before she erupted into flame. Yes, that moment scrambles up the sheer rock face of Sam's memories, digging its filthy claws into his awareness, searching for a foothold in the reality of the waking world.
Sam accepts that he killed Jessica. His presence in her life was a cruel joke. Sam said yes to Jessica believing that all he needed to forget the aching need he felt for his brother was the rolling softness of a woman's body, so alien and unlike the sharp angle of Dean's square jaw or the velvet covered steel of his chest. Sam ran away, like a coward, like a deserter because he could no longer control his unruly fingers and knew that one day he would reach toward Dean to caress him in a way that would destroy his brother.
He left Dean because of the sickness that infests each waking moment. He loves Dean, is in love with Dean; the air is thicker, harder to breathe when Dean is not by his side. He fought with his father because John would have been disgusted by his depravity. Sam alienated Dean to spare him the pain of knowing that his baby brother yearned for his companionship, his love, and his body. Sam chose to leave for Stanford when he realized that Dean, in his dogged commitment to Sam, would relent, regardless of his own discomfort and revulsion.
Sam believes the evidence of his cowardice goes no further than the mute confidence of his pillow; he waits for Dean's breathing to slow, and then Sam weeps.
But Dean does not sleep.
Dean listens.
Dean's skin, his fingers, his breath, the whole of his body wills him to move to his brother's bed, to turn Sam in his arms and stroke the fine baby-soft curls at the nape of Sam's neck. Dean imagines brushing his lips against Sam's brow, whispering into the hollow of Sam's hurt that he would bear this burden for his brother, if only Sam considered him worthy.
*******
Bleak midwinter light fights through the greasy window of the truck stop diner. Dean watches Sam pick at his breakfast, his younger brother's eyes swollen and red-rimmed from lack of sleep, and wonders how to fix this without breaking them apart.
It was bad after Jessica, worse after Dad and then Madison's death came heavy on the heels of Meg's possession and Dean is now at a loss. Dean protects Sam, but he can no longer protect his baby brother from the bumps in the night that resound too close to their beds and the ceaseless pawing of the slavering wolf at the door and his rolling yellow eyes.
Dean can barely contain his own desire. He learned to cover his want for Sam when he was 21 and Sammy 16. He became an expert at lying when he first looked at Sam's lanky, muscular body and felt a stir in his gut that had nothing to do with brotherly affection or pride in the young man that Sam had grown into under his watch. Nope, he's a sick bastard, but he made peace with that defect years ago, fucking his way across the country in an effort to silence the overwhelming craving he felt to taste the salt of Sam's skin; to suck, mark, and possess Sam in all the ways that he has never imagined doing with another living soul.
His love for Sammy is merely another piece of Dean that is wanting; another reason why he has failed his family; another reason why Sam left.
'Ugh.' Dean thinks. 'What whiny pussy. I need pull my head out of my ass.'
"Son of a bitch"
"What?" Sam looks up from the river of ketchup he is creating in his untouched scrambled eggs.
"We need time off."
"Dean, I'm fine." Sam's gaze returns to his cold eggs and leathery bacon.
"No Sam, you're not fine." Dean lowers his voice. "I don't feel fine, I feel ridden hard and hung up wet and you," Dean dips his head to catch Sam's eyes "You're sure as shit not fine. When was the last time you slept through the night?"
Sam's cheeks redden. Shame prickles in his chest; not only has Dean lost his youth caring for Sam, carried the burden of their father's demands, their father's death, now he is forced to bare witness to Sam's disintegration and possible transformation into one of the monsters they have spent their life fighting against. If he had any courage at all he would end this now, swallow the muzzle of his 9mm and set his brother free. But he is not courageous, he attempted to leave once, he never will again, he doubts he would allow even death to separate him from Dean. Sam would rather wallow in his own private misery for the remainder of his pathetic life than lose even one moment with his brother.
"Hey, Sammy?" Dean reaches across the table and lays a calloused hand over Sam's own. Sam stares down his hash browns with the intensity of a shell-shocked soldier. "Come on, man? You can't keep this up." Sam's skin crackles when Dean touches his hand and he curses the threads of fate that tied Dean to him with the blood of kinship.
"Dude, what do you want me to say?" Sam's anger flares; it is the only safe emotion he feels around Dean these days.
"Say you'll hang out with me today. I'm going to take a piss and settle the check. Then you and I are going to try to forget about all this bull shit for a little while."
"Okay." Sam can't help but smile when Dean's face lights up, even though he suspects that a "day off" means he will end up watching a parade of barmaids hanging all over Dean while he flirts and hustles pool.
Dean shoves his own desires aside, along with the want, the ache, the terrible hunger that consumes him each waking moment; today is about Sammy, not about his fucked up fantasies. A normal day, that's what Sammy needs; no demons, no threats of going all Dark Side, no hustling or pool halls, just the two of them doing what normal folks do when they have a day off. Dean's not sure exactly what that entails, but if Sammy needs an escape, he's going to give it to him. He feels the prickling of an idea, the only other thing Sam used to beg for besides a trip to the library when they were kids and John was off hunting or on walk-about with his buddies Jose, Johnny, or Jim.
Dean pays the bill and asks where the nearest shopping center or mall is located. The cashier, a sixty-plus year old woman with hair the color of cherry-cola, cigarette stained fingers, and a mug like Bela Lugosi gives him directions. Dean has to suppress a shiver when she flashes him a broad, semi-toothless smile and mentions that her shift ends at 3:30.
Dean ambles out to the Impala. Sam's breath hitches in his chest as his brother slides behind the wheel and the scent of worn leather and Dean's aftershave, a warming concoction of cloves and sandalwood, fill the car.
"You ready Sammy?" Dean starts the car, luxuriating in the bass roar of the Impala's engine.
"Dean, I don't think there are any bars open around here at 10 AM."
A flicker of hurt ghosts across Dean's face, a person who didn't know Dean, who didn't study every nuance of his facial expressions, would have missed it, but Sam did not and experiences a rush of guilt at his assumption.
"We're not going to a bar."
"Oh?"
"Nope."
"Then where are we going?" Sam's curiosity peaks and the swaddling of melancholy loosens for a brief moment.
"It's a surprise, Dude, now shut your cake hole and relax." Dean switches on the tape deck and James Hetfield's voice growls into the empty space between the two men each lost in the comfort of the other's presence, each straining toward the other as a sun-starved sapling strains toward the light. The secrets they each cleave to forming an invisible net that stretches taught across their lips and captures the words that they long to say aloud.