I still can't understand why anyone would think that I'm making money out of this.
AN: The story's title was stolen in the dead of night from Nick Hornby.
High Fidelity
"Aaaaaargh!"
Dean's sudden yell, combined with the Impala skidding to a halt in the middle of the darkened highway with a shriek of protest from the mistreated brakes, was loud enough to wake the dead. Sam, as yet, was still alive, and he jerked upright in the passenger seat, reaching reflexively for his gun.
"Wassamatter?" he managed, staring at his older brother.
Dean turned to look at him. One hand was gripping the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles had gone white, and the look in his eyes was nothing short of horrified. In reply to Sam's question, he held up a small rectangular piece of black plastic with something trailing out of the bottom. Sam stared at it for a full two minutes before realising that the something led all the way down to the Impala's cassette player.
"The tape's broken," he said.
With that comment, Dean regained his composure. "Your powers of observation never cease to amaze me, Sammy," he said tetchily. "This," he shook the cassette in question under his brother's nose, "is Zeppelin IV. Now go get a flashlight outta the trunk."
"You wake me up like that for this?" Sam demanded angrily, not moving.
"Sam!" Dean shouted, and the younger Winchester was outside popping the trunk before it dawned on him that he'd just jumped to obey an order of Dean's the way he hadn't for Dad since he'd been about twelve. Shaking his head at himself, he climbed back in the car and tossed Dean the flashlight.
Over an hour and much swearing later, Dean managed to separate tape and player. How he had done it working only by torchlight Sam didn't know and couldn't care less. He was tired, and cold, and bored; and then Dean held up the tape triumphantly, it's 'innards' trailing over the bench seat, and Sam had an idea. His older brother jumped as the camera on his phone clicked.
"Dean Winchester with eviscerated cassette," Sam grinned. "That should go in the family photo album. You gotta invest in some CDs, dude."
"No," Dean retorted, quiet but forceful, all triumph, all amusement, gone, and revved the engine.
Sam sat silent, astonished at the change his comment had wrought in Dean. It wasn't the first time he had teased his brother about the battered tape box, but it was the first time Dean hadn't just shrugged it off. He was about to apologise when Dean's posture relaxed, and he blew out a sigh before saying quietly, "The tapes were Mom's, mostly."
"What?" Sam managed, utterly gob smacked now. Only once before had Dean volunteered information about Mom like that. A much younger Sam had always had to pester him for stories. It wasn't until he'd gotten a bit older that he understood how much it hurt Dean just to talk about that other life that had been ripped away from him so viciously. The last time Dean had willingly mentioned it had been during their encounter with Father Gregory, a few months ago now. Sam never wanted to see that raw agony in his brother's face again. It had almost been worse than after Dad's death.
And now here he was, calmly telling Sam that the tapes he'd been making fun of for years had belonged to their mother.
"Well, not all of them. But mostly. She and Dad used to play them all the time. In the garage, in the back garden, cooking dinner, in the car, cleaning house. There was always music playing. I used to watch them dance… she'd sing me to sleep with "Going to California" or "Stairway to Heaven". Dad used to tease her about it, that rock songs were the only lullabies she knew."
Sam couldn't answer. Dean's voice was soft and quiet, and he never took his eyes off the road. Finally Sam, keeping his voice as soft as Dean's as though anything else would scare away this newfound openness, asked, "Why didn't you just tell me? All those times…"
Dean shrugged. "Don't know. Couldn't, I guess. Like when you start to tell me about Stanford, and then can't finish because you've realised Jess is in the story."
That Dean might want to know about Stanford, that he might be as interested in his brother's normal life as Sam was in the stories of the hunts Dean had been on with Dad or Caleb or Pastor Jim while he'd been gone, had never occurred to Sam before. He felt a sudden rush of remorse for all the times he'd not said anything, all the stories he had kept quiet, not only because it had been so painful to talk about Jess, but also because he had just assumed Dean wouldn't want to know.
"I'll try harder if you will," he offered, half-joking, half-serious.
Dean finally looked across at him and nodded. "Just remind me to replace my eviscerated cassette when we reach Joliete, OK?"
"You can ask the Djinn for a new one, if that's what it is," Sam joked.