And Dancing Away With My Heart
Authors Note: Title and song snippets come from Dancing Away With My Heart by Lady Antebellum. Which breaks my heart a little every time I hear it.
For me you'll always be eighteen and beautiful
And dancing away with my heart
It had been two years since Sam had confessed that he had a crush on his older brother. Two years since an awkward kiss in some crumbling motel room in bumfuck nowhere Ohio, their faces lit up by intermittent car headlights where Dean had fallen. Two years longer than any relationship either had ever had and it was ending here as he watched an eighteen year old Sam walk into a bus station carrying everything he owned in a threadbare duffel bag. His baby brother was leaving for college. Leaving dad, and more importantly leaving Dean.
It was probably overdue anyway. They had stopped playing happy family a long time ago. Sam and John had made fighting a daily occurrence. Sam was making a good choice leaving before things came to blows. Of course John wouldn't feel the same way. After years of making sure Sammy had a good life, got an education, done all the things Dean never would, John was mad that he was doing something with it. So he was leaning with his arms folded across his chest, standing by the impala pretending his youngest son was dead. Angry because Sam wanted to quit the family business and be normal and put his literal demons behind him. And John could not forgive him because it felt he was trying to forget about a mother he had never even known.
Dean had hugged his brother tightly and told him he couldn't leave. He had to stay with Dean. You can't have a Dean without a Sam. Who would take care of him? That he would try to get dad to change his mind. That if he had to go, he would write or call. And really, how far was Stanford? Dean could visit for some holiday. They would be together again soon. They would. He said a lot of things. But mostly he said please, please don't leave.
Sam hugged back and pressed a quick kiss to Dean's cheek when their father wasn't looking. He said he had to leave. That he couldn't face the arguing anymore, couldn't stop feeling like a freak. That cut Dean. If Sam was a freak then what was Dean? And what were they when they were together? Like Sam had read his mind, he said it wasn't about them, it was just something he had to do, just to see if he could. A permanent road trip was no way to live life. He promised to call every day and work hard and make Dean proud. Dean could feel his face getting hot and tears welling up in his eyes, he sniffled and tried to keep the tears from coming.
Sam was now a black spec in the distance mingling with other black specs. Dean watched him walk away, a symbol of all the good things that had ever happened to him. The only person other than John that he had, the person that he was in love with. The only person he could be hopeless in love with without feeling like a complete girl. And then he was gone. For who knows how long. Dean could already feel the sharp new twinge of loss layered over all the old ones. He hauled ass back to the impala where John Winchester was already brooding in the driver's seat. Dean's phone chirped in his pocket and he dug it out. It was a text from Sam.
NEW MESSAGE
Sam: Ily. See you soon. B safe.
At first he did call every day. He called when he got off the bus in Stanford, he called when he got settled into his dorm, he called when he had a fight with his new roommate. Dean listened intently to every bit of college drama his brother would share, his voice like a lifeline. He told Sam about a vamp nest he and their dad had cleaned out in Illinois, a poltergeist in Des Moines, Iowa, and a plain old ghost in Wisconsin. Dean had torn through it with a tire iron while their father salted and burned the bones. Sam was getting great grades and working really hard. He loved his classes and almost all of his Professors. Nearly a year went by. He had friends now. Actual friends that Dean didn't have to bribe into hanging out with him. And he had met a girl.
As the years went on he called less and less. He sent a quick text now and then just so Dean wouldn't worry. When he did call, his voice was quiet and far away and had lost much of its conspiratorially loving tone. The conversations were lousy with filler words and monotone rambling like he was only reciting what he had been up to instead of telling a story. He spent the second Thanksgiving in Stanford with his new girlfriend in their shared apartment. Dean spent his curled up in the back seat of the impala drunk and shivering without a blanket, not knowing where John had gotten off to and thinking he would give anything to be with Sam, eating a slice of Bobby Singer's apple pie and getting called 'idjit' in his gruff but affectionate tone of voice.
NEW MESSAGE
Sam: Hppy Thnxgving! Jess wants 2 know when u'll visit.
All that crushing pain came rushing back in past the drunken numbness. Dean really didn't want to meet Sam's girlfriend. He didn't really want to acknowledge the existence of a girlfriend, or meet her family, or play nice over pumpkin pie. He wanted his brother back. He wanted the tangle of too long limbs in the back of the impala that could be keeping him warm right now. His fingers in his brother's hair, a sloppy drunk kiss, and a blanket. Sam would have remembered a blanket. Sam was the smart one.
NEW MESSAGE
Dean: Dad & I are in Colorado. Maybe Christmas.
NEW MESSAGE
Sam: :D Hope 2 CU soon.
NEW MESSAGE
Dean: Love you bro. Happy holiday.
Sam didn't text back. Dean went back to his shivering half slumber and tried to tell himself he was still loved. What they had wasn't gone, but still intact in a place they could find their way back to. He would see his brother soon and everything would go back to that bright happy moment when an awkward sixteen year old Sam had crashed their lips together in Ohio. Holy Toledo indeed.
Oh you headed out to college
At the end of that summer when we lost touch
I guess I didn't realize even at that moment we lost so much
Dean didn't end up coming for Christmas. And he knew that Sam knew he wouldn't be there. That he couldn't. That he was still so caught up in the past. A past where it was a Winchester christmas. Even though there wasn't really such a thing, just more hunting with holiday music on the radio. John hadn't bothered to call Sam at all since he left. Dean could never tell what he was feeling, what sort of pain he was working through. In his twisted mind he had lost a wife and a son. At least one of those was his fault.
Sam called on Christmas. Dean let it go to voicemail, then deleted the message. That night he didn't have visions of sugar plums but instead visions of his brother and a version of a last night on earth speech that morphed into last night together before Sam breaks the news to dad. A last night pressed nose to nose in a warm motel bed, loose-limbed and blissed out with A Christmas Story on 24 hour repeat on the little tv in the corner. Lit up like the first time with headlights.
And dad won't be back til at least the next afternoon. Dean slides down Sam's body, leaving lazy lip trails. He isn't taking it anywhere, couldn't if he tried since he had already cum a moment before and just didn't have the sense to know when to stop. Sam's eyes dipped closed and he was whispering snippets of love into Dean's ear. Each soft shuddery word wound itself like copper wire around Dean's heart. He set his head heavily on Sam's chest and listens to his heartbeat. He wishes in vain that Sam would reconsider. But he wants the best for his brother and that means he has to go.
In the morning Dean wakes alone, remembering that's what he is now. Alone. Dad is on a hunt and Sam is in California. He had gotten a room with two beds out of habit, even if he didn't know when dad would be back. Now the empty thing haunted him just as his dreams had for months. He glared at it a moment before ducking back under the covers. He didn't have anything else to do with his day. He woke up several hours later with a headache. The room was still empty and he had no missed called on his phone. Sam had stopped texting and calling weeks ago.
Dean got up and took a shower, watched some crappy afternoon tv, and paced the floor. Nothing was happening and John had just told him to stay here, he wasn't after anything important. After a decent bit of midday drinking, Dean picked up his phone and gave him a call. He got his father's voicemail. He tried two or three more times with the same thing happening each time. He got frustrated and called Sam instead. He didn't pick up either, which made sense because he probably felt his older brother had been snubbing him over petty jealousy. He clicked his phone shut and returned to his inevitable alcoholism.
I can still feel you lean in to kiss me
I can't help but wonder if you ever miss me
NEW MESSAGE
Dean: Sam please answer. I need your help.
Dean: It's about dad.
Dean: Sam please.
Dean: I'm coming to get you.
Those words and Sam's silence were enough to convince Dean he should actually do it. Dad had been gone over a week with no contact besides a scratchy message left in the wee hours of the morning. So he was driving to California in the impala, which was his now. John had given it to him, it had too many bad memories attached. Sometimes Dean felt the same, then he reminded himself that the impala was home, and home needed its heart. So off he went to get his heart back.
That's how he ended up breaking into his brother's apartment in the middle of the night. He could hear Sam clomping down the stairs and see his large shape in the dark. He swung at him and Dean put him on his ass with practiced ease. He made a quip about his brother being out of practice which ended with him on his back looking up at Sam's face. He was three seconds away from kissing him, damn the consequences, when a woman appeared in the doorway. That would be Jess, this was a shared apartment after all. Dean flirted with her in an attempt to irritate his brother. It succeeded wildly. Dean informed his brother that dad was on a hunting trip and hadn't been home in a few days. That was an understatement, it was closer to two weeks now.
Sam's barb about him stumbling home drunk wasn't helping. He wanted to see his brother in private. Sam shooed Jess away with placating words and a calm voice. Dean needed him. He needed his help to find dad. Needed his broken family to be at least slightly mended. He would return Sam to his new apple pie life as soon as he could. Even if whatever they had before was over, if Sam had grown out of it, they could still be together for this.
Sam had a lot of questions. Since when had dad let Dean hunt on his own? When had he last seen him? What was he hunting? Dean answered the best he could as Sam stuffed his worn out duffel into the trunk of the impala. They roared off as he looked back at his apartment unhappily. He had told Jess everything would be okay. He would be back in time for his interview. He loved her and would see her soon. Every word of it a painful lie. He wouldn't see her again. Not alive anyway. Sam would never go back.
That had been years and years ago. It was 2012 now and both brothers had been to heaven and hell, fought angels and demons, lost their father, one had been to purgatory, and yet they always came back to eachother. What they once had was irreparably damaged. Sure there was a scrap of tenderness here and there. A hug, a squeeze of the others hand for safety, even a quick stolen kiss. But their love had been torn apart and put back together wrong. For each loving moment there was a bite, a scratch, bruises, and bodies pushed against walls. A sort of ownership and exclusion of outsiders that was branded on them as if it had been put there by God himself. Knowing the Winchesters, it had.
Dean had just gotten out of purgatory. Had just found out his brother didn't even try to find him. Had tried to play it like that's what Dean would have wanted. For him to leave and have a normal life. And he should have, he should have wanted that for Sam just like he did when he was a teenager. Sam had met another girl. He had a dog and lived in a house. He had dropped everything to see Dean, just got up in the middle of the night and left. It was his brother, what else could he do. He was the one to feel the loss when Dean was in purgatory. Dean was too busy trying to stay alive and find their angel buddy.
But Dean had found out about Sam's other life, and his plans to go back to school. It was just as painful as the first time. Just as painful even after he knew that what they had was broken. That he was no longer his brother's idol. Sam had outgrown him like a childhood toy. That the moment in the light was gone. But how could Sam do it? How could he leave him again. Sam didn't want to, but he saw this as his only chance to have what he wanted. And what he wanted wasn't with Dean. But how could he? You can't have a Dean without a Sam. They were an endangered species. Only two Winchesters left. They had to look out for one another. Close hell forever and then the world would be theirs. They could do anything they wanted to. Sam was unsure of what he should do. And Dean used every trick to keep him. Said things he hadn't said in ages. Things that might not have been true. But mostly he said please, please don't leave.
For me you'll always be eighteen and beautiful
And dancing away with my heart