When you woke up you spent a moment confused by your surroundings – orange light filtered in through the blinds, casting your room behind some grainy and fiery film. Your covers were damp and twisted around your feet and you wondered what time it was.
You knew you'd had a nightmare because you could still feel the imprint of dried sweat haloed on your pillow, but you couldn't remember any of it.
The sink was running in the kitchen. Loud, ungraceful steps were moving loudly through the hallway outside. Sam, you thought, wondering how he'd gotten into your house, when he was all the way out West.
Then – oh – you remembered. You unfurled your fist and watched your fingertips flood with pink. Sam, you thought. He'd come back.
You rolled over to stare up at the ceiling and listen to him rummaging through drawers, flipping through channels on the TV. You could almost imagine it as it was years ago, those boozy, soft afternoons after getting up, with Sam sitting at the couch with his long skinny legs folded around him and his nose buried in a book while you played dominos and drank at the table, sweating bullets in the summer heat.
You finally summoned the strength to climb out of bed and go brush your teeth when the taste of your mouth got unbearable.
When you were done, you went to the kitchen. Sam was there, his top half buried in the fridge as he rummaged for food.
"Hey, you're awake," he said, his voice muffled.
"Mm," you grumbled back.
He withdrew slowly from the fridge, straightening up and pushing his hair back out of his face. "All you've got in there is catsup and a jar of olives."
"Yeah, yeah," you said. "What time s'it?"
Sam frowned. "Four o'clock."
"Shit," you said. "PM?"
"Yeah."
"Shit," you said again. "You hungry?"
He nodded. "I ate some sandwich you had in the fridge for breakfast."
"Fuck, dude," you said, "That's old. You're gonna get food poisoning."
"Hell," Sam shrugged. "Well, I'm hungry again."
"You're always fucking hungry," you added, and even though you hadn't meant to say it out loud Sam laughed so wide you could see his sharp teeth. You remembered he had dimples now.
"Alright, alright," he said, in good humor and you knew from this he couldn't have been awake last night. You felt both awash in relief and like you'd been punched in the kidneys too.
"Here," you went to the drawer and pulled out your wallet. You shoved him a ten and told him to go pick up some of those McMuffins from the Mickey D's down the street.
"S'not breakfast anymore," Sam said. "They don't serve them."
"Fuck," you said. "Well, whatever then. Burgers. Just go before I starve to death."
"Fine," he said, mock-saluting you and heading out the front door with a loud bang. You listened to his heavy steps rattle down the front porch.
While he was gone, you changed the channel on the TV away from what Sam had left it on – The Bold and the Beautiful, you noted, laughing to yourself – and took off your old t-shirt, leaving just a white undershirt beneath that was sticky with sweat. Then you went through all the rooms turning on the fans and opening the windows, but the air seemed too thick and heavy to be moved at all. You splashed water on your face as a last resort.
You went to get the mail and bumped into the young housewife who lived next door to you. She was wearing jean shorts and a skinny tank-top with no bra.
"Hi, Dean," she said. You wondered how she knew your name but said hello back anyways.
"Good, good," she said. Her husband was in Fallujah. Second tour.
"Ah," you said. "I see."
"The baby misses him," she went on. "You should come over some times."
"Yes," you said. "Some time."
"Just come knock on my door," she said. "We don't go out much."
"Okay," you said.
You said your goodbyes and went back inside. You stood at the counter underneath the biggest ceiling fan in the house and sorted your mail.
"Hey!" you heard the door open.
You turned around and Sam was here and setting a bag of food on the table.
"Ta-dah!" he said.
"Finally," you set down the mail and went to the table.
Sam dug through the bag and tossed you one burger. "I got fries," he said.
"Damn straight," you said. "So I don't have to kill you."
"Like you could even," he scoffed.
He puffed up and tried to loom over you but you waved him off.
"I'm taller than you now," he said.
"Still could beat your ass, bitch," you said.
He sagged and pinched his face. "Jerk."
Then his face smoothed out and his mouth slowly spread into a wide smile. You felt yourself mirroring that smile and turned away. You unwrapped your burger and crammed it into your mouth to stop yourself.
Sam hopped up onto the counter and rubbed his hands together. "Fine then," he said. You handed him his burger. Sam drenched all the fries in ketchup and it was annoying as always but you found you didn't mind really.
"How'd you sleep?" you asked.
"Fine," he said, then with mock-outrage, "Thanks for leaving me on the couch."
"You don't expect me to carry your giant ass to bed, do you?" you said. "It's too far."
Sam was staying in the guest bedroom. Dad was gone for now, so of course that room was free, but still. You had expected Sam to move back into your room, like you'd shared as teenagers. You had been excited to get him to fill the other bed, the room always seeming unbalanced and listing to one side when he was gone.
"The guest room isn't that far," he defended.
"Whatever," you said, trying not to sound resentful. "You picked it."
He shrugged and took a bite out of his burger.
You ate in silence. Then you said, "Do you want to go watch a movie or something today?"
He looked up and shrugged. "Maybe. What's out?"
"There's that one with that actress you liked," you said, "She was in that one other movie, do you remember, that we watched – I don't know – couple years ago? It was about this girl that gets kidnapped?"
"Yeah, yeah, I know what you mean," he said.
"So you wanna?" you asked.
"Uh," his shoulders straightened into a hard line. "No, it's okay."
"Sam?"
"I want to stay home," he said into his burger. "I'm kinda tired."
"C'mon," you said. "You gotta get out."
You put down your burger and went forward to put your hand on his shoulder and he fell away from your touch. Very casually, but you got the message. Slowly, you pulled back.
"No," he said. "Sorry."
"It's fine," you said.
He shook his head. "Look, I just don't feel up to it."
You stood and stared at him – his flat pale round eyes, and his mouth white around the corners. He was the same color as those bleached and washed-out aluminum trailers you'd lived in as children.
"C'mon," you repeated. "You've got to get out. That's the only way-"
The only way what? You stopped yourself. You didn't know shit about it – moving on, normalcy. You were no ways an expert, least of all when it concerned the two of you. Hah. That'd be laughable.
Sam looked up at you like he knew what you were thinking. He gave you a tired smile.
"We don't have to go out to the movies," you said weakly. "We can go drinking or something. Find you a girl, right?"
He shook his head. You turned away.
"Fine," you said. "We'll stay here. Watch some TV or something."
You finished your burgers in silence and then got up and moved over to the couch. Sam switched the TV back to The Bold and the Beautiful and you watched that until the episode ended and another started. You didn't say anything, barely paying attention to the program, but as far as you could tell, Allison had stolen her sister's husband and now she was pregnant with his test-tube baby twins. The twins might be born with Down syndrome and Allison was worried.
"It-" Sam startled you when he started to speak. "It's just strange to be back."
No, you thought. You didn't want to hear his explanation. You didn't want to know how ashamed and indignant and reluctant he felt to be here. Back in Oklahoma, back with you. His words, always Sam's weapons of choice, revealed everything you tried to convince yourself of otherwise.
You looked over and he was picking at the thread on his t-shirt sleeve. His voice was cultivated and controlled. "I don't know what to do with myself. It's so strange, to be back and I never thought. I didn't think I'd be here again."
He looked back up at the TV, sitting with his arm crumpled to his chest like a broken wing.
"I don't want to get too comfortable," he said, avoiding your eyes. "It's better to be careful. That's it."
"Yeah, sure," you said, hiding your fist in the couch cushions. "Sure."
"Yeah?" he said.
"Mm," you lied.
Your brother always had a way of seeing through you, but only now did you see him and his intentions and unlike the time before – the blindside a year ago that left you reeling – now you knew for sure as sure as you knew the sky was blue, that he was planning to leave you again. His words cracked open and you could for once see the rottenness inside.
Suddenly, you wanted to touch his heart and make it feel like yours. You wanted to fill it with your impotent rage and frustration and desperate lonely weakness. You wanted to kill something, kill him.
And you were angry at yourself too, for daring to dream that maybe you could convince him to stay. That you held such power – you, Dean Winchester – you could hold Sam here, away from his life in California. That you were important enough that he would want to. Your insides were trembling and boiling, you felt near to breathing fire.
Then Sam laughed, nervously, breaking something brittle and hot in the air.
"Not to be emo," he said, raising his eyebrows, giving you the opening.
You blinked, allowing your anger to ebb away. In its place, you felt empty, but this. This you could do, you reassured yourself.
"You're always emo, bitch," you said airily, jabbing him in the ribs with one socked foot.
He looked out at you from the corner of his eye, a small smile pulling at his mouth. "Jerk."
You held in a sigh. This was easy, this familiar routine. You trained your eyes on the TV but you weren't even sure what you were watching anymore, if it was the same episode or there was another one or if it was a different show altogether.
Fallujah, you thought. The housewife next door who knew your name even though you didn't know hers. Preemptive war. You considered your options. You convinced yourself you had options at all.
Then a couch cushion out of the blue arced through the air towards you. You froze and it bounced off your face and landed softly in your lap. You looked up and saw Sam grinning lopsidedly at you from the other end of the couch, not even pretending to be innocent.
An apology. A peace offering.
You remembered the scene of him leaving, and the crushing aftermath. You knew it would come again.
But his lopsided smile.
"That's it, fucker," you grinned, picking up the cushion and swinging it at him. He shrieked and rolled away from you.
You followed him, scrambling across the carpet. He uprooted another cushion and used it as a shield from your assaults. His war cries echoed in your ears.
"Say uncle!" you shouted.
He landed a good counterstrike with his cushion and gave you the muffled reply, "Eat shit!"
You struggled on the floor, wrestling like kids, arms reaching around the cushions to get at each other by hand. His short nails scrabbled at your chest, his arms flailing out at you, refusing to admit defeat. You gasped and threw out your hip but didn't surrender.
Sam started laughing so hard his face was red and his throws were getting weaker. Finally, he just dropped his cushion and curled into the ground, laughing hysterically and not even defending himself.
"Shut up," you huffed, flopping back onto the floor.
When you caught your breath, you put the cushions back onto the couch and Robocop 2 into the VCR. Sam made fun of the fact you still had – and used – a VCR, and you told him shut up and drink his beer before you beat his ass again with a pillow.
"Yeah, yeah," he said. "You can try, old man."
"Watch it," you said, threatening to give him the worst wedgie of his life if he brought that moment up again. You weren't old at all and the hip thing was a fluke, you told him.
Sam laughed again, covering his face with his hands.
Your heart beat once. Then twice.
After getting fired from the video store, you briefly got work at a construction site where an old military buddy of your dad was the foreman.
"Your pop saved my life in 'Nam," said the old buddy. "It's the least I can do."
Your standing with him afforded you some leeway at work and you took longer smoke breaks and piss breaks than anybody else. And it wasn't a bad gig, anyway; it was mindless and tiring work and you got to sleep easier at nights without any booze. Well, much booze.
Your second week on the job, you found an old high school friend of yours named C.J. Allman worked at the construction site too, operating the crane. C.J. and you used to ditch fourth period to sit on the wall between the pool and the baseball field and smoke cigarettes and after you dropped out you'd always sort of regretted not seeing him around more.
"Hey, after work," he said, slapping your back with a dusty gloved hand, "Why don't we go get a beer or two?"
"Last time we got drunk together I got suspended from school for a week," you said but still you went with him to a tavern nearby.
Some guy there was buying everybody rounds and you sat down at the bar just as somebody set a free beer in front of you. You grinned at your luck and C.J. looped his arm around your neck and said, "You know after you left school, I dropped out too."
"No shit," you said.
"Yeah, I got my girl pregnant," C.J. shrugged. "She's Catholic, so we had to keep it, and then her father damn near ripped my balls off saying we better get married-"
At this he waved his hand in front of your face and you noticed for the first time a gold band on his ring finger.
"And so now we've got three little ones," he said. "Little fucking devils, but what can you do?"
You shrugged.
"Yeah," he sighed. "Old lady harps on me sometimes, always thinking I'm out cheating on her, but it's not so bad. Fuck that, y'know? I bought a drum at an estate sale up in OKC and I'm thinking of starting a band. Hey, you play an instrument, Dean?"
"No," you said.
"Fuck," he said. "That's too bad. Well if you want in, just say the word. Bryce Johnson - you know Bryce Johnson, he works at the pet shop - is playing bass. And y'know, I really think we got something good starting, I can feel it. We just got to get started with a couple local gigs, maybe down in Ardmore."
"Started to what?" you said.
C.J. hooted. "Fame and fortune, baby! We just hafta get lucky and get some attention, maybe get noticed by some talent scout, and we could get really famous, y'know? We could even go to Nashville, or L.A. or something. We could be rockstars. Damn, that would be good, huh?"
You didn't say anything.
C.J. shook his head, "We'd get so much pussy out there. Pussy and money – damn, that's all you need, huh?"
"Shit, yeah," you had to agree.
You drank some more. The bartender offered you and C.J. ten bucks if you would kick out a rowdy drunk who seemed to be a regular.
The drunk's name was Earl.
"Fuck off, pansies," he slurred at you, trying to swing at you through blurry vision and missing by a mile.
C.J. chuckled and practically picked the guy up by his collar and the seat of his pants (it looked like something out of a cartoon) and chucked him out onto the sidewalk. Some people in the bar clapped and C.J. turned around and bowed like he'd just stuck a landing in gymnastics at the goddamn Olympics.
That night you went home and when you woke up hung-over you were nearly late to work. C.J. didn't come in at all and at the end of the day you heard he got fired for missing the day. You felt bad, but didn't see him again.