(coda to s4e6: “yellow fever”)
Dean doesn’t mean to actually come out and ask it.
“Do you like me?”
The question had been bubbling and brewing in Dean’s skull since they left town. It had left his head aching like the excoriations on his forearm left by his own fingernails. The dark car and long road had only given him time to stew.
Sam doesn’t even look up from his book.
“No,” he says. “You’re an asshole.”
Dean takes it on the chin. He nods, slowly, swallowing heavily. Yeah, he thinks, that’s fair.
It hurts like a sonovabitch, but yeah. That’s fair.
"Yeah." He says, and wants to kick himself for how pinched it sounds. He leans over and changes the channel. Soft rock isn't doing it for him anymore, and if he hears Dave Grohl for one more second he's going to scream.
Especially post-Hell, Dean knows he's not a fucking picnic.
But Sam's made it clear as young as twelve that he didn't like Dean very much at all. If time were money, Sam would prefer to spend his elsewhere.
Dean's not why he thought twelve years and a hell of a lot of baggage later, Sam would change his mind.
The radio clicks off. Dean jolts a little, surprised, and looks over to see Sam with his book closed in his lap and a frown on his face. He looks troubled about something, and Dean reaches back to the radio.
"Okay, fine, no '80s. You don't gotta--"
"What?" Sam asks, but it doesn't really sound like a question.
Dean reaches for the radio again, but Sam bumps his hand out of the way with his own. Dean just blinks at him, turning back to look at the road every few seconds. Sam looks annoyingly thoughtful, like he's stripping Dean down for parts.
"No, what was that?" Sam asks, "You got all weird."
Dean scoffs. "What?" He says, "No."
But yeah he got fucking weird. What the hell else is he supposed to be when his worst fears are confirmed? Okay, Days of Our Lives, calm down. When his worst suspicions are confirmed.
Sam doesn't look convinced--in fact, he looks unhappy--so Dean continues. Time to get this out of weird emotional territory. One asshole, annoying older brother, coming right up.
"I didn't get weird. Your face is weird." Dean says. Sam's frown deepens.
"Ask it again.” Sam says. Dean ignores him, finally giving up on the radio when Sam presses his fingers against the radio to block all of the controls. Dean puts both of his hands on the steering wheel, sighing. “Why did you ask me that?"
“Why did I ask you what, Sam?” Dean’s eyes never leave the road. They’re on a genuine interstate, and they blow past a semi in the right lane. A sports car that’s been trailing Dean for the past fifty miles finally pulls off.
“Didn’t mean anything by it. Let it go.” Dean says, when Sam’s petulant, insistent silence—and his narrowed eyes on the side of Dean’s face—finally eats at him.
A loaded pause, and Dean can already tell Sam is not letting this go.
“Do I like you?” Sam repeats. “What do you mean?”
Dean’s tenses, a full-body cringe that makes him want to launch himself out of the car and onto the interstate. He’s quiet for a beat longer, but Sam has turned all of his bone-melting attention his way, so Dean sees no way out of this one.
“I mean, y’know, you’re my little brother so…that’s whatever,” Dean waffles, feeling uncomfortably bashful at saying the actual “L” word, because this isn’t an after-school special goddamnit, “But do you actually like me? As, y’know a person? A guy? Back in Rock Ridge…you never answered.”
In Sam’s defense, Dean had spat a whole bunch of other shit at him about their jobs being dangerous and Sam being gassy, but Sam’s lack of answer had really been eating him.
It’s skin-peelingly insecure to ask. Agonizingly earnest.
Dean’s positive it’s the curse, still fading away in his veins. He’d seen splashes of yellow in Sam’s irises until they’d crossed state lines, and Dean still feels all squirmy and antsy inside, like something is gnawing at his gut.
Dean would blow his brains out before he’d ask this normally. But…god. It had been writhing inside of him, and even though the complete humiliation of asking burns behind his eyes, it’s a relief to get it out.
“Dean, pull the car over.”
Dean’s head snaps to the side, where Sam is looking forward again. He gestures at a rest stop coming up in two miles, mouth in a thin line.
“What? No!” Dean sputters. “It’s not a big deal, man, forget it.”
His heartbeat roars in his ears. Is Sam going to tuck and roll? Does he want to have this conversation where he can yell at Dean face-to-face? Is he afraid Dean’s going to yank the steering wheel into a guardrail if he doesn’t give Dean the answer he wants?
Sam has a weird expression on his face that Dean can’t quite parse out, given he can only see half of it.
“Pull over.” Sam says, firmer, and—okay, maybe Sam is onto something about Dean crashing the car and killing himself. Dean puts the blinker on with a stone in his gut.
He soars over the smooth pavement of the off ramp with the white-hot, leaden weight of mortification making it hard to breathe.
They pull into the parking lot, and the only other car there is made brown by the yellow, watery light from the street lamps.
Dean parks as far away from it as possible, and in front of a square of grass in case Sam wants to flail his arms while he’s telling Dean off for being a child. The shift into park sounds like dislocating a finger.
They sit in heavy silence for a long moment, and keeps his mouth fully shut. He’s said enough insane shit for one night, thanks.
Sam turns on the seat, so he’s facing Dean with his body.
“I’m only going to say this once, yeah?” Sam says, and Dean closes his eyes briefly. I know you’re lying to me. I hear you crying in your sleep. Ruby heard what you did in Hell. How could you? How can I like being around someone I can’t even trust? You’re disgusting.
So it’s a surprise when Sam says, “I don’t know if this is about Jack and Luther, or the curse still lingering, or if this is about the stuff you’re clearly not ready to tell me, and that’s fine.” Sam huffs a laugh. “But Dean. C’mon.”
He says it so lightly, like Dean’s a fucking idiot. Dean looks over at Sam, indignation and surprise warring to win out. Sam is…smiling. It’s soft and cautious, like he knows Dean’s two seconds away from opening the door and running.
“You’re my best friend.” Sam says, as soft as anything. “Yeah. I like you, man.”
Dean’s throat is uncomfortably tight. He kind of wants to burst into hysterical relieved sobbing. He kind of wants to rip his own fingernails out.
Dean doesn’t want to point out that he’s Sam’s only friend. Besides Ruby. Or Bobby. Or those kids from Stanford. Or whoever he hunted with while Dean was gone. So you know what, yeah, maybe Dean is Sam’s best friend.
Best friend. Dean’s rarely—if ever—been anyone’s best friend. He’s been a son and a brother and a good kid, but he never stuck around long enough to be someone’s best friend.
The title feels wieldy, significant. The battered, shaking, besieged Little Dean that’s been trapped behind Dean’s sternum for the past few days collapses to his knees, relieved.
Dean is Sam’s best friend.
He wants to say it back, because duh, Sam is kind of Dean’s whole…thing. Person. Shtick. But actually opening his mouth and saying You’re my best friend too feels uncomfortably juvenile and chick-lit, and the words get caught in his throat.
“Oh.” He murmurs. His face feels hot. “Okay. You’re um. Yeah.”
“Yeah, I know.” Sam says, genuinely laughing this time, and Dean flips him off. He can feel the tips of his ears burn.
“Oh shaddup.” Dean mutters. He shifts the car into drive, avoiding Sam’s gaze. His chest feels lighter than it has in days, despite the humiliation still making his cheeks pink. “Let’s never talk about this again, yeah?”
Sam scoffs a little laugh as they pull back onto the interstate, and leans over to croon,
“You don’t want me to pet your hair and tell you how much I looooove you? How much you’re my wery faworite pewson ever?”
Dean shoves at Sam’s shoulder half-heartedly, and Sam sways out of his personal space and back into his seat, laughing the whole way.
“Bitch.” Dean rolls his eyes. Sam’s still giggling when he responds,
“Jerk.”
Dean can’t help it. He smiles all the way to Iowa.
