Yee

“It’s Sam, I’m not a fucking child anymore! And you really think you have a fucking leg to stand on here? Father of the year, right here, huh? Neglecting one son while fucking the other.”

Dean freezes for a second, more from the shock of Sam knowing than the actual words, his eyes, wide, unsure, flickering to Sam, who’s curled so tight Dean’s afraid he’s going to explode any second. Dean instinctively takes a step closer to his father.

“What, you think I don’t know about that fucked-up twisted thing between you two? You haven’t exactly been hiding it well, not for a long time!” Sam rages and behind him, Dean hears John draw in a breath, feels his father's body tensing, and Dean gives him a short look, silent communication – let me handle this -, before turning his attention back to Sam, stepping closer.

“Sammy-,” Dean starts but then doesn’t continue when Sam huffs, a whole-body thing, his shoulders rising, his chest puffing out, eyebrows drawing together as he narrows his eyes.

“Sam,” he corrects, ignoring the sting in his heart at being forced to do so, “whatever you think you know, it’s not-“

“It’s not what, huh, Dean?” Sam interrupts, nostrils flaring. “He’s got his dick so far up your ass, you don’t even know right from wrong anymore! You know there’s more to life than following orders and bending over, right?”

Dean reels back, feels more than sees John move behind him, only manages to turn and bring a hand up to John’s chest in the last second.

“Don’t Dad,” he tries, but John’s eyes are firmly fixed on Sam over Dean’s shoulder, furious, jaw ticking with anger, muscles tense beneath Dean's palm.

“Don’t do something you’ll regret, please, John?” Dean tries again, quieter, putting some pressure into his touch, and John finally tears his gaze away from Sam, eyes softening just a little as looks at Dean.

“Oh, it’s John, now, is it? God, I don’t know who’s more deluded, him for thinking this is okay or you for thinking you actually want this! I’m so sick of both of you!”

Dean recoils at the words, from John, from Sam, and when he finally turns to face his brother, hurt in his eyes, and says ‘c’mon Sammy, you don’t mean that’, so quietly, Sam almost – almost – seems to feel bad, his scowl softening, eyes going wide. It has the opposite effect on John, though, anger flaring, shoulder squaring, as he bellows “You wanna leave so fuckin’ bad, boy? Take your shit and go. Go to Stanford, live a normal life. But you leave now, you don’t come back, you hear me?”

Dean tries his hardest not to flinch, at the words, at the sudden determination in Sam’s eyes.

“Fine by me! You just keep living your backwater hillbilly fantasy, ruin him some more, tell yourself it’s okay. See if I fuckin’ care,” Sam yells back as he shoulders his duffel, slings his backpack over the other shoulder.

“Sam, c’mon,” Dean tries again, hovering uncertainly, itching to stop his brother from leaving but not quite daring to move.

“Sam,” Dean implores when Sam reaches for the door handle and while there’s a slight halt in the movement, it doesn’t stop his brother from opening the door. Dean tenses when fingers curl around his wrist, John’s voice low in his ear a moment later. “Let him go, son. He made his choice.”

Sam doesn’t look back when he walks out, the door falling shut behind him with a heavy thud. The silence feels suffocating, makes Dean swallow against the lump in his throat. John’s fingers are still on his wrist, a light touch that should ground him, would ground him in any other situation, the slight stroke of thumb against his pulse point.

He wrenches his hand free, rubs at the skin as if he could chase John’s touch away. He’s feeling untethered, his whole life upended with the slam of the door, a constant removed, just like that.

“Dean.”

“I need a minute,” Dean manages to choke out, stumbling over the words, stumbling away from the looming presence of his father and out into the dark.

Part of him hopes to find Sam still outside, sitting on the porch, on the curb, but there’s only darkness and rain, cold and damp, and God, he wishes they weren’t staying in this god-forsaken residential area with nothing around them for miles, wishes he was at a motel, a truck stop, somewhere with a bar around.

But here, there’s nothing, no people, no bar, no Sam. Just trees, a rotting porch and darkness. He sinks down on the steps of the porch, the rain only hitting his shoes and legs, fat drops that soak through his jeans.

He couldn’t care less.

He takes a deep breath, releases it again in a shudder, his breath forming a cloud in the cold. He wonders if Sam really meant it, if he’s really sick of them to the point where he can’t even stand being around them anymore. If the boy he’d raised, the boy he’d carried out of their burning home on unsteady feet, can’t look him in the eye anymore, can’t accept what living this life has made of their family.

And Dean knows he should feel bad about what he's doing with John, for loving his father too much, that it’s dirtybadwrong for anyone who doesn’t know this life, their circumstances, how Dean has always been more of a partner than a son.

Sam knows all of this, first hand, and he still doesn’t understand. Doesn’t want to understand.

It hurts more than anything ever has, claws at his insides, makes him feel raw and ripped open and he quickly runs a hand over his face when his eyes well up. He’s not going to cry, not over this.

Fuck Sam and his high and mighty attitude, he thinks, and his brain cheers, but his heart keeps aching regardless.

The door opens, closes softly, heavy footsteps that stop just behind him.

“It’s raining,” John says as he sinks down beside Dean on the steps, the old wood creaking ominously under their combined weight.

“Yeah,” Dean mutters, keeping his eyes on the ground, the patchy grass in the front yard, the muddy puddles forming in the spaces between.

They sit in silence for a while and Dean lets John’s presence soothe his nerves, lets his warmth seep into him where their shoulders touch. He’s thankful, for once, that they don’t talk about shit like feelings. They are Winchesters after all, stoic and focused, with no room for something as pesky as emotions.

Dean releases a shaky breath when a big hand settles heavily at the back of his neck, squeezing softly. He bites his lip against the tears surging up again, the sharp point of pain enough to keep them at bay. “C’mon, back inside.” The low rumble of John’s voice is comforting, something that bypasses his brain and goes straight to relaxing his body.

“Yeah,” he breathes, soft, as he follows John in rising, grimacing at the feel of wet jeans sticking to his legs. It’s uncomfortable, like the whole evening has been. And he’s so ready for it to be over, for all of this to be over, for John and him to get into the Impala and just drive, hunting whatever comes their way and forget about Sam.

Not tonight though. John has been drinking, he can smell it on him when he follows him inside, their shit isn’t packed and it’s coming down in sheets outside. Tonight, they are not going anywhere. Tonight, they are stuck here, in this ramshackle house with the memory of Sam haunting the space.

“We’ll leave in the morning,” John says, as if reading his mind, and Dean is glad he doesn’t need to ask for this, doesn’t need to ask to get away from this place.

He follows John up the stairs, to the bedrooms, where they each had their own, a rare luxury. John doesn’t say anything when Dean hovers in the door to his room, doesn’t ask for him to join him in John’s, doesn’t push.

“Night,” is the only thing he says, quietly, before he disappears into the bedroom, leaving Dean alone in the hall. Dean’s eyes linger on the door across from his, the room where Sam slee- used to sleep, and his teeth dig into his lip again, the flesh already sore, the pain a welcome distraction.

His bedroom is dark safe for a sliver of moonlight through the curtain, finding its way between heavy cloud as the rain momentarily lets up. He sinks onto the edge of the bed with a sigh, toes off his boots, then peels the wet jeans down his legs. His calves are clammy, cold, and he shivers in the cool air, mind still whirling.

Did Sam really hate him that much for finding comfort, love in his life? Did he really think he-

Dean clamps down on the thought, forces it back. Fuck Sam. The thought is foreign, forced, leaves a bad taste in his mouth.

He strips out of the rest of his clothes, slips into his sleep shirt, one of John’s old USMC shirts that still hangs long on his frame.

He eyes his bed, the lumpy pillow, the ugly comforter with the stupid roses.

It’s not even a conscious decision to leave his room, pad down the hall to the door that’s left slightly ajar. “Dad?”

There’s rustling in the dark, like John’s turning over to face the door.

“C’mere,” John says, one hand lifting the sheets for Dean to climb in. Dean hovers for just a second before crossing the distance and sliding under the sheets, fitting himself to John’s body until he can’t tell anymore when one ends and the other begins.

It reminds him of simpler times, when he was just a boy, climbing into his dad’s bed to escape a bad dream, letting his father hold him until his mind quieted down.

There’s a hand softly running through his hair now, the other resting just lightly on his belly. It’s warm and comfortable and familiar and for the first time since Sam had whipped out that stupid envelope, Dean begins to relax.