Chapter Text
Dean’s 18 years old and in crammed into the back of the car like a kid. He should be sitting in the front seat. Hell, he should be driving. But John’s a man with a mission and they’re not stopping tonight. No crappy yet stationary motel waiting in the dark. Just the leather seats for a bed, and the growl of the engine and the hum of the tires on the road for a lullaby. Nothing they have done a thousand times before. But Sammy couldn't sleep. He wanted Dean to come in the back with him, wants to use Dean as a pillow.
Sam is relentless when he wants something.
It’s too hot in the car for Sam’s blanket, a crocheted thing he stole from some rental house a few years ago, but Sam wants the damn blanket, so Dean spreads it over him, tugging it up to Sam’s shoulders. Dean's arm is stretched out across the bench seat, and Sam’s head is heavy on his thigh. The heat from Sam’s body radiates down Dean’s leg and into his stomach as Sam head-butts him, twisting as he tries to get comfortable. His face slides against Dean’s leg, breath warm and moist when his mouth drags across the denim. Dean lets his hand drop off the seatback and grabs Sam by the hair, lifting his head up a millimeter.
“Dude. Stop freakin’ wiggling.” He uses his handhold in Sam’s hair to give Sam’s head a light shake.
Sam whines, not opening his eyes. “Can’t get comfortable.” At 14, Sam is in the middle of yet another growth spurt. Wide as the Impala is, he still has to bend his body to lie on the seat, and his knees brush against the driver’s seat. “Back hurts.” A particularly strong wiggle pushes his knees hard into John’s back.
“Sam,” John says warningly. Dean looks up, catching his father’s eyes in the rear view mirror. By necessity, Dean is fluent in spoken and unspoken John Winchester and in those eyes he reads, Deal with this. Make it go away.
Dean holds in the sigh pressing against his lips. Sam’s the sigher. That kid can say more with his breath than most people can with words. Still with his hands in Sam’s hair, he turns Sam’s head up to catch his eye. He tilts his head ever so slightly towards John, shakes it a hair right and left. Sam raises one eyebrow. Message received. Eyes dark, catching sparks from the headlights of passing cars, Sam holds Dean’s gaze and shifts the tiniest bit, tugging up the blanket, knees almost, almost, touching the front seat. My back, he mouths. John’s shoulders are tense, knuckles whitening as his hands clenched and unclench around the steering wheel.
Dean turns until he is sitting with his back half against the door and half against the seat. He slides Sam up further onto his lap before reaching his arm across the top of the bench seat. Sam pushes his feet against the other door, slowly sliding across Dean until his head is pillowed by both thighs, arm tucked around Dean’s side. Dean feels the weight of him, heavy and warm, between his legs. Sam is still fucking squirming, rubbing his head gently into Dean’s crotch, silently bending and unbending his legs just enough to almost, but not quite, touch his father’s seat. Dean can feel Sam’s eyes on him, can feel the challenge. But he just tilts his head back against the door, neck stretched out, eyes closed and hand gripped tightly on the seat back. His other hand rests on the front seat, fingers tapping restlessly, an arrhythmic tattoo.
“Deeean,” Sam whispers, drawing it out long and low, body tense across Dean’s lap, arm tight around Dean's back.
Exhaling, deeply but silently, Dean drops his hand down until it rests on Sam’s hip. Maybe that will be enough for Sam tonight. Sam’s body softens against Dean’s, but the air in the car is still close, tense with something unnamed, and both Sam and John seem to be holding their breath. Sam’s hip shifts under Dean’s hand, threatening more movement. Sam is always more willing then Dean to stir the embers of their father’s lightly-banked anger. This is Sam’s trump card; a game of chicken Dean will never win.
“Okay, Sammy. Okay.” Dean slides his hand under the blanket. With one practiced move, Dean’s thumb pushes Sam’s t-shirt up and he slips his fingers under the waistband of his jeans. His hand spans Sam’s hip from front to back. Sam’s skin is slick with sweat in the hot air trapped under the blanket, and the feel of it is more familiar to Dean than his own. “Go to sleep.” Dean squeezes and releases his grip on Sam, feeling the sharpness of the bone against his palm, feeling his fingers slot into the grooves above and below it as if Sam’s body had been carved just for Dean’s to lock into.
Sam sighs one of his contended sighs. “Night, Dean. Night, Dad.” His hand slips under Dean's t-shirt, fingers hooking over his jeans. Dean can feel the hangnails where Sam has chewed his cuticles raw.
“Night, Sam,” John’s voice rumbles from the dark of the front seat.
Dean closes his eyes. John will be looking back now, checking on them. That's a book Dean doesn’t want to read. And he sure as shit doesn’t want John reading whatever he might see in Dean’s eyes right now. Dean throws his free arm across his face, blocking out the world, as his fingers caress his little brother’s soft skin.
Sam is relentless when he wants something.
And what Sam wants is Dean.
Dean knows. Has known for a while now. He’s pretty sure John knows, too, but Dean isn’t thinking about that.
Dean's not sure how much Sam understands yet of this inchoate desire, this flood of want that threatens to drown them all. Sammy just wants without knowing what exactly he wants.
What does Dean want? Well, that is the question, isn’t it?