Chapter Text
There was not much to pack and bring from where Sam comes from. The taxi leaves after the bills passed through its window. In this unknown city, in this unknown street, Sam feels closer to being alive than he has for the past few months. Duffel bag easy on his shoulder, he searches the correct number. As soon as he sees Her, he doesn't need to anymore.
One deep inhale of dusty, moist air and courage, and Sam allows his fingers to slide over the Impala's paint. She hasn't lost one single bit of her beauty since the last time he's seen her. Dean takes care of her really well. It's not like Sam would have expected any different from his little brother - the kid could barely count to ten but knew exactly how to change gears. Sam has to smile at a flash of memory back to tooth fairy lies and Cap'n Crunch for breakfast, lunch and dinner; and always Dean's bright smile, always his smile.
The steps towards the door get harder and harder until he's suddenly reached it. Sam doesn't know what to do except for staring at the doorbell. In his mind, every scenario has passed already; the worst and the best. Most times the worst though, because, if he is honest, that's more likely to happen, isn't it? He braced himself for this moment since the second he decided to leave all those years ago, but not even a lifetime of preparation could make this any easier.
A deep breath, another. He raises his arm, lets it sink again. He fumbles with the seam of his jeans, the straps of his bag. Shakes his head, inhales - rings the bell.
He doesn't move, doesn't take a polite step backwards so Dean won't bump into him when he opens the door. No, he has to stay right here, exactly here where he can listen for movement inside the house, can hear his little brother when he still doesn't know Sam is here, right here on his doorstep, so close. Sam can feel his heartbeat in the tips of his fingers, in his teeth.
Heavy steps, more shuffling than anything else. There is no name on neither the mailbox nor above the bell, but these sounds alone assure Sam that this is his brother somewhere inside there. A voice now, talking to itself, cursing. Sam isn't familiar with the bass in it and wonders when it was earned; at fifteen, sixteen, seventeen? In his mind, Dean grew up in every thinkable way, fast or slow, could be a giant like him or still those four feet one on gangly, bowed legs.
There's a curtain hiding both sides of the door from each other and Sam couldn't be any more grateful for it. He pinches his eyes closed, hard, forces whatever there is back into his skull, curls his fingers against his leg and looks straight forward right in time with his brother pulling the door open with an "About time, man" and his eyes not at the right level to meet Sam's.
Sam takes it in then, the stutter in Dean's entire body, the realization that Sam is not whoever he expected; then that something is wrong, that this is something important, without knowing what it is exactly - until his eyes zigzag upwards and then lock with Sam's. He freezes then, eyes neither wide nor squinted, as if too fazed to even react.
Dean blinks, once, twice. Sam looks down at him in silence, doesn't move a muscle, doesn't even breathe. His heart might have stopped and he wouldn't have noticed.
I'm back! - Hi! - Hey Dean. - Dean. - Knock knock; who's there? - I'm so sorry. - Please let me explain. - Dean, please.
No car rushes by and the more busy streets are too far away to hear. No wind blows through the old oaks framing the street. Maybe the world came to a stop. Maybe someone finally convinced it that there is no use in turning and turning and turning.
"... What is it?"
Sam tried everything a thousand times, in different tones and with different expressions; in cold weather, in warm, on a fourth of July, during Christmas Eve, three pm, one am. Every mental scenario ended how Sam knows he deserves it: with a stone of an expression and a rammed-close door in his face. He has nothing to offer.
Dean's knuckles are white over the bulge of the doorknob. The hint of a frown slips over his forehead, right underneath the tight ropes of his control. "Why now?"
One hand's width, maybe three, and those used to mean nothing to them - and maybe their bodies remember. Maybe this is everything that lets Sam move, gives him the strength to reach out and pull Dean into his arms, right into his chest where his brother belongs, where Sam needed him and where he knows Dean needed to be. Maybe this is everything that keeps Dean from crushing Sam's nose with his fist, everything that weakens him to the point where he cannot not return the clasp of their bodies, to fit into that space that has always been for him, and he fits, still fits right there.
They hold on to each other for a long moment. Breath is back in their chests, fast and thin, but it's there. Sam's chest is too wide and Dean's hair is too dark. Both of them smell wrong, not like old leather and gunpowder and blood that doesn't wash out.
But they are still them. They are still brothers. Another heart against the side the own one isn't in, a beat for every time the other takes a leap.
When they eventually peel off of each other, their knees feel unable to support them.
"It's good to see you," Sam says. He can't let go of Dean's shoulders, the warmth underneath, skin and flesh and life and Dean.
Dean stares at his fingers that span on his brother's chest, the too-rough cotton of too-new t-shirt. After a while, he sniffles, rubs his palms outwards and over Sam's shoulders, as if he was measuring him. Which he is. The last time he leaned into this chest, it belonged to someone entirely different. "Can't believe you grew even more."
The laughter is freeing and the smile that follows overflows with gratitude. "You look good."
For the first time in months, the corners of Dean's mouth don't feel too tired to pick themselves up for as much as a half of a glorious inch. "Fuck," he whispers as he slides his hands off Sam, now takes a step back, makes Sam flinch with it - but rolls his shoulders back, looks his big brother up and down, shakes his head with what could be a breath of laughter.
Dean grabs the doorknob and does the unimaginable.
"C'mon in."
Sam breathes out and steps inside.
It's like a dream, and maybe he is dreaming. Dean's shoulder brushes Sam's arm when he squeezes past him to lead the way to wherever he wants Sam to be. Sam would follow him anywhere.
Sparse lights, chipped wood. The walls have seen better days while the floor misses several planks. On a polished walnut side table with golden fittings, a ceramic bowl holds Baby's keys as well as a wide assortment of others. When they leave the steps behind, a toolbox and what looks like cases for parts of a machine saw or something similarly big sits in a corner together with those missing planks.
The kitchen looks better overall, even if only because the tiles are brand new and an old cupboard, a giant fridge and a ridiculously overflowing table are the single three items in the entire room.
Sam watches Dean retrieve two bottles from the fridge, zeros in on the casual uncapping his little brother executes with a broad silver ring on his right hand. There's a little shake to them that Sam would smile about if he wasn't so clumsy himself about reaching for the outstretched bottle.
They drink their first thirds in silence, Dean with his back against the fridge and Sam in the middle of the room, on display. This is Dean's house. He will make the calls. Sam allows his eyes to wander eventually, finds a garden beyond those windows; a little wild, a little scary. A perfect match to this house. A perfect match to what seems to have become of his little brother.
"Yours?"
"Since May. Yeah."
May. Five months ago. "You did this? The tiles?"
"An' the porch. An' the bathrooms. Yeah."
"Wow," Sam breathes. "You've been busy."
Dean's eyes haven't left him for a second. "Not everybody's born for college, I guess."
Silence. Sam keeps his eyes far away. When loneliness was too heavy on him, he used to search trees for that one shade of green that would bring him home.
"I cannot undo what I did," Sam eventually says. He makes a pause, waits for that explosion, for that punch, that kick; anything. Nothing comes. Sam's exhale vibrates with the violent churn of his insides. "But I am here now."
Another silence. The trees bare no refuge for Sam, not under Dean's eyes, so he turns to stand against them.
Dean looks old over his beer, his crossed arms; older than the twenty-two years Sam knows he carries. He knew this would come. He has been haunted by exactly this for too many nights to be shocked, but never enough nights not to wish to be able to turn back time.
"Yeah, you are. Right fuckin' there."
Sam wants to return to that doorstep, into Dean's hair, into those arms around his back. He could spend the rest of his life there, he thinks.
"So what?" Dean's teeth grind. He tries to keep them glued together hard, so hard, but it won't stop squirming inside of him. "You're here, and so what, Sam? Now we can hug and smile and throw a fuckin' barbecue? You think you can just, just- turn up on my doorstep an' expect me to- to-"
"I'm not asking anything of you."
"Yeah, an' you better fuckin' not!" A hasty gulp, three. The cold burns his throat in the most disgusting way. Dean pushes it down, down; rubs his eyes, mouth. "Fuck."
Nobody speaks. There is too much to say and too little room, too little patience to even start with the first letter. Dean feels every single one of his muscles contracting and releasing, pumping blood and adrenaline and all those terrible things he keeps inside himself, all those fights and all those tears Sam never was there for.
Sam blinks, lowers his eyes down the tip of his nose. He's always looked so gentle like that, almost ethereal. Dean's saint. Dean's savior. Dean's Judas. "If you want me to leave... I'll understand that."
Dean's nostrils flare wide. It's not fair. It's not fair. "No," he grits eventually.
"... What?"
"I said 'no'; stay!"
His brother looks at him with so much misery, so much love that it's suffocating Dean. Bile and tears rise and he feels like fifteen again, like running and running and not stopping until his socks are bloody from blisters and his lungs sour from battery acid.
"For... for now, at least, Jesus fuck," Dean adds under his breath, cranes his neck to wipe the sweat off of it with his free hand. "You just came here."
He imagines hearing a "thank you" but all he sees are hints of what used to be, of his big brother smiling at him from across the room. It looked easier, back then, when they were kids. When Dean still believed in the good and the brave, when there still was something to fight for, someone to fight with right next to his side. And now, Sam is back, as if this was a dream, every Christmas and birthday wish of all those years ago suddenly come true - and he's so far away as if he still was in Palo Alto.
"That all you got?"
Sam follows Dean's nod towards his bag. "Yeah," he answers.
"All that Stanford craze and you can't even afford a fuckin' suitcase o' somethin'?"
Sam shrugs. "Well, I have a Ph.D. somewhere in there. That was kinda expensive."
"... Shit."
"Yeah."
"Really?"
"Really." Sam can't suppress the smile anymore. Dean allows himself to measure the depths of those dimples.
"... Shit." He wipes his mouth. "Wow. Just wow, Sammy. Now, you've officially reached the top of Nerd Mountain."
Dean laughs. He laughs.
"What can I say. I'm good at that, ain't I."
"You so fuckin' are, dude." Dean closes in on Sam so they can clink bottles, finally. Both of them avoid staring at Sam's left ring finger. "... So. And now?"
Sam takes a greedy sip after only nipping so far. "Hm?"
"You did it, and now? What now?"
His brother's lips part, but nothing comes out. Dean tries to remember how Sam used to look when he thought of a lie, but this is nothing like it. It's less deep, thicker. The truth. "I'm kinda... tryin' to figure that out at the moment."
"... This why you came here?"
"Part of, yeah."
"And the other?"
"You."
They lock eyes. Dean could drown in that never-ending softness, could get lost. It was so easy back then. "Me?" he repeats.
"You," Sam nods, his voice thinner now. "I... I know I'm not... I don't have a right to say this, but..."
Dean knows the words before he hears them and has to close his eyes to endure their hit.
"I missed you, Dean."
He could punch him now, and it would be easy. It would be fun. Could scream and flail and send Sam away, break his heart like it had been done to him. Dean could abandon, tear apart - and it would feel good. But he doesn't.
When he opens his eyes, the amulet is still there, still where he saw it when he opened the door. Still around the neck of the brother he screamed and cried for for years and years and years and no answer did ever come.
And now he's here. He's here. It's happening, and it's real.
Sammy is back. He came back for him.
For him.
"You shut your damn mouth!" Dean grits and wrestles his arm around that back, buries his face next to the present he once gave, right above Sam's heart. The duffle bag drops to the ground when Sam reaches around him to return the gesture.
Close, closer, they can't let go. It's been so long, too long; as if this was the first gasp of air after a mile-long swim.
Still, it's still them. It is, isn't it?
Dean bites back the tears he knows his brother would never make fun of.
The pizza arrives thirty minutes late; cold. Dean gives the kid a tip anyway, because you don't punish a horribly underpaid teenager who already is on the edge of tears. The brothers wolf the entire thing down over their third beers and a re-run of The Longest Day. On the dusty couch and under the flickering lights of the black and white TV, they feel oddly complete. Sam would never admit that out loud, not in front of Dean.
Noon slowly turns into afternoon. Light gets dimmer and air gets heavier with impending rain.
Still on the couch with the end credits rolling over the screen, Dean flicks a piece of wood from his thigh.
"I could help," Sam offers. "With the house."
Dean snorts. "Pfff. Yeah. Right."
"What? I know how to work a saw."
"No offense, but I don't need nobody muddlin' around with my property."
That look from his little brother says it all. Still as stubborn as ever, huh. Sam nods, sighs. "Alright. Then at least let me... I dunno. Do the dishes? Wash your clothes? I dunno."
Dean's laughter comes easier with the beer. "What's that? Could it be that you're tryin' to bargain yourself into my house o' somethin'?"
"Eventually?"
"Ah-ha." A deep gulp from the bottle. "Don't you. Like." He doesn't look at that ring. "Have, uh. Responsibilities? Work?"
"As I said... I'm currently figuring that one out."
Both drink. "Well, I have work, actually," Dean tells into the neck of his bottle.
Sam turns to face him then, a little sleepy and a little drunk maybe. The guy never had too much of a tolerance. "You do?" he smiles.
Dean nods to himself. The attention feels nice. "Yeah."
"Where?"
"Garage, other side of the town."
"You're. You have a job? As a mechanic?"
"Yup."
"Wow! That's amazing, actually. Great, Dean. Really."
Dean wipes his nose, scratches behind his ear. "Thanks. It's, uh, it's fun. I like it."
A short silence, like a held-in breath. Sam's smile falls from genuine to stretched.
Dean knows the question that will come. He's practiced for it for almost two years now, but he's still nowhere close to having figured out a good response. He nurses his beer and tries to keep his nerves under control.
"And, uh. What did Dad say about that?"
Dean swallows. "He's, uhm." He clears his throat, wipes his mouth.
When nothing comes for a while, Sam's smile fades. "... What happened?"
Dean takes some time to finish his beer, gets up to get another one. Sam lets him; takes the offered bottle with a gentle hand. He keeps his eyes down. His brother has always been shy about being watched in situations like this. Sam knows how far he can go.
Sam forces a smile back under his frown. "Any clue where he is right now? Or how? You got his current number?"
Nothing. Dean slowly rubs the knuckles of his right with the palm of his left hand.
"... Dean...?"
"Two years ago," Dean rasps. "We cremated him, two years ago."
Many scenarios went like this, even before he left for Stanford. Back then, it felt good, the sheer idea of it. Like relief, actually, like a "too good to be true" kind of joke - a way out. Maybe Sam knew it would come to this. But now that it's here and real and so clearly visible in the hard line of Dean's jaw, it's like replacing the rancid water running in his system with muriatic acid.
Back in Stanford, it always helped to tell himself that everything he would miss about "before" would be Dean. The hunts, the blood, the pain, Dad - those things were too harsh, too cruel. They drove him away from his family, from his destiny, maybe. Now, the fact of his father's death taunts this certitude, strips it down to what pulls Sam's chest so tight it might bruise.
He thinks of John for the first time in years and puts effort into it like never before. He doesn't have a photograph of him, Sam remembers, not a single one. Behind his eye sockets, there's a hard line of a mouth, fuzzy beard, wide, rough hands. They wrap around Dean's shoulder, dig into his hair - reload a shotgun - inspect the bullet wound in Sam's thigh - fish out another credit card with another name on it - feel over the smooth surface of his wedding ring.
Sam blinks. "... You could have called me."
"No," Dean says. "No, I really couldn't, Sam."
"Yes, you could've. You- you..." Sam exhales, buries his face in his hands.
Eventually, Dean says, "You got out," almost casually, so light the words are untouchable. "You never called. You never showed up. Kinda got the message across that you, uh. That you wanted out. And you got that."
Sam imagines it then, imagines his little brother all by himself, next to Bobby, but no, nobody understands Dean like Sam does. He can see the swollen tissue of his face, the raw red on his knuckles; can hear the grit of those teeth, can hear the shake in that voice. The pyre, the flames, wood, burning flesh - and Dean was all alone.
Next to him on the sofa, Dean's body curls in on itself; head lowering, shoulders drooping. He doesn't cry, doesn't waver, doesn't collapse. But he sighs - sighs low and long enough to give Sam another glimpse of how hollow he allowed his brother to become. "Took me a helluva time, but I grew to understand that. Respect that. So I let you be. I let you have that."
The waves come crashing and take Sam with them.
"The guestroom's not done yet," Dean mutters into the bathroom's doorframe.
Sam spits toothpaste. "Couch's okay with me."
The closeness is as familiar as if there never had been an interruption to it. When Sam is finished with tucking away his toothbrush and paste into a lonely corner of the mirror cabinet, Dean is still there, leaning and watching.
An edge of a borrowed towel (in a rich, dark brown; nothing like those cheap motel ones) takes a last smudge from Sam's chin. "Is it... really okay with you? That I'm here?"
Dean doesn't move, doesn't pick his eyes off the droplets of water left on the sink. "... We'll see how it goes."
And then, the slit between door and door frame is empty.
"... Night," Sam tells the empty room.
"Night," the corridor answers.
Not being able to sleep is not as torturous here as it was back home. Here, Sam can trace his little brother, find him in every corner. He lets his mind play behind closed eyes.
Dean, sprawling out here with a beer after work. Dean, entertaining a whole crowd of friends with his whole-body effort to cheer for his team in the finals. Dean, buried underneath something young and blond and gorgeous.
Dean, by himself, chugging shot after shot until the bottle is empty. Dean, on the phone, fighting with his bank consultant over his installments. Dean, curled up on himself and still drenched in that smell of fire, unable to move, sleep, eat.
Dean. Dean is everywhere.
At six AM, first sounds from through the roof announce the start of a new day. Sam hears it all, drinks up it all, remains still on the couch. Undressing, shower, dressing, stairs. He tilts his head, watches Dean pass without a sideway glance into the living room.
The kitchen comes alive with water and banging of cutlery. Sam moves quietly and comes to a halt in the doorframe that has no hinges for a door. He touches the even wood, the white, glossy paint. Open kitchen. The worst thing about apartment-like hideouts, actually. The smell of food would get everywhere. Dean always loved that.
The muscles in Dean's back work while he is putting together an arrangement of what could become a sandwich. "Coffee?"
On the stove, a beat-up little pot is steaming and spreading heavenly scent already, waiting for its moment. Sam smiles to himself. Still the same. "I'd love to."
"Just another minute. Mugs're up here."
Sam helps himself from the cabinet where Dean pointed up to. There isn't much in there. Most of it looks like it was either picked up at a flea market during the sixties... or came with the house itself. It reminds Sam of Bobby's.
Jess would have probably squealed in delight and titled it with "so vintage" and "adorable". For their own home, the plates had to have fancy shapes and the cups had to have hand-painted pansies - but as a vacation, she would have loved it here.
Dean shoves into his space to fix the coffee, crams their bodies tight against each other. The elbow doesn't dart out into Sam's ribs but also doesn't avoid them.
Shampoo, body wash, aftershave; Dean.
Suddenly, the coffee is a bare ghost in Sam's reality.
"Mpf, hey. Mind movin' an inch, Bigfoot?"
"Ah, uh, y-yeah." A step backwards, almost a flailing. "Sorry."
Just like Sam remembers, Dean's morning-patience still cannot spare a "thanks"; but it's okay. The coffee pours through a tea strainer and Dean reaches behind himself for Sam's cup, gets a hold of it, fills it.
"Thanks," Sam says over its edge, has a first sip.
"There's some stuff in the fridge if you're hungry." Dean stuffs his finished work aka the big brother of what others would call a club sandwich into some brown paper bag. He neatly folds the opening closed and takes a hefty gulp from his coffee despite its temperature. "I'll be back at around three. You can... I dunno."
"Yeah, I'll just, uh. I'll. Yeah." Sam watches his little brother collecting his stuff, heading for the corridor. "Have a good day," he tells him.
"Don't touch my stuff!" Dean replies over his shoulder.
The front door opens and closes and then Sam is alone.
It takes about ten minutes of slow, savory gulps of coffee to do the one thing Dean doesn't want him to do. But honestly, how is Sam supposed to spend eight hours without touching any of the things in this house? Dean hadn't been too specific. It's his own fault.
Sam showers but doesn't dare to use Dean's products. He brought his own after all and it's not polite to use it without asking first. It is nice enough that Dean didn't kick him out immediately. Sam has no intentions of living off of him. It's not like he couldn't afford to pay for his own expenses - his savings from dissolving their household should get him through life for a handful of months. That is not the problem. The question rather is if Dean will put up with him for said time.
Sam starts with the less private rooms even though no room is really un-private in a household of a single person. In the kitchen, the messy table is the most curiosity-inflicting object. He pulls random objects from the heap and puts most of them down again after a confused frown or a breathy laugh. Doorknobs, broken tools, a pacifier, a million screws and nails, empty envelops, empty bottles. There's a piece of fabric that turns out to be a t-shirt Sam doesn't recognize when he unfolds and holds it out in front of himself. It looks like it's about Dean's size. Sam wonders how many of his clothes stayed in Dean's possessions after his departure, how long he maybe chased the scent of him in them, if he got furious when he realized his own favorite AC/DC shirt had gone missing. The shirt is stuffed back under the mess. A cup is refilled and Sam wanders off to the living room.
There's a bookshelf that Sam has been eyeing ever since he came here, and now he's finally got enough privacy to have a good look at it. He doesn't remember his little brother to exactly be a bookworm, so finding various classics and even romantic novels puzzles Sam completely. The shelf looks brand-new, recently polished to a full, dark brown, and maybe Dean built it himself (Sam wouldn't be surprised at this point). The books are obviously read but well-kept.
Sam pulls out a Jane Austen with a particularly pretty back; golden lettering and all. There's a little dust on the top and, yeah, when Sam flips through the pages, there's this "old book" smell that Dean always rolled his eyes at when Sam mentioned its charm in the hundredth library of the month. Sam has to smile in memory of that, those delightful little moments Dean could get him in those hour-long researches with Dad. He lets the pages flip back in place but keeps the cover lifted in a moment of bathing in that dusty smell mixed with what seems to have become Dean's home's scent.
In tender blue ink, the top left corner says "L. Braeden".
Austen slides back in place with Sam's fingers still lingering on it for a few beats - before they go for the next in line. Its binding's inside is signed just the same, just like the next and the one after that one, too. Another reads "Thought-material for my brave little girl. Love, Mum", another "For my dear Liz who lent this from me too often for it to still be legal. Just keep it, idiot. xoxo Marge".
The next book in line is remarkably roughened up compared to the others, as if it'd been read a solid couple of times in both bathtubs and during a muddy motocross ride. Sam doesn't think about his tongue swirling hard behind his teeth, doesn't notice the tension in his face before it breaks.
It's an edition of "The Little Hobbit". Sam is especially careful with it because it really looks and feels like it is going to crumble to pieces if he is too rough with it. He swallows, braces himself. Somehow he knows and somehow he doesn't; it's like ripping off a band aid. Eventually, he flips the cover open.
"To my nerd in disguise and fulltime hero. Give it a chance just like you gave one to us. I promise you won't be disappointed. Merry Christmas, baby. Lisa."
Sam stares at the words for a long time before putting the book back in place. He takes a breath, tries to get a hold of the things that swirl around in his head right now. When he decides that it's no use, he has another sip of coffee and goes for the drawers.
They're locked, naturally. Even in his own house, Dean feels the need to lock up his stuff. The thought calms Sam, funnily enough; on the road and in between one-week stays and car rides, there never was the time nor place to really hang on to belongings or to keep them safe. They carried what they owned on their bodies, in their duffle bags or their school bags. Sam remembers his little brother dragging along that set of toy soldiers he was madly in love with until he tossed them out of the window of the Impala after a heated argument with Dad. The kid said he was "too old for 'em anyways" but got really teary-eyed and quiet when he softly declined Sam's offer to get him a new set for Christmas. And Sam's diary, of course. Well, more like a notebook with random thoughts; less "dear diary, today Daddy and me dug up a grave" and more "eighth January nineteen-ninety, Raleigh, North Carolina - Dean lost his first milk tooth to a month-old candy bar". He grew tired of filling it eventually. Re-reading what he put down made him mad, made him want to tear the pages out. The journal got discarded at around… yeah, must've been ninety-six. When Dean had turned thirteen. It was not like Sam could have written down any of the things he thought about back then.
It's a nice game to find the keys, actually. It requires putting himself in Dean's position, Dean's mind - where would he hide them? Feels a bit like working a case again and maybe that's just like riding a bike. Once you know how to do it, you don't forget it. It's cheesy and Sam laughs a little but of course that one inconspicuous tile next to the cupboard in the kitchen is loose; not obviously so, but they've both learned from the same man, after all. Once the drawer is open, what really is the trickiest part is remembering how everything looked before he went through it. It's nowhere near polite to go through someone else's stuff, so the least Sam can do is try to keep this a secret between the house and himself. There's letters, papers, more letters; some still in envelops, some even unopened.
Here and now, Sam withdraws his hand. He shouldn't be doing this. These are Dean's documents, very private and filled with commonly delicate information. Yes, he wants to get to know his brother again, but this is too much, too far. If there were only a few letters, maybe that'd be another issue altogether, but this is… It looks… messy? Dean is messy, yeah, in his own strange way, because then again he tiled the kitchen and built these pieces of furniture with extreme precision. But Dean also is dutiful. Sam can't help but scan over a sender or two, notices a M. D. and offices of some sort. It doesn't look like Dean to store important documents this way; messy and locked away. Then again - that's what Sam remembers him to be like from eight whole years ago.
A deep breath, two. Sam ruffles his hair, groans, shoves the drawer back closed, locks it, places the key back behind the tile and the tile neatly on top as if he'd never touched it; then wipes his fingerprints off of it. You never know in this family.
It hurts. It hurts realizing there's someone you've spent most of your life with, someone you've been taking care of and looked after as if you were their parent, someone you could count on at any time - and you don't know anything about them. Sam tries hard not to think back to the easy times when they were practically glued together, big brother and little brother, and maybe if there hadn't been a trunk full of loaded guns behind and a revengeful military-trained father in front of them, they'd just have been another two little boys getting lost in their play of cowboys and Indians. Now, Dean is an adult who has secrets like every other adult does, who takes care of his own businesses, who pays his own bills and fills his own fridge. He doesn't need Sam to pour a bowl with milk and Lucky Charms, doesn't need fairytales to fall asleep at night; can forgive Sam that he left, can look him in the eye after this deepest of betrayals.
A lot can change in eight years. Not everything, maybe, but enough.
Instead of going for the other rooms, Sam resigns to slumping down on the sofa and turning on the TV. He does not really watch the program but allows himself to give in to the pull of memories. It's been a long while since he let that happen and it takes revenge in the form of vivid slumber dreams. The flutter of his own eyelashes hurts and he groans as he hefts himself upright, tries to orientate himself. He fell asleep but feels just as wrecked as before, if not worse. It's two already. He should eat something.
Steak and potatoes with a little left-over gravy make him feel a little better, full and heavy. After washing the dishes, Sam slips his shoes on and takes a few steps out into the garden. The stone tiles here are unsteady and broken; Dean surely will take care of them one day the garden has climbed on top of his priority list. His breath clouds in front of his mouth and he shudders. Moist cold is the worst.
Everything here is still green. Some wild flowers are sown across the grass but they have begun to welt from lack of sun and too much rain. Sam wonders what Dean has planned for this. He imagines this could become something nice; can see the charm that must have befallen his brother, too. It needs time and a lot of heavy work, but there is great potential. If Dean plans on planting certain types of plants, of flowers? Would he be interested in growing his own vegetables? Will he be the one trimming the hedges and trees, all by himself, with a giant chainsaw and even more enthusiasm?
Sam wants to ask him all those questions, and many more. He wants to spend days and nights just listening, just watching his little brother. He wants to know everything, anything Dean is willing to share. He wants to be a part again, a part of this, of Dean. They're adults now. Maybe it can work when they're both adults.