Title: Story Board
Summary: Dean senses that this might be a moment he'll remember, something he'll lay awake and think about; he feels it fray and break like a weather-worn rope.
Pairing: Dean/Sam
Rating: Let's call it PG13?
Notes: Winchesters belong to Kripke blah blah. Beta'd by the beautiful and talented roseganymede ♥ 650-ish words.


I.

"Watch me!" Sam calls and drops his brother's hand. He runs across the playground, empty with the coming night, and climbs the painted metal frames. Sam holds tight to the sun bleached bars high above the footprints in the sand. He dangles and twists, looking back and smiling. Dean watches his brother, a lanky shadow in the dusk, and their laughs echo on the blacktop.

II.

Dean gets home from work early and hears them yelling before he gets the door open. Something shatters inside and he hurries the door open, lock after lock after lock.

"You leave, you don't come back." Their father's words are made up of gravel and glass. Dean stops in the hallway. It hasn't been this bad before. Sam says something he shouldn't, knows exactly what he's doing, and John's striding, marching. Dean hands him the keys without meeting his eyes and doesn't turn around to watch him go. The door slams shut, cheap walls shuddering, and the house is quiet. He goes to the kitchen and Sam's red: his eyes, his face, and shining blood on his knuckles.

Dean reaches for his brother's shoulder, but Sam ducks away and shoves past, climbing up the stairs. Dean raises his eyes to the ceiling above him, listening to his brother's footfalls around the room that they share. When he comes back down, there's a packed bag slung across his shoulder. Dean wonders how many weeks he's been hiding it.

"Sammy, come on," Dean says, crooked grin and a voice that shakes. "You're not really leavin'."

Sam looks at him, just a look, and shakes his head. Dean senses that this might be a moment he'll remember, something he'll lay awake and think about; he feels it fray and break like a weather-worn rope.

"Watch me." Sam says, kicking open the screen door and running. Dean does.

III.

Sam's asleep in the passenger seat, legs sprawled wide and head tilted back, and the scent of her burning nightgown has settled in the fabric of his clothes; Dean can smell it.

She was small, pretty, and Dean imagines she had fit in the crook of Sam’s arm like a puzzle piece.

He watches Sam with sideways glances in the dark of the front seat as they speed across the Nevada border.

Maybe he should feel guilty, but he doesn't.

IV.

"Hey," Sam says. Dean opens his eyes, feels his brother's breath ghost across his bare stomach, fingers pressed into the small of his back. His lips drag over the crease of Dean’s thigh, brush across the bed warm flesh at his hip."I want you to watch me."

Dean reaches for him, knuckles grazing his cheek and pushing the hair from his eyes.

“Okay.” Dean replies. “Okay, Sammy.”

V.

They fight about it; Sam shouts and curses until his voice is hoarse. Dean gives up on arguing and shuts off the television. He packs away every gun he’d laid out and listens to his brother's angry breath and shifting feet on the old carpet.

You can't save me, Dean thinks, lips pressed tightly together as he drops the duffel to the floor. The room is cold when he sheds his shirt, toes off his boots, and drops onto the bed. His hands ache as he pushes them under the pillow. Too many miles gripping the wheel like it was the only thing holding him in place anymore. He feels weighed down, too exhausted to fight.

"I will." Sam murmurs. Dean feels the mattress dip at his side, doesn’t roll over; it’s too familiar to bother. The rest is unspoken, but Dean can hear it in the half-sleep swiftly pulling him under, Sam’s arm draped over his back like an anchor.

Watch me.