Changes, ch. 11

Sam was out of bed and reaching for Dean's covers before he even realized what he was doing.

He stopped, jerking his hand away and taking a stumbling step back from his brother's bed.

Crap. CrapcrapcrapCRAP!

Heart still racing from the nightmare, it was all Sam could do not to act on his fear by seeking the safety of Dean's warmth and solid presence, burrowing under the quilt with his big brother like he'd been able to do just days ago.

But Sam wasn't nine anymore. And if the emotions of that age were still catching him by surprise at odd times, he couldn't—he wouldn't—at 24, let himself be overwhelmed. So he deliberately turned, forcing himself out of the room. Away from his brother.

Frustrated with himself, Sam stalked to the bathroom, splashing water on his face, hoping the bright light and cheery wallpaper would do their work and chase some of the shadows out of his mind. He sighed, staring at himself in the mirror. Still a little shaky, but steadier than he had been, Sam headed toward the kitchen.

Coffee better help, he thought grimly.

It was just 5:20, but Sam was not surprised that there was already activity in the kitchen. He heard the murmur of voices, Jo and Luke up and about their days. He hesitated in the doorway.

"Sammy."

Jo's voice, pleased and welcoming, pulled him into the room, and he smiled in response to her slight grimace at having called him by the nickname.

"'s OK," he said. "I guess y'all earned it."

Luke laughed, handing Sam a mug of coffee from where he leaned against the counter next to his wife. "You might not want to tell the boys that," he said.

Sam snorted and eased into a chair at the table. "Yeah," he agreed.

It was too late, though, really. "Sammy" was the only thing Tommy seemed able to call him these days. And if Jake always said it with a smirk, Sam thought maybe he deserved it considering the grief he'd given the kid while he was little. For a while at least.

"You're up early," Jo said, adding more eggs to the bowl she was stirring. Her eyes when they caught his were shrewd.

He lifted a shoulder in response.

"Nightmare?" Luke picked up where Jo had left off, pulling out his own chair to sit next to Sam.

The thing, Sam thought ruefully, about being nine around people was that they took it for permission to ask questions they might not have before. And he knew he hadn't discouraged that assumption by pouring his guts out to both Luke and Jo on several occasions—even before he'd been a child in their house. Sam bit his lip. He shrugged again.

Luke raised an eyebrow at him.

Sam sighed. For all the fact that he liked and needed to talk about his feelings, Sam just wasn't used to having people ask. Dean did on occasion, but usually only under extreme provocation—like dead girlfriends. This kind of casual inquiry made Sam feel oddly exposed.

Besides. Did he really want to admit out loud—even to Jo and Luke—that he'd almost climbed into bed with his big brother because he'd had a bad dream?

He concentrated on his coffee, trying to ignore the patient, inquiring looks from Jo and Luke. But after a pause, apparently unable to help himself, Sam muttered, "Yeah. Weird dream."

Jo spooned eggs onto his plate and Luke's. She watched him sympathetically as he picked up his fork and started to move the food around aimlessly on his plate.

"Did you want Dean?" she asked gently, brushing a hand over his hair. Sam closed his eyes. Damn it.

"Yeah," he whispered, humiliated. Then he snorted. He opened his eyes to look at Jo, avoiding Luke's gaze. "I was almost in bed with him before I realized what I was doing," he admitted in a rush. "How pathetic is that?"

Sam couldn't help the bitterness in his voice, and he flicked a quick look at Luke, weighing the man's response.

There was a moment of silence.

"Give yourself some time, Sam." Luke's voice was non-judgmental, and he hadn't used Sammy. "Things'll settle." Echoing Jo.

Sam's eyes finally met Luke's, and the other man smiled. "Have you talked to Dean about this?"

Sam laughed out loud. "Right."

"You should," Jo said softly.

"You know what Dean will say, don't you, if I try to talk about my feelings?" Sam was incredulous.

It was Jo's turn to shrug. "You weren't the only one who had to deal with you being young and vulnerable again, honey. I just think there may have been some fallout from that for your brother, as well."

Sam widened his eyes at Jo, wondering if Dean had said anything to her.

"Has he…?"

Jo shook her head.

"Not really. No. But he missed you. And hated that you didn't feel safe with him."

Sam blinked.

"But, I did. I…"

He trailed off.

He hadn't, though, had he? Not at first. Not when Dean was a stranger, and all he had wanted was Dad.

Dad.

Sam swallowed at the sudden, familiar-again ache.

He'd forgotten. Forgotten in the wake of years of anger and frustration how much he'd idolized his father when he'd been a child. Thought Dad could do anything, knew everything. Forgotten that feeling of security and protection only Dad had been able to provide, no matter how hard Dean had tried. Safety and comfort that, even as an adult, he'd looked for—without thinking—from his father.

Dad's not here, Dean.

Strange new abilities, terrified and unsure, needing what Max had not had.

Dad will know what to do.

Dean dying, a reaper after him, running to his father.

Dad. Dad.

Dean had never tried to be Dad. He'd taken care of Sam, of course, but he'd been a child himself and shared those same convictions Sam had—Dad knows, Dad can do it—had made it his mission to instill those beliefs in his little brother. And Dean had succeeded, at least for awhile.

But Sam had rejected that faith, turned his back on all that his father had represented to them both as children. Had walked away from his family, run toward "normal."

And now Sam wondered if he'd ever truly felt safe after he'd left.

Oh, he'd never felt physically unprotected, not really. He'd been trained well and by a Marine, after all. But even in the midst of his relationship with Jess, for all the peace and comfort and normal she'd given him, he wasn't positive he'd ever had that bone-deep, unshakable sense of safe he'd had with his father and his brother.

His drive to find their father after that horrible, horrifying night had been partially the need to be part of the fight, to kill the thing that had destroyed his life. But it had also been the simple need for Dad—his knowledge, his strength, his presence—to make things right again. Somehow.

But they hadn't been able to find him—he'd had been elusive, frustrating, autocratic. Dad. And Sam had felt his control slipping, felt the rage and the grief spiraling him into a darkness and obsession that would rival his father's.

As long as I'm around, nothin' bad's gonna happen to you.

But there had been Dean.

Pulling him back from the edge, poking at him, putting him back together. And always, always protecting him. Dean who had slowly begun to restore Sam's sense of who he was; Dean who had shown him again what it meant to be safe.

Sam felt his throat close up.

Because if he'd forgotten his first love for Dad, he'd also forgotten that first love for Dean—a worship that bordered on idolatry of the big brother who had watched out for him and loved him in ways that their father hadn't always been able to. Dean who had, in the most important ways, always been home.

It was a revelation to have relived that adoration, to have experienced it again in all its wonder and innocence and power. To remember it so viscerally now. He wanted—he needed—to figure out how that translated into his relationship with Dean as an adult. How to show his stubborn, stoic, wounded brother that love again. Without actually saying the words.

And for the first time Sam wondered what it had been like for Dean, for Sam to be little, defenseless. To be burdened again by the care of his little brother, but this time with all the sensibilities and understanding of an adult. Without Dad's back-up, having to bear that load on his own.

Whatever his brother had felt, Dean had never let Sam-the-child see anything except unwavering devotion and a steadiness that Sam had craved, but never really felt, in his relationship with his father. And in spite of missing his dad and grieving that loss, Sam wasn't sure but that the weeks as a child with an adult-Dean hadn't been some of the happiest—the most secure—he could ever remember.

He…

Sam shook himself, looking up at Jo and Luke, who had let him drift without interruption. But they were both watching him curiously.

"I'll talk to him," he agreed quietly.

xxxx

"Hey."

Dean was stretched out under the Impala, giving her a tune-up, ready to get on the road.

His boots twitched at the sound of Sam's voice.

"Hey." Muffled under the car.

Sam sat down with his back against the car, not in a hurry.

It was probably 20 minutes before Dean shoved himself out from under the car. He raised an eyebrow at his little brother. Sam had opened his eyes at the sound of Dean sliding along the gravel, but he didn't raise his head from where it rested against the car. He tilted his face to look at his brother when Dean stood.

"What's up?" Dean asked, wiping his hands on a dirty rag he'd pulled out of his pocket. There were smudges of grease on his chin and over his left eyebrow.

"Nothin'." Sam closed his eyes again.

He couldn't see it, but he knew Dean was studying him, could imagine the shrug as he heard his brother's footsteps move away from him.

Sam continued to sit and then startled when something cold and wet fell on his face. He opened his eyes to see Dean holding a beer over his head, condensation dripping off the glass. He huffed out a breath as he reached up to wipe the water off his nose and then for the bottle his brother offered him.

"Thanks."

Dean dropped down next to him, tipping the beer into his mouth, swallowing it in great, thirsty gulps.

Sam followed suit. It was hot out here.

"She ready to go?"

Dean wiped his mouth and shot a glace at his brother.

"Yep," he answered. He was watching Sam closely. "You about ready to hit the road?" Even though he hadn't said anything to Dean about it, Sam knew that his brother suspected he was still struggling some with what had happened. "Ellen called. She's got some jobs."

Sam shrugged. "Whenever you are."

Dean paused before he said, "Tomorrow then?"

"Sure."

Dean nodded.

After a couple of minutes, Sam said, "Hey, Dean?"

"Hmm?" Dean's eyes were closed, and he looked comfortably relaxed.

"Thanks for, you know, taking care of me while I was little." He tried to say it as matter-of-factly as possible, not wanting to make a big deal of it, because he knew Dean would hate that.

Dean didn't even open his eyes, and the ghost of a smile touched his face.

"What was I gonna do, Sammy? Make you fend for yourself when you were just a kid?"

He turned his head toward Sam, eyes opening now to watch his brother lazily. Sam quirked a smile at him.

"No, but…" Now Sam grinned, teasing. "You didn't have to rub my back and help me with my bath and let me sleep with you when I was scared." He couldn't help the laugh at the surrealness of it all.

Dean flushed bright red.

"Shut up," he muttered.

"No, seriously, man. I'm touched."

And he was. Unaccountably and deeply. Sam sobered instantly.

But Dean was scowling, ignoring him.

Sam cursed himself. This hadn't been what he'd meant to do.

"Dean." He bumped his shoulder gently against his brother's. Don't be mad.

"Go to hell, Sam."

Sam blinked.

Dean stood abruptly, pushing off from the car, and Sam scrambled to his feet, finding himself almost running to catch up with Dean who was striding determinedly away.

"Dean, wait." He reached out to catch his brother's arm and then stumbled back when Dean rounded on him. Sam threw his hands up in a placating gesture, startled by the emotion on Dean's face—hurt and embarrassment and anger.

"Dean, please." Sam could hear the tremor in his voice, and he was dropped into 9-year-old Sammy so suddenly he almost staggered. Fear and desperation that Dean was unhappy with him.

Dean's face changed at the tone of Sam's voice, eyes narrowed, not sure.

"Leave me alone, Sam."

"Dean." Sam forced himself not to overreact, drew in a deep breath, tamping down the panic at Dean's displeasure. "Listen, I'm sorry."

Dean gave him a blank look and turned away. "Fine, Sam. Whatever."

"Just listen. Please." And while he felt the control that had slipped from him for a moment shift back into place, Sam let the pleading tone stay in his voice, knowing that Dean rarely ignored it.

And he didn't this time either. Dean stopped, though he stayed facing in the opposite direction.

"Dean, I meant it when I said, 'thank you.' I… Everything you did—everything— helped me know that you were you and that I could trust you." Dean's stance had shifted, and Sam could tell that his brother was listening to him. "I didn't mean to laugh. I wasn't making fun. I wasn't." The desperation was back in voice. He had to make Dean understand. "I just got, I don't know, overwhelmed I guess. You did so much. So much I remember from when we were kids that made me feel…safe, you know? When dad wasn't there, and I was afraid. It's just so weird to be an adult and remember all this stuff you did for me as a kid except that it was only a few days ago. And you'd never do any of that stuff now, but you did it for me when I was little, and it's bizarre. And I…."

Dean had turned to face his brother, watching him with an expression Sam couldn't decipher.

Sam stopped talking.

"OK," Dean said.

Sam studied his brother's face, trying to read what was there.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

Dean said it easily, face softening at the anxiousness on his brother's. Sam let go of the breath, he'd been holding.

They stood there awkwardly for a minute before Dean reached out and clapped a hand on Sam's shoulder.

"Help me clean up," he said.

Together they gathered up tools and trash, mostly quiet. But it was a comfortable silence that Sam didn't feel any compulsion to break. When they were finished, they each grabbed another beer and sat on the curb watching cars go by on the highway.

"It was weird, you know?" Dean said suddenly, softly.

Sam turned to look at his brother. Dean was staring into the distance, face still in a way that made Sam's breath catch in his throat. He recognized that Dean was trying to give him something he knew Sam needed, even while he wasn't ready to talk about it yet.

Sam nodded, turning his own gaze to the horizon. "Yeah," he whispered.

And they sat side-by-side in silence until Jo called them in for supper.

xxxx

Sam made a soft noise in his sleep, and Dean tensed waiting to see if his brother woke. There was a moment of hanging silence before Sam muttered what sounded disturbingly like, "No. Not the gerbils" and threw himself over onto his stomach with a muffled snort.

In his own bed, Dean smothered a groan and rolled away from Sam.

He couldn't sleep. The conversation – one-sided as it had been – with Sam that afternoon kept replaying itself in his head, and he couldn't seem to turn it off.

Dean had not been prepared for the stab of hurt—betrayal, really—he'd felt when Sam had laughed as he'd thanked Dean for caring for him while he'd been small. Not ready for the feelings of rejection (again) and fury in the wake of Sam's quiet laugh.

It had been like Sam was mocking him for all the energy and emotion Dean had poured into trying to make sure that his little brother felt safe while he'd been small. And for a minute it had been Sam leaving for Stanford all over again. Because while he'd missed adult-Sam like he'd lost part of himself those weeks his brother had been a child, Dean had to admit – if only at night, in the dark, to himself – that Sam as a little boy, crawling into bed with him, sitting close, even slipping his small hand into Dean's had touched Dean in ways that had shaken him.

It had been so long since either of them had been comfortable expressing affection as easily as they had while Sam had been small. When Sam had been a baby, and Dean himself just a little boy, it had happened all the time—soothing Sammy (himself) by holding his brother or just being close. But they'd been boys, and as Dean had grown, and more so as Sam had come into his own, all that had stopped except in extreme circumstances. Affection had mostly been expressed in cuffs and wrestling and put-downs.

But even that had stopped as Sam had gotten increasingly unhappy as a teenager. The insults had stopped being teasing and taken on an edge that had hurt like hell. And Dean had responded with jabs of his own until, by the time Sam stormed out of the house, Dean wasn't sure he even liked his little brother. Sam had certainly left no room for misinterpretation of his own feelings for Dean.

The silence that had followed Sam's departure had been echoing, and though he'd tried to reach out a couple of times, the resentment on both sides had been too thick to struggle through By the time Sam stopped responding to his calls, Dean was more than willing to let it go. Not that it hadn't stung. But he'd found that focusing on his anger had helped.

It wasn't that Dean had ever really doubted Sam's love for him. Or Dad for that matter. The Winchesters might not talk about love, but they trusted it in each other.

Dean just hadn't realized how much he'd missed the physical expression of that love. Until he'd had it again. Even for a short time.

Dean believed Sam's stumbling explanation for the laughter. The whole situation was surreal. And Dean was a little embarrassed that he'd flown off the handle so quickly and completely. He was grateful that Sam hadn't thought to—or had restrained himself from—pointing out Dean's hissy fit.

It wasn't that Dean wanted Sam cuddling up to him as an adult or holding his hand or crawling into bed with him—he shuddered at the thought. But Dean couldn't help wondering what it would look like to keep some of that closeness with Sam grown again.

In the bed next to him, Dean heard Sam gasp and fight with the covers as he came awake with a start. He could hear his brother's panting breaths, and he rolled back toward Sam.

"You OK?" he asked quietly, not wanting to startle.

Sam gulped audibly. "Yeah," he rasped.

Dean saw Sam swing his legs off the bed and wondered uncertainly what Sam was going to do. But Sam just sat on the edge of the bed, feet on the floor, hands gripping the edge of the mattress. His head hung, chin almost on his chest.

Dean sat up.

"You want the light on?"

Just the month before Dean knew he wouldn't even have acknowledged that he'd been awake, would have told himself that he was respecting Sam's "privacy" by ignoring him.

Sam's head came up, and Dean could see his brother's eyes blinking dazedly at him.

"Is that OK?" Sam whispered.

And six weeks ago Sam wouldn't have responded, even if Dean had asked, just gone into the bathroom and closed the door.

In answer, Dean reached over and flipped on the lamp between the beds.

"Bad one," Dean said steadily after a long pause of silence.

Sam nodded, but Dean could see that his face was starting to clear, and his breathing had evened out. Sliding back in the bed, Sam eased against the headboard. Dean did the same in his own bed.

"Anything we need to be worried about?"

Sam shook his head, bringing up his hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. He breathed out an unsteady gust of air. Then he laughed.

"Naw. Just a normal nightmare." He looked over at Dean with a slight smile. "Thanks, though."

"Normal, huh?" Dean couldn't help the smirk and Sam snorted.

"Yeah. Who knew?"

Dean was quiet for a beat then, "Giant rodents?"

Sam's head turned so sharply he got a crick in his neck, yelping, shoulders hunching and a hand coming up reflexively to knead at the twinge.

Dean grimaced in sympathy and explained, "You were muttering about gerbils earlier."

Sam shot Dean an almost shame-faced look.

"Where d'you think I would've gotten gerbils?"

Sam slunk down in the bed, fingers still rubbing at the pain in his neck as he curled onto his side. He blinked sleepily at his brother.

Dean could see that the residual fear had faded from Sam's face and did the same, rolling to face Sam.

"Dunno," he yawned. "Y'OK?"

"Mmmm," Sam mumbled, eyes slipping closed. "Light?"

Dean grunted drowsily in annoyance, hand fumbling under the shade. Finally found the switch and twisted it off.

"Ni'."

Sam was almost asleep again, and Dean himself barely registered the sound.

"Mmm," he responded, drifting off easily with a sigh.

xxxx

It never ceased to amaze Jo how much it still surprised her when Dean and Sam announced they'd be hitting the road. Like every time they came, she expected them to stay forever.

They'd actually ended up staying a couple of days longer than Dean had originally announced. A call from Bobby had eased some of the urgency in their departure. Jo hadn't asked any questions, just been grateful for more time.

Jo wasn't sure what had happened, but there had been a shift in the relationship between the two boys. They were more comfortable with each other than Jo thought she'd ever seen them. As obvious as it had always been that they loved each other fiercely, there'd also always been a prickliness in the way they interacted with one another that seemed to have disappeared.

It wasn't so much a change in the words they said to each other – no declarations (as far as she knew) of love and understanding. They still threw barbs at each other, mocking and teasing, but there was difference in the tone with which the insults were hurled and received. A gentleness, an awareness, that hadn't always been there before.

Even their body language was different. The stiffness, the rigidity with which they held themselves, especially Dean, around each other was gone. Jo thought that Dean had always seemed braced when he was around Sam – ready to protect his brother, she saw that, but to protect himself, as well. And Sam had always held himself taut, poised to respond to whatever move his brother made – ready to give chase, whether physically or emotionally, to maneuver his brother, to push away or back. They'd both been constantly on the defensive, whether they'd realized it or not. Jo wasn't sure she'd even realized it until it had changed. Only seeing them completely relaxed around each other had made her recognize how not relaxed they'd been before.

She suspected that Sam and Dean had had the Winchester version of a "talk." (Whatever that meant. She wondered vaguely if punches had been thrown.) And that the result of that expression of love or appreciation or support, however that had been shown (Name-calling? Head-locks?), was this easing of tension.

Jo had an unexpected vision of the Winchester boys telling each other how much they loved each other. And then hugging. A startled laugh escaped her and she got a questioning look from Dean who was slumped on the couch with a dozing Sam watching television. She bit back her smile and shook her head at him. He shrugged.

Declarations of love came in all manner of expression; she knew that from experience. Of her own three boys, Michael was the most verbal, telling people easily that he loved them – her, his brothers, Luke; Tommy was the most physical, a cuddler and a hand holder; and Jake was the most… subtle.

Well, not really subtle, not once you recognized the signs. Jake only spoke the words, "I love you" if pressed, and hugged only under protest. It had taken Jo almost a year of the boys' living with her before she'd deciphered her middle nephew's love language. She'd been afraid that the quiet, still child might never break out of the shell he'd retreated into after his parents' death, worried that he might forever protect himself from loving, from being loved, and she'd grieved as she'd watched him, not sure how to help.

The turning point had been one day in the spring when he'd brought her a crumpled bouquet of wild-flowers after school.

"I didn't pick any Bluebonnets," he'd told her gravely as he'd pressed the battered offering into her startled hands.

Jo had blinked.

"They're beautiful, sweetie," she'd smiled and been rewarded with a fleeting upturning of the corners of his mouth before he'd wandered off.

That night he'd followed her around the kitchen, fetching whatever she asked for and putting away jars when she was finished with them as she made supper. It hadn't been the first time he'd done that, but for whatever reason the flowers had changed her perspective on what she'd taken for granted up until then. Jake was always the one who appeared at her elbow when she was folding clothes or cleaning the bathroom, silently picking up a shirt to fold as she shook out a pair of pants or scrubbing out the toilet while she wiped down the sink.

Jake had been telling her he loved her for months, and she just hadn't recognized it. It had made her feel sick to her stomach. She'd been so unsure of how he felt about her, that without realizing it, she'd been hesitant with him, holding herself apart in a hundred different ways. Fearing, even as an adult, rejection from this child she loved.

"Jakey?" She'd swallowed back the guilt and sat down at one of the kitchen chairs, pulling him close when he'd turned his attention on her. She'd reached out a hand to cup his cheek. "Thank you so much for the flowers. And for all your help tonight. You've made getting ready for dinner so much easier."

Jake had blushed, and dropped his eyes, shrugging slightly for a reply.

She'd wrapped her arms around him and given the stiff little body a fierce squeeze, planting a sloppy, noisy kiss on his cheek. She'd felt her heart lighten when he'd given a startled giggle and relaxed against her.

"I love you," she'd said into his ear before she blew a loud raspberry against his soft neck, making him laugh breathlessly and squirm. After one last tightening of the embrace, she'd let him go, now not expecting a return of the words. Her eyes had stung when what he'd given her in return instead was the first full smile she'd seen from him in a long time.

It had broken her heart that she'd missed what he'd been telling her for months, that in some ways she'd been rejecting those offering of love. But now she knew. And she wouldn't make the same mistake again.

It had changed everything between them. Until Jake had turned 14. When everything had shifted again. And there had been different mistakes to make.

Now, Jo thought she saw the same thing with the Winchesters.

Whatever had passed between them had given both boys a confidence in their relationship that Jo hoped would last for a long time.

"Jo?"

Sam's question made her look again toward the sofa. He was stretched out on his side along the length of the couch, blindly using one foot to poke at Dean who was rolling his eyes as he slapped at Sam's long leg, ducking and swaying to avoid a toe in his ear.

"Can we- OW!" He flailed, jerking his legs out of reach of his brother, who had managed to capture a foot and dig his thumb painfully into Sam's instep.

"Keep you enormous, Big Foot feet out of my space, freak," Dean said blandly, raising his arm to lay it across the back of the couch.

Sam's foot shot out so fast Jo missed it until she heard Dean's yelp when it connected with his ribs. Just as quickly, Dean's hand grabbed Sam's knee, squeezing, and Sam bolted upright, already reaching… and Jo realized that this was about to escalate to a level that might damage furniture.

"STOP!" she bellowed, startling both Winchesters into stillness. They eyed her warily.

"Sam, honey, what were you going to say?" she asked as if nothing had happened.

"Oh, um," he was frozen with one arm outstretched. "Could we make cookies tonight? For the road tomorrow?"

She smiled serenely at him as she rose. "Of course, we can." She headed for the kitchen. "If you're going to continue that, take it outside," she added without looking back.

There was a moment of quiet before she heard the muffled sound of a slap, followed by an outraged cry from Sam that was replaced by Dean's laughter and scrambling clatters and pounding bare feet on hard wood. The slamming front door echoed through the house and muted shouts and laughter drifted into the kitchen as she watched them race past the window.

She was going to miss them when they were gone.

xxxx

End.