Work Text:
Everyone who's ever had a younger sibling knows that they can sometimes be downright irritating. Especially if you happen to be the one to raise the rascal, thanks to an absent father who's never really there, or when he was, his favorite hobby was to get drunk as a duck, sleep for 20-something hours before leaving again.
Sam was never a particularly hard kid, but Dean sure had his fair share of headaches because Sam sure had a lot of questions.
“Why is Dad never home?”
“When is he coming back?”
“Why don't we have a real home?”
“Why can't we be with Mom?”
How do you explain to a six-year-old that Dad can't be home because he's chasing monsters without also explaining to the same kid that monsters are actually real, especially when little Sammy was still afraid of that thing in the closet?
How do you explain that for the exact same reason there's no guarantee of when Dad's coming back because those hunts sometimes took him to the other side of country, and most of the time even Dean didn't have a clue where Dad was? And that was exactly the reason why they stayed in motel rooms and moved constantly. After all, it's really hard to keep a permanent home base in a situation like that, even when it broke Dean's twelve-year-heart more than once because even when Dean was okay with it -or so he kept telling himself- he still wanted something better for Sammy.
And how the hell do you tell your little brother that Mom is dead, killed by the same monster that had been Dad's main target ever since it happened...
Sam kept questioning, and Dean just couldn't give him the answers. That caused so much tension between them more than once, and Dean hated it, so he did what was easiest; got angry at Sam which was back then pretty much the only thing to make the kid shut up even for a moment.
Thinking back now, Dean knows that getting angry wasn't the answer, and he still feels bad about that, but still. What else was there to do?
When Sam was a kid, Christmas was his favorite holiday. Or would have been if Dad would've been there, even once. So, at one Christmas eve Dean told Sam, and Dean felt even worse when Sam just curled to bed and though Dean couldn't see Sam's face, he still can't erase the sound of Sammy's inconsolable sobs from his mind.
After that evening Sam didn't want to have Christmases anymore. He stopped asking about Dad, almost like he was shutting their father out of his world completely. Dean suspects that it was the time when the problems with Sam and their Dad started.
And Sam still hates Christmas. He's adult now, but doesn't even want to talk about holidays. Dean couldn't find it in him to be angry about that, no matter how childish he thought Sam's actions were. In a way he understood.
After shutting Dad out Sam started searching comfort from his brother. More than once Dean woke up in the middle of the night when his little brother climbed into his bed, not saying a word, just slid under the covers with Dean. And Dean didn't mind, because though he never would have admitted it, he was in a way just as broken as Sam.
As they got older, Dean started realizing that it maybe wasn't completely normal, or even close to normal, for two teenage brothers sharing a bed. But even then Dean didn't say anything about it. Deep down he needed that comfort just as much as Sam did if not even more. During those quiet hours at night he was able to allow himself to be broken and needy and everything he could never say out loud.
It was Sam who made the first move to change that still somewhat harmless habit to something else. And Dean knew that they were slowly crossing the unspoken line, but it just felt so good to hold his brother close to him, to feel the naked skin and the warmth of Sam's body in his arms.
And then one night it happened. Dad was gone, Mom was gone, and they only had each other. It was wrong and sick and totally dysfunctional, but Dean didn't even try to fight it when Sam pressed himself against Dean the way that had nothing brotherly in it.
They didn't talk, not even one word. Sam's eyes were dark but not questioning as he stared at Dean for few minutes before kissing him. Dean kissed back, something in the back of his mind cursing Dad and monsters and the way they lived, but he didn't make a move to break the kiss. He felt like an anomaly, like a freak of the worst kind, but it was easier to blame it all at the things Sam had blamed for years than to stop.
During that kiss Dean felt like something inside him was finally starting to heal, and he just prayed that it felt the same for Sam. And after kissing for what felt like hours and after Sam had finally fell asleep, his arms and legs entwined with Dean's, Dean stayed awake for along time, just looking at his little brother's finally peaceful face, and there was only one thing he could think of.
If having this kind of connection with his brother was making their inner hurt subside, even a bit, then no matter how wrong it was in the eyes of the rest of the world, for them it was right, and when it made them both feel so good...
Well, in that case nothing else mattered.
And in the dark Dean smiled softly, pressed a tender kiss on Sam's forehead and finally closed his eyes, his little brother safely in his arms.