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Dean wakes up slowly, body motionless in the transition from sleep to semi-wakefulness. It’s warm under the blankets, a soft heat in contrast to the scraping cold at the tips of his ears and nose. When he blinks his eyes open the blankets tucked up around his face obscure his vision; he shifts his arm sluggishly and pulls them a little further down. The soft glow of the lamp by Dad’s desk illuminates the bare-wood walled room; Sammy’s face is loose and smooth right over his eyelids from brow to jaw. His breath is hot against Dean’s face, smells sweet-stale and sleepy.
There’s another noise, not entirely like the one that woke Dean in the first place, and he halts the languid meandering of his thoughts, tenses lax muscles. He holds his breath, flexes the elbow bent under his side, pushes slightly upward to see over the hunched curve of Sammy’s shoulder.
Dad’s still sitting at the table, right where Dean’d seen him last, before falling into sleep. Papers and journal spread out in front of him, yellowish hue of the lamp-light dusting the edges of his hair as it shone directly down onto the paper. Pen in Dad’s hand, scribbling fiercely. Dad’s hunched over now, not the easy curve of a relaxed slump as he writes but more acute.
His shoulders are moving. He’s shaking. He makes another soft sound like choking and Dean’s breath halts in his throat, the light in the room going all strange and wobbly for a moment 'til he makes himself blink, hard. Dad’s crying.
Dean feels Sammy’s skin, thin and cool like damp paper under his fingers before he realises he’s even moved, wrapped his hand around Sam’s wrist. Sam doesn’t wake and Dean doesn’t tighten his grip; he wants Sammy awake, stirring next to him, still and aware and close so they can hold their breath together but he desperately wants Sam to sleep, too, don’t wake up, willing it even as he struggles to keep completely still, don’t see this.
Dean lets out his breath long and low, loosening his grip finger by careful finger, feeling the bones of Sammy’s wrist loose like ribbon tied around pickup sticks, terrifyingly fragile when he’s not awake and alert.
Dean’s neck creaks from the tension of keeping his head lifted; as he watches Dad’s head drops lower and the points of his shoulders break the smooth curve. The movement of his body’s steady, and with the slight change of angle Dean can see that it’s not that Dad’s trembling, it’s that his shoulder’s shifting, flexing. Not just his shoulder. His arm. And–
Oh.
The tightness in Dean’s throat loosens of a sudden and he swallows convulsively before clenching his teeth closed. Not daring to move, in case Sammy wakes up now, in case Dad hears, and turns to see him. His hand is suddenly slick where it intersects with Sammy’s skin, ache and numbness spreading out in dull crystals of pain from the strain of resting his weight on his elbow.
It’s not like… not like he hasn’t seen before. Plenty enough times when there isn’t a rest room let alone any sign of civilisation on the backroads they keep to for hours upon hours. Thankfully less times when Dad’s exhausted enough from hunting and Dean from waiting and Sammy difficult and all of them tired, when privacy in a cheap, closet-like motel rooms doesn't matter so much, when they all live in each other’s skin anyhow.
Sammy’s breath is too-hot against the underside of Dean’s jaw, Dean’s legs restless in his pajama pants, fabric twisted.
He won’t look. He won’t look.
Dad’s sleeve’s rolled up, pushed to below his elbow and the taper of his forearm is re-sculpted every time he moves it, muscles cording and shifting underneath the skin. The low lamp light doesn’t reach all that much past the shadow of the table-edge, so the surprisingly fair hair on Dad’s arm blurs the sharp edges of it. The buttons on his fly gleam dull brass. A muted gasp draws his gaze back to Dad’s face, Dad’s eyes closed and softening the usual tense lines around them; Dad's tongue pushes out briefly as if to taste his lower lip before his jaw loosens further.
Dean closes his eyes tight, hot and damp like his eyelids are too heavy, too warm. Sammy pulls out of Dean’s grip, sliding his hand under his pillow without waking and Dean drops back to the bed, pillow cool against the back of his neck, breath trapped again in his chest. Dad makes another soft, desperate sound and Dean presses the heel of his palm into his groin, feeling his dick half-hard under the soft-worn cotton. His fingers twitch and he resists the urge to curl them; instead presses down harder.
You’re fourteen, Dean, Dad had said, not without sympathy in the usual bland, serious tone he always used when it came to discussing the facts of life (Always eat your breakfast. Stay in the car ’til I tell you. Watch your brother). They’d been in a diner, greasy breakfast, and Dean’d woken up restless in the motel room across the parking lot. Only had time for a too-quick shower, and their waitress’s thighs were smooth and pale between the tops of her stockings and the hem of her white skirt when she reached up on tiptoes to cross something off the specials board. A stiff wind’d get you going, when it was not so inexplicable after all as to why Dean was reluctant to stand up and get out of their booth just yet.
Dad makes a noise like he can’t breathe for a moment and Dean presses his body back against the lumpy mattress, staring wide-eyed at the bare-beamed ceiling. There’s no waitress now, just the three of them in this rough-hewn shack, single room with two cots, a table and chair and pot-bellied stove Dad only lights in the evenings and mornings.
Dad’s still breathing funny, but less urgently now, and Dean only realises when he discerns the sound of a wet sniff accompanying the soft scrape of the chair being pushed back that Dad was crying, actually crying this time, and Dean’s awake enough now that the understanding makes it feel like something solid and heavy’s growing in his stomach, fighting for position at the base of his throat, and his skin flushes abruptly hot then cold, blankets too scratchy.
Dad’s footsteps are slow and even; Dean hears the minute sounds of the tumblers shifting in the door latch and then there’s a belated wash of cooler air as Dad opens the door, closing softly behind him as he heads to the icy outhouse.
Dad’s gone for long enough that Dean’s drifted several degrees back into slumber, half-drugged by the low, deceptive light and thoughts straddling the fluid boundary between dream-reality and dozing logic. Dean doesn’t have to feign the relaxation of sleep as the door opens again, but John doesn’t walk by them, stand over them; just heels off his boots (soft thud-thud) and eases onto the second cot, the warped joins holding it together squeaking softly.
Dean makes himself stir, the sounds drawing him out enough to turn his head on the pillow. Dad’s body’s still now; square, unmovable line of his back turned to them, head dark and rough-edged on the pillow. The room’s almost blue without the lamplight, and Dean blinks rapidly.
“Go to sleep, Dean,” John says, voice rough and low, and Dean closes his eyes.