read a fic the other day about sam and dean spending that week after john dies at bobby’s, and the sweet rottie rumsfeld being involved which got me thinking how much i headcannon sam as a dog person. hope to god i did this image of sam justice.
It’s hot and the sun beats down unforgiving as ever, but Dean spends all day out working on Baby. It’s for the car of course, because he needs the car. But it’s also so he doesn’t have to face Sam.
The heat drowns out his thoughts, turns him into some zombie that’s only goal in life is to fix the car. It makes him sick, makes his head hurt if he thinks too hard about it. He probably wouldn’t feel as sick as he does if he let Sam close enough to remind him to drink enough water.
His tan lines are starting to show from wearing an old mildewy white tank top, one that he’d found in the corner of Bobby’s laundry room. His jeans have soaked with sweat, and then dried, so they’re sticky and cool as they cling to his legs. Usually, he wouldn’t be this unclean but there’s a drought so Bobby’s been unnecessarily anxious about laundry.
It’s been four days — maybe three, maybe even five. Dean doesn’t know, the heat makes time pass in weird ways. He finds himself going out under the car early in the morning; and his body carrying him back to the house for dinner just before the sun sets. Counting days hasn’t exactly been his top priority.
Usually, the sound of Sam playing with Rumsfeld lulls him into that state. The door clinks open from across the yard, just barely audible over the sound of Dean’s music. Rumsfeld will bark at Sam once, and Sam will usually laugh. The ball gets thrown, sometimes hitting one of the cars in the yard — which usually makes Dean’s awareness flicker with urge to tease Sam for having bad aim.
But Rumsfeld clambers through the dead cars to get the ball every time, so Dean absentmindedly wonders if Sam does it on purpose just to make her work for it.
Sam will play with her like that for a while, with the occasional pause to walk down the yard in search of Dean. Which Dean knows Sam thinks he doesn’t notice. He does, he just choses to ignore or forget it most times.
She’ll lap at a bowl of water after the sound of her steps across the creaking porch, and Sam will praise her for it before going in for lunch.
Dean went in for lunch the first day they were here because Bobby was still home. Dean’s sure that the tension between the brothers is what chased him away on a ‘meet-up’ with some other hunters.
After Sam finishes lunch he either organizes shit in Bobby’s living room (Dean doesn’t know how he knows this, but the information sits in his memory like its been branded there. He gathers he’s maybe spent time looking in the window of the house from against Baby) or, Sam finds a book and comes back outside despite the raging heat.
Sam will stay there, silently, until Dean comes inside before sundown. Somehow, Sam always knows to go in just a few minutes before Dean wraps up. And then they eat dinner in silence until one goes upstairs to the guest room they used to sleep in as kids, and the other promptly takes their turn on the couch.
Today, Dean hasn’t heard the door to the house open once. Rumsfeld’s getting impatient, Dean could hear her pacing and whining.
It’s not all that abnormal, Sammy’s a big boy. He’s allowed to have freedom to do whatever he wants. But it has Dean on edge, enough to break through the barrier of his fever-dreamed haze.
He could easily barge in the house and complain about Rumsfeld whining for being the reason of asking why Sam’s not played fetch with her — to inadvertently ask what’s wrong with him, why he broke routine.
But that would take effort, and lead to a real conversation that Dean doesn’t think he’s ready for. Because’s he’s fine, he absolutely is, talking about it would only disrupt his fine state.
So he doesn’t go inside to check on Sam, he goes back under Baby and continues his work, hoping for the sun-haze to take over his brain so he stops thinking again.
It’s probably hours later when he breaks through it again, having just finished the task he set out on early that morning. He doesn’t have Sam to gage what time it is, so he doesn’t know if it’s after lunch or not.
The yard seems to be void of the sound of Rumsfeld, which makes him uneasy because the sound of her collar is always clinking with the rhythm of her pants.
Dehydration plagues his mouth, and makes him dizzy when he clears his throat. He rolls the creeper out from under Baby, and forces himself to stand. It makes his head pound unforgivingly.
Dean wipes his hand with a rag, searching the yard for Rumsfeld — who’s nowhere to be found.
He clears his throat again — immediately regretting it, then sets the rag down on the wood bench and forces himself to walk up to the house.
Minus the absolute crave for water, his stomach rumbles in hunger, angry at him for having skipped so many lunches.
He forces himself up the old creaky steps, and draws the screen door open before pushing his unwilling body into the slightly cooler house.
Dean doesn’t hear signs of Sam upon immediate entry, and he neglects to look for him until he gets to the fridge and manages a bottle of water.
The fridge feels only a few degrees cooler than the air in the house, but the water bottle he picks up cools his hand down the rest of his body like frost spreading on a late October night. He shivers in his place.
The action of unscrewing the cap and bringing the bottle to his mouth happens on instinct, and gulping down the cool liquid brings life back into his body. He groans softly, chugging the bottle down — minus a few drops that escape from his mouth and down his chin.
He pops off it with a desperate breath, crunching up the bottle and throwing it into the open paper bag on the floor next to the trash can.
Sam’s name sits heavy in the back of his throat, nearly having made it’s way out when he turns. His breath is ripped from his chest, forcing the name to die in his throat.
Sam’s asleep on the couch, Rumsfeld promptly atop him like it’s where she’s meant to be. She’s not even allowed in the house unless she’s being fed.
Sam’s limbs are too long to fit on the ugly brown couch, one of his legs is propped against an arm, and the other moulds his neck to mimic a pillow. His other leg hangs off the couch, dangles just above the surface of the old wood floors just like one of his arms.
It can’t be a restful sleep, Dean wouldn’t be comfortable sleeping like that — but Sam looks more peaceful than he’s been since he was at Stanford. The warm — clearly afternoon — sun beams in through the louvered shades, caressing his soft features just perfectly.
He’s not angry, or upset, or even happy — he’s just there. Peaceful, relaxed. Perfect. He’s perfect.
Rumsfeld covers him like a ratty blanket, drooling against one of Sam’s stupid geek shirts that he loves so much. The arm not dangling off the couch clutches her fur, just above her collar where there must be a sweet spot that she likes to be pet.
The image of Sam calling her up onto the couch, getting himself comfortable, and petting her till they both dozed fills Dean’s chest with a kind of warmth he hasn’t felt since Sammy was just a snaggletoothed sticky mess that looked up to him like Dean was the fuckin’ sun.
In this moment, Sam looks like more than just the sun. He’s fucking divine — angelic. The sun clings to his skin and his hair that looks two shades lighter — because they’re one. It finds every bit of open skin — the spot where his shirt’s been hiked up and his hip shows, his arms and neck — all scattered with gleams of pure warmth and light.
Dean doesn’t consider himself religious, threw the idea of anything but horrible away when his mom had died the way she did after reminding him night after night that their family was blessed. But Sam’s restful state, his soft and mesmerizing features almost has him on his knees.
Rumsfeld doesn’t wake, doesn’t even seem to graze the surface of a stir — she lets Dean stare. Lets him stand there and gape at the two of them.
Sam’s breathing is soft — just like Dean knows his voice would be if he took the few steps forward to wake him.
He is soft. He is delicate. He is the boy that Dean fell in love with at the age of innocent. He is nothing but perfect; even when he strays from his usual self in times of anxiety and trouble. He is everything that Dean would kill for and die for, just from a silent pleading look — and from so much less. He is Dean’s everything.
Dean doesn’t know how long he stands there, doesn’t know how long he watches Sam and Rumsfeld just breathe in their sleep, but he does until his knees and his hips ache, and until the sun shining in is turning a dark orange. He does until Sam stirs awake, softly turning in his spot to rub his eyes open just like he did when he was 10 years younger.
Dean melts at the soft mewl he lets out, and melts even further at the less soft groan when Rumsfeld turns to lay fully on her side atop him.
He can’t find it in him to move from his place, even though he suddenly feels guilty for watching Sam as long as he did.
Sam huffs at the rottie, scratching behind her ears before turning — he looks surprised to see Dean at first, his eyes flickering back and forth between him and the dog before he softens and shifts to sit up as much as he can under Rumsfeld’s weight.
“Dean,” he says gently — and it’s exactly the way Dean knew he’d sound when he woke.
“Sammy,” Dean says back — exasperated to finally speak his brother’s name, but just as supple as Sam had.
He has the urge to whisper it again, to say his brother’s name over and over like a prayer because Sammy is something that deserves to be worshipped.
He doesn’t. In fact, he stands there, unsure of what to do with himself; go up to Sam, and touch his face — whisper his name like a desperate plea, kiss him softly — or leave, let the moment be remembered and burned into Dean’s brain as how gorgeous his little brother is, with no mistake to taint it.
Sam seems to not know either, so they stay there in silence. Dean’s legs aching and screaming at him to just sit down for a minute, Sam’s messy hair and face painted with the fading sun — and Rumsfeld dozing away.
For a second, the flashes of Dean on his knees in front of that very couch feels so real he thinks he might actually be there, that he might’ve actually manned up and done what he craves so badly to do.
But then the fridge ticks, and Sam clears his throat, and Rumsfeld jolts awake, suddenly starved for her dinner.
They don’t part unkindly — Sam tears his eyes from Dean’s, and the moment ends as harmoniously as it could’ve.
Dean regrets not having gotten on his knees for his brother the moment they sit down at the uneven table for a dinner they’ve had for the last several nights.
He regrets not showing Sam how badly he worships him.
He regrets it, He regrets it, He regrets it, He regrets it.
But he can’t bring himself to change it.
They eat in silence, maybe Sam having moved on from the moment just as much as Dean had — and Dean’s still sure he can feel the still air, and the cramp in his legs, and the hunger in his belly for more than just the food promised for dinner — but instead the heavenly being that is his little brother.
They don’t talk about it, but after dinner they gravitate to the couch together — where somehow Sam ends up leaned against Dean in the way he had when they were younger and only — still — had just each other.
They don’t talk about the way that Dean slowly snakes his hand over Sam’s body to find one of his, desperately seizing the palm that is so much softer than his. They don’t talk about the implication of it, or where it would lead if they managed to take the next step — they don’t talk about the trouble of what would happen if Bobby found them like this, with Rumsfeld at their feet in the house she’s not allowed in unless she’s being fed — and with their hands, hearts and bodies intertwined.