January rain wasn’t terribly unusual, even in this part of the country, but the clap of thunder was still surprising enough to pull Sam’s attention from the laptop. He turned the blinds so that he could better see the outdoors and watched the rain beat down. The small tree outside his window caught the droplets and held them. The rain turned to ice almost on contact, decorating the fragile limbs with tight strands of crystal.

He hoped Dean wasn’t driving, that he was waiting out the weather inside the bar or pool hall or wherever he had gone to earn some money so that they could have some cash for a change. The Impala was a solid car – lovely American sheet metal wrapped around a powerful engine that Dean babied to keep it purring over the long stretches of road they usually found themselves on. But she was not a vehicle for snow or ice, too heavy to stop fast or turn with much agility. Dean’s skill – and confidence – made up where the Impala lacked, but Sam still couldn’t embrace the image of his brother speeding back to the motel on slick black asphalt.

Which didn’t mean Sam didn’t wish Dean was here, already home – or what was passing for it this week. They spent nearly every waking moment in each other’s space, and every moment sleeping, and yet it didn’t take the passage of much time apart for Sam to be lonely for him. Dean was the glue that held Sam together, that kept body and soul from splitting up the seams and falling, irreparable. Looking back, Sam couldn’t imagine how he had made it through nearly four years of college without him.

The rain poured harder, and Sam’s thoughts shifted to his father. He wondered where John was, wondered if the distance between them was as far physically as it was emotionally. Sometimes, Sam thought he could almost feel his presence, just a whisper in his subconscious telling him John was still alive, still searching. Dean would have been surprised to hear that Sam missed him, even though Sam had been missing him pretty much for years now, even when they had still been together.

He worried about his dad, wondered if the haunting images they now shared kept his father awake or jerked him screaming from sleep the way they did Sam. John didn’t have anyone to comfort him, to tease or bully him away from his guilt and fears, his anger, the way Sam did. He never had. And he’d pushed on anyway, worn the mantle of grieving husband and vengeance angel without pause or complaint for 23 years. Sam wondered how his father had stayed sane with only those emotions to sustain him. 

Then again, he had to remind himself, sanity is a relative thing.

In his case, he knew it was Dean who had kept him from the brink. Thousands of moments passed when Sam moved through his life, seemingly unaffected by the tragedy he had witnessed (caused). There were a thousand other moments, though, when the grief and pain rose up and stole his breath, and he needed a nudge to remind him to inhale again. Dean never failed to give that nudge, even though, more often than not, it was in the form of a smack upside the head. Sam would never say in words that he was grateful for the reminder, but he felt that Dean knew anyway.

The rain coated the window now, transforming the view into a bleary watercolor. Daylight was fading and the safety lamps and streetlights had buzzed to life, casting an orange glow on the parking lot and street.

Sam felt the pull of the melancholy that was almost a given on days like this, and changed his mind. He hoped Dean was driving home. Carefully, slowly, if necessary, but coming home nonetheless. He could feel himself needing a nudge.

He wished, not for the first time, that their fractured family could be whole again. That he and Dean could have their father back without the anguish that made him so unreachable. That John would lay down his mantle and fold his dark wings and embrace the sons he’d pushed away for so long. Sam’s dreams of normalcy in terms of what other people did had faded somewhere around Indiana. All he really longed for now was the constancy of father and brother, to know that no matter what else came, their little triangle would stay firm. It was the only stability he even understood, anymore. Without it, he could feel himself holding his breath, unsure of how to fill his lungs again.

Mesmerized now by the growing darkness and the ceaseless intensity of the rain, Sam didn’t hear Dean’s key turn in the lock, didn’t hear his brother’s footsteps or feel his warmth, even when Dean stood beside him.

"Hey." Dean pushed his shoulder against Sam’s, not gently but without aggression.

Something loosened, and Sam finally inhaled.

"Hey," he answered, and he leaned against Dean, just a little.

They were a triangle without a base, but each still confident in the other’s ability to keep him upright. And if sometimes one side had to take a little more weight, it still balanced out in the end.

They didn’t speak, but Dean didn’t move away, and not for the first time, their two individual pieces created a third, complete thing, forged in silent understanding and acceptance.

They looked out the window together in silence until the rain ended.