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"Jesus, Sam, would you stop thinking so loud?"
"Fuck you," Sam mutters, curling against the passenger side door and trying futilely to tune his brother out. If anyone in this car is thinking too loud, it's Dean. Sam's just trying to sleep—just minding his own business and staring at the passing roadside—and it's really not his fault that he has all these anxieties swirling around his brain, making it impossible to doze off.
The problem is, they've been like this for three days. There was that debacle with the ominous cult, and a cursed relic, and then a whole bunch of chanting, and now…
Now Sam can't get a moment to himself, because everywhere he turns there's Dean. In his head, and broadcasting his feelings on every frequency, and making a complete nuisance of himself—then turning around and accusing Sam of bleeding thoughts into his brain.
It's all supremely unfair, and if they hadn't already figured out that putting half a state's worth of distance between them doesn't help—gives them matched pounding headaches and still leaves them stuck with each other's feedback—Sam would open the car door right now and start walking the other direction. Never mind that the car is still moving.
"Don't even think about it," says Dean. "Road rash sucks, and I don't want to feel that even secondhand. Anyway, I'm no happier than you are."
"Christ, Dean. Can't you at least pretend to stay out of my head?"
"I tried that for eighty miles, dude. And all it's gotten me is an hour of hearing you freak out without actually saying anything. I'm over this bullshit."
"I hate you," Sam mutters.
"We'll figure out how to reverse it," Dean promises. "Anyway, what's it matter in the meantime? Whatever you're worried I might see in your head? It's not worth having an aneurysm over."
Sam glares out at the field instead of answering, because he's got plenty he doesn't want Dean to see. He focuses all his thoughts on how much he hates his brother right now—how this is all Dean's fault, because if he had listened to Sam they could have scattered the cult, destroyed the relic, and never gotten stuck together like this in the first place.
"Fine," says Dean. "Be an asshole . Whatever flips your pancakes, dude."
They make it through a solid week before they decide that maybe the curse can't be reversed after all.
"This sucks," says Dean, kicking dejectedly at the sidewalk.
"You suck," says Sam. It's not his best moment, but what's the point of thinking up something clever to say when Dean will hear it in his head before Sam even gets the satisfaction of verbal delivery?
"Think Bobby's found anything?" asks Dean. Sam doesn't know why they still even bother to have their conversations aloud, but he suspects they're both just being stubborn. Anyway, his own head is still a cluttered mess of deliberate distraction and irrational rage—there are still all those things he doesn't want Dean to know, after all. And from the cacophonous chaos he hears screaming at him from Dean's head, his brother is guilty of the same tactics. Sam hopes so, anyway. It's even more terrifying to think that maybe that's what Dean's thoughts sound like all the time.
"Of course Bobby hasn't found anything," Sam says tiredly. "He would've called us by now if he had. Or if he knew someone else who might have a clue. Or if he thought there might be a book somewhere in Finland with the answer."
"Shit," mutters Dean.
"No kidding," says Sam.
They spend three days in the calm quiet of a nature reserve—giving themselves migraines and taking an excessive number of painkillers—and finally emerge with some idea how to block each other out. It's not perfect, and they're not what Sam would call good at it, but it's a start. It's a few minutes to themselves at a time, anyway, and then longer periods of respite as they get the hang of it. If they're both focusing on keeping their thoughts to themselves, they can drive down the highway without driving each other nuts.
It's three months in that the dam breaks, and Sam doesn't see it coming.
"Dude," he says. "Stop being so jumpy. This isn't the first cramped janitor's closet we've had to hide in."
"Shut up," says Dean. And besides the fact that it's not exactly the witty rejoinder Sam was expecting, he also has to admit that it's weird not to hear his brother's thoughts. On the job they tend to let their guard down—thought bleed can be a vital advantage when they're fighting monsters. It's that extra second of warning, and the need for effortless, instantaneous communication. For Dean to be blocking Sam out right now says something is wrong.
The problem is, this closet is really small—there's barely enough space to breathe, and Dean is pressed up against him so tight that it's all Sam can do to keep his attention on the job—watching the hallway through the barely crack-open door—instead of on some of those very key things he doesn't want Dean to know. He doesn't have much choice but to let Dean's deliberate radio silence slide by.
"What do you think it is?" Dean asks in a harsh whisper, eyes blinking wide in the dim light of a single, dying light bulb. "It's definitely not a spirit. That trail of snot is a little too distinctive. Maybe—"
"Fuck," Sam hisses through his teeth, clicking the door shut as fast and silent as he can and shoving at Dean—fitting his hand tight over his brother's mouth to shut him up before the thing in the hallway hears them. He pushes too hard, and if there were space in this room to fall over they'd be on the floor. As it is, he's just got Dean shoved uncomfortably against the brick with not enough space between them.
The sensation of Dean's walls coming down is sudden and jarring. Sam can feel Dean's surprise—accompanied by the rapid rhythm of Dean's pulse where their chests press together—and beneath that a sharp spike of arousal so strong he nearly gasps aloud.
Dean's mental voice is a panicked mantra, loud and flurried, and Sam's eyes might be wide, but Dean's are wider as Sam listens to his brother run circles of 'Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck' in his head.
'Oh,' Sam thinks, and knows from the way Dean's eyes widen even further that his brother heard him.
Dean's eyes cut towards the door and then back to Sam, and the panic is a palpable force between them. It makes Sam's head swim, and it's giving him a headache. Too loud, too intense, and too much to process. Maybe he should ease back and remove his hand, but for some reason he stays right where he is. It's not like there's anywhere else for him to go at the moment.
'Dean, calm down!' Sam admonishes, trying to project his thoughts loudly enough to drown out the onslaught. It works a little—Dean's furious panic eases back to a quiet roar. But in its wake, Sam can feel the pulse of desire still humming through Dean's body. And there's no denying that Sam's proximity is the catalyst to this particular dilemma.
Except it's not really a dilemma at all. It's an opportunity Sam never thought he would have. And for all that there are a million reasons not to—reasons it's wrong and a bad idea and probably a disaster waiting to happen—Sam holds Dean's gaze and slowly, deliberately lets his own walls down.
Dean's panic leaves him slow on the uptake, but he puts it together soon enough. Sam's not hiding anything now, and when he lets the shields of distraction fall away, there's nothing to mask the fact that Sam's every bit as turned on as Dean is.
'You mean you—'
'Yeah.'
'But Sammy—'
'I know.'
Now's not the time for this. Sam caught a glimpse of their prey before he slammed the door shut—a tall, dark, slimy shadow inching down the corridor—and they need to take it out before it kills again. Before it leaves any more victims lying blank and lifeless in a pool of yellow slime.
'We'll talk about this later,' he promises, and Dean gives a short nod, eyes narrowing with new focus. The rush of panic has been replaced with a surge of adrenaline, and Sam feels it like his own. Now that they're back in sync with each other this hunt should go a whole lot more smoothly.
'Okay,' Dean nods, pulling a gun from somewhere and clicking the safety off. 'Let's do this.'