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Dean still hated flying, but he had gotten better at hiding it. Sam would almost have thought Dean wasn’t nervous at all, until he saw the way Dean’s knuckles were the color of sheet rock with how hard he was clutching the armrests. Sam wanted to rub Dean’s back, to whisper to him that he could do this, that Sam wouldn’t let anything bad happen on this flight. Jess had been a nervous flyer, too. They’d flown to Whistler once to go skiing and he’d done that, held her hand and distracted her through takeoff and descent. But just because he and Dean were sleeping together now didn’t mean he had the right to act like his boyfriend. Instead, as they pushed away from the gate and the engine noise rose, he said conversationally, “I think Master of Puppets is overrated. The Black Album has to be Metallica’s best.”
Dean sputtered for a moment and shot him a death glare. “Overrated? Overrated?” He proceeded to launch into a detailed and passionate diatribe explaining why Sam was wrong and Master of Puppets was a masterpiece, though of course he’d always had a personal favorite in Ride the Lightning.
Sam let him talk until the plane hit 35,000 feet. Then he said, “You’re probably right. You wanna watch a movie? They have All Saints Day.”
Dean blinked, looked around the cabin as if he was surprised to find he was in an airplane. “Sure.”
Sam handed over a pair of headphones and smiled to himself. He might not be able to act like a boyfriend, but at least he could still act like a brother.