We're Here to Stay
“You look like a homeless man.”
He watched as the gangly vampire looked up from whatever it was he was doing - probably cleaning the dust out of this place finally, ‘cause really, it was getting ridiculous - to blink owlishly at him. Dean merely stared back from his reclined position on the couch, giving him a dry look until he finally replied.
“Y’don’t look any better, love,” Yentl finally said with a soft smile, looking back down to the cloth in his hands and ringing it out. The friendly spirit from before had shown him where the cupboard with cleaning supplies was, having used her ability to walk through walls to find it much faster than he would have. Neither man saw the woman very often but they knew she was around. Yentl saw her as a ghostly companion that he could like; Dean felt like he owed her.
“Yeah, well, I’ve been travelling cross-country like a desperate psychic hitchhiker. I didn’t have the time to take a morning off and shave. You, on the other hand…” Dean waved at the scraggily, patchy beard that covered Yentl’s face. The dark hair stood stark against his pale, vampiric skin, making him seem sallow and unhealthy. It reminded Dean of a movie that always made him go cold every time he watched it; a hopeless man playing the piano because it was all he had.
He didn’t like the comparison.
“Why do you look like a hobo, Yentl?”
The once-counselor watched as the Jewish wizard fell silent, plucking at his cloth and probably worrying the inside of his cheek, as if hesitant to tell him why he had stopped taking care of himself. The thoughts were there, brushing against his mind, but he refused to listen to them. He wanted to hear the words out of his idiot’s mouth.
“…I stopped carin’.”
“Oh, damn you, Yentl Aschner,” Dean growled, pushing himself up from his position and stumbling to his feet. He almost fell back to the ground as soon as he stood up and was only saved the embarrassment when Yentl was suddenly there, holding him up; wiry arms filled with supernatural strength clinging to him like always. Always supporting him; always holding him up when he was too weak to do it himself. “Damn you and your hopelessness.”
“Dean - wha -”
“Shut up I am speaking.” Readjusting so that he was not awkwardly leaning on the taller man, he reached up and grabbed his face with both hands and shook it. “You do not get to stop caring about yourself. Even when shit seems hopeless, you don’t do that.”
“…I thought you were gone,” Yentl whispered, looking at him with those perpetually sad blue-hazel eyes. He bowed his head to touch foreheads with Dean, hands moving from his arms to his waist as seamlessly as though they had never been separated. “I thought I’d never see ya again - or anyone, but most importantly you… so I thought, ‘why bother? Why care? It doesn’t matter’.”
“And that’s where you’re wrong,” Dean pushed against his chest but didn’t push him away. “Yentl you are practically made out of faith for everyone, from God to students to me - why’d you drop your faith in me?” Yentl opened his mouth to fight that statement, Dean knew it, so he lifted a hand and covered Yentl’s mouth with it, narrowing his eyes. “You did. You thought I was gone. You thought you were never going to see me again. Yentl Aschner, you damn idiot - if you thought for one second that I wasn’t going to find a way to find you then you don’t know me at all.”
Yentl stared at him for a long moment, silent and still as the grave his kind were rumoured to sleep in, before he gave a weak little laugh that sounded more like a sob as he seemed to collapse onto Dean. Curving around him, arms wrapped around his back and face pressed to his neck, he shook and murmured something that could have either been ‘I’ve missed you’ or ‘I love you’ or something said in a completely different language.
But Dean understood the feeling. He understood and he held the vampire wizard just as tightly, fingers clinging to a dingy robe and eyes staring at the ceiling as he fought against tears (and most likely lost).
It would take a long while for either of them to be back to a time when they were happier, but at least this time they had each other to lean on for support.
That was more than Dean could ask for.