It was probably a bad idea, in retrospect, to follow any directions in this place. In retrospect, of course. Couldn't have thought of that a bit earlier.
Drawn by the sound of celebration downstairs, he wandered in, raised his eyebrows, noticed the sign, and followed it down the hall. Staring at the sign for about three minutes, eventually he makes up his mind with a mental shrug - how bad can it be? (really bad, yes, he knows, it just seems kind of...irrelevant) - and steps inside.
It's nothing big, just sitting in the passenger seat of the Impala, the familiar sound of the engine underneath and AC/DC from the tape deck, and Sam looks sideways and sees Dean, as he was before Hell, when they were getting back into the groove and they were both so much younger.
Dean notices him staring and his mouth quirks in a remembered uncertain smile. "Dude, what are you staring at?"
"Nothing," says Sam automatically, and he can't decide if it hurts or feels good, this, because he misses it, so much, like he never thought he would. Just this. Not perfect, but okay, and that's so much, now, so much more.
When the spell fades, Sam stumbles out and sits down across the hall, elbows on his knees, staring at nothing in particular. He's not in tears, but it's close. But that smile, that fucking smile. He'll hold onto that.
Maybe tonight he'll get drunk, Sam thinks, and hug his brother, and tell him everything that he wants to say but that they don't, ever, but until then...until then.
So, parties are cool, right? Never mind that he and Jaenelle keep tripping on each other, and he's supposed to be keeping himself busy with plans for the snowball war right now, and that he really shouldn't be around this much alcohol right now because dammit, he's doing well, he's maintaining, he's toeing the line and the center is holding, and that's... that isn't nothing. It's not much, but it's not nothing, and he reminds himself of that fiercely every time he stops to think.
So. Party. Right. There's a lot of people and that grates on his nerves in a way it didn't always, but some of these people are people he wouldn't mind calling his friends, and the cheerful atmosphere is buoying against the rest of it, and Dean is standing at the edge of it and surveying it like he would a battlefield, looking for the best inroad, the safest route to obtain provisions, the least unfriendly territory... He sees the sign, but dismisses it out of hand. He's not interested in gifts, and a part of him still really, truly believes that no one would actually mean to give him one, anyway. (Shut up, that's totally not as angsty as it sounds, it's just a fact of life, alright?) But his eyes track the directions anyway, just to get an idea of what might be going on, and that's when he spots his brother's familiar frame folded into a chair, and the hunter is shoving his way through to close the distance with his breath held captive in his chest.
This is the real Dean, the one who has been through Hell, so there's no uncertainty and no smile allowed anywhere near the surface as he strides down the hall; he's not even armed, but judging by the expression on his face, that wouldn't matter much if he needed to throw down with something big and bad right here, right now, to help Sam. This Dean has been to Hell and he carries it with him, but there's still an old familiar flavor to the particular, protective anger already lining the features of his face as he barks ahead of himself, "Sammy?" What's wrong?
Sam would be so proud of you, Dean. If he weren't otherwise occupied. (And yes, it's totally as angsty as it sounds. He says. You can talk, Sam.)
Sam is in the middle of rubbing his eyes and trying to straighten out his thoughts. It was stupid. He shouldn't have- but he's kind of glad, too, in a painful, terrible way, of the reminder. That they were that once. Maybe (maybe) can get there again. (He won't let himself hope too much. They're a long way from there. Maybe forever from there.)
His head jerks up when he hears that voice, expression blankly startled before he manages to smooth it out, sort of. More or less. It doesn't work all that well, not this time, not right now (not with the echoes still reverberating).
"Hey," he says, voice low and - tired, but even, at least. Mostly. "Dean."
No, not acknowledging the implicit question. It's fine, right?
Dean would like to say he never forgot they were that, but it would be a lie; he remembers, of course he does, it's what he got by on for years both topside and below. But it's tarnished and faded and he's not really sure he remembers what it feels like, and the only thing he knows for certain is that he wants it back and isn't sure they can have it. Isn't sure that they should. It hasn't done them any favors so far, right?
Wrong. He knows that. Just sometimes...
Sam's attempt to keep his face blank plus his response is not exactly reassuring to Dean, who pulls to a stop directly in front of him, glancing both directions down the hall for what the problem might be before focusing on Sam. He doesn't see any blood, but he knows enough to know that sometimes that doesn't mean anything, and he thinks almost nothing of reaching to touch his brother, fingers seeking a wrist to move Sam's arm so he might get a better look, but mostly just the distant instinct to reassure them both with the contact.
"What happened? What is it? Are you hurt?" Dean is tired, too, but one would not be able to tell by looking at him right now, his adrenaline up because something happened, something's wrong, but he doesn't know what it is yet or how to kill it. But he will.
"Dean-" Sam half makes a motion like to pull his wrist out of reach, aborts it, and just says, "I'm fine. I'm not hurt, okay? It's nothing." God, he looks so worried. (Shouldn't feel good, Sam, you're an asshole. It does. Damn.)
He lifts his eyes, finally, looks at Dean, really looks at him, searches his face. He can still see it there, that memory, if he looks. Sure, there's all the shit in between, but it's still there. Dean's still there. That's all that matters. Isn't it?
It should be.
"Just - just tired."
Talking is never productive, and he doesn't even know where he would start, not tonight. You're my brother and I'd do anything for you. It doesn't roll off the tongue like it should, anymore, no matter how true it remains.
Sam's abortive motion just makes Dean's grip go tighter for a moment on his wrist, and then he's given up and the elder Winchester makes no qualms about posing his brother however he sees fit to make sure there's nothing being hidden down his sides, at his back; the way his name sounds is a warning but he's incapable of heeding it, not until he's satisfied and letting go, straightening up to consider what the next likely option is.
Then Sam is looking at him and he looks... Dean doesn't know what that look is, but it knifes right through the adrenaline and lays bare the fear, and Dean has to lock it down hard to keep it from creeping into the lines of his face and his eyes. He recognizes the lie that isn't quite a lie but isn't the whole story - he believes Sam is tired, but that's not it, that's never been enough to knock either of them flat on their asses before. (That was, of course, before the epic bullshit that started in Cold Oak, but that's neither here nor there just now.) But he can't make Sam tell him, that's never worked, it probably won't start now, so Dean takes a step back out of his brother's space and wonders when it suddenly became difficult to find something to do with his hands.
"...okay," he says, uncertainly, brow furrowed. "I don't... Sam, you sure? I can have our gear down here in two."
Sam lets Dean move back with a bit of reluctance. He kind of - doesn't want to. But that's not the kind of thing that...works. Nope. His mouth twists down at the corner slightly, and for a second, he thinks about it. Maybe it would be good, to be doing something, even if there's not really...anything to do. It's a room. What can they do with that? And he doesn't think...
"No," he says, "No, I'm sure, it's fine. I don't think...it's just this place. You know."
Fuck. Maybe pulling a Dean and getting smashed really is a good idea.
"Yeah, I do." And just like that, Dean is out of ideas. He's not happy about it - he's frowning full on, now, and the frustration is a distant tickle like a cough in the back of his throat - but what is he supposed to do? Smack the kicked puppy look off his brother's face? Maybe once upon a time, but they'd just fight now, and...
Okay. He's still hyped for a fight, but it just looks like a room when he glances at it. Not that that's ever stopped anything from being dangerous before, but.
"Did you go in there?" He didn't see. He was busy scoping out his namesake maneuver and then placing it firmly on ignore.
We are sorry, Dean. Really, we are. The worst thing is that Sam kind of wants to talk, really kind of, but he doesn't think Dean would and just boys. The typist bangs her head against a cabinet, and so forth.
"--yeah," Sam says, after a second, and then snorts. "Should have known better, right? 'Don't walk into cryptically labeled doors.' It's nothing...nothing bad, though. Just...weird."
"That depends," replies Dean, archly. He leans as if he might be able to see through the closed door better that way, but of course, he hasn't developed x-ray vision yet. It's on his bucket list, right under Fix things with Sam and Save the world from the apocalypse. When he glances back, Dean's raised an eyebrow to match his tone. "Are there naked chicks in there?"
He doesn't pause to let the hollowness in the joke ring through, just pushes straight on: "Weird how? What happened?"
Dean is going to talk whether you want to or not, Sam.
Sam thinks those should probably reverse order in terms of overall important. Probably. Sam gives Dean his best attempt at a Look, the proper response to such a remark, mingled amusement and disgust. It is sort of a good imitation. Depending on how you rank imitations.
"Weird like everything here is weird, Dean," Sam says, faintly exasperated, though that sounds a little hollow. "It's not important. Okay?"
Cue digging in heels. Head cabinet head cabinet head cabinet.
"Yeah, sure, it's not important. You're just sitting out here looking like someone ran over your Christmas puppy with a road grader, and that is the surest sign that everything is peachy," he replies, shifting to full on sharp-edged sarcasm. He used to have a lot more patience for this, but he's pretty sure it's just going to cause a fight now, because Sam has a short temper these days and Dean keeps missing his cues, and...
He cuts off, and stands up, abruptly, jerkily. "--let's just not, okay? Just - not tonight. Okay?" There is just a little bit of pleading in his voice and he's trying to keep even that out, but - still there. "It isn't important. It was just - stupid. Okay? Let's just-" He makes a sharp gesture in some direction. "Go."
Dean had made it exactly one step towards that door, and then there's the movement he was looking for in his periphery; on the one hand, Dean is relieved. On the other, that's not exactly reassuring for whatever is behind the door. He turns, because he can't ever ignore that pleading note, not when it's Sam, but he's got his hands out in the universal sign for what the fuck am I supposed to do then?
"Go? Go where?" He manages, mostly, to get that one in the range of rhetorical and not inflammatory, he thinks. "Sam, look, I'm okay with just dropping this, if it's really gonna be that much of an issue, but c'mon, man. Cut the crap. You gotta give me something. I can see it isn't nothing, and I can see it's at least kind of important. Stupid, I'll hold off on. But c'mon."
He started out irritated - by the end, he might be pleading a little, too. They keep going nowhere. He doesn't know what else to do.
Sam's mouth does a funny little twitch, but he looks relieved when Dean stops, too. Even if it were inflammatory, typist is not sure that Sam would bite right now; curiously enough, he's not in an arguing mood. (We thought those were mythical.)
He drops his eyes and just looks...tired again. "It's just memories. That's all. Is that enough?" He manages to make the last question just a little bit sharp, just a little bit 'annoyed-why-do-you-have-to-pry' but it's an effort. "It's not an issue. It's - yeah." He breathes out, sharply. "Happy New Year, right?"
(Dean broke the mythical streak with his Snowfall shenanigans; all mythical things are now fair game.)
The memories thing stops Dean cold, and the difference is almost palpable; he'd been pressing, wanting to know, and now he backs off pretty much completely. It's weird - judging by the look on Sam's face, despite all the bullshit and the five eternities that have passed between then and now, Dean still assumes it's Jess, and he's still oddly uncomfortable about that whole thing. After everything. ...He might be a little ridiculous.
"Yeah, I guess," Dean replies, back to uncertain now that he's gotten where he thought he wanted to be. He glances around again, reaching up to scrub the back of his hair, awkward in trying to find a safer topic than memories and why, exactly, it IS enough to back Dean off. "They've got a wet bar," he finally offers, lamely, then kicks himself. Of course Dean wants to drink. Fucking idiot.
Drawn by the sound of celebration downstairs, he wandered in, raised his eyebrows, noticed the sign, and followed it down the hall. Staring at the sign for about three minutes, eventually he makes up his mind with a mental shrug - how bad can it be? (really bad, yes, he knows, it just seems kind of...irrelevant) - and steps inside.
It's nothing big, just sitting in the passenger seat of the Impala, the familiar sound of the engine underneath and AC/DC from the tape deck, and Sam looks sideways and sees Dean, as he was before Hell, when they were getting back into the groove and they were both so much younger.
Dean notices him staring and his mouth quirks in a remembered uncertain smile. "Dude, what are you staring at?"
"Nothing," says Sam automatically, and he can't decide if it hurts or feels good, this, because he misses it, so much, like he never thought he would. Just this. Not perfect, but okay, and that's so much, now, so much more.
When the spell fades, Sam stumbles out and sits down across the hall, elbows on his knees, staring at nothing in particular. He's not in tears, but it's close. But that smile, that fucking smile. He'll hold onto that.
Maybe tonight he'll get drunk, Sam thinks, and hug his brother, and tell him everything that he wants to say but that they don't, ever, but until then...until then.
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So. Party. Right. There's a lot of people and that grates on his nerves in a way it didn't always, but some of these people are people he wouldn't mind calling his friends, and the cheerful atmosphere is buoying against the rest of it, and Dean is standing at the edge of it and surveying it like he would a battlefield, looking for the best inroad, the safest route to obtain provisions, the least unfriendly territory... He sees the sign, but dismisses it out of hand. He's not interested in gifts, and a part of him still really, truly believes that no one would actually mean to give him one, anyway. (Shut up, that's totally not as angsty as it sounds, it's just a fact of life, alright?) But his eyes track the directions anyway, just to get an idea of what might be going on, and that's when he spots his brother's familiar frame folded into a chair, and the hunter is shoving his way through to close the distance with his breath held captive in his chest.
This is the real Dean, the one who has been through Hell, so there's no uncertainty and no smile allowed anywhere near the surface as he strides down the hall; he's not even armed, but judging by the expression on his face, that wouldn't matter much if he needed to throw down with something big and bad right here, right now, to help Sam. This Dean has been to Hell and he carries it with him, but there's still an old familiar flavor to the particular, protective anger already lining the features of his face as he barks ahead of himself, "Sammy?" What's wrong?
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Sam is in the middle of rubbing his eyes and trying to straighten out his thoughts. It was stupid. He shouldn't have- but he's kind of glad, too, in a painful, terrible way, of the reminder. That they were that once. Maybe (maybe) can get there again. (He won't let himself hope too much. They're a long way from there. Maybe forever from there.)
His head jerks up when he hears that voice, expression blankly startled before he manages to smooth it out, sort of. More or less. It doesn't work all that well, not this time, not right now (not with the echoes still reverberating).
"Hey," he says, voice low and - tired, but even, at least. Mostly. "Dean."
No, not acknowledging the implicit question. It's fine, right?
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Wrong. He knows that. Just sometimes...
Sam's attempt to keep his face blank plus his response is not exactly reassuring to Dean, who pulls to a stop directly in front of him, glancing both directions down the hall for what the problem might be before focusing on Sam. He doesn't see any blood, but he knows enough to know that sometimes that doesn't mean anything, and he thinks almost nothing of reaching to touch his brother, fingers seeking a wrist to move Sam's arm so he might get a better look, but mostly just the distant instinct to reassure them both with the contact.
"What happened? What is it? Are you hurt?" Dean is tired, too, but one would not be able to tell by looking at him right now, his adrenaline up because something happened, something's wrong, but he doesn't know what it is yet or how to kill it. But he will.
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He lifts his eyes, finally, looks at Dean, really looks at him, searches his face. He can still see it there, that memory, if he looks. Sure, there's all the shit in between, but it's still there. Dean's still there. That's all that matters. Isn't it?
It should be.
"Just - just tired."
Talking is never productive, and he doesn't even know where he would start, not tonight. You're my brother and I'd do anything for you. It doesn't roll off the tongue like it should, anymore, no matter how true it remains.
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Then Sam is looking at him and he looks... Dean doesn't know what that look is, but it knifes right through the adrenaline and lays bare the fear, and Dean has to lock it down hard to keep it from creeping into the lines of his face and his eyes. He recognizes the lie that isn't quite a lie but isn't the whole story - he believes Sam is tired, but that's not it, that's never been enough to knock either of them flat on their asses before. (That was, of course, before the epic bullshit that started in Cold Oak, but that's neither here nor there just now.) But he can't make Sam tell him, that's never worked, it probably won't start now, so Dean takes a step back out of his brother's space and wonders when it suddenly became difficult to find something to do with his hands.
"...okay," he says, uncertainly, brow furrowed. "I don't... Sam, you sure? I can have our gear down here in two."
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"No," he says, "No, I'm sure, it's fine. I don't think...it's just this place. You know."
Fuck. Maybe pulling a Dean and getting smashed really is a good idea.
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Okay. He's still hyped for a fight, but it just looks like a room when he glances at it. Not that that's ever stopped anything from being dangerous before, but.
"Did you go in there?" He didn't see. He was busy scoping out his namesake maneuver and then placing it firmly on ignore.
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"--yeah," Sam says, after a second, and then snorts. "Should have known better, right? 'Don't walk into cryptically labeled doors.' It's nothing...nothing bad, though. Just...weird."
To say the least.
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He doesn't pause to let the hollowness in the joke ring through, just pushes straight on: "Weird how? What happened?"
Dean is going to talk whether you want to or not, Sam.
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"Weird like everything here is weird, Dean," Sam says, faintly exasperated, though that sounds a little hollow. "It's not important. Okay?"
Cue digging in heels. Head cabinet head cabinet head cabinet.
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"Yeah, sure, it's not important. You're just sitting out here looking like someone ran over your Christmas puppy with a road grader, and that is the surest sign that everything is peachy," he replies, shifting to full on sharp-edged sarcasm. He used to have a lot more patience for this, but he's pretty sure it's just going to cause a fight now, because Sam has a short temper these days and Dean keeps missing his cues, and...
Whatever. He turns towards the door.
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He cuts off, and stands up, abruptly, jerkily. "--let's just not, okay? Just - not tonight. Okay?" There is just a little bit of pleading in his voice and he's trying to keep even that out, but - still there. "It isn't important. It was just - stupid. Okay? Let's just-" He makes a sharp gesture in some direction. "Go."
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"Go? Go where?" He manages, mostly, to get that one in the range of rhetorical and not inflammatory, he thinks. "Sam, look, I'm okay with just dropping this, if it's really gonna be that much of an issue, but c'mon, man. Cut the crap. You gotta give me something. I can see it isn't nothing, and I can see it's at least kind of important. Stupid, I'll hold off on. But c'mon."
He started out irritated - by the end, he might be pleading a little, too. They keep going nowhere. He doesn't know what else to do.
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He drops his eyes and just looks...tired again. "It's just memories. That's all. Is that enough?" He manages to make the last question just a little bit sharp, just a little bit 'annoyed-why-do-you-have-to-pry' but it's an effort. "It's not an issue. It's - yeah." He breathes out, sharply. "Happy New Year, right?"
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The memories thing stops Dean cold, and the difference is almost palpable; he'd been pressing, wanting to know, and now he backs off pretty much completely. It's weird - judging by the look on Sam's face, despite all the bullshit and the five eternities that have passed between then and now, Dean still assumes it's Jess, and he's still oddly uncomfortable about that whole thing. After everything. ...He might be a little ridiculous.
"Yeah, I guess," Dean replies, back to uncertain now that he's gotten where he thought he wanted to be. He glances around again, reaching up to scrub the back of his hair, awkward in trying to find a safer topic than memories and why, exactly, it IS enough to back Dean off. "They've got a wet bar," he finally offers, lamely, then kicks himself. Of course Dean wants to drink. Fucking idiot.
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