A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words
A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words
“Sam, Jesus, don’t look through all that.”
It was too late. Layla’s voice held so much concern he wanted to smile for her, make her think it was all okay, but it wasn’t. The problem with befriending two of the three photographers for the school yearbook was that they were constantly snapping pictures of you. The biggest problem of that was when they incessantly snapped pictures of you and your ex-boyfriend and then spread out the unused pictures for everyone to see.
It wasn’t her fault. They did this every year, printing off the unused pictures so anyone could take them if they wanted. His fingers landed on a picture and he pulled it closer. He and Dean were at some event in the auditorium, sitting in the bleachers. He could tell from the way they were sitting that it was after they’d really got together. Dean was sitting in one row, one knee braced up on the row below him. Sam was on the bottom row, his back supported by Dean’s crooked knee, face turned towards his brother as Sam spoke animatedly about something.
The way Dean was looking at him. Jesus.
He was startled when the picture was pulled out from under his fingertips, sliding over the table to be added to a small pile of photos, the top of which happened to be him and Dean as well.
He wasn’t surprised to see his brother standing there, Layla gaping at him as he collected the photos of them.
“I was gonna keep that,” Sam said softly.
“You don’t want that, Sammy,” Dean answered quietly, shaking his head. “Sorry… Sam.”
“Why do you want them?”
He expected some comment about salt and burn but Dean just looked at the small stack in his hand and shrugged. “I don’t … I don’t have any photos of you. Not any.”
It was one of those moments when Sam wanted to throw himself around his big brother and try to give him all the things he should have had but never had. It also made him hate his father for making something as stupid as a Polaroid mean something. The fact that he’d taken the whole damn lot of them, every picture of Sam and Dean together, it meant more than Sam could stand.
He knew his brother and he knew what he’d seen in that picture. He’d also had plenty of time to wonder about his motives. Rina wasn’t on Dean’s arm anymore, hadn’t been since the first two weeks after they broke up and Dean hadn’t been seen with anyone else since. Ethan had been a disaster all its own. Two dates and now Ethan was barely speaking to him, but it wasn’t like Ethan hadn’t known how messed up Sam was about Dean. If Ethan had been half the friend he’d acted, he’d have understood. Instead he’d acted like a jealous jackass of a boyfriend - when he wasn’t even a boyfriend yet - and given him more shit than Dean ever had. And Dean had been right to boot. Sam had been forgetting who he was and why they were there. He’d been pushing more and more to be with his friends, and pulling away from Dean, not because he didn’t want to be with Dean, but because Dean was all about the hunt again.
“Can I see the picture again?” Sam asked, holding his hand out. “I’ll give it back.”
“Sam?” he ignored Layla and she got the message, moving back behind the table to help the rest of the kids as they came up from the lunch tables and looked through the pictures.
“Sam,” Dean sighed, but he handed the picture over.
“They say a picture is worth a thousand words.”
“Yeah?” Dean asked. “What’s that picture say to you?”
He didn’t hesitate as he stepped closer to Dean. He knew what he wanted, and he knew what Dean wanted, no matter that his brother was doing some damn fool protective thing that Sam couldn’t even fathom at the moment.
He brought his hand up to Dean’s face, tipping it to just the right angle before he brushed his lips over Dean’s. “Love.”
He didn’t pull away, just kept himself there, eyes searching Dean’s as his brother looked right back. When Dean’s arm wrapped around his waist, he smiled just as Dean pressed their lips together in a heated kiss.
He heard a small whoop behind them and Kevin’s voice yelling “That’s how you take care of business!” before another, more polite and insistent coughing sound.
He pulled back from his brother’s lips, caught in the pure emotion of his eyes until another cough came. “We’ve had this discussion before boys,” Mr. Witherton, the vice principal said. “I’ll see you in detention tomorrow for public displays. Again.”
Witherton walked away and Sam couldn’t help but laugh as Dean pulled him close. He let his head rest on his brother’s shoulder for a minute before he looked up to see Dean’s smiling eyes.
“Damn it, Sammy, we just got back together and you’ve already got me another detention.”
“Wasn’t me,” Sam denied. “I was just trying to steal a picture.”
“Uh huh,” Dean said as he pulled Sam closer, walking them back to the table where their friends were sitting. “God I’m hungry. What do you say we go to that diner down the street after school? Get some real grease in us?”
Sam laughed. He hadn’t had much of an appetite since things had turned bad between him and Dean. Even if he’d bitched about diner food for the past two years, the idea of hopping in the Impala with Dean after school - sharing an order of onion rings and fries between them as Sam played with a salad and watched grease drip from his brother’s lips as he bit into a burger - sounded amazing.
“Milkshake?”
“Sure, I’ll even splurge for a milkshake.”
“Deal.”
Dean sat next to Sam at the table, pulled him in by the back of the neck and kissed him soundly. “Deal.”
On to Fitting