SPN: Family Comes First 3/3 (Aspie!Dean AU)
Sam frowned as they walked into the house. "Okay, whenever you start off with those words, I get worried."
Dean nodded, face completely blank.
Bobby sighed. "This is already gettin' off on the wrong foot. C'mon, you two - and you." He put a hand on Dean's shoulder. "Come on back. It's not one of those talks that you gotta run and hide."
Slowly, Dean's face unshuttered and uncertainty flickered over it. "So...what's going on?"
After they drank belts of beer laced with holy water - Sam was 21 now - passing the bottle back and forth, they gathered in the living room and Bobby opened up: "'What's going on' was actually my question to you boys."
"How come?" the brothers asked in unison, and Sam set their shared beer onto the table.
Bobby met Sam's eyes. "You're both a little off-kilter - like you're hurt and tryin' to hide it. And Sam, you called me and asked me some pretty pointed questions earlier."
Dean frowned at Sam. "You did? When?"
"While you were sleepin' off that swan dive off the bridge" - Bobby gasped at that - "and I was dismantling Dad's research wall. I told you about that - showed you the note that said he was trying to get me away from Stanford by any means necessary - including you."
Slowly, Dean nodded as memory returned. "Got you. It's out in the car, still. Want me to get it?"
"No," Sam chuckled softly, then sobered. "But I would like you to tell Bobby about the co-ordinates."
"Co-ordinates?" Bobby asked, frowning. "John sent you co-ordinates?" They nodded together, and he asked, "To where?"
"Middle of absolutely nowhere, Colorado," Dean said, eyes skittering around the room before coming back to light on Bobby even as his fingers curled around Sam's wrist.
Bobby nodded, processing the words as well as Dean's actions. He knew John would have demanded Dean look at him when he was speaking - to the point of suddenly seizing Dean's face and potentially triggering a sensory spike.
But Bobby knew that Dean wasn't doing it to annoy. Eye contact, except for when making a point or when talking to a child, was simply difficult for Dean to maintain.
It was just a part of the Asperger's - which was just a part of Dean. And Bobby accepted it as such.
But there was something that Bobby just didn't understand. "John sent you co-ordinates. But you came here instead of going there?"
Both brothers nodded, and Dean softly admitted, "I fell off a bridge less than a day ago. I need time to rest and heal, not head over to Colorado on my father's whims." He fell silent, and his hand tightened.
Sam beamed at his brother. He was so proud of him in that moment - standing up for himself and clearly stating what he needed - that he felt as though he would burst from it.
They all knew that, one day soon, the brothers would be heading to Colorado to see why John had sent those strange co-ordinates.
They knew that soon, they would resume their search for their father and the confrontation both boys were working toward.
But for this moment, they needed to just be together for awhile. To rest and heal as a family.
Because they knew something that John had seemingly forgotten and seemed to keep trying to undermine.
Family came first.
END