Measure of a Man 11/? (part three of three)
Last but not least, the Big Talk section. Tons and tons of dialogue below. You have been warned. Oh and if you missed what came before this, you'll want to go here first.
Dean sits his giant body down next to the barn and leans his back against it, facing Sam but not looking at him. He drops his hands when they start to fidget.
“So, ah, how are we doing this?” Dean begins. “Twenty questions? Truth or dare?”
“Why don’t you cut to the chase and just tell me what’s bothering you?”
“Pff. What doesn’t bother me these days…”
“I mean about ME.” Sam waits for Dean to speak, but the giant only looks away. “Is it the demon blood?”
“No,” Dean answers. “I know you’re clean.”
“But you’re worried I’ll start drinking it again.” Sam’s guess brings the big green gaze down upon him.
“Do you get cravings?”
“I did at first, but not anymore. Not even when I tasted it again. It was just…gross.” He makes a face. “I can’t believe I used to guzzle that stuff…”
Dean gives a grim smile. “Yeah. Me neither.”
It grows silent for a few moments before Sam ducks his head and admits, “I don’t miss the blood, and I definitely don’t miss being hooked on that crap, but I miss the power.” He can feel Dean looking at him again, but Sam can’t look back-not if he wants to get this out. “When I sent a demon back to Hell, it felt…incredible. Not just physically, but, like…it was my right to do this, y’know? Like I’d earned it. After all the shit demons have done to me-to US-to be able to beat them like that…destroy them… God, Dean, it was exhilarating. I felt…free! Like I was finally in control of my life for the first time IN my life.”
“Calling all the shots, making and breaking the rules…” Dean offers a smirk. “Yeah. I can see how that’d be pretty sweet. Too bad it wasn’t legit, huh.” Sam looks at him. “You know, Ruby turning you into a junkie so you’d kill Lilith and free Lucifer…”
Sam nods, thinking back on his very long and extra winding road to the truth. “You owe me the world’s biggest ‘I Told You So’ on that one…”
“I’m saving it for a rainy day. Or the next time you’re so sure you know better than me. That’ll be in what, ten minutes tops?”
Sam gives the toe of Dean’s boot a kick, and Dean chuckles. Then Sam’s face grows serious. “I was really gonna do it, too. Kill Lilith. If you hadn’t found me at that cabin, Zachariah would’ve given me that blood…” Sam smiles now, out of disbelief. “…and that would’ve been IT. The devil would be walking the earth again. All thanks to me…”
Dean’s hand cups around him in support. “Well it didn’t happen, and it ain’t gonna happen. Don’t beat yourself up when you didn’t do anything wrong.” He gives his little brother as gentle a pat on the back he can at his size and then lifts his hand away. But Sam doesn’t look comforted. If anything, he seems more troubled than ever. “What?” Sam ducks his head, not wanting to answer, so Dean pokes him in the side with his finger. “Dude, WHAT? Out with it.”
“I still want to kill her, Dean.” Shining eyes peer up at the giant. “I can’t kill Lilith, and I won’t, I promise…but I wish I could. Trapping her isn’t enough. I want her to suffer, like YOU suffered. She dragged you to Hell. It’s only right I send her back there, too.”
“Still on that, huh?” Dean mumbles. Sam stares at him, aghast.
“Well, YEAH, Dean, I’m still on that! I’ll ALWAYS be on that! She took you away!”
“No, Sam, I left.” Dean holds his brother’s gaze for a few seconds to make sure it sinks in. “I sold my soul to save yours. All Lilith did was hold the contract, and when my time came due, she sent the hellhounds to collect. So drop the grudge already. You only want to kill her because you can’t take it out on me.”
Sam laughs once in outrage. “Are you serious? Dean, I nearly squeezed you to death! How is that not taking it out on you?!”
“That was the demon blood,” Dean dismisses.
“No, it wasn’t. You KNOW it wasn’t.” He glares at Dean, who only returns a tired look in the moonlight.
“Good talk, Sammy.” He starts to stand up, but Sam bellows at him to sit back down.
“How can you possibly think we’re done here?!”
“Because there’s nothing else to say,” Dean replies. “You were pissed at me, I get it.”
“You do,” Sam says, doubtful.
“You got mad at me for cramping your style. You said yourself you liked the power you had, and with me around, you couldn’t use it. You resented me for that. But you were pissed at me way before that. You hated who I’d become-all broken and haunted, avoiding demons instead of going after them with both barrels…” Dean stares past his brother and looks at the ground behind him. “I wasn’t your hero anymore. I wasn’t even your partner. I was a soul torturer who spent all day hating his guts, and you couldn’t stand it.”
Sam swallows hard at the all-too-true accusations. Dean is looking at him now, daring him to dispute any of it, but Sam can’t. He won’t, however, give credence aloud, so he makes a counter statement instead. “You never would have broken in Hell if I’d found a way to get you out.”
“But I still would have suffered,” Dean says quietly. “Even if you’d brought me back five minutes after I left, I would’ve been in the pit a few hours. Long enough for them to tear me a new one a few hundred times over.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“NO, I’m just pointing out that there’s nothing you could’ve done.”
“That’s the whole point!” Sam fumes. “There was nothing I could do to help you, Dean! NOTHING. And you wonder why I can’t just let it go?” Dean shakes his head, about to deflect him again, so Sam yells, “I FAILED you! I couldn’t keep you out of Hell, and I couldn’t get you out, either. I will NEVER be okay with that.”
“But you HAVE to deal with it,” Dean slams back. “It happened. I made the deal-I did, Sam, NOT you. It was my call, my punishment.”
“You never should have made that deal in the first place!”
“Well then YOU never should’ve been stabbed in the back!” Dean’s booming voice crashes through the area, but Sam doesn’t duck down, even when Dean leans down and puts his huge face up in Sam’s small one. “You want to know what failure feels like? Try being five feet away when your brother gets a knife in the back. Try running up to him and only being able to hold him while he DIES in your arms. Try sitting next to his dead body on the bed and deciding that a future in Hell is better than life on Earth without him!”
As his statement echoes away to silence, Dean looks up at the moon-this is going just as badly as he’d feared. “Wow, I sure am glad we had this talk,” he mutters after a long moment. “I feel SO much better now.” He looks down again, but Sam isn’t there. A quick glance at the scenery and he finds Sam up in a nearby tree, now roughly level with his chin. His little brother is looking at him with all kinds of emotions…sadness, gladness, understanding, bewilderment… Dean ignores all of them and plays dumb. “What, something on my face?”
Sam shakes his head no. “Dean,” he says in a soft voice, “for the hundredth time, it’s not your fault I got stabbed, all right?”
Dean gives a single nod. “And for the millionth time, it’s not YOUR fault I went to Hell. You didn’t fail me. I chose to go. Will you please accept that and get on with your life?”
Sam nods as well, and then the two look on each other for a few seconds before Sam says, “I still feel guilty.”
“Me, too,” Dean admits. He leans back against the barn. “Catholics got nothin’ on Winchester Guilt.”
Sam smirks. “So what else?”
“Hm?”
“What else about me is bothering you?”
Dean heaves a long sigh to match the look he throws Sam’s way. “Knew that wasn’t the end of it…”
Sam shifts his weight and dangles a leg from the tree bough as he waits for Dean to gather his thoughts. He even gives him a jumping off point: “I know trust is gonna be an issue…”
“Yeah,” Dean says absently, turning his face away while he scratches his scalp. “Some of the things you said back at Bobby’s…” He cuts himself off and sums up: “It’s gonna take a while, y’know?”
Sam nods. “Yeah, I know. And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry I hurt you and broke your trust.” He looks Dean in the eye as he says it, hoping his brother knows he means it. “You gotta know I never meant to hurt you…never wanted to, either, but I did…and I hate myself for it.” Sam is starting to get worked up, resembling a 6’4” toddler as his chest heaves in and out, “I don’t deserve your forgiveness…and I know you’ll probably never trust me again, why would you…fuck!” Brushing a sleeve across his face to clear the wetness, he declares, “I ruined everything! You should’ve let Zachariah break my spine, I deserve it, I’m always hurting you instead of helping you and-!”
“Whoa, hey…” Dean picks up his brother and holds him in his palm at eyelevel. The little man keeps his chin down. “Sammy, look at me.” He waits until the tiny eyes are upon him before he speaks three simple words: “I forgive you.”
“But I don’t deserve it!”
“Yes you do, and it’s done. And for the record, you don’t always hurt me. I mean you HAVE hurt me…let’s see, you shot me twice,” he holds out his thumb and index finger to count, “had me chased by a racist truck…laughed at me when I couldn’t get my ghosting mojo to work right away, so, y’know, pride injuries, and yes, they do count…”
“Uh-huh. And how many times have you punched me in the face?” Sam fires back, fighting a grin.
“Hey, you deserved those. Mostly…” He smirks, and Sam kicks him in the thumb. “Ow! That almost hurt! What is it with you and kicking me lately? And don’t say I deserved it.”
“No, but you earned every single one, just by being you.” Sam grins in triumph, sure he’s won this round, but when Dean’s smirk vanishes behind a frown, Sam fears he’s gone too far yet again. When Dean sets him back on his perch in the tree, he knows he has. “Dean? What’d I do wrong now?”
“Nothing,” Dean answers. “This time…well,” he laughs, “lots of times…it’s all on me.” He straightens his back a few moments in a stretch before he sighs out, “I’ve got a lot of apologizing to do myself.”
“What for?”
“For letting you down,” Dean states. “For not being my best. For all of my screw-ups.” He lowers his voice for the last item: “For driving you away…”
Now Sam’s the one to balk. “Dean, you can’t possibly-”
“What, think it’s my fault? ‘Course I do. You want to talk about holding a grudge…I’ve got the world record for longest and strongest.” He allows a tiny smirk. “Everyone’s got a talent, right? Mine just happens to be blaming myself for everything that goes south. Damn good at it, too. Lots of practice.” He glances at Sam and notes the deep frown escorting the worry lines to his brother’s forehead. “It’s not gonna stop,” Dean tells him. “I’ve just been this way for too long. I can’t quit. Don’t know how…not even sure I wanna find out.”
Sam diverts all power to the Puppy Eyes and looks at Dean. “I wish you’d try,” he says. “I mean, I can be hard on myself, but you…you actually think there’s nothing good about you, like you’re a Mistake, capital ‘M.’ But you couldn’t be more wrong.”
“So you’re saying I’m perfect?” Dean grins, though the light doesn’t reach his eyes. Sam doesn’t fall for the misdirection, either, but drills his eyes into his brother’s as he speaks from the heart:
“I’m saying you’re Dean Winchester. And you should be happy you’re you. I know I am.”
Dean nods, touched. “Thanks Sammy.”
Sam nods back. “You still think you’re worthless though, huh…”
“You know what they say about the lives of old habits…” Dean endures a long sigh from Sam and then cuts him off before he can start a new lecture. “If it makes you feel any better, my usual…methods of dealing with all of life’s crap don’t work as well as they used to.” That gets Dean an interested eyebrow. “Haven’t for a while,” he goes on. “I can’t just take another one for the team, say it’s all my fault, and call it a day. Things’ve changed…I’VE changed…and I can’t…” He looks at Sam. “I won’t take all the blame. Not anymore.”
“That’s…good?” Sam both says and asks, not sure what to make of it until he hears the full story. “When did it start?”
Dean stares at the base of the tree. “Do you remember when I told you I didn’t want to go to Hell?”
Sam nods. “One of the proudest moments of my life.”
“Same here. There was something I wanted and I said it out loud. Something BIG, y’know? Not just a slice of pie or a girl’s phone number. Something more, something…important.” Dean’s eyes drift from the tree trunk to his knees. “Well, since then, I haven’t been able to go back to just accepting things like I used to. Just by admitting I didn’t want to lie down and let life run over me anymore…I dunno, man, it was like I planted my flag and took my stand. And now I can’t go back. I want more…I’ve earned it. Starting with my own NyQuil.”
Sam blinks and frowns. “You want cold medicine?”
Dean looks at him with a small grin and explains: “Do you remember Escanaba in ‘88? I got that bad flu and was down for nearly a week?”
“Yeah,” Sam says, thinking back, “vaguely. I remember you making me stay away from you so I wouldn’t get sick.”
“But you got sick anyway cos you wouldn’t listen. ‘Course, you didn’t have it as bad cos you got the NyQuil.”
“I don’t understand. If we had NyQuil, why didn’t you take any?”
“Because we only had a tiny bottle of it and I knew that if you got sick, you’d need it. And I was right.” He sees Sam’s facing settling into a frown again and he holds up his hand. “Don’t. Dad didn’t know-he never did. He was always short on cash, and bitching about it would just earn me 10 extra laps, so I did what I could with what we had. It was my choice, Sam. I chose to save the medicine for you same way I chose to skip a few meals now and then to make sure you got to eat.”
“And that’s why you gave up an engineering internship, right?” Sam challenges, recalling what Zachariah had told him earlier. “It was all for me.” Dean looks to the side, resentment in his eyes at the truth coming out. Sam in turn glares at the world with his own resentment for what Dean had to sacrifice. “You never should’ve had to make any of those choices,” Sam growls, and to his astonishment, Dean nods in agreement.
“No shit, but it’s done. I took care of you. It was my job, and I did it without complaint.” Dean looks down at his big boots. “Only problem is that underneath it all, I knew there was a part of me that WANTED to complain. Why didn’t anyone ever save ME any medicine? Why did Dad always check to make sure you were okay but never even asked me how I was doing? Why would the two of you fight and fight, but you both treated me like the bad guy for breaking it up?”
His voice has softened to the point of cracking, as if the thick filters Dean put up to make sure none of this stuff ever came out of his mouth are still working hard to keep the truth inside. “That part of me was dangerous, Sammy. That Dean wanted MORE. And I couldn’t take care of you and Dad if I was thinking about what I wanted. So I shut it down…buried it deep. But every once in a while, I’d hear it speak up, asking the questions I was afraid to answer.” He settles one knee down and readjusts how he’s sitting. “Fast forward to that sewer in Geneva and our first run-in with Skippy. Ever since I got these Hydros powers, that part of me that wants more has gotten a lot stronger. I can’t shut it up like I used to, and when I try to ignore it, it just shouts at me to pay attention. Sometimes it keeps me up at night-which isn’t so bad, cos hey, it keeps the nightmares away, but at the same time, it’s not a whole lot better. The worst was when I’d wake up and find you gone…” Dean rubs his temples just thinking about it, willing the headache away before it begins to throb.
Still sitting in the tree, Sam is dumbfounded at Dean being so open about all of this. He dearly wishes he had a calendar on hand so he could circle the date: THIS is the night that Dean finally let Sam IN. And it hurts. And it’s not over yet. As curious as Sam is about what else Dean will say, he also fears what he’ll hear. But he knows that if Dean is ever going to get better, he has to get out as much of this stuff as possible. Sam therefore dons his brave face and asks him, “What did it say on those nights?”
The big green eyes fall on Sam, and Dean says, plain and painful, “Why is he always leaving me behind?”
A lump the size of Pluto forms in Sam’s throat, leaving him unable to answer. Not that Dean expects him to: “You know, I hated falling asleep, cos I’d be back in Hell, tortured by all my memories of what they did to me and what I did to all those souls. But waking up and finding you gone again…” He shakes his head in slow ‘no’s… “That was a whole different kind of torture. A living nightmare.”
“I’m sorry,” Sam whimpers, failing to keep the emotions out of his voice. “You have to know that I never wanted to leave you behind-”
“Yeah, you did,” Dean states. “C’mon, Sam, you want me to be honest, you owe it to me to do the same. You can start by admitting that you wanted to leave.”
“I didn’t!”
“Sam…” Dean leans forward a bit, looking into the little face as he waits for an answer. Sam is fighting a losing battle with his waterworks, and Dean feels for him-he does. But that doesn’t change his need to know. “It’s okay,” Dean utters. “Well, it’s not o-KAY okay, but you need to say it, and I need to hear you say it.”
The tears finally overwhelm Sam’s defenses and spill down his face. “I wanted to leave,” he admits quietly. Dean nods and looks away. “But I wished I could stay,” Sam adds. “Every time. Not just since you got back from Hell, but earlier, all the way back to the night I left for Stanford. I wanted to leave…but I hated leaving YOU. Please tell me you get that.”
Dean glances up, sees the sincerity in Sam’s red eyes, and nods. Sam relaxes so much in his relief that he nearly tumbles out of the tree, but he grabs onto a branch at the last second and pulls his upper body back up. The first thing he spots is the palm of Dean’s hand slowly retreating back to Dean’s side. “You’re always right there to catch me,” Sam says, “and I don’t think I’ve ever thanked you for it. I just took it for granted that you’d be there, cos you always were. Just like Zachariah said.”
“Okay, time out,” Dean says as he makes the T-shape gesture with his hands. “That’s the second time you’ve mentioned that asshat’s name in this conversation. You want to keep talking, fine, we’ll keep talking, but only about me and you-that’s it. We’re not discussing a single thing Fuckariah said.”
“But he was right!”
“About what? All he did was monologue about stuff we never talked about so that we’d both feel like shit. Well, mission accomplished. I feel like shit, you LOOK like shit with those red eyes and puffy cheeks, and we’re right back where we started: I’m stuck as a giant, and you’re stuck with me. Thank you and good night.”
“I’m not stuck with you, Dean,” Sam insists. “I want you to be here.”
“Why? You don’t even like me.” Dean’s right eyebrow lifts when Sam chuckles at his statement. “What? You don’t! Admit it!”
“There’s nothing to admit. Don’t be stupid.”
“So you do admit you think I’m stupid.”
“I never said that.”
“But you thought it.”
“No I didn’t!”
“You think it every day.”
Sam stares at his brother a moment. “Why are you trying to pick a fight?”
“I’m not, I just want to hear the truth.”
“About…?”
“What you really think of me.”
Sam rolls his eyes. “What I think is that you’re throwing me against the ropes cos we’re getting too close to The Forbidden Zone in your head.” Dean snorts and looks away again. “In fact,” Sam persists, “since you didn’t get all cranky until I mentioned Zachariah-”
“Don’t say it!” Dean yells at the same time said name comes out.
“-it means whatever it is you don’t want to talk about has something to do with what he said.” Sam crosses his arms over his chest and looks smug. Dean glowers at him.
“Whatever, Sherlock. This table ain’t turning, all right? If you’re not man enough to tell me the truth, that’s your deal, not mine.”
“What was it, exactly, that hit your sore spot?” Sam presses, ignoring Dean’s further attempts at deflection.
“Dammit Sam…”
“He was trying to make ME feel bad, and yeah, he did and then some, but it also made YOU feel bad…”
“I’m not some puzzle for you to figure out!”
“He was calling me out on not appreciating you,” Sam recalls, ignoring his brother’s annoyance because he knows he’s closing in on the truth. “And then he pointed out that I kept leaving. Right, again, much as that sucks…”
“Bye Sam,” Dean says, getting to his feet. “You wanna keep on ignoring me, I don’t have to stay here and take it.”
“No, Dean, wait! We have to figure this out! It’s the key to your size problems, I know it!”
“Bullshit!” Dean yells down at him, nearly squashing Sam and the tree with his voice. “I had this problem a long time before Mr. Greasy Grin slimed his way into my life. He’s a manipulator, just like Ruby, only instead of telling you what you wanna hear, he says just the right thing to piss you off. And thinking back on what he said just pisses me off even more. So enough with the analysis already: nothing he said matters!”
“Oh really? Then why are you growing?”
Dean looks down and sees the ground falling away from him; he’s shot up 30 feet in three seconds. “I knew it!” Sam beams.
“Oh don’t read into this,” Dean whines, shrinking down to 10 feet as he talks.
“You’re fluctuating! Just like back in the cave!”
Dean wraps his arms around his torso as he fights another growth spurt. “No I’m not…”
“Yes you are!” Sam points when Dean gradually grows again. The wheels in Sam’s brain spin like crazy, spitting out idea after idea. “And you’ve done it before…back before you left, you started fluctuating after you shrank the first time.”
“Yeah,” Dean says through clenched teeth as he shrinks once more. “Great, Sam.”
“We were fighting over you…” Sam laughs as it all becomes so obvious. “And when you got stuck it was usually after someone said something about you! Holy shit, Dean, do you know what this means?”
Dean is growing again as he groans, “No, but I’m sure you’ll tell me…”
“It means I’m not the problem, Dean! YOU are!” Sam gets a deep glare for that. “I’m not saying you ARE a problem, but you think you are! It’s just like you told me: you’re used to blaming yourself for everything and putting everybody else first, but the Hydros in you doesn’t want that! So when the two of you are at odds, you get stuck or you fluctuate!”
“And that helps me HOW, exactly?”
“Think about the pattern, Dean! Like, okay…remember those tests Meesh ran, and the helicopter? After you saw Ruby, you were in pain cos you were trying not to grow. Meesh told you to let go, so you did. And then you two had a talk, and you admitted some stuff that I know was really hard to say.”
“And you eavesdropped,” Dean reminds him, shrinking a little again.
Sam makes a gesture like he’s pushing something aside. “Another time, stay with me on this. What happened after your talk?”
“I got pissed.”
“Why?”
“Because Meesh was trying to make me feel better about myself, and I didn’t want to feel better.” The fluctuation stops at the statement, leaving him about 8 feet tall, but Dean doesn’t notice.
“Why not?” Sam pushes.
“Because hating myself is easier than liking myself. Liking myself means putting me first.”
“But you just told me you want more-that you’d like to be first for a change.”
“Of course I do, but I can’t! You KNOW I can’t.”
“WHY?”
“Because that’s not the way the world works!” Dean yells, though he doesn’t size shift at all. “I can’t have what I want, cos then I’ll just want more, but I’ll get jack squat for all my trouble and that’ll just make me think about everything I don’t have! It’s poison! So I ignore it. I push it down, walk away, use any distraction I can, until it’s gone, and I can pretend I’m okay. Only I’m not okay, as every fucker out there just LOVES reminding me. Angels, demons, monsters of the week, hell, even YOU, all of ya just too happy to list off every single mistake I’ve made and tell me just how much I suck. Like I could ever forget… But that’s my life, right? Everybody line up and kick me when I’m down, cos I am always down, buried up to my eyeballs in the mud…”
Fat tears are falling from Dean’s eyes now-not his signature single drop, but a deluge, and they fly off his face as he shakes his head in raw frustration. “What about all the stuff I’ve done right, huh? All the lives I’ve saved, all the sacrifices I’ve made…they don’t count? Why? Because I don’t count?!”
“You do count,” Sam swears. “Zachariah was right about one thing: I don’t appreciate you like I should. I never have. I’m so sorry, Dean. I swear I’ll do better.” He’s surprised by a look of skepticism from his brother. “You don’t believe me?”
Dean gives him a frank look. “You stopped believing in ME a long time ago. I can’t just snap my fingers and be great in your eyes again, same way you can’t just wake up tomorrow and change your tune.”
“But I can try. I can START.”
“But you won’t,” Dean sniffs. “Why should you, right? Nothing I do will ever be enough.”
Sam is tearing up again, and in a quavering voice, he says, “Dean, I promise-”
“Oh, you promise. Just like you promised you’d remember what me and Dad taught you, but I get back and you’re sleeping with a demon. Or how you promised me you knew what you were doing, and that all the lying and sneaking around were perfectly acceptable and I didn’t have to worry?” Dean directs his deepest, most hurtful glare at his little brother. “You promised me that you had your powers under control, and then you crushed almost every bone in my body.”
“I’m sorry!” Sam cries.
“So am I,” Dean says. “Maybe even more than you are. Because the thing is, Sammy, I want to trust you again. I really do. But how the hell am I supposed to do that after everything you pulled, huh? You tell ME.” Both brothers wipe tears away, unable to look at one another anymore. “Now you know why I hate it when we talk,” Dean mumbles at length. “It always ends with one of us a wreck.”
“But I’m glad you did,” Sam sniffles. He meets his brother’s watery gaze and holds it as he repeats his brother’s words from minutes before: “You need to say it, and I need to hear it.”
Dean grunts and backs off. “Yeah, for all the good it does...”
Sam gives a weak smile. “It’s already done wonders. Look.” He hops down from the tree and stands in front of his brother, looking down at him. “You’re back to normal.”
Dean looks up and realizes he’s right. “I’ll be damned…” Now he looks himself over. “How the hell…?”
“Equilibrium,” Sam answers. “Those two parts of you got back in balance, just like after your talk with Meesh. When you spoke up for yourself and admitted how you really felt, the hydros part of you was appeased, and just like that,” he snaps his fingers, “you shrunk back down and got yourself a beer.”
“Could use one now,” Dean murmurs, looking around even though he knows there’s no cooler of cold ones anywhere near them. Blowing out a sigh, he says, “So what, that’s it? I do some yelling next time I get stuck and I’m good to go?”
“Or, there’s option two: Don’t get stuck again. Talk to me whenever something’s bothering you instead of bottling it up and waiting for it to explode.”
Dean rolls his eyes. “Great. Now my life gets to be one continuous chick-flick moment. Just what I always wanted.”
“Oh please,” a third voice groans, “if anything, your lives are one big sudsy soap opera.” Ruby appears from behind the tree, hands in the pockets of her tight leather jacket as walks toward them. “And if you want to live through end credits, you’re gonna need my help.”
A/N Additional: I know, I hate her, too. I promise she’ll get what’s coming to her in the next chapter. For now, please let me know what you thought of this one! I'm really worried I got their Big Talk wrong, so if you could let me know either way, I'd truly appreciate it. Thank you!
On to Chapter Twelve
Dean sits his giant body down next to the barn and leans his back against it, facing Sam but not looking at him. He drops his hands when they start to fidget.
“So, ah, how are we doing this?” Dean begins. “Twenty questions? Truth or dare?”
“Why don’t you cut to the chase and just tell me what’s bothering you?”
“Pff. What doesn’t bother me these days…”
“I mean about ME.” Sam waits for Dean to speak, but the giant only looks away. “Is it the demon blood?”
“No,” Dean answers. “I know you’re clean.”
“But you’re worried I’ll start drinking it again.” Sam’s guess brings the big green gaze down upon him.
“Do you get cravings?”
“I did at first, but not anymore. Not even when I tasted it again. It was just…gross.” He makes a face. “I can’t believe I used to guzzle that stuff…”
Dean gives a grim smile. “Yeah. Me neither.”
It grows silent for a few moments before Sam ducks his head and admits, “I don’t miss the blood, and I definitely don’t miss being hooked on that crap, but I miss the power.” He can feel Dean looking at him again, but Sam can’t look back-not if he wants to get this out. “When I sent a demon back to Hell, it felt…incredible. Not just physically, but, like…it was my right to do this, y’know? Like I’d earned it. After all the shit demons have done to me-to US-to be able to beat them like that…destroy them… God, Dean, it was exhilarating. I felt…free! Like I was finally in control of my life for the first time IN my life.”
“Calling all the shots, making and breaking the rules…” Dean offers a smirk. “Yeah. I can see how that’d be pretty sweet. Too bad it wasn’t legit, huh.” Sam looks at him. “You know, Ruby turning you into a junkie so you’d kill Lilith and free Lucifer…”
Sam nods, thinking back on his very long and extra winding road to the truth. “You owe me the world’s biggest ‘I Told You So’ on that one…”
“I’m saving it for a rainy day. Or the next time you’re so sure you know better than me. That’ll be in what, ten minutes tops?”
Sam gives the toe of Dean’s boot a kick, and Dean chuckles. Then Sam’s face grows serious. “I was really gonna do it, too. Kill Lilith. If you hadn’t found me at that cabin, Zachariah would’ve given me that blood…” Sam smiles now, out of disbelief. “…and that would’ve been IT. The devil would be walking the earth again. All thanks to me…”
Dean’s hand cups around him in support. “Well it didn’t happen, and it ain’t gonna happen. Don’t beat yourself up when you didn’t do anything wrong.” He gives his little brother as gentle a pat on the back he can at his size and then lifts his hand away. But Sam doesn’t look comforted. If anything, he seems more troubled than ever. “What?” Sam ducks his head, not wanting to answer, so Dean pokes him in the side with his finger. “Dude, WHAT? Out with it.”
“I still want to kill her, Dean.” Shining eyes peer up at the giant. “I can’t kill Lilith, and I won’t, I promise…but I wish I could. Trapping her isn’t enough. I want her to suffer, like YOU suffered. She dragged you to Hell. It’s only right I send her back there, too.”
“Still on that, huh?” Dean mumbles. Sam stares at him, aghast.
“Well, YEAH, Dean, I’m still on that! I’ll ALWAYS be on that! She took you away!”
“No, Sam, I left.” Dean holds his brother’s gaze for a few seconds to make sure it sinks in. “I sold my soul to save yours. All Lilith did was hold the contract, and when my time came due, she sent the hellhounds to collect. So drop the grudge already. You only want to kill her because you can’t take it out on me.”
Sam laughs once in outrage. “Are you serious? Dean, I nearly squeezed you to death! How is that not taking it out on you?!”
“That was the demon blood,” Dean dismisses.
“No, it wasn’t. You KNOW it wasn’t.” He glares at Dean, who only returns a tired look in the moonlight.
“Good talk, Sammy.” He starts to stand up, but Sam bellows at him to sit back down.
“How can you possibly think we’re done here?!”
“Because there’s nothing else to say,” Dean replies. “You were pissed at me, I get it.”
“You do,” Sam says, doubtful.
“You got mad at me for cramping your style. You said yourself you liked the power you had, and with me around, you couldn’t use it. You resented me for that. But you were pissed at me way before that. You hated who I’d become-all broken and haunted, avoiding demons instead of going after them with both barrels…” Dean stares past his brother and looks at the ground behind him. “I wasn’t your hero anymore. I wasn’t even your partner. I was a soul torturer who spent all day hating his guts, and you couldn’t stand it.”
Sam swallows hard at the all-too-true accusations. Dean is looking at him now, daring him to dispute any of it, but Sam can’t. He won’t, however, give credence aloud, so he makes a counter statement instead. “You never would have broken in Hell if I’d found a way to get you out.”
“But I still would have suffered,” Dean says quietly. “Even if you’d brought me back five minutes after I left, I would’ve been in the pit a few hours. Long enough for them to tear me a new one a few hundred times over.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“NO, I’m just pointing out that there’s nothing you could’ve done.”
“That’s the whole point!” Sam fumes. “There was nothing I could do to help you, Dean! NOTHING. And you wonder why I can’t just let it go?” Dean shakes his head, about to deflect him again, so Sam yells, “I FAILED you! I couldn’t keep you out of Hell, and I couldn’t get you out, either. I will NEVER be okay with that.”
“But you HAVE to deal with it,” Dean slams back. “It happened. I made the deal-I did, Sam, NOT you. It was my call, my punishment.”
“You never should have made that deal in the first place!”
“Well then YOU never should’ve been stabbed in the back!” Dean’s booming voice crashes through the area, but Sam doesn’t duck down, even when Dean leans down and puts his huge face up in Sam’s small one. “You want to know what failure feels like? Try being five feet away when your brother gets a knife in the back. Try running up to him and only being able to hold him while he DIES in your arms. Try sitting next to his dead body on the bed and deciding that a future in Hell is better than life on Earth without him!”
As his statement echoes away to silence, Dean looks up at the moon-this is going just as badly as he’d feared. “Wow, I sure am glad we had this talk,” he mutters after a long moment. “I feel SO much better now.” He looks down again, but Sam isn’t there. A quick glance at the scenery and he finds Sam up in a nearby tree, now roughly level with his chin. His little brother is looking at him with all kinds of emotions…sadness, gladness, understanding, bewilderment… Dean ignores all of them and plays dumb. “What, something on my face?”
Sam shakes his head no. “Dean,” he says in a soft voice, “for the hundredth time, it’s not your fault I got stabbed, all right?”
Dean gives a single nod. “And for the millionth time, it’s not YOUR fault I went to Hell. You didn’t fail me. I chose to go. Will you please accept that and get on with your life?”
Sam nods as well, and then the two look on each other for a few seconds before Sam says, “I still feel guilty.”
“Me, too,” Dean admits. He leans back against the barn. “Catholics got nothin’ on Winchester Guilt.”
Sam smirks. “So what else?”
“Hm?”
“What else about me is bothering you?”
Dean heaves a long sigh to match the look he throws Sam’s way. “Knew that wasn’t the end of it…”
Sam shifts his weight and dangles a leg from the tree bough as he waits for Dean to gather his thoughts. He even gives him a jumping off point: “I know trust is gonna be an issue…”
“Yeah,” Dean says absently, turning his face away while he scratches his scalp. “Some of the things you said back at Bobby’s…” He cuts himself off and sums up: “It’s gonna take a while, y’know?”
Sam nods. “Yeah, I know. And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry I hurt you and broke your trust.” He looks Dean in the eye as he says it, hoping his brother knows he means it. “You gotta know I never meant to hurt you…never wanted to, either, but I did…and I hate myself for it.” Sam is starting to get worked up, resembling a 6’4” toddler as his chest heaves in and out, “I don’t deserve your forgiveness…and I know you’ll probably never trust me again, why would you…fuck!” Brushing a sleeve across his face to clear the wetness, he declares, “I ruined everything! You should’ve let Zachariah break my spine, I deserve it, I’m always hurting you instead of helping you and-!”
“Whoa, hey…” Dean picks up his brother and holds him in his palm at eyelevel. The little man keeps his chin down. “Sammy, look at me.” He waits until the tiny eyes are upon him before he speaks three simple words: “I forgive you.”
“But I don’t deserve it!”
“Yes you do, and it’s done. And for the record, you don’t always hurt me. I mean you HAVE hurt me…let’s see, you shot me twice,” he holds out his thumb and index finger to count, “had me chased by a racist truck…laughed at me when I couldn’t get my ghosting mojo to work right away, so, y’know, pride injuries, and yes, they do count…”
“Uh-huh. And how many times have you punched me in the face?” Sam fires back, fighting a grin.
“Hey, you deserved those. Mostly…” He smirks, and Sam kicks him in the thumb. “Ow! That almost hurt! What is it with you and kicking me lately? And don’t say I deserved it.”
“No, but you earned every single one, just by being you.” Sam grins in triumph, sure he’s won this round, but when Dean’s smirk vanishes behind a frown, Sam fears he’s gone too far yet again. When Dean sets him back on his perch in the tree, he knows he has. “Dean? What’d I do wrong now?”
“Nothing,” Dean answers. “This time…well,” he laughs, “lots of times…it’s all on me.” He straightens his back a few moments in a stretch before he sighs out, “I’ve got a lot of apologizing to do myself.”
“What for?”
“For letting you down,” Dean states. “For not being my best. For all of my screw-ups.” He lowers his voice for the last item: “For driving you away…”
Now Sam’s the one to balk. “Dean, you can’t possibly-”
“What, think it’s my fault? ‘Course I do. You want to talk about holding a grudge…I’ve got the world record for longest and strongest.” He allows a tiny smirk. “Everyone’s got a talent, right? Mine just happens to be blaming myself for everything that goes south. Damn good at it, too. Lots of practice.” He glances at Sam and notes the deep frown escorting the worry lines to his brother’s forehead. “It’s not gonna stop,” Dean tells him. “I’ve just been this way for too long. I can’t quit. Don’t know how…not even sure I wanna find out.”
Sam diverts all power to the Puppy Eyes and looks at Dean. “I wish you’d try,” he says. “I mean, I can be hard on myself, but you…you actually think there’s nothing good about you, like you’re a Mistake, capital ‘M.’ But you couldn’t be more wrong.”
“So you’re saying I’m perfect?” Dean grins, though the light doesn’t reach his eyes. Sam doesn’t fall for the misdirection, either, but drills his eyes into his brother’s as he speaks from the heart:
“I’m saying you’re Dean Winchester. And you should be happy you’re you. I know I am.”
Dean nods, touched. “Thanks Sammy.”
Sam nods back. “You still think you’re worthless though, huh…”
“You know what they say about the lives of old habits…” Dean endures a long sigh from Sam and then cuts him off before he can start a new lecture. “If it makes you feel any better, my usual…methods of dealing with all of life’s crap don’t work as well as they used to.” That gets Dean an interested eyebrow. “Haven’t for a while,” he goes on. “I can’t just take another one for the team, say it’s all my fault, and call it a day. Things’ve changed…I’VE changed…and I can’t…” He looks at Sam. “I won’t take all the blame. Not anymore.”
“That’s…good?” Sam both says and asks, not sure what to make of it until he hears the full story. “When did it start?”
Dean stares at the base of the tree. “Do you remember when I told you I didn’t want to go to Hell?”
Sam nods. “One of the proudest moments of my life.”
“Same here. There was something I wanted and I said it out loud. Something BIG, y’know? Not just a slice of pie or a girl’s phone number. Something more, something…important.” Dean’s eyes drift from the tree trunk to his knees. “Well, since then, I haven’t been able to go back to just accepting things like I used to. Just by admitting I didn’t want to lie down and let life run over me anymore…I dunno, man, it was like I planted my flag and took my stand. And now I can’t go back. I want more…I’ve earned it. Starting with my own NyQuil.”
Sam blinks and frowns. “You want cold medicine?”
Dean looks at him with a small grin and explains: “Do you remember Escanaba in ‘88? I got that bad flu and was down for nearly a week?”
“Yeah,” Sam says, thinking back, “vaguely. I remember you making me stay away from you so I wouldn’t get sick.”
“But you got sick anyway cos you wouldn’t listen. ‘Course, you didn’t have it as bad cos you got the NyQuil.”
“I don’t understand. If we had NyQuil, why didn’t you take any?”
“Because we only had a tiny bottle of it and I knew that if you got sick, you’d need it. And I was right.” He sees Sam’s facing settling into a frown again and he holds up his hand. “Don’t. Dad didn’t know-he never did. He was always short on cash, and bitching about it would just earn me 10 extra laps, so I did what I could with what we had. It was my choice, Sam. I chose to save the medicine for you same way I chose to skip a few meals now and then to make sure you got to eat.”
“And that’s why you gave up an engineering internship, right?” Sam challenges, recalling what Zachariah had told him earlier. “It was all for me.” Dean looks to the side, resentment in his eyes at the truth coming out. Sam in turn glares at the world with his own resentment for what Dean had to sacrifice. “You never should’ve had to make any of those choices,” Sam growls, and to his astonishment, Dean nods in agreement.
“No shit, but it’s done. I took care of you. It was my job, and I did it without complaint.” Dean looks down at his big boots. “Only problem is that underneath it all, I knew there was a part of me that WANTED to complain. Why didn’t anyone ever save ME any medicine? Why did Dad always check to make sure you were okay but never even asked me how I was doing? Why would the two of you fight and fight, but you both treated me like the bad guy for breaking it up?”
His voice has softened to the point of cracking, as if the thick filters Dean put up to make sure none of this stuff ever came out of his mouth are still working hard to keep the truth inside. “That part of me was dangerous, Sammy. That Dean wanted MORE. And I couldn’t take care of you and Dad if I was thinking about what I wanted. So I shut it down…buried it deep. But every once in a while, I’d hear it speak up, asking the questions I was afraid to answer.” He settles one knee down and readjusts how he’s sitting. “Fast forward to that sewer in Geneva and our first run-in with Skippy. Ever since I got these Hydros powers, that part of me that wants more has gotten a lot stronger. I can’t shut it up like I used to, and when I try to ignore it, it just shouts at me to pay attention. Sometimes it keeps me up at night-which isn’t so bad, cos hey, it keeps the nightmares away, but at the same time, it’s not a whole lot better. The worst was when I’d wake up and find you gone…” Dean rubs his temples just thinking about it, willing the headache away before it begins to throb.
Still sitting in the tree, Sam is dumbfounded at Dean being so open about all of this. He dearly wishes he had a calendar on hand so he could circle the date: THIS is the night that Dean finally let Sam IN. And it hurts. And it’s not over yet. As curious as Sam is about what else Dean will say, he also fears what he’ll hear. But he knows that if Dean is ever going to get better, he has to get out as much of this stuff as possible. Sam therefore dons his brave face and asks him, “What did it say on those nights?”
The big green eyes fall on Sam, and Dean says, plain and painful, “Why is he always leaving me behind?”
A lump the size of Pluto forms in Sam’s throat, leaving him unable to answer. Not that Dean expects him to: “You know, I hated falling asleep, cos I’d be back in Hell, tortured by all my memories of what they did to me and what I did to all those souls. But waking up and finding you gone again…” He shakes his head in slow ‘no’s… “That was a whole different kind of torture. A living nightmare.”
“I’m sorry,” Sam whimpers, failing to keep the emotions out of his voice. “You have to know that I never wanted to leave you behind-”
“Yeah, you did,” Dean states. “C’mon, Sam, you want me to be honest, you owe it to me to do the same. You can start by admitting that you wanted to leave.”
“I didn’t!”
“Sam…” Dean leans forward a bit, looking into the little face as he waits for an answer. Sam is fighting a losing battle with his waterworks, and Dean feels for him-he does. But that doesn’t change his need to know. “It’s okay,” Dean utters. “Well, it’s not o-KAY okay, but you need to say it, and I need to hear you say it.”
The tears finally overwhelm Sam’s defenses and spill down his face. “I wanted to leave,” he admits quietly. Dean nods and looks away. “But I wished I could stay,” Sam adds. “Every time. Not just since you got back from Hell, but earlier, all the way back to the night I left for Stanford. I wanted to leave…but I hated leaving YOU. Please tell me you get that.”
Dean glances up, sees the sincerity in Sam’s red eyes, and nods. Sam relaxes so much in his relief that he nearly tumbles out of the tree, but he grabs onto a branch at the last second and pulls his upper body back up. The first thing he spots is the palm of Dean’s hand slowly retreating back to Dean’s side. “You’re always right there to catch me,” Sam says, “and I don’t think I’ve ever thanked you for it. I just took it for granted that you’d be there, cos you always were. Just like Zachariah said.”
“Okay, time out,” Dean says as he makes the T-shape gesture with his hands. “That’s the second time you’ve mentioned that asshat’s name in this conversation. You want to keep talking, fine, we’ll keep talking, but only about me and you-that’s it. We’re not discussing a single thing Fuckariah said.”
“But he was right!”
“About what? All he did was monologue about stuff we never talked about so that we’d both feel like shit. Well, mission accomplished. I feel like shit, you LOOK like shit with those red eyes and puffy cheeks, and we’re right back where we started: I’m stuck as a giant, and you’re stuck with me. Thank you and good night.”
“I’m not stuck with you, Dean,” Sam insists. “I want you to be here.”
“Why? You don’t even like me.” Dean’s right eyebrow lifts when Sam chuckles at his statement. “What? You don’t! Admit it!”
“There’s nothing to admit. Don’t be stupid.”
“So you do admit you think I’m stupid.”
“I never said that.”
“But you thought it.”
“No I didn’t!”
“You think it every day.”
Sam stares at his brother a moment. “Why are you trying to pick a fight?”
“I’m not, I just want to hear the truth.”
“About…?”
“What you really think of me.”
Sam rolls his eyes. “What I think is that you’re throwing me against the ropes cos we’re getting too close to The Forbidden Zone in your head.” Dean snorts and looks away again. “In fact,” Sam persists, “since you didn’t get all cranky until I mentioned Zachariah-”
“Don’t say it!” Dean yells at the same time said name comes out.
“-it means whatever it is you don’t want to talk about has something to do with what he said.” Sam crosses his arms over his chest and looks smug. Dean glowers at him.
“Whatever, Sherlock. This table ain’t turning, all right? If you’re not man enough to tell me the truth, that’s your deal, not mine.”
“What was it, exactly, that hit your sore spot?” Sam presses, ignoring Dean’s further attempts at deflection.
“Dammit Sam…”
“He was trying to make ME feel bad, and yeah, he did and then some, but it also made YOU feel bad…”
“I’m not some puzzle for you to figure out!”
“He was calling me out on not appreciating you,” Sam recalls, ignoring his brother’s annoyance because he knows he’s closing in on the truth. “And then he pointed out that I kept leaving. Right, again, much as that sucks…”
“Bye Sam,” Dean says, getting to his feet. “You wanna keep on ignoring me, I don’t have to stay here and take it.”
“No, Dean, wait! We have to figure this out! It’s the key to your size problems, I know it!”
“Bullshit!” Dean yells down at him, nearly squashing Sam and the tree with his voice. “I had this problem a long time before Mr. Greasy Grin slimed his way into my life. He’s a manipulator, just like Ruby, only instead of telling you what you wanna hear, he says just the right thing to piss you off. And thinking back on what he said just pisses me off even more. So enough with the analysis already: nothing he said matters!”
“Oh really? Then why are you growing?”
Dean looks down and sees the ground falling away from him; he’s shot up 30 feet in three seconds. “I knew it!” Sam beams.
“Oh don’t read into this,” Dean whines, shrinking down to 10 feet as he talks.
“You’re fluctuating! Just like back in the cave!”
Dean wraps his arms around his torso as he fights another growth spurt. “No I’m not…”
“Yes you are!” Sam points when Dean gradually grows again. The wheels in Sam’s brain spin like crazy, spitting out idea after idea. “And you’ve done it before…back before you left, you started fluctuating after you shrank the first time.”
“Yeah,” Dean says through clenched teeth as he shrinks once more. “Great, Sam.”
“We were fighting over you…” Sam laughs as it all becomes so obvious. “And when you got stuck it was usually after someone said something about you! Holy shit, Dean, do you know what this means?”
Dean is growing again as he groans, “No, but I’m sure you’ll tell me…”
“It means I’m not the problem, Dean! YOU are!” Sam gets a deep glare for that. “I’m not saying you ARE a problem, but you think you are! It’s just like you told me: you’re used to blaming yourself for everything and putting everybody else first, but the Hydros in you doesn’t want that! So when the two of you are at odds, you get stuck or you fluctuate!”
“And that helps me HOW, exactly?”
“Think about the pattern, Dean! Like, okay…remember those tests Meesh ran, and the helicopter? After you saw Ruby, you were in pain cos you were trying not to grow. Meesh told you to let go, so you did. And then you two had a talk, and you admitted some stuff that I know was really hard to say.”
“And you eavesdropped,” Dean reminds him, shrinking a little again.
Sam makes a gesture like he’s pushing something aside. “Another time, stay with me on this. What happened after your talk?”
“I got pissed.”
“Why?”
“Because Meesh was trying to make me feel better about myself, and I didn’t want to feel better.” The fluctuation stops at the statement, leaving him about 8 feet tall, but Dean doesn’t notice.
“Why not?” Sam pushes.
“Because hating myself is easier than liking myself. Liking myself means putting me first.”
“But you just told me you want more-that you’d like to be first for a change.”
“Of course I do, but I can’t! You KNOW I can’t.”
“WHY?”
“Because that’s not the way the world works!” Dean yells, though he doesn’t size shift at all. “I can’t have what I want, cos then I’ll just want more, but I’ll get jack squat for all my trouble and that’ll just make me think about everything I don’t have! It’s poison! So I ignore it. I push it down, walk away, use any distraction I can, until it’s gone, and I can pretend I’m okay. Only I’m not okay, as every fucker out there just LOVES reminding me. Angels, demons, monsters of the week, hell, even YOU, all of ya just too happy to list off every single mistake I’ve made and tell me just how much I suck. Like I could ever forget… But that’s my life, right? Everybody line up and kick me when I’m down, cos I am always down, buried up to my eyeballs in the mud…”
Fat tears are falling from Dean’s eyes now-not his signature single drop, but a deluge, and they fly off his face as he shakes his head in raw frustration. “What about all the stuff I’ve done right, huh? All the lives I’ve saved, all the sacrifices I’ve made…they don’t count? Why? Because I don’t count?!”
“You do count,” Sam swears. “Zachariah was right about one thing: I don’t appreciate you like I should. I never have. I’m so sorry, Dean. I swear I’ll do better.” He’s surprised by a look of skepticism from his brother. “You don’t believe me?”
Dean gives him a frank look. “You stopped believing in ME a long time ago. I can’t just snap my fingers and be great in your eyes again, same way you can’t just wake up tomorrow and change your tune.”
“But I can try. I can START.”
“But you won’t,” Dean sniffs. “Why should you, right? Nothing I do will ever be enough.”
Sam is tearing up again, and in a quavering voice, he says, “Dean, I promise-”
“Oh, you promise. Just like you promised you’d remember what me and Dad taught you, but I get back and you’re sleeping with a demon. Or how you promised me you knew what you were doing, and that all the lying and sneaking around were perfectly acceptable and I didn’t have to worry?” Dean directs his deepest, most hurtful glare at his little brother. “You promised me that you had your powers under control, and then you crushed almost every bone in my body.”
“I’m sorry!” Sam cries.
“So am I,” Dean says. “Maybe even more than you are. Because the thing is, Sammy, I want to trust you again. I really do. But how the hell am I supposed to do that after everything you pulled, huh? You tell ME.” Both brothers wipe tears away, unable to look at one another anymore. “Now you know why I hate it when we talk,” Dean mumbles at length. “It always ends with one of us a wreck.”
“But I’m glad you did,” Sam sniffles. He meets his brother’s watery gaze and holds it as he repeats his brother’s words from minutes before: “You need to say it, and I need to hear it.”
Dean grunts and backs off. “Yeah, for all the good it does...”
Sam gives a weak smile. “It’s already done wonders. Look.” He hops down from the tree and stands in front of his brother, looking down at him. “You’re back to normal.”
Dean looks up and realizes he’s right. “I’ll be damned…” Now he looks himself over. “How the hell…?”
“Equilibrium,” Sam answers. “Those two parts of you got back in balance, just like after your talk with Meesh. When you spoke up for yourself and admitted how you really felt, the hydros part of you was appeased, and just like that,” he snaps his fingers, “you shrunk back down and got yourself a beer.”
“Could use one now,” Dean murmurs, looking around even though he knows there’s no cooler of cold ones anywhere near them. Blowing out a sigh, he says, “So what, that’s it? I do some yelling next time I get stuck and I’m good to go?”
“Or, there’s option two: Don’t get stuck again. Talk to me whenever something’s bothering you instead of bottling it up and waiting for it to explode.”
Dean rolls his eyes. “Great. Now my life gets to be one continuous chick-flick moment. Just what I always wanted.”
“Oh please,” a third voice groans, “if anything, your lives are one big sudsy soap opera.” Ruby appears from behind the tree, hands in the pockets of her tight leather jacket as walks toward them. “And if you want to live through end credits, you’re gonna need my help.”
A/N Additional: I know, I hate her, too. I promise she’ll get what’s coming to her in the next chapter. For now, please let me know what you thought of this one! I'm really worried I got their Big Talk wrong, so if you could let me know either way, I'd truly appreciate it. Thank you!
On to Chapter Twelve