(no subject)
Fathers & Other Creatures of Legend
Supernatural
Dean, Sam (gen); PG
2,770 words
A/N: With thanks to flusteredspeech for helping me find the ending, amchara for being lovely, and mcee for the spankin' beta.
"Dean?" Sam is twelve years old, still babyfat in the face but wiry everywhere else. They're out behind the trailer, sparring while Dad's inside sleeping off a hunt, or a hangover; probably both. They seem to go hand in hand these days. It's summer in Alabama and the air is thickly humid, buzzing with mosquitoes. The old air-conditioner drones from the window. "Do you remember much about Mom?"
Dean lowers his hands, his palms stinging and raw where Sam's fists smacked into them. He's getting stronger, faster; he can already out-run Dean. He'll be taller than Dean and Dad both, soon, outgrowing his clothes long before they can afford to buy him new ones.
"Not really."
"Can you--" Sam scratches at the back of his neck, shifts his weight from one foot to the other. "Will you tell me something about her?"
"You know you're not supposed to ask about Mom. You promised."
"I promised I wouldn't ask Dad about Mom. But I'm asking you." Leave it to Sam to find a loophole. Too damn smart for his own good already. "And it's not fair to say I can't ask at all. I mean, think of all the crazy shit-"
"Hey. Watch your mouth."
"All the crazy shit"--carefully enunciated, defiant--"I do get to ask about, but not my own mother? Come on, Dean, that's messed up and you know it. I'm not a kid anymore, I want to know."
Dean sighs, flexing his fingers, cracking his knuckles one by one. Stalling for time, wracking his brain for some small memory he can share with Sam. But he doesn't have many of Mom, and most of the ones he does have are more about Dad, and himself, than her. He latches onto the first thing that comes to mind: the day they brought Sammy home from the hospital. It was raining, and Dad held a yellow umbrella over Mom's head from the car to the house.
"I don't remember much, Sammy. Honest. But..." Dean drags the back of his arm across his forehead. He's sweaty, thirsty. His tongue feels thick, too big for his mouth when he swallows. "Hang on, I'm gonna run inside and grab a soda. You want one?"
Sam hesitates, eyeing Dean warily. "Yeah, okay."
"Dude, don't look at me like that, like you don't trust me. I'm just getting a soda and making sure Dad's still asleep, and then I'll answer your question, okay?"
"Sorry," Sam mumbles, toeing a clump of dandelions. He wedges his hands into his pockets and shuffles off into the shade, where yesterday's laundry is strung up between two trees. He slumps down against the trunk and plucks at the overgrown grass, elbows resting on his knees.
Dean eases the narrow trailer door open slowly. Inside it's cool, quiet, the partition to the bedroom pulled closed. Dad's still out, then. Good.
He grabs two cans of Pepsi, then pauses, chewing on his lip, before reaching into the twelve-pack of Heineken and pulling out a bottle. Dad'll never notice; he never does. Dean stuffs the beer into his pocket, pulls his shirt down over it. Jumps when the partition rattles open behind him.
"Hey, kiddo."
Dean turns, glad for the dark because he can feel his face getting hot. "Hey, Dad." He fiddles with the hem of his shirt, making sure it doesn't settle against the shape of the bottle. "How you feeling?"
"Tired." Dad rolls his shoulders, moves his neck gingerly. "And sore." He steps out of the murky shadows to open the fridge, and Dean sees the mottled purple bruise under his eye, the split in his lip. Dad cracks open a bottle of water, downs half of it in one long swallow. "Where's Sammy?"
"Outside."
"You two stayin' out of trouble?"
"Yes, sir. We're training. Well, taking a break right now, but we were." Dean knows he's babbling, but Dad doesn't seem to notice.
"Good. That's good." He finishes off the water, refills the bottle from the kitchen faucet and sticks it back in the fridge. "I need a little more shut-eye, but wake me up in about an hour? We'll head over to the diner and get something to eat."
"Yes, sir."
Dad reaches over and ruffles Dean's hair, clumsily affectionate, before he closes the partition behind him. Dean's mouth hitches up for a second, but the grin doesn't stick. He pushes the door out into the muggy afternoon, vaults the steps and rounds the back of the trailer. Sam's still sitting against the tree, looking half-asleep, but he catches the Pepsi Dean tosses at him one-handed.
"Dad up?" he asks.
"For a minute." Dean's whole pocket turns inside out when he pulls out the beer. He jams it back in, kicks Sam's leg aside to make room for himself to sit. "I have to wake him up in an hour. Don't let me forget."
Sam's jaw clenches, the muscle twitching. "He hungover?"
"Don't know. But he's beat to hell, that's for sure."
"Probably got into another bar fight," Sam mutters, tearing a long blade of grass into tiny pieces.
"Jesus, Sam. Can't you cut him some slack?" Sam shrugs, yanking up another handful of grass. The sweet, green smell of it itches in the back of Dean's nose. He rubs at it impatiently. "He's out there every day saving people's lives, okay? I mean--" He breaks off, twists the cap off the beer, takes a swig. He doesn't know if Sam really doesn't get it or just doesn't want to, but the difference is irrelevant, doesn't matter.
"He wasn't always like this," he continues, quietly desperate, wanting Sam to understand. "He used to be..." Dean picks at the corner of the Heineken label, tears off a wet strip and flicks it off his finger. "He used to be happy. You want to know what I remember about Mom, well, that's what I remember best. That she was happy. That they were happy."
Sam shrugs, squints into the distance. "I wish I could remember that," he says, and pushes to his feet.
"Yeah," Dean says to no one. "Me too."
*
Dean's memories of life before the fire are few and far between, but the ones he has are sharp, clear.
He remembers rooms in their house, the pattern of the wallpaper in the kitchen, Dad's ratty old armchair in the living room. The blue and yellow stepstool he used so he could reach the sink in the bathroom, a rubber ducky he named "Dude." There was a swing in the backyard, fashioned from a plank of wood and two thick, scratchy ropes. He used to sit in Mom's lap while Dad stood behind them, pushing them higher, higher.
He remembers catching a lightning bug in a mayonnaise jar when he was three and setting it on his nightstand, the blink-blink of it lulling him to sleep. It was dead in the morning and he cried, insisted on burying it in the backyard. Dad let him dig the hole with a spoon, kissed the top of his head and made him chocolate-chip pancakes for breakfast. With whipped cream.
He remembers a summer afternoon after Sam was born, sitting on the front steps while Dad worked on the car. Washing it, or maybe changing the oil. Dean could hear Sam crying from inside, Mom's soft voice trying to soothe him. Dad was singing along to the radio, but Dean doesn't remember the song.
The distant tinkle of the ice cream truck made Dean jump to his feet, abandoning his juice box as he rushed down the steps.
Dad set down the rag he was holding, beaming, and took Dean's hand, walked him to the end of the driveway. Dean bounced on the balls of his feet, watching the truck chug up the block. Dad chuckled, palmed the top of Dean's head. He smelled like fresh sweat and car grease. Mom's roses were blooming, sweetening the air.
They both got Rocket Pops, striped red and white and blue, and a Strawberry Shortcake for Mom. She came outside and sat on the step below Dad, between his knees, nibbling her ice cream around the edges. Dad kissed her neck and she laughed, bright and loud, reaching over to thumb a sticky smear from the corner of Dean's mouth.
*
He remembers everything from the night Mom died. More than he wants to, or should, or will admit to, when Sam asks.
He remembers realizing, later, that that was the night everything changed.
*
He remembers things, sometimes, being almost like they were before the fire.
Sam came home from his first day at Kindergarten with a runny nose, and by the end of the week he and Dean were both feverish and scratching at clusters of small red bumps on their arms and legs.
"Better both of you at once, I guess," Dad sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. Dean was afraid he was angry, but he just looked worried, a little flustered. "Get this out of the way in one shot."
He went to the store and came back with a box of oatmeal bath, a big bottle of calamine lotion, and a carton of Neapolitan ice cream that they ate right out of the container, Dean and Sam each tucked under one of Dad's arms. They watched cartoons and football and horror movies that didn't even scare Sammy.
Sam fell asleep first, then Dad, propped up against the headboard, head tipped back, mouth open, snoring loudly. Dean pressed his ear to Dad's chest, felt the gravelly rumble of his breathing, the soothing thump of his heartbeat. There was something weirdly familiar about this, the three of them curled up together watching television. When Dean closed his eyes he could almost see Mom and Dad's bedroom in Lawrence, the rise and fall of Mom's shoulder as she slept next to them.
"How you doin', kid?" Dad mumbled, and the moment passed, the memory fading.
"Itchy," Dean said, wriggling against the sandpapery sheets. "And it hurts to swallow."
"You want some water?" Dean shook his head, yawned, and Dad chuckled quietly. "Lights out, then. C'mon." He reached above his head to click off the lamp, thumbed the power button on the remote. Sam huffed in his sleep, followed by the rasp of fingernails on skin. Dad shifted away from Dean a little, whispered, "Don't scratch," and Sam mumbled something unintelligible before rolling over, mashing his face into the pillow. Dad turned back to Dean. "Same goes for you."
"I won't." Dean eyes fluttered closed and Dad's fingers twitched against his back, curling in, pulling him closer.
*
Eventually, Sam stops asking about Mom. He outgrows his anger but not his curiosity, takes what he can whenever Dad or Dean let something slip. Dean gets the feeling that Sam's carefully constructing his own version of her, filling in the gaps between what he knows and what he thinks might be right. He can only wish that Sam would be so careful with Dad, with the way Sam sees him.
"You know, Mom thought you were gonna be a girl," Dean says one night, four weeks past Sam's sixteenth birthday and Dad two days gone, he and Sam both edgy and restless, waiting and pretending not to worry. Dean's in Dad's bed instead of sharing with Sam, who's like an octopus when he sleeps, all limbs. Hard to believe, now, that Sam was ever small enough to fit into the bed with Dean and Dad.
Sam rolls over, tucks his arm under his pillow. Tries not to look too interested, but it's a losing battle. "Oh yeah?"
"Mmm hmm. Something about the way she was carrying, or her face changing, some old wives tale like that. But Dad was sure you were a boy all along. Mom was sick a lot the first few months, and Dad said only a boy would give her that much trouble."
He shifts onto his back and scratches idly at his stomach, smiling a little at the memory; it was one he'd forgotten, until just now. The yellow umbrella pops into his head again.
"It rained the day they brought you home, I remember that. Big nasty thunderstorm, and Mom had a yellow umbrella. And man, Dad was so excited to have another boy. He always said he wished he had brothers growing up. I think he was glad we were gonna have each other. I think he's glad we do."
There's a rustle of cotton, the sound of Sam clearing his throat. "Yeah," he murmurs, but it's reluctant, begrudging. "I guess."
When Dean looks over, Sam's back is turned. Dean sighs and shakes his head, wishes that just this once, Sam could have a little faith.
*
It's seven years later now, and it's another motel room on another nameless back road. Dad's been gone two days, everything in Dean's duffel smells like gasoline and smoke, and Sam's asking questions.
"Tell me something about Dad?"
Dean looks up from his phone. He can't remember who he was going to call, anyway. "Like what?" he asks wearily.
"Something... from before. From when Mom was alive."
He sounds as young as he did the last time he asked, too long ago for Dean to even remember. And it's that, just that, that makes something flare hotly in Dean's belly. Something less than anger, but more than sadness, at Sam's too-little-too-late nostalgia. "Why?"
Sam balks, sits on the edge of his bed with his hands in his lap. "What do you mean, why?"
"Sam, do you remember one night, I guess you were about eight, you asked me where Dad was and I told you he was off hunting the Cucamonga?"
Sam nods slowly, two little lines appearing between his eyebrows. "Yeah."
"And I made up all this shit about how it was covered in scales and green slime and ate little boys who disobeyed their fathers?" Sam nods again, and god, it seems like forever ago that they were that innocent, that naïve. That trusting, even of each other. "And you believed me. Every word, without question. You wouldn't even piss by yourself for two days."
"Hey, you let me believe it. You could've told me you were just making it all up."
"Here's what I don't get, though." Dean chucks his phone aside and sits up straighter, hands clasped between his knees. "You believed me when I made up the most ridiculous, outrageous monster I could think of. But you've never once believed me when I told you what Dad was like, before Mom died."
Sam's head bows, his shoulders hunching over. "Dean..."
"No, man, I'm serious." Dean shoves off the mattress, paces tight circles on the ugly carpet. "I've never lied to you about the stuff that matters, and you know better than anyone that nothing matters more to me than this family."
"I know."
"And I don't want you to believe me now just because Dad's dead and you're feeling guilty and trying to make up for something. I want you to believe me because it's true."
"Dean." Sam's voice is sharp, cutting, and Dean stops, breathing hard. "I know."
"Do you?" Dean slumps back onto the bed, next to Sam. He's so tired, completely drained. He doesn't want to fight, not about this, not now. "Or are you just trying to shut me up?"
"Look, I'm not saying it's all warm and fuzzy feelings all of a sudden, but--"
"And I'm not saying he wasn't a hardass. Yeah, he changed after Mom died, but he was still Dad. He always tried to do right by us." Sam nods, and Dean rubs at his eyes, the burn of tears gathering behind them. "Dad was a good man, Sammy. I wish you'd believe that."
The silence stretches, deepens. Dean swipes at his nose, ready to push off the bed again, to walk out the door if Sam doesn't say something, and soon.
"I do believe it," Sam says finally. Quietly, and almost true. It's enough, just then. That Sam's saying the words and at least sounding like he believes them. That he looks like he wants to. "I mean, those last few days, having Dad around again, it--"
"Good," Dean interrupts, gruffly. He cuffs a hand over the back of Sam's neck. "You hungry?"
"Dean..."
"Pizza?"
Sam's mouth quirks up, a sad imitation of a smile, and Dean wants to hate that Sam knows exactly what he's doing. But then Sam just says, "Diner," and Dean can't be anything but grateful.
Supernatural
Dean, Sam (gen); PG
2,770 words
A/N: With thanks to flusteredspeech for helping me find the ending, amchara for being lovely, and mcee for the spankin' beta.
"Dean?" Sam is twelve years old, still babyfat in the face but wiry everywhere else. They're out behind the trailer, sparring while Dad's inside sleeping off a hunt, or a hangover; probably both. They seem to go hand in hand these days. It's summer in Alabama and the air is thickly humid, buzzing with mosquitoes. The old air-conditioner drones from the window. "Do you remember much about Mom?"
Dean lowers his hands, his palms stinging and raw where Sam's fists smacked into them. He's getting stronger, faster; he can already out-run Dean. He'll be taller than Dean and Dad both, soon, outgrowing his clothes long before they can afford to buy him new ones.
"Not really."
"Can you--" Sam scratches at the back of his neck, shifts his weight from one foot to the other. "Will you tell me something about her?"
"You know you're not supposed to ask about Mom. You promised."
"I promised I wouldn't ask Dad about Mom. But I'm asking you." Leave it to Sam to find a loophole. Too damn smart for his own good already. "And it's not fair to say I can't ask at all. I mean, think of all the crazy shit-"
"Hey. Watch your mouth."
"All the crazy shit"--carefully enunciated, defiant--"I do get to ask about, but not my own mother? Come on, Dean, that's messed up and you know it. I'm not a kid anymore, I want to know."
Dean sighs, flexing his fingers, cracking his knuckles one by one. Stalling for time, wracking his brain for some small memory he can share with Sam. But he doesn't have many of Mom, and most of the ones he does have are more about Dad, and himself, than her. He latches onto the first thing that comes to mind: the day they brought Sammy home from the hospital. It was raining, and Dad held a yellow umbrella over Mom's head from the car to the house.
"I don't remember much, Sammy. Honest. But..." Dean drags the back of his arm across his forehead. He's sweaty, thirsty. His tongue feels thick, too big for his mouth when he swallows. "Hang on, I'm gonna run inside and grab a soda. You want one?"
Sam hesitates, eyeing Dean warily. "Yeah, okay."
"Dude, don't look at me like that, like you don't trust me. I'm just getting a soda and making sure Dad's still asleep, and then I'll answer your question, okay?"
"Sorry," Sam mumbles, toeing a clump of dandelions. He wedges his hands into his pockets and shuffles off into the shade, where yesterday's laundry is strung up between two trees. He slumps down against the trunk and plucks at the overgrown grass, elbows resting on his knees.
Dean eases the narrow trailer door open slowly. Inside it's cool, quiet, the partition to the bedroom pulled closed. Dad's still out, then. Good.
He grabs two cans of Pepsi, then pauses, chewing on his lip, before reaching into the twelve-pack of Heineken and pulling out a bottle. Dad'll never notice; he never does. Dean stuffs the beer into his pocket, pulls his shirt down over it. Jumps when the partition rattles open behind him.
"Hey, kiddo."
Dean turns, glad for the dark because he can feel his face getting hot. "Hey, Dad." He fiddles with the hem of his shirt, making sure it doesn't settle against the shape of the bottle. "How you feeling?"
"Tired." Dad rolls his shoulders, moves his neck gingerly. "And sore." He steps out of the murky shadows to open the fridge, and Dean sees the mottled purple bruise under his eye, the split in his lip. Dad cracks open a bottle of water, downs half of it in one long swallow. "Where's Sammy?"
"Outside."
"You two stayin' out of trouble?"
"Yes, sir. We're training. Well, taking a break right now, but we were." Dean knows he's babbling, but Dad doesn't seem to notice.
"Good. That's good." He finishes off the water, refills the bottle from the kitchen faucet and sticks it back in the fridge. "I need a little more shut-eye, but wake me up in about an hour? We'll head over to the diner and get something to eat."
"Yes, sir."
Dad reaches over and ruffles Dean's hair, clumsily affectionate, before he closes the partition behind him. Dean's mouth hitches up for a second, but the grin doesn't stick. He pushes the door out into the muggy afternoon, vaults the steps and rounds the back of the trailer. Sam's still sitting against the tree, looking half-asleep, but he catches the Pepsi Dean tosses at him one-handed.
"Dad up?" he asks.
"For a minute." Dean's whole pocket turns inside out when he pulls out the beer. He jams it back in, kicks Sam's leg aside to make room for himself to sit. "I have to wake him up in an hour. Don't let me forget."
Sam's jaw clenches, the muscle twitching. "He hungover?"
"Don't know. But he's beat to hell, that's for sure."
"Probably got into another bar fight," Sam mutters, tearing a long blade of grass into tiny pieces.
"Jesus, Sam. Can't you cut him some slack?" Sam shrugs, yanking up another handful of grass. The sweet, green smell of it itches in the back of Dean's nose. He rubs at it impatiently. "He's out there every day saving people's lives, okay? I mean--" He breaks off, twists the cap off the beer, takes a swig. He doesn't know if Sam really doesn't get it or just doesn't want to, but the difference is irrelevant, doesn't matter.
"He wasn't always like this," he continues, quietly desperate, wanting Sam to understand. "He used to be..." Dean picks at the corner of the Heineken label, tears off a wet strip and flicks it off his finger. "He used to be happy. You want to know what I remember about Mom, well, that's what I remember best. That she was happy. That they were happy."
Sam shrugs, squints into the distance. "I wish I could remember that," he says, and pushes to his feet.
"Yeah," Dean says to no one. "Me too."
*
Dean's memories of life before the fire are few and far between, but the ones he has are sharp, clear.
He remembers rooms in their house, the pattern of the wallpaper in the kitchen, Dad's ratty old armchair in the living room. The blue and yellow stepstool he used so he could reach the sink in the bathroom, a rubber ducky he named "Dude." There was a swing in the backyard, fashioned from a plank of wood and two thick, scratchy ropes. He used to sit in Mom's lap while Dad stood behind them, pushing them higher, higher.
He remembers catching a lightning bug in a mayonnaise jar when he was three and setting it on his nightstand, the blink-blink of it lulling him to sleep. It was dead in the morning and he cried, insisted on burying it in the backyard. Dad let him dig the hole with a spoon, kissed the top of his head and made him chocolate-chip pancakes for breakfast. With whipped cream.
He remembers a summer afternoon after Sam was born, sitting on the front steps while Dad worked on the car. Washing it, or maybe changing the oil. Dean could hear Sam crying from inside, Mom's soft voice trying to soothe him. Dad was singing along to the radio, but Dean doesn't remember the song.
The distant tinkle of the ice cream truck made Dean jump to his feet, abandoning his juice box as he rushed down the steps.
Dad set down the rag he was holding, beaming, and took Dean's hand, walked him to the end of the driveway. Dean bounced on the balls of his feet, watching the truck chug up the block. Dad chuckled, palmed the top of Dean's head. He smelled like fresh sweat and car grease. Mom's roses were blooming, sweetening the air.
They both got Rocket Pops, striped red and white and blue, and a Strawberry Shortcake for Mom. She came outside and sat on the step below Dad, between his knees, nibbling her ice cream around the edges. Dad kissed her neck and she laughed, bright and loud, reaching over to thumb a sticky smear from the corner of Dean's mouth.
*
He remembers everything from the night Mom died. More than he wants to, or should, or will admit to, when Sam asks.
He remembers realizing, later, that that was the night everything changed.
*
He remembers things, sometimes, being almost like they were before the fire.
Sam came home from his first day at Kindergarten with a runny nose, and by the end of the week he and Dean were both feverish and scratching at clusters of small red bumps on their arms and legs.
"Better both of you at once, I guess," Dad sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. Dean was afraid he was angry, but he just looked worried, a little flustered. "Get this out of the way in one shot."
He went to the store and came back with a box of oatmeal bath, a big bottle of calamine lotion, and a carton of Neapolitan ice cream that they ate right out of the container, Dean and Sam each tucked under one of Dad's arms. They watched cartoons and football and horror movies that didn't even scare Sammy.
Sam fell asleep first, then Dad, propped up against the headboard, head tipped back, mouth open, snoring loudly. Dean pressed his ear to Dad's chest, felt the gravelly rumble of his breathing, the soothing thump of his heartbeat. There was something weirdly familiar about this, the three of them curled up together watching television. When Dean closed his eyes he could almost see Mom and Dad's bedroom in Lawrence, the rise and fall of Mom's shoulder as she slept next to them.
"How you doin', kid?" Dad mumbled, and the moment passed, the memory fading.
"Itchy," Dean said, wriggling against the sandpapery sheets. "And it hurts to swallow."
"You want some water?" Dean shook his head, yawned, and Dad chuckled quietly. "Lights out, then. C'mon." He reached above his head to click off the lamp, thumbed the power button on the remote. Sam huffed in his sleep, followed by the rasp of fingernails on skin. Dad shifted away from Dean a little, whispered, "Don't scratch," and Sam mumbled something unintelligible before rolling over, mashing his face into the pillow. Dad turned back to Dean. "Same goes for you."
"I won't." Dean eyes fluttered closed and Dad's fingers twitched against his back, curling in, pulling him closer.
*
Eventually, Sam stops asking about Mom. He outgrows his anger but not his curiosity, takes what he can whenever Dad or Dean let something slip. Dean gets the feeling that Sam's carefully constructing his own version of her, filling in the gaps between what he knows and what he thinks might be right. He can only wish that Sam would be so careful with Dad, with the way Sam sees him.
"You know, Mom thought you were gonna be a girl," Dean says one night, four weeks past Sam's sixteenth birthday and Dad two days gone, he and Sam both edgy and restless, waiting and pretending not to worry. Dean's in Dad's bed instead of sharing with Sam, who's like an octopus when he sleeps, all limbs. Hard to believe, now, that Sam was ever small enough to fit into the bed with Dean and Dad.
Sam rolls over, tucks his arm under his pillow. Tries not to look too interested, but it's a losing battle. "Oh yeah?"
"Mmm hmm. Something about the way she was carrying, or her face changing, some old wives tale like that. But Dad was sure you were a boy all along. Mom was sick a lot the first few months, and Dad said only a boy would give her that much trouble."
He shifts onto his back and scratches idly at his stomach, smiling a little at the memory; it was one he'd forgotten, until just now. The yellow umbrella pops into his head again.
"It rained the day they brought you home, I remember that. Big nasty thunderstorm, and Mom had a yellow umbrella. And man, Dad was so excited to have another boy. He always said he wished he had brothers growing up. I think he was glad we were gonna have each other. I think he's glad we do."
There's a rustle of cotton, the sound of Sam clearing his throat. "Yeah," he murmurs, but it's reluctant, begrudging. "I guess."
When Dean looks over, Sam's back is turned. Dean sighs and shakes his head, wishes that just this once, Sam could have a little faith.
*
It's seven years later now, and it's another motel room on another nameless back road. Dad's been gone two days, everything in Dean's duffel smells like gasoline and smoke, and Sam's asking questions.
"Tell me something about Dad?"
Dean looks up from his phone. He can't remember who he was going to call, anyway. "Like what?" he asks wearily.
"Something... from before. From when Mom was alive."
He sounds as young as he did the last time he asked, too long ago for Dean to even remember. And it's that, just that, that makes something flare hotly in Dean's belly. Something less than anger, but more than sadness, at Sam's too-little-too-late nostalgia. "Why?"
Sam balks, sits on the edge of his bed with his hands in his lap. "What do you mean, why?"
"Sam, do you remember one night, I guess you were about eight, you asked me where Dad was and I told you he was off hunting the Cucamonga?"
Sam nods slowly, two little lines appearing between his eyebrows. "Yeah."
"And I made up all this shit about how it was covered in scales and green slime and ate little boys who disobeyed their fathers?" Sam nods again, and god, it seems like forever ago that they were that innocent, that naïve. That trusting, even of each other. "And you believed me. Every word, without question. You wouldn't even piss by yourself for two days."
"Hey, you let me believe it. You could've told me you were just making it all up."
"Here's what I don't get, though." Dean chucks his phone aside and sits up straighter, hands clasped between his knees. "You believed me when I made up the most ridiculous, outrageous monster I could think of. But you've never once believed me when I told you what Dad was like, before Mom died."
Sam's head bows, his shoulders hunching over. "Dean..."
"No, man, I'm serious." Dean shoves off the mattress, paces tight circles on the ugly carpet. "I've never lied to you about the stuff that matters, and you know better than anyone that nothing matters more to me than this family."
"I know."
"And I don't want you to believe me now just because Dad's dead and you're feeling guilty and trying to make up for something. I want you to believe me because it's true."
"Dean." Sam's voice is sharp, cutting, and Dean stops, breathing hard. "I know."
"Do you?" Dean slumps back onto the bed, next to Sam. He's so tired, completely drained. He doesn't want to fight, not about this, not now. "Or are you just trying to shut me up?"
"Look, I'm not saying it's all warm and fuzzy feelings all of a sudden, but--"
"And I'm not saying he wasn't a hardass. Yeah, he changed after Mom died, but he was still Dad. He always tried to do right by us." Sam nods, and Dean rubs at his eyes, the burn of tears gathering behind them. "Dad was a good man, Sammy. I wish you'd believe that."
The silence stretches, deepens. Dean swipes at his nose, ready to push off the bed again, to walk out the door if Sam doesn't say something, and soon.
"I do believe it," Sam says finally. Quietly, and almost true. It's enough, just then. That Sam's saying the words and at least sounding like he believes them. That he looks like he wants to. "I mean, those last few days, having Dad around again, it--"
"Good," Dean interrupts, gruffly. He cuffs a hand over the back of Sam's neck. "You hungry?"
"Dean..."
"Pizza?"
Sam's mouth quirks up, a sad imitation of a smile, and Dean wants to hate that Sam knows exactly what he's doing. But then Sam just says, "Diner," and Dean can't be anything but grateful.