For a while, at the sports bar, Dean pretended that everything was normal. He talked about Ben's latest antics with all the pride he normally did, he reminisced with his Dad about a few memorable hunts they had been on, and even talked about the best food in town, but something was clearly off. There was a look, and almost wild one, in his eyes, as though he was only barely holding himself together.
When John started driving the truck off the beaten path, and Dean knew that they were going talk, and his heart started hammering, because if there was one thing he liked less than acting because of the memories of hell it was talking about them. The only thing that kept him from running was that his Dad was the one person on the face of the earth that he knew of that understood what he was going through.
Sighing, he sank down on the sand next to his Dad and grabbed a beer. He had promised Ben that'd hang out when he got back, so he'd only drink one or two, and with his high alcohol tolerance even when combined with the one he drank at the sports bar, he'd be fine, but this...this would give him something to focus on. "Does..." The question cracked in his throat, and he had to clear it before continuing. "Does it always seem this hard?"