Dean Winchester is Saved. (perditionfree) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2013-07-11 13:52:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, !trigger warning, dean winchester, sam winchester |
Who: Sam and Dean Winchester
What: Brothers speak face to face after 10 years not.
When: July 11 (lunch time)
Where: A diner near Sam’s work
Rating: PG-13 for frank talk of Dean’s PTSD induced depression, subsequent suicidality, and swearing. That’s also your trigger warning.
Status: Complete
Ten years. He couldn’t imagine how much Sammy had changed in that time. Hell, Dean didn’t want to. That boy...that boy had been his life once, and if Dean was honest with himself, he still was. Not directly, but this whole staying clear thing? It was still part of looking after Sammy. Just like going off to war had turned into part of looking after Sammy, even if indirectly.
Sitting at the burger joint, back to the wall, view of every one of the windows and exits, he waited. He’d gotten there early to get the seat he wanted, and to charm the waitress into free drinks even though he was pretty sure he and Jimmy were becoming a Thing now. Dean didn’t know what to expect, but he did know that his heart was all knotted in his chest and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to puke or cry. Sure as hell wasn’t going to do the latter in public.
Ten years was a very, very long time. Very little, if any, contact, mostly just information from their father that Dean was still alive. When Dean had first gone, it felt like Sam had lost a part of himself, too. He'd been angry, and hurt, and threw himself so hard into his studies that he nearly got burned. But he'd made it to Stanford, made it through, and had the scars to prove it. Now Dean was back, and Sam really had no idea where to begin.
He came to the shop, wearing his lawyer-y clothes, suit, tie, whatever. This was his lunch break, so he didn't want to have to waste some of it changing clothes just to see the brother he hadn't seen in a decade. He opened the front door and scanned the room, eyes coming to rest on the Dean he barely knew.
There was no way that Dean was going to miss Sam coming in, anyone coming in really. But when Sammy walked through that door, it was like the whole world just stopped. It was weird seeing him in that monkey suit, and it made Dean feel like his grease stained work clothes were completely inappropriate. His brother had grown up. Way up, actually. Shit, was he that tall last time?
Dean stood automatically. Not just stood, no, but Dean fell back to twelve years of military training and stood nearly at attention. He couldn’t think about anything more than the fact that he’d been both dreading and longing for this moment for as long as he could remember. He just hoped that his reappearance in his brother’s life wouldn’t destroy the one job he’d been given since day one. “Hey, Sammy,” he said, voice breaking in the middle of his brother’s name.
Nah, Sammy had put on a couple of inches from the last time Dean saw him. Maybe. Or, y'know, whatever. From late teens to late twenties was a huge jump. So much had happened, so many things changed Sam. Mostly for the better, but some for the worse. He wasn't the same person that Dean left behind so many years ago. Just as he was sure this wasn't the same Dean who did the leaving.
Sam crossed the restaurant to his brother. This was it. The moment of truth. Were they supposed to hug? Hand shake? Fist bump? Talk about awkward. "Hey, Dean." He said, then lifted his hand as if to offer it for a hand shake.
“You uh...you look good.” Mostly, as a rule, Dean didn’t go around hugging people. Hell, hugging Sam seemed like the worst of all ideas, like his filth and broken would get all over him and his brother wouldn’t be clean anymore. Looking at that hand, though, Dean couldn’t not. He let his own hover as if he was going to just shake it, to make an awkward reunion even moreso, but in the end he went for it.
He practically crushed his brother to his chest, which given the height difference was really more him crushing his nose into Sam’s collarbone. How many times had he convinced himself that his crimes were so ground into his very marrow that he didn’t deserve family? Now, letting it go didn’t seem to be an option.
"Thanks." Sam wasn't expecting the big, crushing hug. He probably should have, it wasn't like they didn't get along before Dean ran away oh-so many years ago. But time changed people, didn't it? Isn't that what they always said? He returned the hug, though. How could he not? He wrapped his arm around his brother, awkwardly, holding a bag of muffins in his free hand. Compliments of his girlfriend.
Dean stepped back and finally found himself able to breathe. Sam was in one piece in front of him and apparently doing rather well for himself, if the suit was anything to judge by at least. He cleared his throat and took his seat in the booth again.
“Aww, Sammy. You didn’t have to bring me a present.” He nodded to the bag in his brother’s hand. That was kind of awkward wasn’t it? Shit, should he have brought something? A quart of oil maybe? What the hell else did he have to offer?
"Hmm? Oh." Sam slipped into the seat opposite Dean's and set the bag on the table. "My girlfriend, Deryn, said I should bring muffins. So... muffins." Bringing muffins to a lunch date meeting at a hamburger place? Seemed weird to him. But he could never say no to Deryn's muffins. "She made these."
Dean raised his brows. “Wow. uh.” He cleared his throat, and clicked his cheek. “She knew this was lunch, right? Not a picnic?” Dean shook his head anyway and held up his hands. “Whatever, man. Sweet gesture. Tell her I said thanks.” He didn’t need to look at the menu. He just needed to make sure that Sam didn’t completely loathe him, or at least didn’t loathe him as much as he did himself.
“Big shot lawyer huh? Girlfriend who bakes? Got it made, don’t you, Sammy?”
“She’s... like that.” Sam said, shrugging his shoulders a bit. “I will.” He almost mentioned how Dean was going to have to meet Deryn, but that thought got caught in his throat. He couldn’t say it aloud. Maybe if they became... y’know... comfortable around each other again.
“Yeah, I guess I do.” Sam said, shifting a little in his seat. “A lot of it just sort of... fell into my lap, though. Can’t take too much credit for it all.”
“Being in the right place at the right time has to count for something,” Dean pointed out. He grinned charmingly at the server when she came over to take their order, all that flirt for a bacon cheeseburger and hopefully a larger than average slice of pie when it came time for it.
When she left Dean felt the seriousness of the moment came crushing back down on him. “So,” he cleared his throat. “...this is uh...look, where do you want me to start apologising?”
Sam ordered a salad. Y’know, because that’s how he rolled. Carrots and whatnot. Good stuff. He leaned back in his chair when the waitress left, and turned his attention back to Dean. A confused expression crossed his forehead, wrinkling his brow.
“...apologise for what?” Sam asked, the frown spreading to his lips, too. He wasn’t covering his deeply buried anger and frustration all that well. “That was ten years ago, Dean. I’ve moved on.”
It was good that he didn’t want an apology for running off in the first place, because that wasn’t going to happen. “Then I’m sorry for a few weeks ago.”
“What happened a few weeks ago?” Sam asked. “I mean, what do you have to apologize for?”
“Not telling you I was in town? Keeping a distance and an eye on you?” Dean replied, shrugging. “Being the...shittiest excuse for a brother ever? Or I mean I can go further back and include your yearly drunk birthday phone call or Christmas postcards?”
“Oh. Right. That.” Sam said, nodding. He was a bit smug, actually, that he’d gotten Dean to admit it all without having to do too much prying. “Some of those drunk phone calls were amusing. Some.”
Dean rolled his eyes at that slight smug look. Only reason Sammy had gotten anything out of him so easily was because Dean just didn’t want to listen to any whining. He took a drink of his soda. “Let you in on a secret,” Dean swallowed, “nearly all my phone calls are drunk ones.” Frankly, it was a miracle that he wasn’t drunk now. Sure as shit wanted to be though.
Sam gave a little snort, then shook his head. “Right.” He wasn’t sure if that was funny or pathetic. So he went with somewhere in between. “You, uh... you back for good, then? Or are you just stopping by?” Sam asked, lifting his own soda for a gulp.
“Planning on sticking around for a bit,” he said, and that charming smile was back when the server brought them their food. God, fries were amazing, and Dean had clearly not at all lost his habit of talking while eating. “Got a fairly decent job, a few friends. Figure might give it some time to see if it sticks.” He paused, swallowed and looked at his brother, “or do you mean am I deploying again?”
Sam gave the waitress a “thank you” and started poking his salad with his fork. He didn’t have that much of an appetite today. He shifted in his chair. “I’m glad to hear things are going well for you,” he said, softly. “But I was really just... wondering if you were going to disappear again.”
By this point, Dean had taken a bite of his burger. Meat was glorious. He didn’t know how Sam could eat those salads when burgers were an option. Real meat too and not crap pretending to be meat drenched in so much gravy that nothing had a flavor anymore. This time, he was polite enough to swallow most of it before talking. “Do you need me to?” He looked up at his younger brother, dead serious. If Sammy needed him gone, then Dean would drop whatever semblance of life he’d built and be gone. No questions. No hesitation.
Sam didn’t have to consider that question. He didn’t hesitate for a second. “No, of course not.” He said, shaking his head. “I just want to know if you’re sticking around this time.” He shifted in his chair. “I hesitate to become invested. I don’t want...” He didn’t want to get his heart broken again. Okay, Dean?
“I don’t want to get used to having you around if you’re going to disappear again.”
“Look. I’m sure as hell not going back to the military, and...how the hell am I supposed to look after you if I pull a Houdini again, huh, Sammy?” It was the closest admission to staying as he could get. Things were...well they had the potential to be good here. There was the chance they’d go to shit too, of course, but he had to hope the good outweighed the bad. “Not planning on it, and I’ll let you know where I’m going if I do, okay?”
Sam was about to argue that he didn’t need looking after. He had a good life--one that he’d pretty much built for his own. Even though he sometimes wasn’t sure how it all fell into place the way it did. But Dean was admitting that he was planning on staying, and that’s what Sam wanted to hear. He nodded.
“Okay.” He said, then took a bite of his salad.
That was really the best Dean could hope for given...everything. Hell if this whole lunch whatever wasn’t a huge continuous kick to the gut, though. He nodded and decided that actually eating his burger was the best option. Never knew when Sammy might decide to say something that made him lose his appetite. Normally, that was a pretty hard feat to accomplish, but Dean was unsettled enough that it could be pretty easy.
“Still eating burgers like there’s no tomorrow.” Sam mentioned, pointing vaguely at Dean’s plate with his fork. He was going to try his hardest to pretend this wasn’t awkward. He didn’t want it to be awkward. He wanted everything to be... well, whatever the heck normal was for the Winchester brothers. At least, he didn’t want things to get any worse than they were.
He wanted to talk. To tell Dean everything that had happened over the last decade. To catch his brother up on the comings and goings, the good and the bad. But he had no idea where to start. Or how. Or even if that’s what Dean wanted, too.
“Nah, I’m more a tofu and protein shake kinda guy now,” Dean replied dryly, looking up at his brother like the guy had seriously lost his mind. What did Sam think? That Dean would run off to war and not want bacon, beef and cheese as often as possible when he got back. He set down what was left of his burger and wiped his fingers off on his napkin.
“You gonna tell me what you want from me here, Sammy? Because I gotta say...not a friggen clue how this is supposed to work.”
“Ten years changes people.” It sure changed Sam. He wasn’t that little kid that Dean left behind. He leaned back in his chair a bit and sighed. “You’re not the only one who’s clueless about all of this. I have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing here.” He set his fork down.
Well there went what appetite he had. Out the window. Shame, he was looking forward to the pie. Yeah, ten years did change people. Dean sure as hell wasn’t the same guy who cooked Sam’s meals and tucked him in at night while their dad was off doing god knew what. Dean never asked. He was a good son.
Neither of them knew what they were doing, but they were both still there. It meant something didn’t it? Willing to try? For family?
“Never expected either of us to be the same people,” he said flatly. Dean sighed again. “Look, the shit I went through...me staying away...I didn’t want any of this near you. Keeping me away from you? Only thing I could do to make sure I was doing my best to keep you safe. You called. I answered. This is what you got, a drunk shit show of a brother who barely sleeps and only works on cars because that’s all he’s good for. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t wake up out of the shit that happened over there and don’t think that maybe today’ll be the day that I end it. Maybe today. And I never do because I know you would never forgive me.”
There it was, laid bare on the table. Now Sam could either get up and never talk to Dean again, or he could deal with what was left of his brother. Dean would deal either way.
Well, he could take a doggie bag for the pie, anyway.
Sam sat and listened, lifting his hands up to run both of them through his hair. He hated to hear the pain in Dean's voice. He hated the thought that Dean--his brother--was sitting there talking about 'ending it all.' A deep sigh escaped him, one he couldn't stop, and he shook his head.
"No. I'd never forgive you for that." Sam would forgive a lot of things, but that was one he couldn't even wrap his brain around. "...I don't know what kind of shit you think you've got going on in there, but... You don't have to be out of my life to protect me."
“Not out of your life. Not anymore. You just need to know what you’re getting into.” Dean said firmly. “I got a whole bucket of crazy here and if you wanna step in it, then fine but it ain’t gonna come off all that easy no matter how hard you kick it.”
Sam frowned, shaking his head. “I was under the impression that family meant more than shying away when bad times came around.” He said, almost angrily. “Believe me, I’ve dealt with more crazy than you can possibly imagine, and I’m still here. In fact, I’m stronger for it.”
Of course Sam would play the family card. It was the only one that would get Dean to respond immediately and without question...that and if someone pulled rank which Sammy couldn’t do. He just really, really hated that Sam had to even stoop to playing it in the first place. Low friggen blow, kid. “What part of I’m here isn’t sinking through properly? I’m here. I’m trying. That’s the best I can give you right now.” Dean pulled his wallet out and laid enough cash to cover his meal and a sizable tip. “Next time we’re doing drinks. I’m not good at this cordial lunch in public shit.” Dean’s chair scraped against the floor as he stood. “I gotta get to work.”
“Take the muffins.” Sam said, not standing, not pulling out of his chair. He wanted Dean back in his life. He loved his brother. It was just... awkward. Hopefully it would get better over time. They’d just have to... y’know... be awkward for a while. (And Sam wasn’t even thinking about how shitty those dreams were. Fuck, when that started...) “Deryn wanted you to have them.”
Dean looked down at the muffins. “Yeah, I know. She texted me.” He picked up the bag and as he was about to leave, paused and squeezed Sammy’s shoulder. “We’ll fix this. No matter how long it takes, we’ll figure out how to be brothers again, okay?”
Sam nodded, looking up at Dean at the squeeze to his shoulder. “Yeah. We will.” And he actually believed it. He gave Dean something of a smile.
Dean nodded, patted Sammy on the shoulder and then left. It’d be good to lose himself in his work for a while. Cars at least made sense.