Dean Winchester is Saved. (perditionfree) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2013-12-07 00:20:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, dean winchester, gabriel |
Who: Gabriel + Dean Winchester
What: Brother in laws, finally chatting like real people
When: 12/6
Where: A bar - don't worry, Dean isn't drinking
Rating: Low - some talk of real crappy childhoods, but nothing in too much detail.
Status: Complete
He'd been wary at first. Gabriel was sure no one could really blame him -- Dean Winchester was crass and rough and kind of fucking grumpy. He pulled guns on people -- which, okay, that might have been his own fault, but that wasn't quite the point. He'd kept it out much longer than needed, even after Jimmy- Cas -- had explained that Gabe was, in fact, his brother. And, frankly, the way he spoke to Cas had come off kind of too close to possibly abusive. It was enough to make any protective older brother worry.
So. Yeah. Wrong foot for first meetings.
But, hell, that tree house and the sap-ass post on the internet all for his little brother was only one more step up the redeeming ladder - which had gotten a little higher after Thanksgiving, anyway. Dean was combative in the kitchen, but then, so was Gabe. It'd been those secret moments with just Dean and Cas in the kitchen that Gabriel had accidentally seen that had really helped his view point.
So, okay. Maybe Dean was good for his little brother. It'd just been hard to see past all the other bullshit.
Drinks were in order, even if they were only the sugary carbonated kind. For Dean, anyway. Gabe was already at the bar (a hole in the wall with perfect drinks and perfectly greasy food items) nursing a very well made strawberry margarita, complete with sugar rimming the glass and tiny paper umbrella.
Dean took Baby and not his pony to meet up with Gabe. It seemed somehow more appropriate to face him as the man he was, dreams and all, as opposed to the man he’d been. It really wasn’t that hard to find the guy either, but he ignored him for a moment charming the pants off the bartender in order to get exactly what he wanted on the nachos. What? Not his fault that Gabe picked a bar he used to come to all the time back when he drank.
“The usual, Dean?” she asked.
“Nah, just a coke tonight.” His soda came and he turned towards his brother-in-law. “Booth?” he asked. “Or do you wanna frisk me first?”
"Nah," Gabe said, more than half amused that Dean knew the place and the bartenders well enough to somehow get them to add mushrooms to his fucking nachos. "I'm not sure what my brother would do to me if it got back to him that I was feeling you up at a bar."
He nodded though, to the side of the bar that had cozy, private little booths though, as soon as Dean got his coke. "Booth," he agreed, lifting his frou-frou drink and removing himself from the stool he'd been waiting at.
Dean, of course, had a regular booth, and a regular spot at that booth. Back to the wall, clear lines of sight of all entrances and exits, no damn window anywhere near, and the other doors not lost in his peripheral. “He’d probably narrow his eyes and glare for a minute, but get over it.” He tried to look as casual as possible, but fuck, Gabe was the only actual blood relative of Cas’ that Dean had met so far and all he wanted was to make the guy not hate him.
Luckily for Dean, Gabe didn't actually have it in him to actively hate a great many people. Dean wasn't even on his list. Not that he'd actively admit it so easily, of course.
"Probably," he agreed, sucking on the little straw in his drink and flopping himself into the opposite side of the booth from Dean, completely missing that this was a regular or thought out spot. "Sounds like Ji--Cas. Do you know how hard it is to go from calling him Jimmy for over three decades to something completely different? Fuck." Every time he tried catching himself, but that didn't make it easy.
“Probably pretty hard,” Dean allowed. It was...less of an issue for him because, well fuck dreams. Woke up one day and he couldn’t call Cas anything but Cas. “I didn’t ask him to do that, by the way. That was all him, man. He signed that marriage license and made himself a whole new man.”
"He seems like one," Gabriel said, sounding a little wistful, entirely serious for a moment. "He's remade himself since you." It was surprising and a little awe inspiring, if he had to be honest.
“It’s not just me,” Dean said, smiling up at the server when his nachos came. “It’s the dreams too, man. I mean I know he told you some about them, but you can’t go through those and stay who you were. Not completely.” Those were some damn good nachos though, and Dean gave not a single fuck if he was being rude by eating them and talking or not.
"Mm," Gabe said, frowning. He'd had no dreams of his own, no proper comparison. Only knew what little he'd been told by everyone else. It was hard to realize just how much of an impact something like that was with no real knowledge of them. "Well, he's always been a bit of an angel," he admitted, even as he stole one of the cheese covered nachos. It was a big plate, they could share. "Of course, before it wasn't really a good thing."
“You wanna tell me about before?” Dean asked. “You share his horror stories and I’ll share mine and maybe we’ll manage to avoid trying to kill each other at Christmas?” It was a joke, mostly. He was pretty sure that Christmas was going to be just him and Cas and if anyone else came over, well then that happened. Lucifer and the kid weren’t going to be an option though. Those were friggen obvious plans that were not being derailed.
“Not that he wouldn’t tell ‘em to me, I just don’t think he thinks about it much.” It was true enough, Dean thought. Cas seemed to be the kind of person who focused on not letting the past repeat itself rather than actually remembering why he didn’t want it to happen again.
The not-yet angel snorted a little, amused despite himself. "That he talks at all is a miracle, Winchester. I'll tell you. It's no secret among any of us, not really. And it seems like a fair trade, anyway." He snatched up another chip and crammed it into his mouth, crunching loudly. "Huh. Mushrooms on this is actually good. Who'd have thought." Weird.
"So we grew up kinda well off, you know. Not rich or anything, but upper middle class. Enough money where the idea of private school was more a firm reality, but not enough money where it wasn't obvious our dad worked for it. And lemme tell you, man, he made us all aware about how grateful we shoulda been for it." Another slurp of his margarita, and Gabe was waving a new chip around as he spoke. Hand gestures, they were important. "Cas was the littlest of us, the baby. Still kinda is, even after all this time. But baby status kinda puts you in the spotlight, you know? Not a great place to be when it came to our family."
“Dean,” he corrected gruffly. “First name, man. If we’re gonna be family, let’s not act like we’re on friggen rival softball teams.” He ate another nacho. Nachos were glorious. And fuck, Gabe wasn’t judging him for it, so why not. “But yeah, I know how that goes.” Which was exactly why Dean made sure he took the spotlight. Look after Sammy, right.
"Dean," Gabe corrected himself easily enough, and offered a bright, crooked smile like it'd been something he'd been planning and waiting for, like he'd just captured a very important piece on a chessboard.
"Anyway, you know. Super strict family, super strict Catholic schools - gotta be well behaved, blah blah." Gabe paused, peering at Dean over his drink and squinting. "Beside the ruler crap, you know, I gotta say. No one ever really beat us or anything, it wasn't like that. But that doesn't mean punishments our folks came up with couldn't be…" He shrugged, went on. "Anyway. Cas learned quick enough to not do much else but behave." He let out a nearly sad huff. "Never seen such a small kid be so serious, man."
Dean looked down at his coke, thinking about all of that. He made a mental note to lay off on the play a bit with Cas more. Not that Cas clearly didn’t enjoy it, but now Dean was having issues with it. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “Maybe that’s where he and I get on so well or something. Kids who never had a chance to be kids.”
Gabe gave Dean a side eye as he munched on another nacho, expression half thoughtful, but he didn't ask what Dean was thinking on, wasn't sure he wanted to. "Yeah?" He asked instead, because they'd agreed to take turns and it seemed a good a time as any for it to be Dean's turn.
Dean took a swig of his coke, really wishing it was a beer. “Let’s just say my dad wasn’t all that creative.” He couldn’t really look at Gabe, didn’t want those damn hazel eyes looking all sad and empathic. Fuck pity. Besides, the nachos were great.
Making a little noise of understanding, Gabe busied himself with licking some of the sugar off the rim of his margarita. Just as good as the nachos, in some ways. "Yeah," he said, after a second of just letting all the implications settle. That sucked. It really did. "You're an older brother though? I can tell."
“Yeah? How?” Dean looked up at Gabe, glad that they got over the pity part quick enough and moved into...whatever the hell this was.
Shrugging, Gabe finished off his margarita, waved a little obnoxiously across the room at the bartender for another. "You've got that vibe about you. Over-protective. I get it." It was easier to switch the subject - Gabe wasn't really one for pity parties.
“Yeah,” Dean said, because he was beginning to get the idea that Gabe really actually did get it. “Anyway,” he cleared his throat, “home fucked me up, the Marines fucked me up more. Your little brother’s just barely started fixing me. We’re both works in progress.”
Softening slightly at that, Gabe poked at the still looming plate of nachos. "I can tell," he repeated, but for a completely different reason now. "But it seems good. After the whole gun thing, anyway. But look, that tree-house is something special. Really. I'm glad you guys seem to get each other." Even if Dean had kind of appeared out of nowhere. Although that he could blame more on Cas not being talkative or sharing enough.
"I don't think anyone ever quite got him before. Not even me, really." So Gabe was happy Dean seemed to. Just about as happy as he was to get a new fruity drink.
“He needs to control more than he lets on. One of those guys where you really do pick your battles. And you gotta figure out the exact moments when he needs someone else to set the rules. It’s a delicate balance.” Dean let out a slow breath. “Look, I’m sorry about the whole threatening to shoot you thing, but I did a dozen years with the Marines and half that crap still keeps me up at night. The guy you met that morning was defending the front lines, not...not fuckin’ able to accept that the guy in the kitchen was his brother-in-law.”
"He likes order," Gabriel agreed between happy mmphing noises over his drink. "It's… well. How he copes with things. Partly due to how we were raised." Gabe and Dean both knew it went further than that. "If you can figure out how to get him to let go a little and set some rules without damaging his sense of control, more power to you."
He shrugged a little, glancing up to meet Dean's gaze. "I coulda called. That's a my bad, too. I wasn't expecting -- you know. You, I guess. I thought Jimmy'd meet some quiet little thing and live a quiet librarian life. Well, no. That's not true. I didn't really think he'd meet anyone, ever. But. It's not a big thing. Water under the bridge, bro."
“Surprised you didn’t google me as soon as the wedding announcement went out,” Dean said. He ate more of his nachos and stuck his straw in the new soda that’d come with Gabe’s drink. “Look, when we actually do the whole public ceremony shit...he’s gonna want you there. He might not know how to ask for you to be there, but he wouldn’t’ve given you a key to his house if he didn’t trust you.” Another chip. “‘Sides, someone’s gonna have to do the cake and if we got a confectioner in the family may as well make use of it.”
"What wedding announcement?" Gabriel snorted, but didn't seem all that offended. From what he understood and had pieced together it'd all been kind of fast. Since he could see himself doing the same sort of thing (except probably more immaturely), he didn't much blame his little brother.
He leaned a little closer, both elbows resting on the cheap formica of the booth table. "S'fine. Just tell me when and I'll be there. He is my favorite, not matter what he thinks." Somehow he was using his chips as chopsticks in order to scoop up not-chip food bits. "And whatever. 'Course I'll make your cake. Jeez. I'd be offended if you didn't ask."
“The two line thing that went in the paper because I misred a thing and thought we had to,” Dean said. “I was getting sober at the time and reading comprehension fell down the list when it came to more important things like not throwing up or passing out.” Dean watched Gabe for a long moment. “Glad I’m off your shitlist, Gabe,” he finally said.
"Oh. I don't… read the paper." But he couldn't help grinning anyway, just trying to imagine how that scene really went down.
He shook his head, licked off the end of his little paper umbrella and stuck the thing behind his ear like a pretty flower. "Yeah. Me too, actually. This could be good." His smile was charming, dimpled. "Now we just need to work out a plan for the kitchen."
Dean snorted. “Baby steps, pal.”