Dean wasn’t sure how this was going to go, was a little worried - he wanted it to go well, wanted it to go off without fighting and arguments, but he didn’t know if that was even possible, and it definitely wasn’t likely. Dad and Sam were always fighting, and that was before Ruby was in the picture, even. Things were different now - Mom was here, for one thing, and Samuel (it felt weird, thinking of the man as his grandfather; as far as he’d known, his grandfather had been dead for years before Dean was even born) had said he’d try to keep everyone in line... hopefully the combination of those things would make everything work out okay.
He’d gone ahead and gotten rolls for dinner, like Samuel had said - although he’d kind of stared at the shelves for a long time, trying to figure out if he was supposed to be getting a specific kind, something to go with dinner right, because there were really way too many kinds of freakin’ bread, dude. He’d ended up with some ‘family pack’ of white rolls, they’d felt pretty soft when he’d poked at them, so he hoped they were the right kind. This whole family dinner thing felt like something huge.
He was out of his depth.
Family dinners for the Winchesters had never been anything this big. It had just been Dad and Sam and Dean, usually at a diner or a fast-food place somewhere. It was more function than anything, eating so they could move on and do something else, always moving on in some way. It wasn’t like they talked a whole lot, while they ate, or did much bonding or whatever.
He could remember only a little about the time before the fire, foggy little memories that were mostly pale hair and warmth and a feeling of safe that he hadn’t felt again; sometimes he wondered if he just imagined it. He wasn’t sure if this was a normal thing, if they’d have done this kind of thing if they’d had normal lives, been normal people and not hunters with a hole in the family where Mom should have been, or if this was really as big of a deal as it felt like it was.
Dean sat in the car for a few minutes after he’d arrived at his grandfather’s place. He wasn’t sure he was ready to do this, even though at the same time he really wanted to, because if it went well it would be awesome. He wanted to have his family back in one piece. It was as much reigning in that hope as it was reigning in the worry that made him hesitate here - he couldn’t let himself get his hopes up too high and then have something go horribly wrong, because something probably would. It always did, why would this be an exception?
Pulling himself out of the car - and taking the rolls with him, but leaving his gun behind, under the seat, since he knew he shouldn’t need it, here (although he couldn’t quite bring himself to leave the flask of Holy Water behind, and that had less to do with Ruby, and more to do with the fact that the Winchesters and family all in one place always drew trouble, and he wasn’t aboout to be unprepared) - he headed for the apartment. Sam was still outside, waiting - and Dean stepped up next to him and offered a grin.