He kept stealing glances when he felt like it was safe - quick little looks upwards, but she wasn’t looking at him, she was looking away and he wondered what that meant, didn’t know how to read her and he wanted to know, but there was no way to learn that now, there wouldn’t be enough time. Still, he hoped he’d at least stop feeling like he couldn’t remember what she looked like, before everything was over, stealing glances so he could remember, just in case.
>“You must know I’ve been, all of us have been, worried about you lately.”
Dean didn’t understand why they were all so worried about him. It wasn’t like he was even saying anything to give them cause to worry. Sure, he was drinking a little more than usual, and he wasn’t exactly quiet about how much he was worried about the rest of them, but... it didn’t really seem like he was giving them reason to worry about him. He hadn’t meant to make them worry, that wasn’t the plan at all. They weren’t supposed to have to worry about anything anymore.
>“Everyone needs to let off steam sometimes but this isn’t... I just want to know what’s going on.”
She sounded like she was actually pretty upset, he didn’t want her to be upset. It wasn’t a direct question, and the quiet “Nothin’,” that came out wasn’t really a lie, because nothing was actually going on at all, but he still had to cut his eyes away from hers, stare at his hands in his lap (he wished he had something to do with them, something to make him feel slightly less awkward, wished he had no reason to feel awkward around Mom because that was all wrong, that wasn’t how they were supposed to be or ever had been before, but it had been more than twenty years since she’d died, and twenty-some years was more than long enough to break any familiarity and ease around a person), “I’m fine, Mom.”
That one was more of a lie than the last, but it didn’t sound like it; he lied for a living, after all; he knew how to layer in the sincerity and make it sound real. He was good at it, and it had been a long time since he’d had her or anyone else standing over him scolding him for lies he’d told. He lifted his eyes to hers evenly, and it felt like he was lying to just any other witness or cop, except for the guilty twist in his gut that he never got from any of them.