Title: Five Times Dean Never Said I Love You
Disclaimer: I own nothing Supernatural. Darn you Kripke, and Bless you all the same.
Warnings: Language.
Summary: Five times Dean Winchester never said I love you…and never really needed to.
1. Sam grew up smelling the leather seats of a '67 Impala, the suspicious odors of rundown motels, the muskiness that was his dad's aftershave, and the grilled, beefy aroma that was Dean's latest heart attack-inducing cheeseburger. He grew up smelling sweat and blood and countless towns in forgettable states. All he knew was the smell of gunpowder and oil for lubrication and the sharp tang of something in the air.
He couldn't remember ever not smelling dirt, gas and the phosphorous burn of a match for longer than a week—two tops. He knew the smell of rotting corpses, the incredible burst of dead tissue when the coffin is opened for the salt and burn. He knew the stench of sulfur in the air making the next breath tight and repulsive.
He remembered the smell of his father. It wasn't a physical smell…not really. It was like strength and skill and rigid rules. He figured if there was a smell that could be hunters…it would be his dad.
Dean smelled like…rock music and women and steadfast protection. If the smell of big brothers could be captured, he knew it would be Dean.
For seventeen years, he knew that smells that made the Winchesters, The Winchesters.
And so when on the night he packs his bags for Stanford, with his father raging and cursing somewhere outside with a JackDaniels-produced slur, he sees his brother stuff a black Metallica shirt with a ketchup stain on it in his luggage, he pretends he never saw. He backs away and waits a few seconds before stomping his feet--a little warning to Dean—and busting into the room.
His brother is leaning against the chipped windowsill, shoulders tense and stiff and turned from him, and his bag seems untouched.
Sam isn't even mad enough to throw that t-shirt away. It smells of the Impala, and that burger, and of Dean that he couldn't have if he wanted to.
The Winchesters don't believe in good luck, they'd seen too much, and destroyed too much. Karma was a bitch and Sam didn't dwell on just why Dean sneaked one of his favorite shirts between flannel and plaid.
Even after Dean faded, the t-shirt was never washed and would be crammed in his pillow before Jess got out of the shower and gone before she woke up the morning after.
It was musky and dirty and tarnished…but it was Winchester. It was everything never said and all the things that mattered most.
