It's wider than the original, carved wood instead of metal. Dean could trace every aspect of his own- damn it, he was not calling it the Samulet. Fucking kids.
No, Dean mused as he rubbed a thumb over the grain of the wooden surface, it's not the original. Too wide, the nose protrudes too far, the horns are larger than they should be. It's a caricature of the brass amulet he once had.
But it gets some parts right, Dean concedes, although only silently to the confines of his mind. It gets the tactile gesture of comfort as he runs his thumb over its surface- not how he remembers it, and his muscle memory struggles to reconcile the differences between the amulet it expects and the amulet it recieves, but it still provides a surprising warmth and home comfort, one he thought he had lost a long time ago.
It gets right the feeling of home, of love. Gunpowder and stale smoke and the must of the bunker, the dumb shampoo Sam uses and the feel of the road beneath his feet. It gets that right, brings home memories he had forgotten. It feels at home in his hand.
He said he didn't need it to prove anything, and he meant it. His brother knows him, and he knows his brother, and they know that they don't need a token to show how they've grown since that juvenile moment he threw the Samu- amulet away.
They don't need it.
But that doesn't mean they don't want it.
He knows he's not going to wear it. That feels like an insult to the memory of the one he threw away, and that's not right. But he knows he must keep it, too. And not just for his benefit.
He watches the sun set over the horizon, feels the thrum of a well-tuned engine being driven with perfect, careful precision. He thinks of the car only weeks ago. He wonders if weeks ago he would have set this amulet on fire just to watch it burn.
He ignores the prickling heat from the mark on his arm. He reaches into his pocket, drags fingers over a wooden structure both familiar and not. To his comfort, the heat fades slowly away, and he is left with the thrum of engines and the setting sun, unsullied by the remnants of what he had been not so long ago.
He looks at the car, at the sunset, at his brother. The road behind them and the road ahead.
So much has changed and yet is the same.
Dean pulls the Samulet from his pocket. He knows where it must go now.
It hangs between them, soft light not glinting off of metal but gently diffusing on wood. Sam looks at the small carved amulet, with confusion and then touched acceptance. Dean does not acknowledge anything, and neither does Sam, save a glance and a half-smile shared between the two.
Nothing needs to be said. Nothing needs to be fixed.
But it doesn't mean it can't be brought home as well.
A tune comes unbidden to Dean's thoughts, and he is drawn to breaking the contented silence, if only by a murmur.
"His name is Sammy-"
Sam looks up, touched and annoyed. He clearly wants to rebuff Dean but knows the rare moment he is seeing and doesn't want to disturb it.
"I'm big brother Dean." A note of pride, soft and understated but undoubtedly there. The silence returns again but it is fuller than before, warmer.
The road stretches ahead of them and the small carved amulet comes between.
They drive on.