A/N: A mood piece, a character study, a moment in time, and all about emotions of the past and present. Because there's a lot more going on inside the boys than what is seen.
"Better"
Sam's not sure where it comes from. He's not sure what triggered it. He wasn't, to the best of his recollection, even thinking about John Winchester. Dad hasn't been in his thoughts for a long time, though certainly now and then something nudges a memory. He'll see some big, broad-shouldered guy in a loose coat moving a certain way, and remembers. Or he'll hear the deep rumbling tones coming out of a stranger, and it sparks the memory of a familiar sentence. Or an order.
But now? Right now he's sitting across the table from his brother. His brother, not his father. And while Dean can and does occasionally remind him of their father—it used to be all the time; but that, thankfully, altered somewhere along the way—he's found, or made, his own Dean-shaped place in the world. It's been a long time since Dean was Dad's grunt, his perfect soldier. Dean is just Dean these days.
They're in a diner and Dean is lost in the midst of his usual gustatory appreciation of a grease-laden burger. He can make it look orgasmic sometimes, how he enjoys certain foods. He isn't looking at Sam but at a newspaper folded small enough to leave room for the plate and bottle of beer, glass of water. His head is tilted down as he reads, though his attention seems to be split between burger and newspaper. It's definitely not on Sam.
"You're better," Sam says, but doesn't mean that Dean has recovered from an illness.
Without looking up—or swallowing the half-chewed food in his mouth—Dean says, "Of course I'm better, Sammy. You name it, I'm better. It's a burden, but I carry it. Better at that, too."
It crosses Sam's mind to provide examples of inappropriate behaviors one should not wish to excel in or cite as brags, such as nose-picking, or farting, but he doesn't, because he knows damn well and good his brother might elect to do either—or both—just to be annoying.
"Better than Dad, Dean."
And just like that, Dean stills. He's not chewing anymore. He's certainly not reading. He's just—very, very still. Dean is almost never still. Dean is a perpetual motion machine.
"And I'm not talking about being a better hunter. I'm talking about being a better man."
After that frozen moment, Dean finishes chewing, swallows, and raises his eyes to meet Sam's. His expression is an admixture of emotions, a panoply of thoughts in movement. And in those eyes Sam sees a measure of the confusion of someone caught completely off-guard, who is not closed off to Sam and is thus readable, as often his brother isn't. Dean is trying to figure the angles, the point of this; trying to find an answer without asking a question, to locate ground that isn't quaking beneath his feet. Because as accustomed as he is to Sam's occasionally outlandish worldview and distinct non sequiturs, this observation is not something he's capable of grasping. Or its cause.
Sam realizes what he said, but not exactly why. It just fell out of some crack in his brain like a thin, old book shoved behind another on a study shelf, tumbling unexpectedly into one's hands when the larger book is moved just so; and he realizes, too, that his words have opened a hole within his brother. And there is pain coupled with an inner bewilderment that now, so many years after Dad's death, Sam would say such a thing to him.
Dean isn't good with discussing feelings. But he certainly has them, and probably they are far more subtle and nuanced than anyone who sees only Dean's masks would even guess. Sam knows his brother far better than most siblings because they live in one another's pockets even as adults, but he thinks probably there are pieces of Dean that even he knows nothing about. That he, too, is shown the occasional mask. But this . . . what he sees in the moment is no mask. And he's not sure even Dean knows what Sam sees in his eyes.
The days of their arguments over Dad are long past. Dean has come to understand that his view of the great John Winchester was skewed, shaded by an unrealistic belief system that Dad himself encouraged. Sam knows, too, that he himself has come to view their father as someone other than the man he hated and resented for so long. He has grown up, has Sam, and he has a far better understanding of their father now. He makes no excuses, not the way Dean did for so many years, but he learned forgiveness somewhere along the way. Dean would likely say there's no need for such a thing, that Dad never did anything that required forgiveness; but even Dean eventually confessed that he knew their father wasn't perfect.
Dean has put down his half-eaten burger. He's sitting back in the booth, still looking directly at his brother. It's not Dean's way to meet Sam's eyes for very long when emotions are made an issue; Dean is all movement, and is always eloquent with his eyes in looking aside, glancing away, to shield himself, to erect walls and build boundaries. But he is staring at Sam, avoiding nothing.
It is, Sam supposes, a chick-flick moment. But Dean appears to be open to it. He doesn't even look like he's setting a trap, to pounce upon Sam with a snarky comeback, an automatic dismissal of feelings he doesn't wish to acknowledge.
Sam says, "It's not a bad thing to be better than a parent."
And he's changed the rules again. Whatever steadiness Dean had recaptured is yanked away.
It's a flicker in the eyes. Dean has never valued himself, Sam knows. He's seen the classic Dean Winchester swagger, the ease with which he dominates others, how he exudes the aura of an alpha male at all times except when he was around Dad. Most might think of Dean as an egotistical bastard, a man who believes himself better than everyone.
In fact, Dean doesn't believe he's better than anyone.
"You don't have to respond," Sam tells him. "That's not why I said it. Hell, I'm not even sure why I said it, but I'm glad I did. You deserve to know it. You should know it. And I don't mean it as a dig at Dad. I just mean it . . . because it's true."
A flicker of a frown briefly crosses Dean's face. It's got him knocked off-stride, Sam understands. Because Dean knows his little brother better than anyone, needs to know him better than anyone, and right now he can't figure out who this Sam is.
Sam lets him off the hook. He reaches out, swipes a few fries from Dean's plate, and looks at the newspaper. "You find us a job?"
Dean doesn't say yes. He doesn't say no, or even maybe.
He says, in a neutral tone, which is nonetheless full of small things and thoughts and a singular warmth, because he's finally figured out it's meant to add something to him, not to take away from Dad, "Thanks, Sammy."
Sam smiles, nods, fills his mouth with fries.
He doesn't know where it came from or why he said it, but he's glad he did. Because his brother deserves so much, yet asks for so very little.