The big black Chevy gleams under beads of moisture, the weak light of the December moon peeking through clouds reflecting on the hood. As Sam Winchester steers the speeding car through empty dark two-laned roads, heading for the Men of Letters bunker, his brow furrows with worry. Dean has fallen asleep again, curled in the leather seat but facing him.
Sam has been trying to keep his brother awake. Another concussion, Sam knew. He could tell as soon as Dean rose slowly from the floor of the abandoned factory and blinked owlishly before swaying over to help Sam. Even then, when most people would look after themselves, Dean came to help his brother. Not that Sam needed help, but it was nice to have someone always on his side. Nice to have his brother back. Nice to have put aside hurt feelings.
Dean and head injuries, Sam snorts to himself. Hell, both of them. The brothers had lost track of how many concussions they had both suffered a long time ago, but Sam knows Dean has had more. He always seems to be the one thrown across rooms and into walls. So to save his brother who was saving him, Sam ganked the crazed vampire with a swing of his machete and walked his wobbly brother to the passenger door of the car. The ease that Dean let him settle him in and then slide behind the wheel told him more than his brother ever would about the severity of the injury.
Glancing over at his brother again, Sam knows he needs to wake him soon, make sure he's semi coherent. But the dark smudges under the long lashes speak of days of tiredness not just the recent head injury. The car gleams inside and out, his brother's obsessive cleaning and fixing of it an unspoken apology. "Just a car" Dean had said about it when he was a demon. So not like his brother. God is it good to have him back.
From a childhood where Dean was his constant, his mother, father, older brother, best friend, to his recent return from death, from being a demon, Sam knows what Dean will say when he asks him. He'll say he's fine. To not worry about him, but Sam has learned his lesson on that lie. Dean is not fine, he just buries his pain and problems until they're too much for him - then he breaks. Sam doesn't know how many times he's seen his brother piece himself back together, rebuild his armor to hide behind. Drowning in booze. Not this time, though, Dean has been parceling out alcohol like a miser.
Still, Sam wishes Dean would stop trying to hide from him.
"Hey, Dean, hey." Sam reaches over to poke his brother on the shoulder. "Hey. C'mon, you know the concussion drill. Stay awake."
Groaning, Dean barely opens his eyes. "Dean, Kansas, December 2014. 'K? Let me sleep, man. I'm tired."
"Who's president?" Sam shoots back in answer and watches as his brother tries to remember, pain flashing across his face as his eye brows draw together in a frown. It takes longer than it should for Dean to mutter an answer. "Alright! Sit up. You need to stay awake."
"Sammy." Dean draws his brother's name out into a whine, but he sits up. The older brother fumbles around until he opens the glove box and pulls out a pair of sunglasses, muttering that the light hurt his eyes as he put them on. Closing the compartment, Dean runs his hand lovingly across the leather and pats the dash board. As he sits back, Sam swears it almost seems like the seat of the old car shifts to cradle his brother. He snorts at his own imagination, but takes that up as an acceptable topic of conversation.
"She looks good, you know, Dean. And I'm glad to see you taking care of baby again – even if you're the kind of douche bag who wears sunglasses at night," Sam says. "How you feeling?" As he glances over, he sees the black of the sunglass lenses, not his brother's eyes, and he shivers. Too soon from the demon to feel easy about it.
Trying to hide his reaction, Sam reaches for the radio dial. "Want me to put some music on?"
"No! No I, don't. Sorry. Head still hurts." Dean stumbles over his words hand out as though to intercept his brother from the dial, and Sam has his answer to his earlier question. Dean is not fine. Sam draws his hand back.
"Okay, then, Dean, no music. But you're gonna have to talk to me so I know you're awake." Sam nudges his brother. "Tell me a story to help me stay awake too."
"Damnit, Sammy, you're not five!" But Sam can see the curve of his lips in a small smile and he knows his brother is amused by the idea. "What should I talk about?" Dean asks, right hand petting the dashboard again as he turns more toward the driver's side. He spreads his hands and shrugs, "I don't really want to talk much about, ya know, recent adventures of Demon Dean."
Nodding, Sam lets that go. He doesn't want to talk more about what he was doing during that time either. They aren't hiding this from each other, more like avoiding it together.
Using a hand to push his hair out of his face, Sam bites his lip a moment, thinking. "Tell me about some of your solitary hunts when I was in college. I, umm, realized when we met Cole that I never asked about that, about when I was at college and you were alone." A little defensively, Sam adds. "I was kind of messed up when we got back together after Stanford, with Jess, and I had assumed you and Dad were sticking together as a team."
"You were hurting, Sammy, no one expected you to know." Dean quickly makes excuses, sounding more alert than he has since he banged his head. Sam sighs inwardly. Dean is always quick to forgive his brother or his father, or Castiel, but he's so hard on himself.
"So tell me something I don't know. Tell me about a hunt I missed." Sam asks; he is serious in wanting to learn more about his brother, and he hopes this won't upset the current status quo.
Dean settles into a comfortable position on the seat, crouched enough that his cheek rests on the back of the car seat like he is too weary to hold it up. "Did I ever tell you about how I know that Baby is one sexy lady?"
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In December 2001, an almost twenty-three year old Dean Winchester mostly handled salt and burns and minor cases his dad sent him on alone. Dad would text him with coordinates, and Dean would go, check around the area until he found a case, find the problem and fix it. He'd learned that Dad preferred him to be able to handle these cases on his own without needing to ask for advice. He learned from trial and experience, and the sharp side of his dad's tongue when he'd call to ask for help.
Sometimes Dean'd call Bobby for research because he didn't want his dad to be disappointed in him. Bobby treated him just like any other young hunter. It was a relief. But he didn't think he'd needed any help on this one. Seemed like a vengeful spirit, and Dean knew how to fix that. If he hurried, he might be able to make the drive to South Dakota in time for Christmas dinner.
And on that drizzly cold day near Christmas, Dean was alone, digging up a grave, in an abandoned cemetery in rural Upstate New York. It was his second grave that day. The first one, Cedar Grove, was thirty miles from Cedars Grove where he was now. He was cold, wet, disgusted with himself, and not paying as much attention as he should.
It was all his fault.
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"You always blame yourself, Dean." Sam interrupts, frustration rampant in his voice. He's tired of letting anyone, himself and his brother included, put Dean down. "Anyone could make that mistake."
"But I'm the one who did. Plus, not paying attention." Dean adds sternly. "Dad taught me better."
"Well, you were a kid." Sam adds. It's an excuse he's never heard his brother use for himself, but it's one that thirty-one year old Sam thinks about too often. How young they were when they started hunting, how young they were when they started being left alone, how young they were the first time they died. How much older they both were now.
"As old as you were when I dragged you back from Stanford." Dean cuts him off. "Now you gonna let me tell you this story or what?"
"But, you know, Dad should've…"
Dean cuts him off again. "Speaking of young. Think about Dad. You're older right now than Dad was when Mom was killed. Think about that. And it was all new to him. He wasn't raised a hunter. He didn't know anything. And he had two little kids he was trying to keep safe."
Sam purses his lips, silenced again, but this time with something new to consider.
Dean waits a moment, as though he knows he has given his brother something to consider. "Where was I? Yeah, thinking I was dealing with a ghost, digging up a grave, and not paying attention."
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He hurt. Dean reached up to touch the back of his head, wondering who knocked him out. He opened his eyes slowly, trying to let the pain in gradually so he could handle it. The first thing he saw was black leather and he groggily wondered how he'd made it back to the car. Last he remembered he was digging.
Then Dean noticed it wasn't a bench seat of his beloved car. As a matter of fact, it wasn't a car. As he groaned and sat up, he saw that next to him, where his head had been resting on her lap, was a hot lady dressed in black leather jacket and pants. Her hair was such a deep platinum color that it shown almost like chrome. She gazed back with dark eyes and an amused glint.
"Umm, what? I mean. Who? Ahh." Yeah, Dean thought, snapping his mouth shut. Not his most eloquent introduction. He glared at her as though it were her fault, and she chuckled, a sound that rumbled deep in her chest and that Dean found soothing for some reason.
"Hello, Dean." Her voice sounded like bourbon on the rocks, rich and intoxicating. She reached out her hand, long elegant fingers tapping his chin to remind him to close his mouth. Dean's jaw snapped shut so fast he almost bit his tongue.
Nervously, looking around, Dean couldn't see his car, which should have been parked right around where he was sitting on the ground. But he did see he was just outside the wrought iron fence of the cemetery, and that it was only slightly later on the same drizzly day. Dean licked his lips and tried to make sense. "I'm sorry, do I know you?"
It's never a good feeling, not knowing if the person next to you was with a friend or an enemy. And with an aching head, stranded miles from anywhere, it was even worse. Dean hoped she was an ally.
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"Don't tell me! It was the car!" Sam has been listening, trying to picture his brother - slightly chubbier- than he is now, eyes more open and innocent – waking from a concussion and finding he wasn't alone.
Dean grimaces. "Are you going to let me tell this story or you going to keep interrupting?" He reaches up to scratch his head and winces when he touches the lump.
Sam ignores him. Grumpiness is Dean's go-to mode when he's hurting. "Was she, like, an old chick? Did you, you know…"
"Old?" Dean runs his hand over the car's console lovingly. "Old? Do the math, Sam. In 2001, Baby was a thirty-four year old car. Younger than I am now. I'm almost thirty-six." Sam watches as his brother withdraws into himself. Obviously, this is a sore point. Dean's feeling old, and what? Like he hasn't accomplished anything in his life? Could it be? Saving the frikkin' world a couple times wasn't enough?
Or maybe Dean's regretting when Sam, soulless as he was at the time, dragged Dean back into hunting. Maybe Dean's missing the family he once had with Lisa and Ben. The holidays on top of his recent behavior as a demon, Sam diagnoses in his head, are making his brother depressed. Dammit, he's going to either have to find another case soon, too soon given his brother's concussed state, or Dean is going to be mopey all through the holidays. Sam's musing is cut short when Dean speaks again. It's painfully transparent that Dean has decided to be cheerful despite how he really feels.
"Yeah, so me and a hot older chick." Dean starts, but falters. He frowns, turns away from his brother and rests his head against the window. "I don't feel good, Sam. Sorry, maybe some other time."
Sam makes the final turn he needs to make before they are back in Lebanon, Kansas. He glances over at his brother's back, hunched in protectively. "That's all right, man, I get it. We're almost home anyway. You don't need to give me the details of the hot night you spent with your car."
A sleepy voiced Dean mumbles, "Who said it was just one night?"