Title: Grumpy Old Man
Disclaimer: I do not own anything pertaining to Supernatural or this episode.
Summary: Just a drabble. Tag to 5x07 "The Curious Case of Dean Winchester." What would you do, if you realized you would only ever be eighty once?
Dean Winchester stepped out of his 1967 Impala gingerly, grumbling and groaning about his aching feet and sore back.
The walk to the hotel room door seemed endless. When the hell had they moved the building back so far? And where was Sam? Dean could have used him at the moment, in the very least as an ear he could complain to. He had been doing a lot of that lately.
Dean finally reached the room, fumbled for several minutes with keys in the lock, and entered. Success!
"Damn shaky fingers," he muttered, "How am I supposed to do anything? Can't even hold a gun, let alone shoot one. Hell, I probably couldn't even pick up a book. And my dang back, I swear-"
Dean stopped, and gazed at the man in the mirror, shocked and curious. Who was that? It couldn't be him. Could it?
He inspected the image more closely, running a hand over the well-defined wrinkles, more frown lines than anything. Crows' feet punctuated his green eyes. That same beautiful green that helped him woo the ladies, glazing over slightly, layers of transparent protein thickening with age. Years he never experienced, skipped over completely.
Funny, he always thought that the older he got, the more he would resemble his father. He gave a biter laugh. Heck, he was old enough to be his own grandfather! Out-living John, 28 years his senior.
"We're never going to see old age, Sammy," he often told his little brother. No use hoping. In this business there were no retirements, no peaceful deaths, or growing old. No Sunday evening dinners, or little grandchildren to bounce on your knee.
And suddenly, in a rush of emotions, Dean realized he was going to miss this. Miss the signs of life on his face. Miss the slowness, when his entire life he'd been in a hurry. He'd miss the appreciation of waking up every morning, and still being able to drag yourself out of bed. Simple things he took for granted as a younger man.
He would never see himself at eighty-years-old ever again. The thought hit him hard. Sure, it was easy to joke about stuff like that, but when you stood face-to-face with your older self, it was difficult to give it up. He would never live this long, instead sentenced to go down in a blur of blood and flames. Hell, at this rate, he doubted he would see thirty five.
Sammy would never be old, ever. And that hurt. His brother might not even see thirty, cursed as they were. He was damned, just like the rest of them. And Dean hated it, hated himself for pulling his brother into this. If he hadn't showed up that night at Stanford, hadn't taken his brother away from a loving girlfriend, well maybe he could be planning to start a family. And if he hadn't been on a road trip with Dean, he never would have started the Apocalypse.
No, Dean couldn't think like that. Sam was all he had left –well, other than Bobby, who never failed to remind him "Family don't end with blood, boy."
Pulling out his cell phone, Dean angled it in front of the mirror, and snapped several pictures. "A souvenir," he laughed without humor.
Then, with slow and feeble fingers, he dialed Sam's number, the young voice which answered breaking his heart. "Hey, little brother, mind picking me up some aspirin? My arthritis is killing me."
END