Tag to 12x11. Spoilers for the episode, obviously. Dean vs. the mirror. Because Jensen acted the crap out of this scene and I wanted to put it into words.
I Don't Know
Everything floats inside his head. Nothing will just sit still anymore. It's all just up there, like the foggy taste of a rainy night, droplets falling from the trees overhead and split-splattering onto the ground below. He can't catch the drops.
That's what this feels like.
Like he's standing beneath the sky and the fog has closed in around him (thick and dark and heavy) and the rain is coming. It's falling hard. And he's standing right there, right under it, smack dab in the middle of it, but none of the droplets hit him.
Not a single one.
You'd think that would be magical in the best way, to stand in the midst of a storm and remain dry, but he has always secretly loved the rain.
The thing in the corner with the light coming out of it is a lamp, and the thing with the knob is a door, and the thing with the...the...bullets is a gun, but only because Sam says that's what they are, and Sam is his brother. He still knows this, he will always know this (he has to always know this one thing, please please please), but the droplets are still falling on either side of him and he can't feel them, can't even really remember the sensation of water against skin, words against tongue and memories, memories that fall over the waves inside a brain with no gray matter left to latch onto them and then they're just gone. He watches them get carried away with the tide, and he cannot call them back because he doesn't remember how to.
Ganking monsters is one thing, but this…
"We'll figure it out," Sam says, and Dean thinks that sentence usually ends with 'like we always do,' but he's not sure, you see, he can't be sure they've ever actually gone through anything together besides the drawers in this motel room when they were looking for hex bags earlier. And they were looking for hex bags because apparently witches, vampires, monsters, are real but that can't be right either, can it? He'd remember something so important, so big and goddamn crucial, but it all just feels like the dreams he doesn't remember having, the ones you always forget before you wake.
He doesn't know anything, doesn't know if he should trust...but wait. Wait. Sam is his brother. He knows Sam...Sammy (he has to always know this one thing, please please please).
Okay.
The mirror is a funny thing because you look and you see, but when it's your own face staring back, you're not paying attention because you think you already know what's there. He doesn't know what's there anymore. So he's paying attention now, because this is his face and these are his lips speaking the words and those are his eyes and he needs to see, he needs to remember all the pieces of himself that keep falling through the cracks, filtering out into the fog that is still everywhere, that is still hovering without touching him.
"My name is Dean Winchester."
Remember. Remember the important stuff now.
"Sam is my brother."
And he has to always know that one thing, please, please please.
"Mary Winchester is my mother….and…"
And. And. And. Come on. Remember.
"Casti (no, we don't call him that anymore, not for a long time)...Cas is my best friend."
There. There. See? He can do this. He can still be Dean Winchester. He'll just have to try harder. He'll just have to repeat it over and over again until the words stick, until the meaning behind them stays inside his head and the thump, thump, thumping thing inside his chest that he can't remember the name of right now learns to pump to the mantra of those bygone memories, straight through every artery until it lives inside him and can't be scrubbed out. He just has to picture the words and make them true. It's simple, really, and he's sure he can do it. Because he's...he's…
"My name is Dean...W...Winchester."
That's right, he's Dean W...he's Dean. He can do this. He can…
"My name is…."
It's slipping, and he watches as it falls. He thinks he knows the first letter and it's there, it's right in the space between his fingers but he just can't quite grasp it because it's supposed to be inside of him, isn't it? He shouldn't have to think so hard. This is him, except he is empty, he feels it now, standing in front of the...the? The...there's a word for the thing in front of him where his face stares back, he knows he used to know it, but everything is hollow and there is no one home behind this stranger's eyes.
No one lives there anymore.
He thinks there was something important, something important about the letters that go to the name that goes to the face in that stupid, glass...thing but one more, two more, three more blinks and it all goes so quickly, a map marked with roads that no longer exist, asphalt to dirt to dust, and there's only one thing left that he knows for sure, and that is that he doesn't.
He doesn't know.
And he doesn't remember enough to realize that saying it aloud will only make it worse, so the three words slip out like the last trickles of those impossible raindrops that never hit him.
He flinches when they smack the ground.
"I don't know."
Yes, I'm posting over a week after this episode aired, but such is my way. Hope you all have a lovely day, and of course, reviews are always appreciated.