So here's this randomness I'm not even sure I should lay claim to, but I'm not sorry; writing this was definitely not the worst ten minutes I've ever spent and I got to think of Dean in glasses the entire time. Just glasses.

Timeline is season 11, post Into the Mystic, but there's only one slight reference that's not even a spoiler, just a reference to Dean's sleight-of-hand in that episode.

Rated T so far for language and probably upcoming gratuitous paragraphs revolving around Dean in the shower.

Glasses Make the Man

By: Syntyche

1.

Dean Winchester blew out an exasperated breath and scratched a hand through his short hair. The friction through the prickly dark blond bristles felt good against his rough palm, but did nothing to alleviate the pressure pounding throughout his aching skull, or stabilize his liquidy brain as it sloshed around his cranium and shot random sparks of lightning across his eyes. These newly-developed migraines were a sonofabitch, and Dean suddenly felt a long-belated pang of sympathy for Sam, though thankfully Sammy hadn't had a vision-related headache - or even a vision, really - in almost a decade.

Almost a decade. God, they were getting old, and damned (again) if he didn't fudging feel every one of his thirty-seven years, and the forty extra on his soul on top of that.

Dean growled, pushed his black-rimmed glasses up off his face and crunched his tired eyes closed. Pinching the bridge of his nose and dragging his thumb and forefinger upward to press under his brows also did remarkably little, so he compensated by reaching blindly for the sweating neck of his beer with his other hand - liquid forgetfulness at its cheapest.

"This sucks," the hunter announced grumpily, "so much ass."

"What's so much ass? What are you watching now?"

Well, speak of the devil, Dean thought, then huffed a little uncomfortable laugh at the trite expression most people could use without meaning it literally and for real, because even though it had been awhile since Samifer had made an appearance, it still got to Dean as easily as if it were just this morning. Michael trying to coerce Dean into being his earthly vessel had just pissed the elder Winchester off (even though the archangel would have succeeded eventually if Cas hadn't caught up to the perpetually self-sacrificing Winchester and beaten the shit out of him); but Lucifer going after Sam to rip him out of his meatsuit? Lucifer's smug-assed evil grin stretched across Sammy's face with the words I'll see you soon, Dean ringing in his ears as he looked into the dead eyes of his future self still fucking terrified him.

Then Sam himself swung around the corner into the bunker's reading area, all immaculate hair and flannel majesty highlighted by the warm glow of the lamps, and Dean's fuzzy vision could barely make out the way Sam's face crumpled dejectedly as his little brother lowered himself about fifteen feet to plunk into the wooden chair across the table from Dean.

Sam frowned disapprovingly and a little mother hennish while he did that pitying head tilt that said he clearly should have been the older brother, because his actual older brother was completely incapable of taking care of himself when Samuel It's-Sam Winchester clearly could run the entire show with one hand tied behind his back and the other carrying a wounded dog into a vet's office.

Grossly unfair, Sammy, Dean tsked to himself in righteously insulted protest, but as Sam reached out a large hand to flick Dean's glasses back onto the bridge of his nose and Dean automatically drew back at the contact, he couldn't help but think that maybe sometimes Sammy was sort of right and he shouldn't be on the front lines. The pathetic but involuntary wince/flinch/notawhimper combo at a hand so close to his face Dean really tried to shove deep down: he knew this hand, Sammy's hand, wasn't out to hurt him like the other one, but Dean realized with a sinking heart that Sam saw and heard his distress anyway and please just let it go Sammy slipped from Dean's mind as a desperate silent prayer. Thank God his mountain of a brother for once in his life did.

Mostly.

"You need to leave those on," Sam chastised, looking giantly mournful and reproving in a way that made Dean squirm; Sammy trying to mother him was one of the most horrifying things Dean had ever had to endure, and that, really, was saying a lot, because even though Sam doth protest too much, Dean's little brother was definitely a stellar student in the now-defunct John Winchester School of Caring. Graduated with honors, actually, taking high marks in "All your friends are dead" and "Good, 'cause I was just being honest."

"Don't make me get Cas to tie you down," Sam threatened, then his mouth quirked wryly and he added, "he might like it too much."

Dean winced at the truth of the statement and Sam cringed a little.

"He just … really seems attached to you," Sam offered lamely, and Dean waved him off because, really, Cas sometimes holding a torch for him was more than he could think about right now, with his blurry vision and in-his-teeth-now migraine and stupid whatever-the-hell-his-prescription-was that Sammy had insisted on picking up that was doing fuck and all right now for his damned headache and the cheerful chorus of angel-robed aches and pains that were making a joyful noise throughout his joints and across the neat stitches Sammy had carefully laid across the flayed skin of the backs of his calves.

"What I mean is - " Sam, who never knew when to quit. Sam, because he was too smart to not be graciously gifted with the last word in every conversation.

Sam, who Dean achingly knew he would never be able to give the life he deserved, the life Dean had tried so hard to provide for him and the life he might have still had if he'd just been able to let his big brother go into the literal waiting arms of Death in a Mexican restaurant like Dean had been so prepared to do.

"Sam, enough," Dean's voice was muffled from where his head was now pillowed on his arms and Sam trailed off with a stupid nervous grin stretched across his face, like he had just a little tiny bit of babying left in him he just had to get out even though Dean had clearly reached his limits on accepting any form of help or advice.

"You just, you gotta keep 'em on, Dean, please," Sam pleaded, and he sounded so heartfelt, like he kinda did these days post Dean Winchester, Knight of Hell. New and improved Sammy Winchester, feeling and emoting and watching out for his big brother like he'd been born to it, like Dean was the one who had been bundled up and shoved into Sam's arms and become the single most awesome and terrible responsibility Sam had ever been given. "Just for a while longer."

"I look like a dork," Dean mumbled around his plaid barrier, relishing the softness of his battered sleeve against the scraped skin of his cheek. He was going to fall asleep if he didn't move soon, but moving had suddenly stretched into an impossible task - insurmountable, even. Gonna take a Hand of God to move him now. "A hipster dork douche bag," he added through numbing lips, eyelids heavy and he was sinking, sinking so fast, consciousness gleefully abandoning the ship of painful awareness. "Or a Ghostfacer."

"You always look like a dork," Sam opined, and there was a new hint of fondness to his tone that Dean didn't think he'd ever get used to hearing. Sam reached for Dean's beer then seemed to think the better of it, mumbling something about venereal disease that had Dean's hand flopping up in a vaguely protesting manner even though the maneuver seemed to drain any flailing reserves that hadn't yet made it to the lifeboats.

"Dude," Dean muttered sleepily, "seriously?"

OoOoOoOo

Okay, yeah, Sam assented reluctantly, it was a low blow. Dean had, as far as Sam knew - which was already and would forever be too much - always been careful about his tryst partners; well, except that one time with the Amazon chick because Dean.

So Sam switched tactics, hoping Dean would let it slide, knowing he probably would because after all these years protect Sammy was still his brother's irrepressible driving force. It wasn't a realization that came guilt-free for Sam these days, though he could regretfully confess he hadn't always respected or appreciated his brother's not entirely self-appointed burden.

"Should you even be drinking beer with your meds?" Sam pointed out, a little self-righteously because not only had he had to push Dean into just getting his damn prescription filled, he also now had to ration the little pills so his brother wouldn't just live with the pain like usual and sell the medication once he had it in his greedy hands. Dean had had a field day swiping prescriptions from the nursing home a few weeks ago and Sam had pitched a holy fit when he'd accidentally stumbled upon Dean's little black market pharmacy business. Dean reasonably pointing out that neither of them actually had jobs with which to earn actual money and he'd done worse for less did not appease the newly-protective Sam in the slightest.

"You're right," Dean agreed, sleep-dulled and slow and lacking every spark of life that, to Sam, made Dean Dean, as he finally lifted his face from his arms, the hopeful gleam in his green irises dulled by the unfamiliar lenses covering them. Before a startled Sam could even squeak out a surprised, "I am?" Dean muttered, "I should switch to whiskey."

Sam hmphed an annoyed grumble. "Yes. That's exactly what I meant."

OoOoOoOoOo

So, yikes, the Dean-wearing-only-glasses plot bunny from a few minutes ago has morphed into Dean getting out of the shower all wet skin and drops of water … I'll be honest, I expected my first Supernatural story to be a lot less … this, but whatever.