Spoilers for 14x03.
Still Okay
It feels like he's blinking too much.
He pretty sure this was something that used to be unconscious, an instinct he never had to think about unless the sun was shining too brightly or the grief was hitting him too hard and Sammy was watching. But he's just not sure he can get the timing of it right anymore. He's trying to time his blinks around his words about Sam and the stupid beard he's grown, but the rhythm of it doesn't seem right. He used to be able to just do this, didn't he?
The beard is okay.
It should be okay that Sam just hasn't had a chance to shave. It's almost heartwarming, in a way. That he'd been so caught up in getting Dean back, he hadn't even thought of it, hadn't even felt the itch of it against his skin. It was just something that happened- as unconscious as a blink.
And yet Dean looks at his brother's face, and all he can see is time that passed without him. All he can focus on is that long stretch of agony he doesn't want to be reminded of, this latest nightmare he can't formulate the words for, even if he was intent on sharing. Which he's not.
So for Sam and for his own sanity, it's all just blank. It's the big space of white between the period and the beginning of the next sentence, and Dean would like to get on to that next paragraph, please. Would like to finish the entire goddamn book with a happy ending spelled out in Michael's blood.
"So, I'm good," he says to Sam as they brush along the familiar halls of the bunker. "I'm just really, really happy to be…"
Home.
He forgets how to blink again, probably. He's not really sure of his own reactions anymore, the expressions his face might be making; the movement of muscle beneath skin. He can feel his mouth stretch against his cheekbones when he talks, can trace the hollowed out skin at the backs of his eyes that aches like just another hangover (but it's not, it's not, it's not).
"Not Michael anymore," he says to the man who stares at him just a little too long with questions in his eyes and just the right amount of blinks. Not Michael. Not Michael. Not Michael…
Home is filled with strangers, and Sammy is Chief.
This, too, is okay.
Sam might not be able to feel the tickle of his new beard, but Dean can feel the itch of his own skin like an extra layer that needs to be shed. He's not wearing the right skin. He's not blinking the right way and his eyelashes are too far apart and his fingernails are two millimeters too long and his (not his) vest hangs just a little too heavy off his wingless shoulder blades and the shirt beneath it is too stiff, too new and the only thing that feels right inside this room, this whole damn bunker is Sam and Cas and Jack, but even their expressions are twisted up all wrong and suddenly all Dean needs is a thick stream of scalding water hot enough to scorch it all away.
He pauses before he goes.
"Still okay," he promises the three worried faces in the big, wide room with their half-turned smiles and unmediated blinks.
Still okay, he nods to the single pillow fluffed up on his bed and to the guns propped patiently along the far wall. Even the thick, broken scar pressed into his shoulder is, in a way, okay. It's to be expected. The world has always had a way of leaving its marks on him, and Dean could laugh at the obvious symbolism of it all if he wasn't so busy trying to remember how he's supposed to breathe beneath the spray of the shower-head. But at least this particular scar can also serve as a starting point, a clue to be followed and a direction to move in.
So they get moving.
"I just need you to talk to me," Sam pleads over the sound of the Impala's engine. And Dean can't.
"M'not Michael," Dean tells the girl who looks like Kaia but speaks with a sharper tongue. Not Michael, not Michael, not Michael...
It's very easy to be angry.
Dean has enough reasons. Those scars the world leaves on him: they're expected, but they're not forgiven. The cuts he endures have a way of changing more than just the worn patterns of his skin, and he doesn't have to accept that damage, no matter how much Sammy might insist that he pick at the scabs in hopes that something significant will come spilling out. Dean knows he'd bleed out long before that happens.
But he talks anyway, after.
Because it's Sammy and because maybe he needs it, too.
Because he was underwater. Drowning. Clawing. Fighting for air.
And there are images now, scattered in amongst all the water and he doesn't want to know any of it, doesn't want to remember the havoc wreaked while he stayed trapped inside his prison, sputtering and reaching for something to hold onto and losing.
"And it's all on me, man," he says to his scruffy little brother. And he means it.
When they make it back to the bunker, Dean avoids the unfamiliar faces in the hallway and closes the door to his room. He lays down on the memory foam mattress that doesn't quite mold to him the way it should and closes his eyes, tries very hard to only see the backs of his eyelids. Most of him wants nothing more than to stay this way forever. But tomorrow he'll wake up early and he'll remember to make extra coffee for the newcomers. He'll learn a few of their names, have a few short conversations, and Sammy will watch him carefully the whole time. So Dean will roll his eyes and answer his brother's question without any words:
"Still okay, Sammy."
It feels like he's not blinking enough.
Anyone else waiting for the other shoe to drop? Yeah, same =P. Thanks for reading!