Underwear.
Dean wasn't really one for thinking about underwear - least ways, not his own underwear. It was kind of just one of those things that you wear all the time and so long as it didn't bother you, you didn't bother with it. You kind of forgot how important it was, really. Until it was missing. Darn, it. It was missing and there wasn't anything he could do about it.
No, Dean wasn't missing his underwear. He was missing his amulet. He'd thrown it away in a moment of passion, mad at God, mad a fate, mad at Sam, mad at life and now he couldn't get it back and he missed it.
Dean had never really given it much thought. He wasn't a chick, like Sam, didn't brood over symbols and relationships and stuff. To be honest, he wasn't really sure when he'd made the switch from "wearing it to show Sammy I like it" to "never taking it off ever as a sign of our fierce brotherly bond." It wasn't something he'd planned. It had just kind of happened without his noticing. Until suddenly he was without it and his neck itched where the strap used to sit, and his chest felt funny where the pendant used to rest, and he'd catch himself reaching up to play with it and finding it missing, and what the frick was wrong with him, anyway? It was just a stupid necklace. That's all it had ever been. A necklace. That Sam had given him because he was mad at Dad. That's it.
That's it.
That wasn't it. It didn't matter how much Dean tried to convince himself otherwise, there was no denying the fact that somewhere along the line that amulet had stopped meaning "I'm mad at Dad" and had started meaning "I love you." And Dean missed it, darn it. Sure, he was still frikkin ticked at Sam. For a lot of things; icing on the cake being the whole heaven fiasco. But he wasn't really that mad at Sam. Mad enough to yell at him? Mad enough to push him around? Mad enough to want to hurt him? Sure. Heck yeah. But Dean had made it pretty clear to himself and he hoped to Sam that there wasn't anything Sam could do to make Dean cut ties completely. Throwing away the amulet had been just that, though: Cutting ties. Breaking brotherhood. Sundering that freaking bond that made them "soul mates". And yeah, Dean would say it. Because he was mad, he was brooding like some friggin chick over that stupid necklace.
Stupid necklace. Stupid necklace. Stupid necklace.
What kind of dudes even wear necklaces, anyway? Not cool ones. And Dean was a cool dude. Right. And it's not like he needed that stupid necklace to love Sam. I mean, the kid was practically his other half. Wasn't that what Ash had said? Losing some stupid necklace wasn't going to change that, right?
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah right.
Dean made up his mind. Skillfully, he tucked the rest of his pesky thoughts away, straightened his shoulders and went inside. If his chest ached a little, he didn't acknowledge it. He'd gone commando before. He could do it again.