A/N: Sorry this chapter is so short, especially after the wait. But it's totally okay, I promise, I have the next chapter and a half done and in the editing process. If all goes as planned, and I can get Internet access, the new chapter should be up this weekend, and we'll get to see our boys in high school, yaaay! Also, thanks so much for the positive feedback, I really appreciate it! Y'all are awesome :)
The shoebox sits on his bed, unopened, for the next week. Every night, Dean stares at it, holds it, debates opening the lid. Every night, after staying up way later than he usually does doing absolutely nothing but hold that damn box, he sighs, loosens his grip, and places it on the empty side of the bed (because he always sleeps on one side, never the whole bed, damned if he knows why), and goes to sleep. During the day, he's increasingly antsy and irritable, to the point where Ben's avoiding him and Lisa finally snaps at him to call Sam or leave early or something, but just get the hell over himself.
Finally, the Tuesday night before Thanksgiving, he changes routine. He's gotta leave for Lawrence in the morning, and he suddenly knows that he can't go, not like this. So in a moment of desperation, he rips the tattered top off the box and dumps its contents on the bed.
It's mostly photographs, polaroids that are starting to lose their color with time. Pictures of Dean and Sam and Cas in elementary school on the swingset in the Winchesters' backyard; of an adolescent Cas holding a baseball bat in confusion as Dean tries to teach him to swing and Sammy laughs in the background clutching a catcher's mitt; of a pair of fishing poles side by side on the dock at the lake; of Cas' face, blue eyes bright with silent laughter. There's a faded red construction paper heart (a Valentine from Cas in the third grade); a lumpy friendship bracelet in green and blue embroidery floss that Dean had stopped wearing in sixth grade (because Dad had once called it 'girly') but had kept all the same; a single piece of lined paper, creased where it used to be folded into an airplane (a remarkably good one, one that had flown from the window of a moving car to the Winchesters' lawn on that last day, landing perfectly), but completely flat now from being touched and held and read over and over and over.
It is this last that Dean carefully removes from the pile and clutches tightly, in hands much older and more calloused than the hands that had last held it fifteen years ago. He looks at it without seeing it, but it doesn't matter, because though the years have faded the scribbled pencil markings, the words are still burned into his brain. Cas' usually neat and tidy script is slanted and hurried smudged; the message is brief:
Dean – I know we never said it but it's always been implied but right now I want you to know – no matter what happens or what they tell you or even what I tell you trust me in this – I love you.
On Wednesday morning, Dean's bag is packed and in the trunk of the Impala, the shoebox is back in its place in the back of his closet, and he's hugging Lisa and Ben goodbye as they get into their minivan to go to Lisa's mom's. Ben's super-excited; he only gets to see his cousins two or three times a year, so holidays are always the highlight of his month. Lisa pauses, standing in the doorway of the van, looking at Dean with concern wrinkling her brow. Dean knows what she's thinking.
"I'll be okay," he promises quietly. "I'm sorry about this last week, but I'll be normal by the time I get back. Sammy will bitch me out of my funk." He smiles, and it's only a little forced.
"Okay. Just…well, say hi to the Lawrence clan for me, okay?"
"'Course. Same to your family. I'll see you in a few days."
She nods and gets in the car. Dean watches, waving to Ben through the back window as they drive away, a strange feeling of dread growing in his chest. He tries to shake it off as he gets into the Impala, tries to remind himself that he's got four days with his mismatched family to look forward to, but it doesn't last.
"Okay, Baby," he murmurs as he turns the key, drawing comfort from the familiar sound of the engine starting. "Let's go home."
It's a nine hour drive from Cicero, Indiana to Lawrence, Kansas, with only his Dad's old cassette tapes to keep him company. Them, and the memories of a summer fifteen years ago that, unlike the photographs in the shoebox, haven't faded at all.
