Chapter 3
The day was long and exhausting. Working with the cars was fun as always – Dean loved tearing them apart and putting the pieces back together, it was as if you were working on one big puzzle that, if you did your job right, would in the end be able to drive again. He loved the symmetry and logic behind it and the crafting skills you needed to make a ten-year-old car, that had just come out of a collision, look as if it had rolled freshly from the production line.
It was the people who came with the cars and with whom he inevitably had to deal with, that he didn't like. They were loud and hectic and such a counterweight to his calm, tinny companions – they made him end up with raging headaches almost every day.
This day was no different; a costumer had annoyed him beyond the point where he could restrain himself by always talking about the value of her car and that he'd better fix it up again quickly or else the car workshop would be in trouble. It had taken Dean a bitten lip and a smashed car window to control himself and not tell her that if she knew how to properly drive a car, she wouldn't have ended up here in the first place and that he would destroy the car himself if she decided to yell at him one more time.
What the people didn't understand was that cars where no toys one can use whenever it pleases them – they were kids who needed attention and comfort; you had to accept that they had their own head sometimes and respect their limits but also challenge them every now and then. The most reasons people brought their cars to him could have easily been avoided if the owners had just listened to the cars for one second. They tell you, what they need, if you are just willing to listen.
But, of course, his costumers didn't understand that and the screaming lady with the pink nails and the strange blonde hair understood it the least.
Thus, the headache he was having when he came home. Thus, the small span of tolerance he had when he went into the kitchen to find that Sam had "cleaned" it. His whole structure, the chaos in which each part had its specific place that he knew the exact location of, was gone. Instead, the shelves were as clean as on the day he had moved in.
Dean drew in a shaky breath through his teeth. He didn't want to argue with Sam, so he suppressed the urge to shout his brother's name through the whole house. Instead, he opened the fridge – of course all the leftovers where gone (at least half of them had still been eatable) – and took out a beer. At least that to brighten his day.
The liquid ran down his throat, it was cool and tasty and Dean closed his eyes, smiling a little to himself, when –
"Dean! Stop the damn drinking!"
He spun around and stared at Sam, who was standing in the doorframe, looking at him with eyes so angry they almost covert the concern radiating through him.
Dean was done, he was so done with his worry for Sam and Sam's worry for him and everything.
He sat the bottle down. "Or what, huh? What are you going to do? Disappear again?"
"You are not being fair!"
"Oh, am I not? Who packed his bags last time we talked?"
"You hurt me!"
"So did you."
"You could have called, Dean!"
"And listen to the silence between us all over again? No, thank you!"
Sam sighed and rubbed his eyes. "Dean, I am sorry. I really am."
Dean grabbed the bottle and slammed it on the floor. "I am so fucking sick of you apologizing. Stop it! That's not what I want to hear!"
Sam was furious now, his body tense and his fists clenched. "Then what do you want?" he screamed at a volume that made Dean's ears ring.
"I want you, Sam!" he screamed back. "I want you to be here! I just want you to be my fucking brother again!"
In the blink of an eye, Sam's expression changed. His features softened and his eyes got the sad-and-beaten-puppy-look. "Dean", he said softly. "I am and I will always be your brother! Nothing, you hear me, nothing is ever going to change that!"
The tension left Dean's body and suddenly he felt so weak, he feared he would collapse on the spot. A shaking hand gripping the kitchen table for support, he looked up.
There was nothing he could have said. All he could do was stand there and look at Sam, who seemed so different yet so familiar like he was two people at the same time.
Sam made a slow step towards him, then another and another and finally he hugged Dean. He hugged him so tight that he started to wonder whether his brother could break his ribs with it. Even if he did, it didn't matter. After a moment of tension, Dean softened under the touch and returned the hug just as tight. He could smell Sam's shampoo and the aftershave, that was still the one Dean had bought him for his fifteenth birthday when he started to grow a beard for the first time. Not that he would ever admit this to a living soul, but deep down he knew that this, this hug, this comfort, was everything he had longed for in all these dark and endless nights of the last years when his thoughts wouldn't let him sleep and his body wouldn't allow him to move. He sighed and closed his eyes. Home had never felt this near.
What he didn't notice was the small piece of paper that was looking out of Sam's pocket. What he didn't see was Sam's lip that he had bitten bloody during the attempt to hold back his tears. What he didn't know was that, in that very moment, the moment that felt so warm and calming to Dean, every fiber of Sam's body was screaming at the top of its lung as his younger brother realized that there was no way between heaven and hell that he could keep the promise he had just given.
