Chapter 28
AN Enjoy. :)
Tony POV
I flinch awake as I feel someone poke my chest, I slowly open my eyes, blinking away the early morning burryness. When my eyes are clear enough to make out whos poking me, I see Dean staring down at me with a confused expression on his little face, his small finger poking my chest over and over again, apparently remembering the easiest way to wake me up.
"Dean?" I ask, my voice rough from sleep
"I watched the video" he says, and I can see the sadness pooling in his eyes, I remember how callously he told his future self how his dad and his baby brother were dead.
"I'm so sorry D" I tell him as I sit up on the couch I had crashed on last night.
I watch as he slowly sits down on the couch next to me, his eyes shining with unshed tears.
"You left, and you didn't come back" he states, pulling some of the blanket I was using over onto himself, pulling his legs up into the couch so that he's hugging his knees.
"I know" I say quietly
"Why" he asks, looking straight ahead.
"I needed to get away, the life was killing me, the thought of living and dying as a hunter, it was scary, I didn't want that, for any of us, but Sam was just a little kid, and you were so adamant about becoming a hunter, carrying on the family business. I knew, that if you had ever asked me to come back, for any reason, I would have come running, and I wouldn't have been able to leave you again" I explain softly, hoping it doesn't cause him to blow up like it has been since he first walked into the bullpen.
I'm surprised when he just nods his head, letting one tear slowly roll down his cheek.
"How did they die?" he asks after a few minutes of silence.
"Um, there was a car accident, and Sam was fine, dad was a little jacked up, but you were in a coma, they didn't think you were going to make it and um, dad traded his soul for yours" I tell him, watching as the pain flickers across his face, quickly getting buried under a facade.
"You and Sam were on a case, and something went wrong, he died, there was nothing you could have done" I tell him gently
I don't want to lie to him, but at the same time, I don't know how to explain the apocalypse to the person who stopped it, and how his baby brother was possessed by Satan and is now in hell with him.
"There's always something you can do Tony, there's always a choice" he tells me as the pain shines through his glistening eyes.
I decide to take the chance that he won't reject me, and I drop my arm over his shoulders, pulling his small body into mine. I let out a small sigh of relief as he melts into my side, throwing his arm around my torso and burying his face into my chest.
I feel a tear roll down my cheek a moment later as his small body shutters and I feel the wetness of his tears seeping through my shirt.
I'm not sure how much longer it is before I hear the soft footsteps of my boss echo down the hallway, alerting me to his presence a moment before he round the corner, looking over at me and Dean, a look of sadness crossing his face for moment, but it's gone before I can even be sure that it was there in the first place.
He just nods at me before crossing the room on silent feet and going into the kitchen, i'm comforted by the sounds of Gibbs making coffee and breakfast in the next room, and by the warmth of the small body next to mine, as we both grieve for the family that we've lost.
I don't know when exactly I fell asleep, but i'm awoken a few hours later as the small body nestled into mine starts to shift around, slowly bringing me out of the dream I was immersed in moments before.
I looked around the table at the family before me, watching as my dad smiled happily at my mom, Dean sitting in between me and Sam, all of us laughing at the joke Dean just told.
Dad hugs Sam and tells him how proud he is that he graduated law school.
Mom crying with a huge smile on her face as Dean tells her that he proposed to his girlfriend.
Dad warning me to be careful at my new job, because lord knows how mom always worries about her boys.
A barbecue where my team finally meets my family.
Dean opening up a garage.
Sam opening a law practice.
Family dinners and barbecues and christmases.
Dean's first kid.
Sam's wedding.
Mom and dad's anniversary.
I quickly snap myself out of the memories of the dream, the snapshots of a life that was never meant to be, the vivid reality that could have been, but never was.
I feel eyes on me and I look down to see Dean staring at me with tear blurred eyes, red rimmed and full of pain.
He looks for a moment longer before pushing himself off of me and standing up, I watch confused as he makes his way into the kitchen, following behind him a moment later.
When I get to the kitchen I realise why Dean went there first, there is Bacon and Pancakes, and Dean is sitting at the table with a plate of it, staring at Gibbs with a suspicious look, not talking, just staring.
I quickly take my seat and start talking with Gibbs about random inconsequential topics, just wanting to fill the silence, the silence that Dean is leaving open, that he isn't filling like he usually does.
After breakfast Dean goes upstairs to take a shower and put on clean clothes, and Gibbs suddenly turns to me with a sharp look on his face.
"What's going on with him?" he asks immediately.
"I think, I think that he's doing what he did when mom died, he didn't uh, he didn't talk for two years. When something hits him hard, like waking up and learning that your father and brother are dead, he shuts down, he stops talking, he becomes, a shell basically. He goes through the motions of life without interacting with reality, with his life. He asked me about them this morning and then he shut down, I don't know what to do Gibbs" I told him, getting a bit hysterical by the end, remembering how long it took him to talk the last time he ventured into selective mutism.
"Well, it seems to me like we have to keep him anchored to the present, we'll keep talking to him, try and get him to talk back, if that doesn't work, we try again tomorrow" he tells me calmly, soothing my frazzled nerves.
"Okay" I answer as the tension deflates from my body.
AN Thoughts? Goog? Bad? Meh? Lemme know what you think. :)
