Notes: English is not my first language and I have no beta at the moment, so forgive me for any mistakes.
Kudos, reviews and suggestions are always welcome! x
October
Since he started to hunt alone, Dean realizes that he has hunted all over America, in the most various places, that he has walked on every strip of land - North Carolina, South Dakota and again Virginia, Montana and more ... - except one and that possibility has remained stuck in his thoughts because it isn't right that he keeps on running away from it just because it's his city. He is not a fucking coward, damn it.
(In the car, while driving towards Stanford, he allows himself to remember every crease of Sam's face, every gesture, every word that left Sam's lips the last time he saw him.
He allows himself to remember the need to laugh with him, his brother's ability to make him mad - even though Dean's anger at him never really lasted. He allows himself to remember his questions, all his contradictions.)
The first time Dean arrives in Stanford is the hardest because the need to go find him - to go there and tell him off because how dare he walk out on them?- is still as vivid in his mind as is the memory of his brother's cheek, of his arrogance and of his way of saying everything, of screaming everything without any filters.
Dean arrives in front of his dorm, strokes the door handle of the Impala, but then hits the accelerator before doing something stupid - before allowing himself to crash those damned plans for the future that the idiot cared so much about.
December
Dean remembers that it's Christmas only because in the motel, before giving him a room, the manager hisses at him "Happy Holidays", to which he responds with a blank "Right back at you".
It can't be Christmas, can it?
He stares at the tree lights, and old drawers creak in his mind and part of him thinks: why does Christmas even matter now? What does it even mean? Now that his idiot brother is gone and his father is gone and he has nothing left to keep him from running around looking for Sam, now that -
He spends Christmas Eve chewing up the miles. He arrives in Stanford but he doesn't call him.
Dean just stands there, and he sees him on the doorstep kissing a blonde girl on the lips under the mistletoe - on another occasion, Dean would have given his brother a pat on the back because at the end of the day you do have taste , Sammy.
Dean gets an epic hangover on Christmas Eve and it's something damn seedy even by his standards, he drowns all his pain in a beer - or two, or three…- and leaves Stanford again. Alone.
January
Dean also had other names, other lives: he remembers visiting New York and pretending to be a police officer, he remembers a trip to Montana and his lips saying his name was Sam Winchester, before bursting into a strangled giggle. He remembers meeting a boy who, when Dean saved him, had made a face so similar to Sam's as a child when he told him the truth that it made Dean wonder if by chance he had ruined that kid's life too.
The third time he visits Sam he does just because he has a job to do in the area and if he takes a shortcut then Stanford is right on the way - it's just a coincidence, isn't it?
Sometimes Dean still hears his father because the colosseum - or the whole city of Stanford? - would have fallen before John Winchester pulled back from coordinating a hunt, but lately, the contacts are becoming more sparse, more fleeting and Dean thinks, as he always does, that they will have plenty of time to catch up, that they will resume seeing each other when the memory of what happened with Sam will no longer be so vivid, when the time will have done its work and healed the last wounds (part of him already knows it won't happen).
March
Once Dean calls him - that's not true: he's drunk and it's been a hard day because that shapeshifter son of a bitch didn't want to die and he touches some button on his cell phone and calls a number and it's his, damn it! - and Sam replies, much to Dean's surprise. Dean is just in time to hear him say "Dean?", before hanging up and spilling an entire bottle of beer on his cell phone, because you never know.
Sam's alive and that's all that matters.
April
He never feels alone, he really doesn't. It's just that, sometimes, all that responsibility is a burden he can't handle.
He might tell his brother about it, if only Sam hadn't ditched him for a private university like any bored and spoiled kid would do.
May
Dean runs into Sam one day. It's a coincidence - or better to say, it's a coincidence for Sam, who is so engrossed in the girl at his side, his new friends, and his new life that he doesn't notice him and Dean feels something break inside him at that. There is a smile on Sam's lips and he is surrounded by all that fucking normality that his idiot brother wanted so much and that it now seems to fill his heart. And yes, Dean had missed him and he had always known it, but he hadn't realized how much until he had been in front of him. Dean moves away because he had hoped to save him - that there was something to save him from - and instead -
His father calls him that day - because John Winchester in addition to a bad temper also has bad timing, thank you very much. They talk about the new job, about a new bastard to kill, and Dean doesn't tell him he's at Sam's - that he's in front of his university. He doesn't tell him, because it doesn't matter - that's what he keeps telling himself, at least.
"Where are you?" John asks all of a sudden and Dean feels like a kid who has gotten into trouble and doesn't know how to get out of it all over again.
"In Los Angeles, dad. I told you, " he replies, uncertain.
He was never one to lie to his dad - well, unless it was for covering up for Sam - but the whole Stanford thing is a burden that still weighs too much on both of them to deal with.
"I blame your brother for thinking that lying to me is completely acceptable," he scolds him and the tone is sharper than before.
Wait up. What?
"I don't understand, dad" he replies, but perhaps he has understood.
Dean begins to get off the Impala.
"Who do you think I am? An idiot who can't recognize his car, perhaps? "
Ok. Well. Dean needs an explanation and he also needs to sit down to think about his stupidity because how could he make such a mistake -
"No, sir" he replies because he recognizes that tone.
Dean looks for his Dad in the parking lot for a while, before recognizing his father's Sierra Grande, parked a couple of rows away from the Impala.
He walks away in great strides, cursing himself for his bad ideas and wondering why he's there in the first place, why they're there in the first place. Stanford split his family up, so it can't be a good place for a reunion. And then, in short: a stern telling off by John Winchester is something to be avoided even at twenty-three.
"I wasn't lying," he says, climbing onto the passenger side and hoping not to infuriate him even more. "I was in Los Angeles yesterday, but I finished early and I was ... I'm sorry, I thought that ..."
He stops. He doesn't want to tell his father, of all people, that he saw Sam in his university, that he saw him hand in hand with a girl; he can't tell his dad that he observed from afar the place where Sam slept, that he followed his immense shadow projected on the asphalt, without his brother noticing.
"Do you think this is a distinction I can accept, boy?" his father insists, even if at times, scolding Dean makes John feel like he is kicking a puppy.
"No, sir," he replies diligently.
And then they both fall silent. That's the moment - the one in which they stare at the road to avoid looking each other in the eye and having to say "I gave up" or worse "I still care, I miss that kid like crazy" - that Dean chooses to make an observation. Not a question - because he is not Sam - but an observation.
"I didn't expect we would meet here, dad," he tells him, and a question is lying under that sentence.
"I'm just passing by. I was hunting in Los Angeles yesterday, "he replies and the tone remains distant but less sharp in using his son's lie against him.
Then, for a moment, the corner of his father's lips twitch in a hint of a half-smile. It seems like a way of saying that, okay, he doesn't want to make a big deal out of it, right? Dean could just give in and pretend to believe him without any other question, right? His eldest can also accept that answer without splitting hairs. He has to. Dean is not the stickler for details in the family, he is not-
And then Dean answers him with another painfully similar half-smile because, whatever, it doesn't cost him anything. It doesn't change anything.
"Well," he observes, watching raindrops chase each other on the window. "You know, dad...Eventually, all roads lead to Stanford"