Whisphers of the Heart

Dean could only manage to stand there, eyes wide and mouth slightly ajar as the words played again in his mind.

"Sorry...confused me with someone else."

An air gun went off somewhere in the garage and he shook himself out of his stupor. Dean grinned a little, just a little upturn of the corner of his mouth.

"Sam, you've pulled some pretty bad pranks over the years, but this is the worst one yet," Dean said, reaching out and gripping Sam's upper arm.

The youngest man's eyebrows went up and he pulled away, eyes darting around like he was looking for someone to help him.

For someone to help him against his older brother.

The thought was like a sucker punch in Dean's gut and he took a step back.

"Sam," he started.

"I told you, I'm not this Sam guy," Sam-but-not-Sam interrupted.

All the possibilities of what could be impersinating or possessing his brother ran through Dean's mind, but the most likely stuck out starkly in his hunter's mind. Eyes slightly narrowed at the idea that one of those deomon bastards had used Sam to get out of Hell, Dean muttered, "Christo."

Sam's eyebrows went up again. "Hey, look, I'm sorry you thought I was someone else but that's no reason to curse me in Latin."

Dean studied him carefully; there were no flinches, no inky black eyes, no shudders, no reaction other than that kind of irked statement in the bitchy/whiney tone only Sam used to perfection. So demon was out. A cold chill settled in Dean's bones thinking that maybe Lucifer had managed to get out and that he was using Sam up here for...wait. If Lucifer was back topside, then he would be unleashing hordes of demons and causing the world to end, not getting into some debat with a mechanic over a car part. And besides, if Lucifer had indeed gotten out, Castiel would've been down in a hot minute to tell Dean about it, right? Right. So, that just left...he ran through that hunter's list of nasties again. Way too many freakin' possibilities.

The upside to that?

Alot of them had similar tells.

All of this ran through Dean's mind in less than six seconds before he was replying, "Dude, how do you know Latin?"

This time an eyebrow was up in that 'Are you serious or are you just your deliberatly stupid self' kind of way (again, SO Sammy!). "I took it in college."

"Oh."

There was a bit of an akward silence that Dean hated but couldn't help because Sam apparently wasn't Sam right then; ergo, Dean couldn't go with his first reaction and hug the kid and Dean couldn't think of anything to say to Sam past 'Holy crap, you're back, you're alive, oh my god, what happened are you okay' and Sam just couldn't think of anything to say to Dean because apparently Dean was a stranger; ergo, the silence that grew akward.

When not Sam turned around to walk away, Dean quickly thought up a half-assed plan (like most of his other plans in the past) and acted before Sam (because it couldn't be anyone else, damn it!) got too far and Dean lost his nerve.

"Hey, hey, hold on," he said raising his hand to grip a shoulder but dropping it before contact was made.

Sam paused and half turned back, looking wary.

Dean put on his best 'don't mind me I'm totally harmless' grin. "Hey, I'm sorry man. You just really do look like this guy I know and everything so." Dean shrugged carelessly and looked at the wall clock. "Look, I'm off in two minutes, how about I buy you a drink to make up for it? I'll even give you a ride, if you want."

By then Sam was facing Dean again. His eyebrows furrowed, his head tilted a little then straightened back out and he shuffled his feet a bit. Dean grinned wider and stuck his hand out.

"Dean Winchester."

After a moments hesitation, Sam took his hand and shook it firmly.

"Jadon Nash."

Dean nodded. "So, how about that drink?"

When "Jadon" still hesitated, Dean used his own kind of puppy dog eyes. It worked mostly on getting women into bed, but when he used it just so, not even Sam could tell Dean no when combined with his most pathetic expression, which wasn't often.

"Jadon" suddenly grinned, dimples popping out and eyes lighting up and Dean could've cried at the familiar and much missed sight.

"Dude, are you asking me to a friendly drink or out on a date?" He lauged at Dean's sputtered attempts at a response and bumped his shoulder against Dean's easily, still grinning as he passed by.

Dean clocked out, bantered a bit with one of the guys he actually liked, and headed out with Sa-Jadon to the Impala.

Jadon nodded appreciatively at the classic car, impressed more with the condition of it that anything else.

"Wow," he said when they got to the doors. "Nice. What year?"

"'67, and she still runs like a dream," Dean said proudly while sliding in.

The younger man twisted around in his seat to look at the interior while Dean gripped the steering wheel until his kuckles turned white. To distract himself from his own memories and wishes, he reached over to the passenger floorboards to get the box he hadn't touch in five months. Jadon eyed the falling apart piece of cardboard.

"Dude, really?"

"What?" Dean paused in rifling through the tapes and looked up. "What's wrong the cassette tapes?"

"Uh, they're cassette tapes," grinned Jadon, leaning back in the bench seat and halfway against the door liked he'd done it a thousand times before.

Somehow, Dean got the words out of his throat despite the lump and constriction there. "House rules man. Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole."

If Dean had to clear his throat and casually wipe at his eyes through the trip, neither of them said a word about it.

Black-Angel-001: no, dean isn't quite in character but what do you want me to do about it? he just sorta kinda not really got his brother back!