A/N: This really shouldn't have taken as long as it did, but I've been rather busy in other fandoms as well as having taken on some beta work and filling a request or two. Combine that with my laziness and you get a 300 word update that should have been here about five days ago. :P Oops. I rather like the way that I have decided to continue this story and I hope the format grows on the rest of you.
"Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it."- Mark Twain
Dean doesn't make a habit of talking to people he knows aren't really listening and as such has always found the world to be an empty place. He charms the merchants he knows he will have to deal with for the foreseeable future, keeps an open mind for every beautiful women that passes him on the street, and knows how to pitch a sale like no one else in his business, but you are a rare person indeed if he actually talks to you.
Somehow, the people around him can sense this and give him a wide emotional berth, showing pity for his circumstances, but nothing beyond that. He does not want their pity, and any person that offers it is no longer someone he wishes to waste his time with. In exchange for their pity he deals out contempt.
He doesn't need their misplaced sadness and unfelt apologies and promises. He and his brother have been doing fine, taking care of themselves, and he is loyal to those who have made themselves deserving of it. And for a long time, this is enough. His brother and their safety is all he needs.
But now there is something growing within him, something that eats away and leaves him wanting. He doesn't know how to handle it and he's not yet sure whether it is something that he can overcome. For Sam he will try, but if he had someone to tell the truth to, he would profess that for the first time in years he hasn't felt the least bit confident.