A Moment with My Brother
Prom Night
I guess that I don't have to tell you that it takes a lot to silence me. I'm just naturally gabb-ery. I imagine the doula who birthed me onto the baked red earth under the scorching African sky...okay, alright...midwife-delivery room-middle-America. Hey a girl can fantasize can't she? Well, anyway she probably slapped me not to prompt my precious first cry but to seek for a moments silence amid the infantile blather.
Oh and due to past experience, I now always pack ear-plugs so if ya have to ever share a room with me you'll be able to drown out the murmur of inane drivel (thus described by maybe more than one of my past conquests. Really not flattering. Hummff!) that burbles from my plumptious lips even when I slumber.
So for me to be rendered mute is uncommon. No, scrub that. Unheard of. Yeah, that's more accurate.
Yet here I stand.
Mute.
Muffled.
Dampened.
Silent apart from the little hitches of breath that accompany the sappy smile that adorns my lips and the suspicious sparkle of moisture (pfhew...praise the Lord for waterproof mascara or you'd have to call me Rocky the raccoon!) in my eyes.
And amidst all this silence, I'm bundled, with cherished haste, toward my Bunker bed-room, the groceries I've just run for stolen from my grasp as he smiles in Winchester triumph at my utter, total and possible mildly-hypoxic surprise.
"You have 15 minutes."
He says simply as he pushes me with gently authority into my room.
"I think I thought of everything you need. Get ready."
My eyes widen to freak-ilated flying-saucers as I take in the 'everything' laid out on the memory-foam conspirator and he laughs, his hand on my back propelling me inward and closing the door with a gleeful.
"Don't come out till I knock."
snSNsn
It's 14 minutes and 37 seconds later. (What? OCD-babes crave accuracy!) and I'm nervous but then I'm meant to be, aren't I? It's a glorious part of the tradition so I look in the mirror again and revel in the gut-churning excitement of the feeling.
14 minutes and 42 seconds and I'm back to the moment, weeks ago now, that I have realized prompted all this.
We were, it's fair to say...well...shit-faced (;0)) at the time so I'm kinda amazed he even logged it...but them I'm not, cause actually, if you analyze him, he does that all the time. It's instinctive to him. Hardwired by genetics and life's hard lessons and his infinite capacity to care for those he loves.
Thus, for him, it's just normal that he selects/remembers/extrapolates the little inconsequential things we say that even though we don't recognize it, have humungeous/catastrophic/mind-blowing importance for us.
Cause that's what he's like.
His shiny, tough, brittle, M&M candy-coat exterior is exactly what Mars and Murrie designed it to be.
A shell.
Amour to protect the wonderful soft, sweet delight that it hides.
Note to self...delight might be part of a set of descriptors to sneak up on him slowly. Possibly not PC to call a bad-ass big-bro hunter soft or sweet. Even though he is.
So, like I said, my tequila slammer and cherry daiquiri haze-inspired confession of three weeks ago has become this.
He has taken my 'nah...I-don't-care-I-never-got-asked-to-prom, prom's-for-loosers, only-skittish-phweebs-go to prom' and seen straight through it.
Seen right through my tough, red-headed, rule-breaking, cyber-gaming chick-i-ness to the sad, hurt, rejected kid that wanted more badly than she could ever admit to fit in, just for that one, glitter and crepe-paper adorned night.
snSNsn
Fourteen minute and 57 seconds and I take a huge breath in and push to the back of my mind the chaotic mess, (down, down damned OCD gremlins), I have created and open my Bunker bed-room door to the prom date I never ever thought I'd have.
And damn, if he don't good enough to eat, all scrubbed up and, 'oh-my-god-that-tux-is-to-die-for'd. Almost makes me wish I fancied boys.
And then he smiles at me as I step into the corridor and his wildly decadent, green, green eyes wrap me in the magic of the moment my big brother has created for me.
"You look beautiful, Charlie."
He says with such reverence that I want to cry and pulls a little box from behind his back and I 'Oooo' like a good prom date should at the little corsage he's proffering.
Pink rose buds and white baby's breath slip onto my wrist and I smile because I doubt he would know that their message is grace and purity of heart but as I wonder at their beauty I am taken by how apt their unspoken, language of flowers, message is. Cause his actions are redolent of his grace and the purity of his overwhelmingly large heart.
They match the elegant yet simple gown that was laid out on the bed for me and the flash of pink that is the handkerchief that peeks from the top pocket of his tuxedo.
I can hear music playing in the Bunker's library and he takes my arm and we sashay along the sleek marble in a meaningful attempt at 3/4 time.
He's strung little white Christmas lights and the room is empty of the usual table and chairs and Sam's plethora of research parafinalia and it's way better than any crepe-paper decorated high-school gymnasium has ever been and I can't get my lips to stop smiling even though my cheeks ache with happiness.
"Miss Bradbury..."
Dean has turned to face me and from somewhere 'Moon River' is playing softly and I thump my fist into his shoulder cause he gave me Hell for making him watch 'Breakfast at Tiffanys' last movie night. Damn, if I didn't know that he loved it really though.
"You didn't get to dance at your prom so...I thought..."
He stops then and shrugs, his face a little hesitant almost as if he thinks I could possible...possible not be abso-fucking-lutely blown away by what he's done for me and that right there, that gentle, sweet touch of shy vulnerability is just way too adorable.
I can't speak cause the tears have come. Tears of that particular type of happiness that come when you are wrapped in someone's else's unconditional love for you, so I press into his arms, reveling in the safety and wonder I have found in this man.
This special man. My brother, my Dean.
Ends