A Moment with My Brother

Happy

We're in the library, sitting round the big, formal oak table however we're anything but formal. We're officially chillin...yeah, veg-ing out...majoring on relaxing and I have to say that now we're starting to get the hang of it (come on, it's not really been one of any of our natural skill-sets), it's a pretty damn fine way to spend a wet afternoon.

There's some soft, sweet MoL easy-listening muzak insinuating itself from the fuzzy old speakers and the mouthwatering waft of baking bread is floating in from the kitchen.

Yes, I did say baking bread. Dean has mastered pies...and cakes...and cookies...and has segued neatly into bread. And damn, if'n it ain't fine on the palette.

Sam is reading. Not because he's so sick and weak that's it's just about all he can do cause he isn't any more...sick and weak I mean. Sam's doing okay...nope, strike that. Sam's finally and fantastically, doing good.

He doesn't shake all the time any more, or get deathbed breathless just sitting there. Nor is he skin and bone like he was...but then remember I said Dean's bakes now and Sam's found his mother-load of a sweet tooth. His amber eyes are bright again and he can stay awake for normal lengths of time without looking like he's an extra in a low budget zombi-pocalypse flick. My little-big brother has come back to us and we are happy.

Cas is here too. He's sitting across the table from Sam, his perennially tousled head bent studiously over his task, a look of pure concentration on his ernest face and I smile...cause his task is...god help him...sewing lost buttons onto a pile of old shirts that belong to the collective menfolk of my adopted tribe.

Dean thought it'd be good for him to learn. Now he's fallen and can't angel-whammy things back into shape...part of the 'humanization' regime that sometimes sits well with the ex-celestial being and sometimes...doesn't. Those are the days Dean never leaves Cas' side.

And I'm...doing fuck all and loving it. In fact I think I have found my raison d'être!

snSNsn

Dean joins us ten minutes later when Sam's two chapters further on but Cas is still on the same button as he has been for the last half hour. What can I tall ya? He's determined...dedicated even, but not what one could call particularly dextrous.

Dean strolls round the table and deposits one of the cold long-necks he's carrying next to Sam who looks up and distractedly smiles his thanks, his head lost in what ever world is leaping from the tattered paperback in his freakishly huge hands. Dean nods contentedly and moves in an easy silence onto Cas, his bare feet barely whispering on the quiet cool marble of the bunker floor.

You know he's more often than not barefoot, now that I come to think about it and today his ancient, 'a little bit too long so that they are fraying at the hem', jeans are so washed-out, pale blue that they make him look like a hippy at a sun-drenched music festival.

And now I'm on that train of thought, his perennial plain, dark, t-shirt uniform has softened too of late and I realize that when he took Cas to the thrift to gussie him up in new duds (anything but that damned trench-coat) he must have bought new-old shirts for himself, too.

Today's for example is a sort of...spearmint colour, much paler than the green of his eyes but in that same 'divine spectrum of natures finest' that defines his stunning gaze. The shirt's a bit big on him, makes him look somehow...I don't know...younger.

It says 'What don't kill me...Don't...cause I kill it first' and I smile at the absolute appropriateness of the hunter-mission-statement epithet, wondering who owned such a garment before Dean adopted it.

He tries not to distract Cas as he passes him by. Just pops the cold beer beside the pile of shirts and nods encouragingly as the reluctant tailor glances up briefly, before continuing his ham-fisted thread-pulling. Dean moves on, his hand unconsciously just brushing the angel's arm.

And so he gets to me and I slide out the chair to my left on it's smooth old wheels and beckon him to 'sit-a-while' in exchange for the sweating bottle of brew.

He does, in that graceful, boneless glide that I suddenly and totally understand is a product/blessing/gift of the bunker for my normally, 'wound-tighter-than-a-coil', brother.

I clink beers with him and we drink as Dean leans back and stretches his long, 'would be longer if they weren't so bowed' legs to rest them on the stretcher of the table and I could swear I hear a small sigh of contentment hum from his moist lips.

And I do the math...add it all together...and watch as his relaxed...(oh my god, isn't that a wonderful term to apply to Dean Winchester?), totally, wonderfully relaxed face takes in the scene before him.

His eyes linger first on Sam and I see in his gaze the joy at having pulled him back from the edge, brought him back to life.

Then Dean takes in Cas and his mouth curls into a soft, sweet smile and I struggle for a minute to find a word, the right word to apply to describe what I see.

But then it comes to me.

The word I am looking for is happy.

My brother, my Dean, is happy.

And so too am I.

Ends