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“C’mon, Sammy, out with it.” Dean said with a sigh, looking up from the TV and over to the other bed where Sam was situated.
“Out with what?” Sam seemed to zone back in to reality, blinking a couple times before turning his head to look at Dean.
“You’ve been lying there staring at the ceiling for the past half hour. What’s up?” Sam shook his head a little, then returned his gaze to the probably-asbestos surface over his head.
“Nothing. Well, the ceiling I guess, technically, but- nothing.” The lie was too quick, and painfully obvious. Sam wasn’t the type to just do nothing, especially with the amount of extra homework he’d been drowning himself in lately.
“Ha-ha. Very funny.” Dean shifted from where he had been sitting with his back to the headboard and sat up with his legs over the edge of the bed, looking closer at Sam. “But- seriously. What’s eating at you?”
“I…” Sam frowned a little, like he was having trouble turning his thoughts into words. “I just-“
“See, there is something.” Sam sighed, exaggerating the sound as he sat up as well, cross-legged but sort of facing Dean, even if he wasn’t quite looking at him.
“Whatever. Thanks for cutting me off. Do you wanna know, or not?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I do. Spill it.” Dean picked up on Sam’s hint of hesitation, which meant that either something big was actually wrong, or his younger brother was overthinking things again. It was hard to tell.
“We have to find senior quotes, for the yearbook or whatever.” Well, that wasn’t quite what Dean had expected. Even for Sam, that was a pretty small thing to get so hung up on.
“It’s not like we’re gonna be here that long. Why’s it matter? You’re not even gonna get a yearbook.” The overpriced yearbooks had never been worth the money- pictures were always taken at the beginning of the year, so whatever school halfway across the country that they were at at the end didn’t usually bother to put them in anyway.
“It’s just- the principle of the thing.”
Dean had filled out the form, at some point- at two different schools, actually, if he recalled correctly. He had just written fake-deep song lyrics on both and credited them to some president or other. It hadn’t been a priority at the time, and Dean didn’t really regret the decision. “What’s the point? It’s not like one sentence really says that much about a person, anyway.”
“It can. If it’s the right sentence.”
“Wow, and now it’s deep and profound.” Dean said with a small smirk. He didn’t tease too much, though, because he could tell that this was something Sam was actually putting some thought into.
“That’s kind of the point. Like, to represent who and what we are as a person right now.”
“Whatever.”
Sam shook his head. “Not whatever. Okay? Just- humor me here.”
“Sure. Yeah. Okay.” Dean grabbed the remote and turned down the TV, which was just showing some infomercial anyway. “So, what do you have so far?”
“I’ve ruled out Shakespeare, and all the really old classic stuff? Uh, I think I want to go with something simple. Maybe. But not too simple, y’know?” The answer wasn’t exactly conclusive. Dean told him as much.
“English is kind of a big language, Sammy. That doesn’t really narrow it down, like, at all.” Sam nodded.
“I know. I know it doesn’t. And that’s why I’m stuck.”
“What about, ah- what about something by Ghandi? He’s pretty profound and wise, right?”
“Yeah, he is. He’s got some good ones. I have a list with some idea, but…”
“Why didn’t you say so sooner? Lemme see what you have.” Dean got up from his bed and moved over to sit on the edge of Sam’s, grabbing the scribbled-on notepad that was sitting on the nightstand between them.
“ ‘You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my body’… You wrote that that one was Ghandi. Kinda dark, though, Sammy, geez… maybe not that one.” It had an interesting message, maybe, but something about it didn’t fit quite right.
Dean leaned back against the headboard and skimmed further down the list, most of which was crossed out. “ ‘A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.’ Mark Twain. Again with the doom-and-gloom crap, Sammy, lighten up a bit.” Sam shrugged a little.
“I kinda liked the message. But that one wasn’t my favorite. Cross that one out too?” Sam suggested, and Dean grabbed the pen to draw a line through it.
“Yeah, definitely. What about- I like this one.” Dean said, tapping the paper with the tip of the pen.
“Which one?” Sam asked, scooting a little closer. “ ‘You say ‘what if you fall’, but I say ‘what if I fly’?” Sam half-shrugged. “I dunno who wrote that one. But I think I like it, too. Maybe.”
“Geez, you’re so indecisive… But, uh- I really do like that one. I mean, it’s really you. Because- you’re leaving soon. Flying. Away from here.” Dean hadn’t meant to shift the mood from teasing to sad, but he had.
It was true- Sam was leaving soon, was going off to college and going to start the rest of his life. He would be successful, would get out and get away, Dean was sure. But there was still risk, still the chance of- falling, to put it in the context of the quote. Sam was overthinking it, as per his usual, and Dean was worried as hell about his little brother finally going off on his own.
“Yeah… I’m- yeah.” Sam said with a small nod. “I think- I think I might go with that one. I mean, I know it doesn’t matter, like you said, but-“
“Yeah. Hey, it’s important to you, so it’s important. Period.” Sam smiled appreciatively.
“Thank you, Dean. Really. And- you said you ended up picking two, right? Do you still remember what you picked?”
Dean frowned a little, trying to think. “Uh- one was Boston. ‘All I want is to have my peace of mind’, I think. I just had to put something down on the page, that came to mind first.”
“It’s still sorta you, though, even if it’s not a perfect fit.” Sam said. “There’s better out there, but that’s- a good one.”
“Really? You think?” Dean scoffed, clearly skeptical.
“Wouldn’t say it if I didn’t?”
“Okay, yeah, good point.”
“What was the other one? The second quote you picked, I mean.” Sam looked like he was trying to hide how curious he really was to know.
“Oh, right. That one was- Aerosmith. Dream On, uh- ‘you got to lose to know how to win’.”
“So, old music that tries to sound angry but has a message. That part’s you loud and clear, definitely.” Dean shook his head.
“Doesn’t matter anyway. Not like I used them for anything.” He said, brushing it off.
“Well, yeah, but- still.”
It wasn’t that the two of them never had deep or emotional conversations, but rather that nobody else could really understand the other how they did. Senior quotes weren’t that important, in the grand scheme of their lives. It didn’t matter what sentence either of them used to be half-remembered in a town that was gone by the time it vanished from the rearview mirror.
It was the little things, the small bits of normalcy they had, that they clung to. And sometimes, they were all of normal that each other had.