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"Hey."
Dean looked up from his comic book and found Sam looking bashfully to the side net to him.
"What's up?" He asked, folding his old issue of batman into his lap and looking at his little brother, only a tad concerned with what was about to be asked.
"Do you...um.." Sam started, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. Okay, something was bothering this kid and it was serious because normally Sam would just come out and ask him.
"Do I, what?" Dean asked again, this time, more pointedly and annoyed.
Sam looked at him finally, his eyes a little hesitant bu not scared, more like, earnest, and asked quietly, "Do you..um...know any sign language?"
Dean raised his eyebrows and felt a little surprised at the question. Why would Sam want to know sign language?
"No," Dean felt this was obvious but he didn't want to push Sam away, "Why?"
Sam sighed, what seemed like regretfully, and slumped down onto the couch next to Dean. "Well, there is this girl-"
"A girl, Sammy?" Now Dean was interested. Sam never talked about girls. He was ten and he still didn't have a silly grade school girlfriend. This was a language Dean understood. Sign language, no. Girls, yes.
Sam pouted and slapped Dean's arm. "Yes, a girl. She's new and her name is Eileen. But," Sam paused here and seemed to be gnawing on whether to tell him before finishing, "she's deaf."
Oh, this was making more sense. Sam liked a deaf girl and he feels sad that he can't talk to her. Dean was starting to fit all of the pieces together.
"Doesn't she have an interpreter or something?" Dean inquired, not totally sure what to say next.
Sam scowled and folded his arms, clearly offended. "That's not very nice to say, Dean."
Dean threw his arms up in the air. "Hey, I was just askin'."
"Well, it was rude." Sam got up and stomped away.
Dean groaned and fell back against the couch. He hadn't meant to offend Sam, or the girl he was talking about. Dean just didn't understand why Sam would want to put such time and effort into learning a language when there was an interpreter right there. Ugh. Now he felt guilty. If he didn't talk to Sam then there was going to be some awful bitterness towards him that he hadn't meant to cause.
He closed his comic, setting it aside on the couch, and got up. He made his way slowly down the hallway to his and Sam's shared bedroom. When he peaked inside he caught a glimpse of Sam curled on his bed, clearly upset. Dean sighed again and knocked lightly on the door.
"Hey, man, I'm sorry." He apologized as he stepped in, "It didn't mean to make you mad."
Sam rolled over abruptly so that he faced away from Dean. "Yeah, well, you did."
"Look, I'm sorry okay?" Dean walked over and sat next to Sam's huddled body on the bed. Sam grumbled in protest but didn't move out of his position. "Why don't we go to the library and pick up a sign language book?"
With this proposition, Sam popped his head up. And on his stupid little face was the most hopeful grin Dean had ever seen him wear. "Really, Dean? We can really go?"
Dean clapped him lightly on the back. "Yeah, sure, why not? We got time to kill."
Sam launched up and wrapped his skinny little arms around Dean in a bone crushing hug. "Thank you so much!"
Dean patted him on the back. "Yeah, yeah. Just go get your shoes on so we can go." And with that Sam was bounding out of the room like a rabbit on a treadmill.
Once both of them were ready to go, they walked the quick ten minutes it was to the library. Sam spent hours and hours combing through the sections of the bookshelves. Shelf after shelf until they finally found the language section. And then it was all about which language to find. Sam said that it was in the "A" section and spent another good amount of time picking through that. And then there was the matter of which was the right book to study off off. Sam flipped through pages and pages of books. They had been there for a good two hours before Sam had found one to his satisfactory.
About damn time, Dean had been rereading batman for the longest time and he honestly couldn't wait to leave. Libraries were too damn quiet for his taste. But he told himself that this was about Sam, before returning what he'd borrowed.
"You all set?" Dean asked as Sam picked up a yellow and black book called "ASL for Dummies."
"Yeah, Dean." Sam said and began making his way to the checkout counter.
Once they were all set and ready, they headed back home where Sam spent every moment engulfed in that book. He was reading right when they got back. He was reading when he was supposed to be cleaning the bathroom. He was reading at the dinner table as food was being served. He was reading it before bed. The kid was even reading it by flashlight in the last hours of the night. All the while attempting to form the signs.
Dean still hadn't seen the appeal in learning the language. Well, not until he was passing classes the next day. He saw Sam sitting on the grass in front of a playground during his recess, the book splayed out in front of him, sitting in front of a girl with a green dress on, her brown hair in a little braid, and her expression stretched in a face ripping smile as Sam struggled and attempted to form whatever signs were depicted in his book. And Dean couldn't help but smile to himself before leaving to go to class.
But his smile that day was nothing compared to the one fifteen years later, his face face wrapped in a gleeful smile as he sat in a pew, his eye brimming with tears as Sam waited at the end of an aisle, no longer scrawny, but filled out in a nice tuxedo as he watched a beautiful woman in a white dress with green sequins, her hair done in a fantastical braid walk toward him. Dean felt pride swell in his chest and the tears fall as he watched his little brother sign "I do."