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Living life on the road lends itself to an ever-present stream of monotony and repetition. All hunters know this. It’s part of the job. After a while, all the trees look the same. The mountains aren’t magnificent when you’ve seen them for days on end. The ocean is just a drop in the bucket. It’s not hard to become jaded when you’ve seen everything there is to see.
Dean has known beauty. He always appreciates it. Soft, warm skin on a cold night in South Dakota. Rough, harsh winds tearing jagged paths into seemingly indestructible monoliths of stone in Utah. Deserts, half-dead in the afternoon sun, but louder than Times Square just past two in the morning, after a heavy rain.
He has known beauty, and he has known truth. Truth is a quintessential element of the life of a hunter. Despite lying to daily acquaintances, being the bearer and dealer of lies, Dean knows truths that most people could only dream of. Sometimes, he wishes he didn’t know these truths. He wishes he could turn back the clock and live life through the eyes of a child, untouched by the horrors of humanity and monsters alike.
Freedom. God, has Dean known freedom. A freedom like no other. Unbound by wires and registration fees and tethers of wealth and convenience. He makes it on hard work, luck, and some God-given stamina that seems like it’s lent to him when he needs it most. He’s free to touch, free to feast, free to ride the darkest highways and make it out the other side, relatively unscathed.
Dean has seen behind the curtain. He has spent hours and days and weeks alone, but for the men and women he’s brushed shoulders with in crowded pool halls and desolate church pews.
All across America, Dean has seen love. He has felt its spindly fingers creeping closer under his skin. He has watched, wide-eyed and wondering, as families fought for each other and heroes sacrificed themselves for the worlds they love. Dean has known love. He has had it sitting at his bedside. He has worried himself sick with it. He has felt its hard shell crack, just to the right of him, releasing some kind of comfort that he can only dream of being bathed in.
“You coming, Dean?”
Shaken from his reverie, Dean focuses on the scene in front of him. That’s right. They’re on a case. Sammy’s back. His soul’s intact. He’s worse for wear, but he’s smiling that small, special smile at the person they’re interviewing and speaking in that tone that used to drive Dean insane. Sam's eyes hold so much light. The sun’s in his hair, and the wind has roughed up his cheeks to a glowing pink.
There’s beauty there.
There’s truth in the care that is laced in Sam’s words as he follows the mourning woman into her quiet, empty home.
There is a certain freedom to Sam, now that he’s back where he belongs, feeling things he never thought he’d get to feel again.
And, in Dean, there is love. Something new. Something whole and full and just for him. His stomach swells with it, aching like he’s overripe. It’s like nothing he’s ever felt before, or, at least, he has never admitted to feeling before.
Maybe it’s always been there. Maybe it just took some time to soak into the permafrost encrusting his jaded brain.
Either way, Dean looks into his brother’s eyes, soft and concerned. Downturned to emphasize his worry.
His heart throbs something awful. He knows now what it’s like to stand under the shower of hope that is love aimed right in his direction.
The corner of his mouth quirks up, and Sam’s worry fades in an instant. His smile is genuine. It’s true. It’s beautiful. It’s free.
“Yeah, Sammy,” Dean replies, his gait wobbly and his throat tight with emotion, “I’m with you.”