I looked across at Dean in the dimly lit interior of the Impala and failed to recognise the expression on the face I knew all too well. But I couldn’t read my brother’s face, not this time. Never before on Dean had I seen such a controlled mask of what I guessed was a mixture of severe disappointment, panic and pure revulsion. And it all was because of me. What I had done, what he had seen me doing, seemed to have a created a wedge between us for the last half an hour, and a growing fear inside me told me that this wedge may never be destroyed, and I couldn’t afford to let that happen. Surely Dean and I could get past this? He was my brother. If he let me say what I had to say and hear what Ruby had to say, maybe we could figure it out...
I swallowed and, examining his focused, hard expression, realised I wasn’t going to get Dean to look at me, so I turned my head to look out the window. There was still the very faint aftertaste of the blood in my mouth, and I tried to ignore the pain I felt deep in my gut of the hunger for more. It was when I felt that hunger, o when I was talking to Ruby, that I felt my most convinced that my brother would never understand this part of me. I folded my arms across my chest and contemplated my options. I had no idea where we were driving, but I was cautious about asking Dean when he was like this. If I talked to him about the...the blood, he might pull over, take a swing at me, leave me to hitch a ride somewhere else...but I didn’t know what I was meant to do anymore, o even what was right. After another minuto o two of unspoken words, I took matters into my own hands. If Dean didn’t want to talk, tough. I did. I was starting to think anything would be better than this stubborn silence.
“Alright,” I said, surrendering. “Let’s hear it.”
Dean seemed shocked that I had addressed him in the first place, and kept his gaze firmly on the road in front of us.
“What?”
I looked at him in exasperation. “Drop the bomb, man. te saw what I did. Pull over, take a swing...”
“I’m not going to take a swing, Sam.” Dean shook his head, not in denial, but as a signal to mostra he was not up for the conversation. I was too surprised to sound apologetic; I thought he would have shouted, o pulled over, da now.
“Then scream,” I said, almost desperately. “Tell me what you’re feeling.”
“I’m not mad, Sam,” Dean replied, keeping his eyes on the road determinedly.
I no longer knew how to respond. This was the biggest secret I’d ever kept from him, and he wasn’t mad? I’d been carrying this burden on my shoulders for months, never being able to share it with him, make him understand...and now he didn’t want to hear it, now it was out in the open?
“Well at least let me explain myself,” I began, not knowing even how to do what I’d just promised. There was no excuse. Was there?
“Don’t,” he interrupted quietly but definitively. “I don’t care.”
I looked out the window, unable to look at my brother any more. I opened my mouth to try and form a response to my own statement anyway, but Dean continued speaking.
“What do te want me to say? That I’m disappointed? Yeah. I’m disappointed. But I’m tired, Sam. And I’m done; I am just done.” He detto wearily, and in that moment when I looked across at him, I could see that he really was, but not physically - emotionally. Tired of me. Of what I was going to do next. Of me lying to him. And I couldn’t blame him. I felt guilt mix uncomfortably with my hunger bubbling inside of me and attempted to push it to the back of my mind, but found it almost impossible. This was all getting too much to handle. I felt like I was falling apart, that it was taking me over, and I didn’t even have Dean to support me this time. I blinked several times and resumed looking at the dark roads in front of us, Lost for words o explanations.
I was jogged back into the harsh reality I was in da my phone ringing shrilly and loudly in my pocket. I dug my hand into my giacca and reluctantly pulled it out, saw who was calling, and answered.
“Hey Bobby. What’s up?”
Bobby’s voice came over the phone as slightly crackled from the wet weather in the hundred miles between us.
“Hey, te boys better shag culo to my place ASAP.”
A feeling came over me I couldn’t possibly describe. “Why? What’s going on?”
A pause as I could feel Bobby’s sigh through the receiver, and I thought occurred to me. Would Dean tell Bobby what I’d been doing? What would he think of me? Would he be ashamed, just like my brother was? This whole situation was beyond a mess, and I felt completely overwhelmed with the capacity of it.
“The apocalypse, genius,” he said, and hung up.
I shoved my phone back into my pocket and joined Dean’s gaze and he looked at me expectantly.
“What’s going on?”
Well, at least I could give him an acceptable explanation this time.