Hands, Eyes, Hearts - A Collection of Supernatural Drabbles

15 // Dean

Sometimes Dean lies awake in his big clean bed in the bunker and traces his scars. The new ones; y'know, the ones he got after Hell.

It's weird, he thinks, feeling the ridges, the dips and notches. Weird having so few. He used to be riddled with scars. Girls wouldn't comment but he'd see their faces, feel their reverent fingertips over them. Their soft mouths. Now he looks reckless, not dangerous. 

He almost wishes he had them back.

That would mean, though, that he didn't go to Hell. That would mean Sam would be dead. And Dean digs his fingers into his skin at that thought, his shorn nails doing too little damage but the dull ache of his grip still enough to ground him. 

Sam isn't dead. Sam is right down the hall. So is Cas. They're both fine.

He remembers Purgatory then, and loosens his grip.

He doesn't have any scars from Purgatory. He came back dirty, but whole. It kind of feels like a gyp, y'know? Nothing to show for all that surviving he did. He knows it doesn't really matter, 'cos he found Cas and got Benny out--for all the good it did Benny in the end, Jesus Christ--but still, times like these when he already misses his little proofs of jobs well done that he wishes he had a trophy for that one, too. That was a big one.

His hand has found his stomach. There isn't a dip where he's massaging, no, he's remembering the one Sam sports now. Dean swallows. Runs his tongue over his teeth. Almost lost him again. 

Shit, he needs a drink.

"It's a game of winning and losing," he says softly to his decanter. Found it in the storage upstairs. Clean crystal lines keep his booze cold and ready. He pours himself a glass. "And I'm a loser."

He has to chuckle a little at himself there, because talking to his goddamn alcohol in an empty room sort of proves the point.

Tossing back the bourbon doesn't burn half so much as the ache lodged in his chest, the one that's always there, the one consisting of compacted wants and needs and should-have-fucking-dones. It never does. But if he drinks enough it all goes numb, and it's almost like he's got another scar.

And that's just fine with Dean.