#whythehelldoidothistomyself

Jess used to say it lit up the room and Dean laughs about the way he uses those damn dimples, once joked that Sam could do some damage if he ever used them for evil, but when Sam looks in the mirror he doesn't get it, he just sees lips and teeth and skin.

But Dean, that's different, he has that cocky smile, you know the one, the one that says I-know-I'm-awesome-you-don't-need-to-tell-me and more often than not that's directed at Sam. There's the sexual one, that one's laced with innuendo and nothing but an invitation and much to Sam's dismay that never seems to come his way. The grimace hurts the most, that smile that Dean wears through the pain, the one he thinks Sam can't see through when in truth Dean's an open book to him, still Sam humours him. Smug though, that's Sam's least favourite, that settles on Dean's lips, all mister-high-and-mighty and Sam often wants to wipe it from his face in frustration. It's such a contradiction to Dean's smile that breaks out from laughter, that one's the most infectious, spurs Sam to grin from ear to ear in return. 

Then there's the one that Dean saves for when Sam isn't looking, the smile full of affection and wonder and I-can't-believe-he's-still-sitting-right-there-next-to-me and Sam loves that one the most even if he only ever catches the briefest of glimpses of it.

It started with the innocent devotion of a boy looking up to his brother, of gentle hands and soft lullabies that would ease him to sleep when the bad things came, of a child wide-eyed and in awe of walking side-by-side with his hero.

It grew into the easy tumble of half-hearted insults and juvenile pranks, of affectionate punches and breath-heaving side-aching laughter and it lost just a little of that innocence of childhood.

Somewhere along the line the secrets started, and the words they both meant to say, the ones that they both think the other knows, those truths got buried beneath so many lies until they became twisted beyond recognition until all that innocence was gone, scrubbed out like it never even existed.

Sometimes when they lie in the darkness that Sam used to be so afraid of, when he hears the quiet steady breathing of Dean's sleep, he'll let those secrets out. And for a few minutes that innocent love of brothers is alive in the silence that seems to stretch between them these days.

i hope you succeed in your mission, young hero. my faith lies with you.