Work Text:
He had revealed himself to Dean. It was time he supposed, though this was more out of necessity than any real want on his behalf. He watched the disbelief on Deans face, the almost laughable assumption that he was dead and this was heaven. It was borderline pathetic in his opinion, how badly Dean needed to believe it. How badly Dean needed Sam to be alive.
He perfunctorily performed the usual tests; silver, holy water, salt. He almost laughed out loud at the daze Dean was in. He supposed a kinder man might have been a little more tactful about the whole thing, eased him in gently to the realisation that his brother was alive, but Sam was not a kind man. Some days he barely felt like a man at all.
When Dean finally surged forward to hug him he felt a burst of warmth wash through his body which promptly dissipated when Dean stepped away, leaving him an empty shell again with just the echo of a feeling bouncing around inside his bones. It was so much more intense than when he watched Dean at Lisa’s house. He wanted to savour this feeling, examine it, relive it, but to do that he needed to keep Dean close.
So when Dean got upset that Sam had been back for an entire year without contacting him he tried to placate him, to tell him that he had left him alone so that he could have a family with Lisa. It sounded like something the old him would have said, but he was different since he came back from hell, less somehow. The memories were there and he knew how he would have reacted before but he just couldn’t connect with that part of himself. A part of him didn’t really want to, it was exhausting caring about everything so much. He didn’t really know if he could be bothered keeping up this façade for Dean but that fading sense of feeling that he got around the man was enough to keep him interested for now. Yes, he would keep on pretending, keep Dean close, keep trying to find that feeling… at least, for now.