[Dean meets that smile with steadfast confidence, unhesitating; it's a good thing. He cannot accept death. He won't. He is fiercely, solidly glad his friend gets another chance, that he survived, that he will go home and pick up where he left off with new tools and new strengths and new friends.
Dean knows what to make of it. He raises hie eyebrows as he raises the cord to drop the amulet back where it goes, back around his neck.]
You're a bastard. [Dean is a creature built to love, to have faith, but he never learned how to express it; how to feel secure in knowing this about himself. It does not change the instinct, only his acknowledgement of it. It didn't keep him from picking one thing out about the man across from him and believing in it unconditionally to loan it strength. The Marquis asks what he is and Dean responds with the first thing that comes to mind - true, multilayered, safe.
Then he digs in before he can trip over himself.] Trustworthy, with the right things, more than most men are with anything. Impossible, too many things to be mixed into one person but formidable nonetheless. [He looks down, then, at the amulet, still held in his fingertips from the compulsion to settle it back where it goes by hand. At the necklace that had been all important to him, that he had lost as an inmate and that had cost his closest friend one of his nine lives and most of his borrowed times to exact as much vengeance for the loss of as they possibly could in that place.
So Dean would not do something even more stupid, and find himself more crippled than he already was.]
One of the best friends I've ever had. Not for the things you did, but for the things you didn't do. The things you will do. The things you would do, if I asked.
Which is only true because I don't. But others will, and because you are better than they are, you'll help them. [He glances up then, squints, barely able to recognize his own voice and the words he's saying except that he is. He has found himself here, at the point of no return, far too often not to recognize what this is.
Dean is not good at goodbyes. This is what he does instead. His voice lowers as his clumsiness catches up to him, but the momentum is gathered - it must be spent.] You are clever and careful and one of a kind. You are what you made yourself.
[ Spam ]
[Dean meets that smile with steadfast confidence, unhesitating; it's a good thing. He cannot accept death. He won't. He is fiercely, solidly glad his friend gets another chance, that he survived, that he will go home and pick up where he left off with new tools and new strengths and new friends.
Dean knows what to make of it. He raises hie eyebrows as he raises the cord to drop the amulet back where it goes, back around his neck.]
You're a bastard. [Dean is a creature built to love, to have faith, but he never learned how to express it; how to feel secure in knowing this about himself. It does not change the instinct, only his acknowledgement of it. It didn't keep him from picking one thing out about the man across from him and believing in it unconditionally to loan it strength. The Marquis asks what he is and Dean responds with the first thing that comes to mind - true, multilayered, safe.
Then he digs in before he can trip over himself.] Trustworthy, with the right things, more than most men are with anything. Impossible, too many things to be mixed into one person but formidable nonetheless. [He looks down, then, at the amulet, still held in his fingertips from the compulsion to settle it back where it goes by hand. At the necklace that had been all important to him, that he had lost as an inmate and that had cost his closest friend one of his nine lives and most of his borrowed times to exact as much vengeance for the loss of as they possibly could in that place.
So Dean would not do something even more stupid, and find himself more crippled than he already was.]
One of the best friends I've ever had. Not for the things you did, but for the things you didn't do. The things you will do. The things you would do, if I asked.
Which is only true because I don't. But others will, and because you are better than they are, you'll help them. [He glances up then, squints, barely able to recognize his own voice and the words he's saying except that he is. He has found himself here, at the point of no return, far too often not to recognize what this is.
Dean is not good at goodbyes. This is what he does instead. His voice lowers as his clumsiness catches up to him, but the momentum is gathered - it must be spent.] You are clever and careful and one of a kind. You are what you made yourself.