Chapter 4

Dean walked downstairs slowly, fiddling with the seam of his shirt nervously. He wasn't quite ready to face his family just yet, as he seemed to have trouble taming his thoughts which were currently all over the place - a place that looked suspisciously like his own bedroom, a sleeping Seamus curled up beneath his blankets - and he wanted to avoid anything embarrassing happening. And embarrassing things were bound to happen in his family, especially when one failed to pay attention.

To put it lightly, Dean was gravely confused. He wasn't quite sure why Sea had told him that - well, why he'd mumbled those three words that had made Dean's heart stutter. Which was the next part in the long list of things Dean Thomas Didn't Understand and Got Confused about. Why in the world would his heart stutter at hearing an I love you from his best friend? And why would that friend say those things to him in the first place?

Maybe it was just the medicine, Dean thought as he climbed down the stairs as slowly as humanly possible. It must've been making him drowsy, so clearly he didn't know what he was saying. Yeah, that must be it.

Dean decided to be satisfied with this explanation, then forced his thoughts away from every- and anything Seamus-related. Enough of this nonsense. They'll eat me alive if they find out how ridiculous my thoughts are. 

His relatives were probably starting to wonder what exactly was taking him so long, (if they had noticed his absence at all; there were enough of them for one or two disappearances to remain unnoticed for considerably large amounts of time) so Dean figured it would be best to just bite the bullet and deal with them. Anxious and terse, he made his way back into the kitchen, mentally preparing himself for any awkward questions that might come up. 

"Dean? Where've you been that long?" a voice interrupted his thoughts, making him jump. His older sister Danielle, currently manoeuvering a steaming pie from the oven to the kitchen counter, looked at him questioningly.

"Careful, Dani, don't drop your pie!" Dean warned. Danielle grimaced, managed to right the pie that had been dangerously tilting to the left, and finally placed it on the countertop. With a sigh of relief, she adjusted her apron, and, to Dean's horror, turned to focus on him.

"Thanks," she acknowledged with a nod, before crossing her arms in front of her chest. "Well, where were you?"

"With Seamus," Dean replied vaguely, taking a glass out of the cupboard to avoid having to look at her. Dani was in the habit of simply looking at you with an unreadable expression in those dark eyes that eventually caused you to burst out with whatever you were feeling guilty about, and for some reason, Dean was feeling extremely guilty at the moment. 

"Ah. He okay?" Dani's voice betrayed no emotion, no suspicion. And yet, Dean felt like he was hiding something from her.

"Yeah, he'll be fine," Dean replied, shrugging to emphasise how little he cared. When he noticed Dani narrow her eyes at him, he hastily resumed in turning on the tap to fill his glass, an action that allowed him to turn his back on her. 

"That's good to hear," she pressed on, and there was something in her voice that made Dean want to crawl in a hole to avoid her for the next, say, thirty years. 

"Mhm", he mumbled, too busy gulping down his water to give her a proper reply. He hoped to God she believed him. 

"I was going to ask, he and you-"

"Dean! How's Seamus? Finally asleep?" his mother interrupted Dani, coming into the kitchen with brisk strides. Dean thanked all his lucky stars and did his best to beam at her welcomingly. 

"Yeah, he seems a little better," he admitted, disposing of his now empty glass in the sink and facing his mom, whose smile widened at his words. 

"That's lovely, the poor boy," she sighed, bending over to examine the pie Dani had made. "He deserves a little rest. Dani, come over here and have a look; the filling is coming out on one side. You'll have to help me fix it. Dean, why don't you go spend some time with your cousins? Carrick has been asking for you for the past half hour."

"Good idea," Dean chirped, then raced into the living room to play with his six-year-old cousin, purposefully ignoring the look Dani threw him that said I'm not done with you yet.

* * *

"Dean, love, why don't you go upstairs and see whether Seamus would like a drink, hm?" Dean gave his mom a thankful look and excused himself from the conversation with uncle Kearton that he had been stuck in for the past twenty minutes. Frankly, his mom's step-brother was more than a little weird, and having to converse with him for any amount of time that was longer than two minutes and thirty seconds was one of the most difficult things Dean had ever done in all his life.

Grateful for his ever-considerate mom, Dean managed to slip away into the kitchen unnoticed, where he swiftly prepared a wooden tray with two glasses, a bottle of water - sparkling, cause that was the way Seamus liked it - some red grape juice and a couple of cookies his little sisters had baked on the side. Making sure that he was in the clear, (he didn't want any of his cousins tailing him) he made his way upstairs.

Balancing the tray on one hand, Dean gradually managed to ease open the door and step into his bedroom. As expected, the lights were off, the whole room dark and gloomy. Thankfully, Dean had learned in the sixteen years of living here how to navigate around in the dark, and therefore made it to his desk without any incidents.

As quietly as possible, Dean placed the tray on his desk, then turned to check on his friend. Seamus was fast asleep, his left arm wrapped around a pillow tightly. To Dean's relief, he looked far less exhausted than he had when he'd been awake and talking. When he'd been telling me he loves me.

Deciding that he wouldn't wake Sea, but just leave the tray here for him to utilise whenever he felt like it, Dean turned away and made his way back over to the door. There was, however, one unexpected factor that he had not put in his carefully worked out calculation: Seamus's trunk was waiting at the foot of the bed, posing a hazard for anyone trying to sneak past without looking. To his horror, Dean's foot caught on the trunk, and he tumbled to the floor noisily alongside Sea's belongings.

For a few seconds, nothing but silence rang in Dean's ears, and then he heard Seamus stir. It must've been around then that his heart stopped.

Crouched on the floor, heart beating irrationally fast, Dean waited and tried not to move. There was, after all, still the chance that even if Seamus had woken up, he wouldn't notice another shadow crouched low on the floor. Dean just prayed that his room was dark enough to conceal him.

Seamus mumbled something incoherent, and then the room went silent again. A good ten minutes had passed before Dean dared to rise from his uncomfortable position and peer at Seamus - who was still fast asleep, this time sprawled on his back.

Not quite believing his luck, Dean didn't waste any more time and sprinted out of the room, pulling the door closed behind him as quietly as he could. That was a close call.

He didn't dare feel relieved yet, not until there was a considerable distance between him and this room. Taking the stairs two at a time, Dean plastered a fake smile on his face and decided to focus whole-heartedly on his family for now - maybe they could make him forget about the boy that was currently fast asleep in his bed.

Deep down, however, Dean knew that he was hoping so in vain; there was nothing in this world that would make him forget about Seamus.