[h3] Duke and Dean [/h3] 

Duke stepped away from Bobby after promising to help him with the Chevelle later on, and walked across the lot. As he entered the covered garage area, his heart began to beat a little faster. Coming face to face with Dean after a month away never went well. He slowly approached the house, reaching up to press his hat further down on his head and then opened the back door. The first person he saw was Dean, sitting at the table with a map and a sharpie. He figured Bobby had him on information duty, and sure enough, the closer he got, he could see that the case was already started. Dean was just pouring over notes.

“Mornin’.” Duke called to him, walking around the back of his chair. Dean didn’t say anything at first, as he kept drawing the line he was in the middle of, but when Duke wrapped an arm around his neck, Dean sighed and patted his arm.

“Morning. Where you coming from?” Dean asked and Duke shrugged his shoulders.

“Iowa. North Dakota. Few places. I feel worse than I look and I look better than I did when I left. So, that’s a win, right?” Duke joked, tossing his bag into one of the kitchen chairs. It was then that his eyes fell on Esme and he sighed, “Hey there beautiful. Good to see you’re still here…I guess.”

“We’ve been here the whole time. You got any broken bones?”

“No. Just a busted eye and some scrapes and bruises. Nothin’ bad.” Duke murmured back to Dean, before turning his attention back to Esme, “You look better than the last time I saw you. I should leave more often.”

“Well…no broken bones and you don’t seem on the verge of death. So, why did you come back so early?” Dean grumbled. And Duke sighed.

“Because I missed my house. I can’t miss you guys? We should go out tonight…the three of us. My treat.” Duke diffused Dean, definitely not wanting the fight he knew Dean was trying to start. He wasn’t really feeling the whole ‘where were you? What were you doing? Why do you always run? You’re a horrible son…blahblahblah’ at the moment. “We wanna go out together? What the hell happened while I was gone?”