Chapter Text
Dean doesn't understand what they do here, not really. It's something with voting and elections, what they're doing at the high school, but he doesn’t pay much attention. All he knows is that he clings to his mother's hand, still short enough that he needs to reach up even though he's in middle school, and she smiles down at him like an angel from above. She called him away from the one other person here with their parents, but he doesn't know her, anyway.
“I know you'fe not too old for this. It's been four years, it's time to vote for the saxophone man again!”
“Mom…”
They go into a booth with buttons and switches. It's dark in the school, weird like this.
They talk, but he's tired. Staring at his feet, he wants nothing more than to be outside, to go, to run around.
He is too old, even when she lifts him up and he flips the switch for her, he just feels odd. Too old.
When they get to leave the voting booth, he heads down the hall, dark and all shut down. This isn't his school, not yet, he's still too young. The only light comes from the vending machine, where a girl with red hair hiding her face sits hunched over a book.
He stares at her for a second, suddenly dumbfounded.
“Неу.”
She looks up, staring. The hair has moved from her face and he can see her now, pale and freckled. She looks all mix-matched, wearing baggy, patchwork pants and some kind of metal band t-shirt. Her eyes are dark racon black with lipstick to match, and Dean thinks she just might be the coolest chick ever.
“…Hey.”
He curses himself mentally. Well, it's too late to back out now.
“Are your parents voting too?”
She hesitates before shrugging. “No.” She doesn't seem interested in conversation at all.
He just stays standing there, unsure of what to do. He feels a little too little next to her.
When he doesn't leave, she explains, “Ms. Hanscum lets me use the dark room after school. I'm waiting for my pictures to dry out.”
So she's in high school, then. He wonders how much older she'd be.
He doesn't know why he's so interested, either.
“Is that the Pink Opaque?” He tries to say it confidently, as if he didn't hear of it earlier that day.
She glances down at her lap, excitement lighting up her eyes. “Oh, yeah! It's the official episode guide. Do you watch?”
He shakes his head, almost bashful. “Nah”
“Oh.”
The conversation seems like it should end there, but he doesn't want to go back to his mom. He paces around awkwardly until he finds a spot opposite from her, far enough away to feel protected and close enough that he hasn't left. She keeps reading, zoned out in her own little world.
“...What grade are you in?”
"Ninth." She doesn't look up from her book. Well, she doesn't, but then she does, looks him up and down like she's deciding how much of her attention he's worth. “What about you?”
“Seventh.”
She snort-laughs like she can't hold it back, some kind of reflex. “Oh my god, you're a baby!”
He puffs up, clenching his jaw and squaring his shoulders. “I'm really mature for my age.”
“Does your mommy tell you that?”
“She does not!”
The girl laughs a normal laugh. “I'm just teasing.”
He can still feel himself getting embarrassed, looking away from her and back at the ground. One day, he promises himself, I'll be good enough at this to maintain eye contact and be cool and all the other things.
She seems embarrassed about making him so embarrassed, or maybe just awkward, and decides to fill the silence with awkward commentary. "Election night is cool, right?
It's like Colonial Day. Or when they bring the inflatable planetarium into the gymnasium... it's like the school gets transformed into something else, you know? It's...
special."
Dean doesn't know what she's talking about. She seems kind of far away, like if she could, her head would be in the clouds.
"It's a kid's show, right?" He gestures towards her book. "The Pink Opaque.
"No, no way!" She pauses. "I mean, technically, yeah, it's on the young adult network. But it's way too scary and the mythology is way too complicated for most kids."
Dean crooks a half grin. "I see commercials for it all the time. It looks amazing." He thinks he has some kind of look on his face because she hesitates a moment, looking like she wants to get up. Then she does, taking the few strides over to him and offering him the book. Something lights up in his chest, and he struggles not to show it.
"You can read about the episodes in here. If you want." She sits back down somewhere else, not next to him, but closer. “It's got quotes and pictures. And info about the ‘musical guests’ that play each week at the Double Lunch.”
Dean flips through, transfixed by the wacky pages. Something about it is just so real to him in a way he can't grasp.
"It's on at 10:30, right?"
"Yeah. Every Saturday night. The last show in the block before they switch to black and white reruns for old people. My friends Ash and I watch it every week." He watches her face for... something, but they're bathed in the light of the vending machines and all he can think about is Jo and Cas on the cover of the book, standing like superheroes.
He ducks his head to avoid her gaze. "My dad doesn't let any of us use the TV past 10PM." He doesn't want to admit to having a bedtime.
"Damn. That absolutely sucks." She sounds like she means it. "My mom basically doesn't give a shit when I go to bed." Dean's clearly sulking on the ground, but a grin splits her face. "Hey, you know what you should do?"
His mother sits in the back seat with him on the ride home, and even though his father bitches about having to come and pick them up and how by sitting in the back she's babying him, none of them wear a seatbelt. He lies his head down in her lap, letting her run her hands through his hair, allowing himself to still feel like a child. It's dark enough that no one can see his face and he tries to stare straight ahead as casually as he can.
"Mom?" He tries to catch her eyes in the rear view mirror, hoping he doesn't have his lying face on. He's working on it. "Can I sleep over at Kevin Tran's house on Saturday night?" He tries to be quiet.
His mom frowns. "Kevin Tran? I didn't know you guys were still friends."
He doesn't want to say anything that could give him away.
“You'll have to ask your father.” In the front seat of the car, he can hardly hear her over the blaring sounds of night radio, rock too old for him to remember.
"...Can you ask him for me?"
She doesn't answer, but she knows what he won't say.
John, and that's what Dean calls him when he's mad, won't be nice about it. They don't get to go out even if it's just to the park across the street. He's almost in middle school, for Christsake, and Mary- what he likes to call her when he pretends to be all grown up-is the only one who can reason with him.
If he were to look out the window into the street, he would see the rows of suburban homes, like cutouts of one another, looking the same as they always did with their manicured lawns and power lines.
What he wouldn't see would be the streetlight's yellow glow, the way it tints the road to be something it's not, as if this whole town is one big electric-powered incubator.
From the top of the stairs where Dean hides, he can hear his mom arguing with John.
He watches their shadows peak in and out of rooms, straining to hear.
There's a creak in the hall behind him and he whips his head around to see Sammy, clutching his little bunny to his chest. He rubs his eyes, clearly sleepy and woken by the commotion. His bedtime's still 8.
"What're you doing up?"
"You're supposed to be in bed," Dean hisses, trying to be quiet.
"So're you."
"I ain't a kid."
"That's not what Dad says."
"Screw Dad," he says, still hushed. "Now go away!"
Sam crouches at the top of the stairs with his brother anyway, trying to listen in on the incomprehensible conversation as if that'll fill him in on anything involved.
He only catches bits and pieces of the conversation, things like "old enough" and "shut up* and "when we were kids" and eventually John's thundering voice "fine, I don't care anymore! Let him go." Then they get all hushed again and footsteps approach.
Sam and Dean exchange a glance, both making the executive decision to bold to their respective bedrooms rather than get caught still up.