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John has taught Dean a lot of things. He's taught him that most people, however calculating their gaze is, mostly care about their own business. They miss a lot of stuff. He's taught him how to drive, how to fix a car, how to take care of a house. He's taught him how to - mostly - fly under the radar of the law and never earn an honest cent, and that drinking too much is a bad idea when life sucks, and shows no intention on stopping anytime soon.
He's taught him how important it is to be strong - physically. That his mind isn't to be neglected – and really, school is pretty goddamned important. He's taught him how to identify serious injuries – head injuries, spinal injuries, internal bleeds, etcetera, and how to separate them from curses and jinxes and shock.
He knows more about guns and weapons than anyone else he knows, apart from most hunters. John taught Dean how to love his brother – when he was still young enough that falling asleep on the couch meant being carried upstairs to his own bedroom, when sandwiches didn't have crusts and warm clothes appeared magically on his bed – warm from the dryer – on cold winter mornings. John has taught him discipline and hard work, but Dean thinks maybe, maybe, he forgot to teach Dean how to be honest. And that unlike caring for Sammy, it wasn't a skill that was built into him. On the contrary, Dean spins webs of lies that glitter around him when poked, but falls down when a single string unravels.
-
Really, Sonny is pretty fair. Dean supposes he's fair, when he stops for long enough to consider it. The hard work on the farm doesn't bother him as much now he's used to it, but for the first while it rankled that anyone that wasn't John could demand it of him. Make him do it. That no one had come looking for him yet, and that Bobby and Jim and Caleb were all quiet, not even a goddamned phone call.
He's used to starting over in a new place, from scratch, wears his grin and his scars and pretty face with pride and a brash personality. This is who I am, it says, so loudly no one can miss it. I'm going to be trouble in class, I'll never do my homework, I don't care what you think about me, I probably smoke, you'll see me in detention. Lock up your goddamned daughters.
He's still a virgin, but it doesn't matter, because Dean has started over and over and over again, anew, unknown and foreign to small towns and bigger cities and places so small you could drive past, blink, and miss it entirely. And he's perfected the persona of a person who does that so often that displaying himself in his full glory is something that needs to – and should – be done in two seconds flat.
But Dean hasn't done it alone before. Usually, John's at home, researching when they come home from school, bickering and hungry like hyenas, rifling through the kitchen in search of sandwiches and snacks until John throws them out on their asses and tells them to leave him the fuck alone, and shut the fuck up, and what the hell is wrong with you boys. And usually, when Dean tries to tell people hunting accident, and saved a girl from a burning building, and a rabid dog, I nearly died, Sammy is right there with his raised eyebrow that makes Dean flush an uncomfortable, blotchy and childish red he's about to outgrow entirely, but makes him shut up and not pull the lies any further than he's already done anyway.
It keeps him closer to the truth, if not entirely honest, which he shouldn't be anyway. And the worry that he'll cross some invisible line with John keeps the worst of the restlessness at bay, even if it's out of fear and an ingrained sort of respect.
There is no one here to do that. He feels unbalanced, alone, and more than a little weepy at night with the piece of tape carrying his name on the bottom of his bed. Where the door opens a couple of times a night, counting heads and making sure none have been replaced with watermelons and cushions, one of them sneaking out to meet a girl. He finds himself, night after night after night, shoulders and lower back aching from the hard farm work, going through every encounter, every lie, every story. Keep them straight, he tries to remind himself. You told that guy you were from Kansas, and then the other guy you were from Minnesota, what the fuck. And then he imagines them talking about him, and figuring him out. Fuck no, dozens of girls, what the fuck do you think I am? A baby? Stories about girls he's never even met, who change name, with imagined faces and breasts he describes in deep detail. Snappy retorts to comments on his stories that almost blow his cover as a liar, and the panic in his belly that seems to solidify and grab such a firm hold of him that he can't breathe for the rest of the day, and spends his nights churning in bed, wondering how he'll ever keep it all straight. How to keep people from figuring out he's a liar. That most nights he shares a bed with his brother, in motel rooms with his dad snoring a few feet away, or sleeping in the back seat of the car he grew up in. How to keep all the small lies from becoming bigger lies to keep him covered, and how to tell when people catch onto him, so he doesn't have to worry that they already have.
He puts up a brave face, but it cracks under the solid gaze Sonny gives him whenever they cross paths, sit down in the lounge together, sit at the same table. He comes to watch Dean wrestle, and Dean feels that twist in his belly again, the sour one that hurts and tingles and makes his head feel funny all at the same time, because at this school Dean can't pretend to be Dean Winchester – ladies' man who just moved because his super awesome family is this or that, like being homeless is cool and everything is awesome, guys, because people know where he sleeps at night, and they can guess why, and they fucking pity him or fear him.
He knows, because some of the braver kids mock him for it, for being in a home and on the farm and obviously not living in a suburban house with two parents and a motherfucking collie. But wrestling he can do. It's almost something John would have taught him, to fight off rawheads, Dean, really good trick, and Dean's always been good at motor skills that don't involve focus or fine precision. Work he can do, hard work that makes sweat pour. And Sonny smiles at him, tells him how good he's doing, and how far he's come.
Dean's stomach churns, aches, feels sour and heavy and burning deep with lies and regret and the deep seated fear he always feels, no matter where they are. The lies just fall out of him at school, at break time and before class starts and waiting for the bus, and he feels threatened and scared and so fucking small he might as well be Sammy-sized for all that he's growing up, and is almost big enough to borrow John's jacket without looking like he's playing dress-up.
His grades aren't awesome – they probably never will be, he can't sit still or shut up –, but wrestling he can do. He wrangles the other kids the best he can, but he feels stretched thin, dizzy and like his skin isn't big enough. His stomach churns regularly as the weeks pass on, food burns coming down, and burns coming up. Hurts even more when he doesn't eat at all, and he thinks it's the frustration and the fear bubbling like a cauldron inside him, hot and sour.
He carves things into the headboard of the bed, protection against nightmares and demons and everything he can think of, and clings to the idea of protection like it's a teddy bear and he's just a kid, huddled in his blankets, sweating through the cotton of his t-shirt. He dreams, vividly, of kids discovering he's everything he says he's not, everything he mocks, and he dreams of running, hiding, trying to get away while things collapse around him like a goddamned house of cards.
He wakes, still sobbing for breath, tears leaking down the sides of his face, on his back. Two of the boys he shares a room with are leaning over him, looking scared and unsettled, and he throws a sweaty, trembling arm over his eyes.
“They went to get Sonny,” one of them mutters, and Dean pulls the covers up over his face, curling up on his side, one arm around his belly that feels full of curdled milk. He doesn't know how to tell them that he doesn't need Sonny, when he can't stop shivering or crying, and is being eaten from the inside out by little stories and old fears and insecurities, and when Sonny puts a hand on his shoulder and tugs the blankets down so fresh air can fan his face, he pukes all over his bed, his sheets and his t-shirt. It looks black, like old coffee and lies and the blood of creatures that live deep in caves and live on rotten food. He blinks at it, dizzily, then up at Sonny's worried face, turned away from him and shouting in a ringing, fuzzy voice. And then he closes his eyes and lets it all slip away, the pain in his gut and his head growing faint and generalized rather than pointed and overwhelming.
-
He wakes up, warm and comfortable out of a deep sleep being shook by the shoulder. His boy moves with it, and he keeps his eyes closed. “Dean? Dee-aaaan,” the voice calls, and then they talk to each other again, over his head. He doesn't know why there are people in his bedroom. Is it time for school? Should he be getting Sammy up?
“Dean, come on, kid, you gotta breathe properly,” a deep voice says, close to his face, but he still doesn't move a muscle. Isn't he breathing? It feels like he's breathing. His body isn't complaining about lack of air.
Hands flip him to his side, yank one leg high up on the other, and he feels the soft cotton of pyjamas rubbing against his legs, socks pulled high up towards his knee. “Good,” one of the voices says. “Good idea. I'll...”
He falls asleep for a little bit, and wakes up again, fuzzily, when someone wraps something around his arm, settles his face differently, angled upwards and air fans his face.
“Come on, kiddo. Open your eyes, you gotta wake up.”
They bare flicker, not even letting in light. “Good, there you go.”
And then it's quiet, apart from the thumb stroking his wrist carefully and the whoosh of air around his face. He's confused, but to muzzy to really be scared or worried. He feels like himself, like Dean, not like the liar or the outsider or the good son. Just Dean. His eyes open a bit wider.
In front of him, in a seat much lower than the bed, sits Sonny. He looks a little tired, and his hair is unkempt, but he's got those crinkled eyes that means he's happy. Dean sighs a little, and Sonny sighs. “Good to see you awake, kiddo,” he says, and Dean blinks blearily at him. “Huh?”
Someone grabs his arm, and he flops around a little to see a middle-aged nurse pushing something clear in a syringe into an IV in his left hand. Slowly. Very slowly.
“Just a little pain relief,” she explains, smiling down at them. Dean blinks at Sonny again, who sighs.
“You're okay,” he says, and Dean wonders why he wouldn't be. It was a nightmare, he thinks. Just a dream and stress, and “you had a bleeding ulcer, but they fixed it, and you're all right.”
Oh. Shit. He closes his eyes, and twists his face to the side, into the plastic cup with a tube through it that's fanning his face with oxygen, feels a little vulnerable and scared. He wants John. He wants Sammy.
Sonny's hand digs deep into the hair over his ear, his callused hands rough against Dean's skin.
“You're okay, kid. You're going to be fine.” Dean hears the and then we'll talk, but doesn't say anything. His eyes feel heavy, all of a sudden. He doesn't fall asleep, but he closes his eyes anyway. Lets time pass slowly, but quickly, like it's liquid somehow, and Sonny sits there whenever he opens his eyes again, looks steady and calm.
He feels like Dean again, like Sonny's steady face has a little of the thing Sammy does, where he doesn't lie as much, doesn't feel like there's as much to cover up and keep secret, like his whole life is a thing he doesn't get to share, is private and just his, like it's shameful. He just feels young and sleepy and a little fuzzy, and that's okay, he thinks. Sonny already knows, it doesn't really matter now.
Sonny puts his hand on Dean's neck. Heavy, warm. Dean closes his eyes and floats.