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Sam and Dad are fighting again. Dean has gotten pretty used to it at this point—the tension that builds and builds for a few days until it explodes, resulting in a shouting match that usually ends with Sam slamming whatever door he can put between himself and John and John drinking himself nearly to oblivion. He's gotten used to being invisible, until one of them needs someone to bitch to about the other.
He has this dream, sometimes, that he leaves. Snags the keys to the Impala and just drives. Sometimes it's to the ocean, or the Redwoods, or a city like New Orleans or Boston or Seattle. Sometimes he doesn't have a destination at all, and it's just endless fields of wheat turned golden by a perpetually setting sun. Always, it's quiet. Peaceful.
Waking up from that one always hurts, and then leaves him feeling guilty for hours after.
"That is such bullshit!" Sam's voice cracks on the last word. He's old enough that it shouldn't be doing that anymore, and normally Dean would laugh except that he's exhausted and has been trying to get to sleep for the last forty minutes.
"Do not use that kind of language with me!"
Dean groans, pulling a pillow over his face. He briefly considers screaming into it, or maybe trying so smother himself with it, before throwing it to the side. He can't deal with this anymore tonight.
"I save people, Sam! That's what I do!" John is shouting as Dean enters the kitchen of the tiny apartment they've been in for the last few weeks. He grabs his leather jacket from the back of the chair it's draped over and his wallet from the counter. He grabs his silver knife, too, just in case.
"No, what you do is take out your anger on whatever monster you can get your hands on as some sort of twisted revenge fantasy!" Sam yells back.
"I'm going out," Dean calls over the noise, opening the door. Neither of them notice him slip out of the apartment.
The night air is chilly, little puffs of air appearing with every breath, and Dean shoves his hands in his pockets. There's a small twenty-four hour convenience store a little over a mile away, and the time it takes to walk there and back should be long enough for Sam and Dad to cool off.
There aren't any other customers when Dean gets there, just the guy behind the counter who looks up when Dean enters and waves with just a little too much enthusiasm for Dean’s current mood.
"Hi, there!"
"Hey," Dean answers with forced politeness before walking quickly to the candy aisle. He has a few bucks in his wallet from the cash Pastor Jim had given him the last time they saw him. Dean had tried to turn it down—at twenty, he thinks maybe he's a little old for birthday money—but Jim had insisted. There's still enough left that he can get a couple candy bars.
He ends up with a king-sized Baby Ruth for himself and a Butterfinger for Sam, then realizes there's a buy one get one sale and grabs another of each. He takes them up to the counter. The cashier doesn't even look at them. He's staring at Dean with an expression that feels...off, somehow. Too intense. Too interested, like he’s trying to place Dean. It makes him uncomfortable.
"Dude, you good?" Dean says after several very awkward seconds. The guy still doesn’t answer and Dean feels his jaw tighten with annoyance. "I'd like to get out of here sometime tonight."
"You're the Winchester kid. John's boy."
The hair on the back of Dean's neck stands and he's instantly on high alert. His eyes land on a few spots of bright red on the young man's work vest, and his stomach does a back flip. He does his best not to show it.
"You've got a little something," he says, gesturing at his own shirt to indicate where he'd spotted said 'little something'. The guy looks down, tugging at the vest, his bottom lip sticking out at the sight of what Dean can only assume is blood.
"Oh. Whoops! I did my best to keep things clean but..." He shrugs. "You humans can be so fragile."
Dean's hand darts to the knife at his back, but before he can draw it, the cashier, whatever he/it is, is launching over the counter at Dean, barreling into him with alarming strength. Dean hits the ground hard, the air rushing from his lungs and stars dancing across his vision when his head cracks against the floor. He recovers quickly, though, shoving the man off of himself and scrambling to his feet. His back is to the counter now and he glances over his shoulder.
Shit.
There's a body on the floor—Dean isn't sure if he's dead or not—that looks exactly like the guy Dean is fighting, just without the vest. Dean looks back at his attacker.
"You're a shifter."
"And you're a hunter."
The shifter lunges forward, grabbing the front of Dean's jacket and pulling him away from the counter. He uses the momentum to lift Dean clean off his feet, hurling him against the nearest shelf. It crashes noisily to the ground, and so does Dean. He bites through his tongue as he falls, blood instantly filling his mouth. His vision is a little blurred now, too, and it won't go back into focus. Concussion, he thinks grimly as he moves his left arm under him to get to his feet. Or, he tries to move his left arm, but is met instead with a bright, intense pain through his shoulder and arm that means something is dislocated or broken. He grits his teeth, biting back a groan as he levers himself up with the other arm instead, grabbing the edge of a still-standing shelf for support. His whole body aches as he makes his way, staggering, to his feet. His head is pounding. He thinks it might be bleeding.
This is not going well.
He just wanted to go for a walk.
"Your dad's been looking for me," the shifter is saying, voice casual, though his coiled stance makes it obvious that he's getting ready to strike again. "He doesn't know it's me. I've been running for a long time. Gone through a lot of faces. I finally decided it was time to stop running away. A prey becoming the predator kind of situation, y'know?" A smile creeps across his face, slow and unsettling. "Looks like I made the right call."
"Y'know," Dean says. Blood pours down his chin from his mouth. His head is swimming. "I'm not sure you did."
He grabs the knife from the sheath at his back and, moving with all the speed he can muster, rushes at the shifter with a roar. The shifter is faster, though, and he grabs Dean's wrist lightning-fast in an iron grip.
"Nice try, Winchester," he says with another one of those hideous smiles. He winks and twists Dean’s arm, pushing it back toward Dean’s body.
The knife point slices through the thin skin over Dean's left clavicle and then, deflected by the bone, moves downward before embedding itself in the meat of Dean's upper chest, just under his collarbone. A scream rips from him, a mixture of pain and rage, and he stumbles back away from the shifter. The knife is still in him; he’s still gripping the handle. Without thinking, he rips the blade from his body and plunges it into the center of the shifter's chest. The shifter looks startled. Dean gives the knife a vicious twist.
The shifter falls.
So does Dean.
Waves of agony ripple through his upper chest as he gasps, stuggling to catch his breath. Everything hurts, and he stays on the ground for a few seconds before forcing himself sluggishly to his feet. He clutches his wounded shoulder, blood quickly coating his hand as he lurches toward the door of the convenience store. He pushes his way out and stumbles out into the freezing night. He's dizzy though, and his vision keeps going in and out, and he only makes it a few steps into the parking lot before he collapses. The pavement beneath him is frigid, and he can feel the cold leeching the heat from his body. A shiver runs through him. He blinks heavily. Then again, only his eyes stay shut a little longer this time.
He's still lying there when a pair of headlights appears very close to him, and he hears the sound of a car door opening and a voice saying, "Oh my god. Call 911!"
And then the world fades.
-
He has a laundry list of injuries: several cracked ribs, mild concussion, stitches on the back of his head and more in his shoulder, which was badly dislocated but thankfully not broken. It's the middle of the night by the time he gets all patched up and settled into a room, and visiting hours are long since over. So, aided by heavy pain meds and the distinct exhaustion that comes with having your ass kicked, Dean sleeps.
-
He wakes up the next with a deep ache in his whole body that even the pain meds they've given him don't erase completely. Sam is sitting in a chair near him with a newspaper folded in half, working on the crossword puzzle. It's later than Dean thought, then, if visiting hours have started. Or else Sammy conned his way in here early, which wouldn't be surprising.
"Where's Dad?"
Sam doesn't look up, his leg bouncing as he stares at the newspaper in his hand, chewing on his thumbnail.
"Sammy," Dean says, and Sam stills and looks up with that mildly irritated look that's been his default expression for the last few years.
"He's not here, Dean. He left."
"Left," Dean repeats. "What do you mean 'left'?"
"I mean he got a call about some monster a few counties over and he went to go take care of it."
"When?" Dean asks. He's pretty sure he knows the answer, and he doesn't really want confirmation, but he can't help himself.
Sam's mouth pulls over to one side. His leg is bouncing again. "This morning."
This morning. Which means John already knew about Dean being in the hospital, and he left anyway. He's not surprised. But part of him had hoped that maybe just this once John would put him first. That killing the shifter would have made him proud, maybe proud enough to stay. He should've known better. He does know better. Thinking Dad should be here instead of on an important hunt, saving people...that was stupid. Childish.
"You're allowed to be pissed, you know," Sam says suddenly.
"Sam..."
"No, Dean, I mean it!" Sam's voice has an edge to it, the way it does when he's starting to get angry at John. "You're in the hospital and he's not here."
"Because he's on a hunt," Dean says firmly, and Sam throws his hands up.
"See? And then you go and defend him! It's like-it's like you think that if you kill enough monsters, or if you...bleed enough, that suddenly he'll become a dad that actually deserves that kind of devotion."
Dean feels his jaw tense. "Stop it."
Sam ignores him. "But it doesn't matter how much blood you lose, Dean. It won't be enough, not for Dad. It's never enough. You know, I bet you could be dying, like actually dying, and he would still put hunting first."
"Shut up!" Dean snarls with a ferocity that surprises even him. Sam's angry expression is replaced replaced by a guilty borderline-pout, and he slumps down a little in the chair.
"I'm sorry," he murmurs. "Dean, really, I'm...Now isn't the time. I'm sorry. And I'm...I'm sorry Dad isn't here."
Dean blinks back angry tears, looking away from his brother.
"It's fine."
"It isn't."
"Will you just leave it," Dean says, and it comes out as an embarrassingly broken-sounding whisper.
Deep down he knows Sam is right, about all of it. But he can't afford to think about that, because if he does then it'll make him resent John and if he resents John then he'll be tempted to leave and he really can't afford to leave. He doesn't know what life would even look like outside of hunting with his dad and brother. So he just has to grit his teeth and bear it. The world will be better off for it, even if he isn't, and that makes it worth it.
...Right?
xxx