Fic Post: Five Times...Dean Didn't Do What Was Asked of Him (1/1)

[gwendolyngrace]

Title: Five Times Dean Didn’t Do What Was Asked of Him (1/1)
Author: gwendolyngrace
Rating: Gen with some het; PG-13 for swearing, sexual situations, and violence
Summary: 1988; 1992; 1995; 2007; 2008
Wordcount: 8,890
Spoilers: General through all aired episodes, specifically Something Wicked, In My Time of Dying, Croatoan, Born Under a Bad Sign, All Hell Breaks Loose, Pt. 2, Malleus Malleficarum, and Jus in Bello.
Disclaimer: Still not mine. Dammit.
Author’s notes: This started as a little Something Wicked and Croatoan coda, and it sat around for a long time until I could come up with a fifth thing I liked. Last week’s episode shook loose the cobwebs. And thanks to the awesome betas, etakyma and relli86, I can post this in honor of Jensen Ackles’s birthday.






1. 1988

Sammy had been driving him crazy non-stop since the cartoons had segued to old movies that afternoon. The room stank from the scrapped bowl of Spaghettio’s and Dean’s stomach and taste buds complained about the Lucky Charms he hadn’t eaten. He made Sam go to bed early, just to give himself some space, but even after his brother’s breathing evened out, Dean paced the little suite, itching to get some air. He told himself that Dad was due back—really any time now—but that did nothing to make him feel less antsy.

Dad had said not to leave. But Sam was asleep, and the windows and doors were locked tight, anyway. He would only be gone for a few minutes. Half an hour, at the most. Surely Sammy couldn’t get into trouble lying in bed doing nothing?

With a guilty look at the shotgun Dad had leaned against the end table, Dean grabbed the room key and stepped outside, locking the door behind him.

It was getting dark, but the air was crisp and a slice of sunset still glowed dark red over the parking lot. Dean remembered an arcade machine in the motel tavern—nothing special, just Space Invaders(1)—but he figured two quarters and three lives ought to get him at least a few minutes’ peace, work out some aggression. It wasn’t Sammy’s fault—wasn’t Dad’s fault, either, that he had to leave them alone and Dean had to see to his brother—but Dean sure didn’t remember Sammy being this much of a pest ever before. He certainly wasn’t such a pain when he was five, himself.

He slid the quarters into the slot and lost himself, gratefully, in the rhythm of joystick and fire button, bobbing and weaving and shooting everything that moved on the tilted screen. Lives racked up on the counter, power boosts, putting his aim to good use (since he never got to shoot at anything real, and yeah, this was target practice, of a sort, wasn’t it?), and he didn’t even notice the night closing in around the building, or the news on the TV turning into “Funniest Videos” or the movie that followed that. His two quarters had stretched farther than he expected and he thrilled at the surety of making his mark on the high score list. It was a good thought, one that provided a tiny bit of pride. When this game ended, he could initial it with “DW” and know that for at least the next little while, people would be able to see he was here. It was the same urge he had occasionally to carve his name in his desk at the school-of-the-month, or write it in permanent ink inside the assigned locker—just something to leave a trail, some indication that he was real, that he left an imprint on the places they stayed, however transient the inscription.

But before he could get there, before he even ran short on lives, the manager told him that he was closing up. It was not true, of course—the tavern was adjacent to the office, and motel offices never really “close”—but Dean understood the signal. You’ve been here too long, was the real message. Go to bed, get out.

It was only as he was leaving that he noticed how dark it had grown, that he realized his half-hour must have spanned a whole evening, just as his quarters had eked out extra lives and the high score. What if Sammy had woken up and needed him, or worse, what if something had happened to him while Dean was gone? Worst of all, what if…Dad had come back to find him not at his post? AWOL? He hurried back to the room. The parking lot suddenly seemed ominous, holding bogeymen in every shadow. Though it was only a short walk back to the room, he quickened his pace.


2. 1992

Eighth grade, Dean decided, completely sucked.

No, what sucked was being singled out in a school that treated its eighth-grade class like frickin’ seniors. What sucked was being pushed by every single one of his teachers to “start thinking about your high school courses,” like he was even going to consider APs, or his transcript could even remotely put him in college prep classes, or a G&T program, or whatever they called it in this neck of the woods. What sucked was being told he should have taken Typing last year, and that hand-written papers weren’t acceptable.

“I was in Johnson City last year,” Dean explained to Mr. Kerrigan, the English teacher who, it was rumored, graded papers in ink made from lamb’s blood. “They didn’t have typing class.”

“I understand, Dean,” Mr. Kerrigan had said. “I’ll speak to Miss Cutler about arranging your schedule so you can pick it up during one of your free periods. Believe me, it’s a necessary skill. You’ll thank me when you get to high school and have to write a paper every couple weeks.”

Dean wanted to say that cleaning guns and hand-to-hand and tracking were necessary skills, that all he’d ever need to type were fake credit card applications, and not even those, because who took a typewriter on the road, anyway? But that would violate Winchester Rule #1, so he swallowed the comment, and wondered instead whether Mr. Kerrigan slaughtered the lambs himself, or just had a deal with local butchers, and told himself again how much school sucked.

And what sucked, more than anything else, was Mrs. Brown, in music class, “taking an interest” in him. Mrs. Brown was pretty cool, all things considered, except that she had a weird way of deciding that certain of her students were stars just waiting to be given the chance to shine. Dean wished like anything he could have skipped the whole program, but nothing doing. Everyone had to pick either choir or orchestra, and despite his deep-seated desire to play drums like Bill Ward, bass like Cliff Burton, or guitar like Jimmy Page, Buck Dharma, or even Brian May, their lifestyle and Dad’s curriculum never really left room to take up an instrument. So choir with Mrs. Brown it was. Dean resolutely seated himself in the middle of the tenor section and melted into the background as much as possible.

But Mrs. Brown was not easily dismissed. She detected his love of music, even if she despaired that he’d ever consider anything written before 1950 or after 1980 to be “worthwhile,” and as a result she picked on him constantly in class. Dean even considered asking his father to write a note explaining that Dean had acute vocal cord nodes like that diva wannabe last year in Johnson City. She’d bitched long and loud about missing the spring concert because of them. (Dean had helpfully pointed out to her that if she wasn’t supposed to sing and she was supposed to minimize talking, perhaps she shouldn’t complain to anyone who’d listen.) If he came up with something like that, he could get himself excused for the rest of the term, just to get her off his back. But he’d learned the hard way not to scam teachers about fake stuff without Dad’s permission, and he wasn’t going to make that mistake again. Unfortunately, asking Dad for help would mean admitting that he was weak, let alone what Sammy would do if he knew Dean was singing in a school choir, for chrissakes, so he kept his discomfort to himself.

Despite her unwanted attention, Dean couldn’t help but like her—she was funny, she was candid, she treated the kids like people, instead of little hellions, and Dean responded to the unspoken acknowledgement of his maturity. That didn’t mean he approached choir with anything like pleasure, however. He sat in his assigned seat and mumbled the tenor line and wished he could meld to the back of the metal folding chair, wished he could dissolve right through the sheet music, wished the clock would just speed up, already, so this torture could be over.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Mrs. Brown announced. “I have a new piece for you for the pre-Thanksgiving concert.” While Kimberly Miller handed out the sections, Mrs. Brown asked them all to turn to page three, at letter D. As the girls got there, they tittered excitedly, and when Dean flipped his music open, he heard Jesse Harris next to him give an audible expulsion of air. Dean studied the stave, where the usual four-part staff narrowed to a single treble and bass clef. The superscript of each bore, in small lettering, a single word that made Dean sigh with relief. “A solo,” he heard Jesse whisper.

“Better you than me,” Dean muttered.

“Quiet, everyone, please,” Mrs. Brown requested, banging the piano in a few hearty chords. “This is a complicated piece, so let’s go over the line all together to learn it, and then I’m going to ask a few of you to stand and sing in small groups….”

Dean leaned back in his chair. The gods had heard his pleas, and he could relax for this hour at least. They’d probably spend the whole day whittling down the 7th and 8th grade choir to find Mrs. Brown’s star, and he could skate clear of the whole thing. He allowed his attention to drift, thinking about the three-mile run he wanted to take after school, the new Smith & Wesson that Dad had bought and whether it would need cleaning this soon, and was it his imagination, or did Jennifer Liberetti’s sweater seem to be curving around at the sides more than last week…?

“Dean?” Mrs. Brown stood right in front of him. “Care to come back from wherever you went there?”

Dean favored her with his lop-sided grin. “Sorry, Mrs. Brown,” he said over the choir’s giggles.

“Is it too much to hope you’ve been paying any attention to the melody, Dean?” she asked.

“Uh…yes?” he admitted with a shrug.

“Mm-hmm,” Mrs. Brown replied with a shake of her head. After a heavy sigh, she said, “Please stay after class.”

Ignoring the whole group’s “Ooh,” of admonition, Dean nodded and didn’t dare woolgather for the rest of the class.

By the end of the period, Mrs. Brown had auditioned about half the group, mostly 8th-graders, and had even asked three or four people to sing the line alone. Jesse Harris gave it his all, and since he sat next to Dean, Dean got to hear him sing it sotto voce while all the girls and half the boys picked by Mrs. Brown tried it in groups of five, three, two, solo. At the bell, they all put their music away and filed out, but Dean obediently lagged behind to find out what sort of punishment he would face. Detention maybe—it wouldn’t be his first, by any means—but Mrs. Brown wasn’t really the detention type.

“Come on over to the piano, Dean,” she invited him. To his horror, she simply made him sing the solo line. “I want to see how you’ve been progressing,” she explained. Dean sang it in his usual mumblety-peg way. “Support the breath and enunciate,” Mrs. Brown instructed. Dean sang it again, a little more confidently.

“Hm. Do you have another class to get to?”

“Just study hall,” Dean said automatically, and immediately wished he’d lied, because she smiled, and her smile made him very nervous.

“Good! You have time to sing it through again. Listen to the notes on this section….” She picked out a complicated run. “Try it this slow, to get all the notes.” Dean did, but couldn’t help rolling his eyes. “Support when you go higher,” she coached, and to Dean’s surprise she picked up his hands and put them against his stomach, and pushed. “Feel that?”

“Yes’m,” Dean said.

“That’s where you should be breathing, not the chest.”

“I have to go,” Dean told her.

“It’s all right, Dean, I’ll give you a pass and a note for Mr. D’Ambrosio. Try again, and breathe from the diaphragm….”

Detention would have been easier.

Two days later, Mrs. Brown announced her decision about the solo, and Dean blanched. Everyone was looking at him. He wanted to quip that they’d make a great choir for a silent movie, their mouths all hanging open like that. He wanted to shout at them that it wasn’t his idea. He wanted to tell them all that Mrs. Brown was obviously on some serious drugs if she thought he was going to go through with it. Jesse Harris looked ready to take him out behind the bleachers and kick his ass, which would have been kinda funny, really, because Dean could have smeared him into next Tuesday with one hand in his pocket. But Mrs. Brown was looking at him so expectantly, so proudly, that he couldn’t bring himself to make any kind of joke about it. He just stared at her until the class ended and he could drift up to her piano bench.

“Mrs. Brown? You’re joking right? You’re not actually going to make me do this.”

“Make you? Dean, a lot of your classmates would love to be in your position.”

“I know—that’s my point, Mrs. Brown. Jesse Harris is way better than me, and he likes to sing. In front of people, I mean. Why not him?”

“Because, Dean, I didn’t choose Jesse. I chose you.”

“Well, I don’t want to be chosen,” Dean told her, dumping the music at her feet. He turned and rushed out of the room before she could yell at him.

That night he threw himself into their training and even asked for extra chores. He washed the dishes with more vigor than usual, prompting Dad to say, “Hey, take it easy, there, kiddo. Leave the pattern on the china, at least.”

“Dad, how soon do you figure we’ll be on the move again?” he asked, praying for the right answer.

But Dad looked at him with an odd expression. “Sammy, got homework?” he asked the youngster, who sat at the kitchen table helping Dad sort out newspaper clippings.

“Did it at school,” Sam said.

“Okay, why don’t you go watch some TV before bed?” Dad said, and Sam looked to Dean, who jerked his head toward the open living area to reinforce Dad’s “suggestion.”

Dean waited until Sam’s back settled against the sofa in the seating area of their little apartment, a new episode of The Simpsons bathing the room in a Technicolor wash of lemon yellow and berry blue, before asking, “What’s wrong, Dad?”

Dad shook his head with a rueful smile. “Nothing’s wrong…but this desire to move on, it wouldn’t have anything to do with being asked to sing a solo in the school concert, would it?”

Dean’s eyes widened. “How did you…?”

“Got a call from your teacher. Mrs. Brown, isn’t it? She seemed to think you might need some encouragement at home. Wanted to know if you’ve always had stage fright, or if you just thought maybe singing was too…what’s the word she used…effeminate, for you. Wanted to make sure your old man wasn’t telling you you’d grow up to be a fairy if you sang.”

Dean wiped his hands on the dishtowel. “Dad, I just…I’m not gonna make an idiot of myself in front of the whole school!”

“Relax, Dean,” Dad said. “I told her you couldn’t do it anyway, since we’ll be on a ‘family vacation’ starting the week before Thanksgiving.”

“And really we’ll be….”

“We’ll be heading to Roanoake; I have some leads to follow-up on there.”

Dean grinned. He did a little “end zone” dance around the table. “Thanks, Dad!” he said with relief.

Dad chuckled. “I figured you didn’t need to discuss this in front of Sam.”

“Discuss what?” Sam asked darkly. He had ghosted back into the kitchen, standing beside the bar counter that separated dining from living space.

“I thought you were watching television,” Dad said.

Sam shrugged. “Commercial break.” He crossed to the fridge and dug around for a Coke. “Discuss what?” he asked again.

“Nothing,” Dean said quickly.

Sam looked at him, then smiled wickedly. “Wouldn’t be Dean’s solo, would it?” He stressed the word lasciviously.

“You brat—you were listening!” Dean lunged for Sam, but Sam slid out of the way to the other side of the bar.

“Nu-uh,” Sam countered. “Not my fault Jesse Harris tells his sister everything! It’s all over school.” Sam giggled. “Dean’s gonna si-ing! Dean’s gonna si-ing!” he chanted while Dean chased him into the living room and around the couch.

“Sammy, if you don’t stop teasing your brother, he’s gonna make you sing—soprano,” Dad warned. He wandered out into the living room, cracking a beer and giving them pointers on hand-to-hand. And when Dean caught Sam and put him in a headlock, Dad laughed.


3. 1995

It had been almost ten years since Dad had given Dean his first driving lesson, on an empty, flat highway somewhere in Arizona, sitting on Dad’s lap so he could steer while Dad worked the pedals. Dean had had a fake license for two years already, which was just as well in this little corner of Tennessee. The high school and the middle school were three miles away from one another, and not on the same bus system, so Dean had been dropping Sam off and picking him up all during their two-month stint here.

Dad had been moving them less often, after a scare in Georgia where Social Services nearly stepped in to put them in foster care. Besides, Dad was making noises about Dean finishing high school, staying put long enough to accrue the credits and actually graduate. But that hadn’t stopped Dad from taking Dean with him almost as often as not lately. The guidance counselor hadn’t really believed Dad’s story about how Dean had to miss school on account of his “regular testing” up at the clinics in St. Louis, “to make sure the leukemia still hasn’t come back.” Dean had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing, the first time he heard Dad spew that load of crap. But neither Dad nor Dean cared whether Mr. Lewis believed them. Dean took advantage of it, though, to ask Mr. Lewis in earnest tones whether he could get the application for a GED, just in case the cancer came back and he had to finish school from a hospital bed.

He figured Dad wouldn’t care, so long as he got the diploma, and that way he’d be free to hunt more often, get out of this hick town Sammy seemed to like so much. Norman Rockwell’s America, down to the American Gothic couples in and out of the dime store on a Saturday afternoon.

But there was one thing—one person—this town had going for it: Marcia Geller. Marcia wore little flippy skirts and sweaters that hugged her shapely figure, and she wore really impractical shoes that made her legs look longer than Daryl Hannah’s, and her feet look tiny. But even in her gym clothes, she looked pretty sexy. Heck, Dean figured she almost made high school worth going to. He shared four classes with her, and over the last two months he had made every effort to get closer—literally.

In English, she sat next to Harry Fisher. Harry was a scrawny, brainy kid who would have reminded Dean of Sam, except that he had buckteeth, coke-bottle glasses, and no coordination whatsoever. At lunch on Dean’s second day, he saw Harry getting worked over for his lunch money by a couple hillbilly types in—no kidding—overalls and work shirts.

Dean made short work of the hill-bullies, and all he asked in return for his “protection” was to trade seats with Harry.

In History, Dean learned that Marcia’s Chem lab partner, Gina, was going out with hill-bully number two, Darrel Sims, and wanted Marcia to double date with Darrel’s cousin, hill-bully number one, Isaac Sims. Dean took real pleasure in beating the tar out of Isaac again – this time, extracting a promise that he would not so much as look twice at Marcia.

In PE, shooting basketballs through hoops, Dean listened while Marcia cried on Gina’s shoulder. “He just called up and said he couldn’t go out with me.”

“What? That’s crazy. He likes you, Darrel said so!”

“Well, he’s got a funny way of showing it. Anyway, why I wanna go with a boy done get himself all messed up fer?”

Dean grinned at her cute little accent, caught himself, and pointedly returned to the foul line.

“Hey, don’t blame Isaac for that; he says the new guy just up and jumped him, no reason.”

“Oh, come on, Gina. I sit next to Harry Fisher in English. Well, I used to. Ever’body knows Darrel an’ Isaac been usin’ him fer a punchin’ bag since first grade.” She said something he couldn’t hear, but from the corner of his eye she saw him point in his direction. “I think it was kinda sweet, helpin’ him out like that.”

“Helpin’ him out? He’s got no cause to be meddlin’ with sumpthin’ ain’t none of his business. Darrel says Harry won’t even help him with his homework no more.”

“Gina, Harry does Darrel’s homework fer him, and it’s about time he stopped, anyway. I know you think Darrel’s cuter’n Joey McIntyre, but honestly, are you really as dumb as he is, too?”

Dean reflected on how remarkably fearless Coach Richards was. Dean himself had already seen werewolves, a shtriga, and more spirits than Father Mancuso, but he would have had to think twice about wading in between two sixteen-year-old girls in a cat-fight.

But when Chemistry class rolled around, Dean assiduously picked a stool at the table behind Marcia’s. “Hey…” he whispered.

“Hey,” Marcia said, twisting on her stool.

“So, I heard you and Gina aren’t friends anymore. Sorry.”

Marcia’s eyes narrowed, but she smiled sadly. “Yeah. Thanks, uh….”

“Dean. Listen, if you need a new lab partner…?”

From there, it was a simple matter to offer her a ride home. “You have your own car?” she asked as they walked to the parking lot.

“Yeah…well, it was my Dad’s car, first.”

“Whoa.” Marcia said, drawing up short as he led her to the Impala. “That’s yours? I figured Mr. Jenkins got it—he’s always buying these old beaters and reconditioning them.”

“Oh, yeah?” Dean said amiably. “He’s the shop teacher, right?”

“Yeah. He was my brother’s favorite teacher when he went here, says he’s the reason Bill ain’t doin’ five to ten in State.”

“Taught him cars?”

“Sure did. Oh, Billy’d love to see this.” Marcia walked around the car once, and Dean preened as if she were running her hand over his chest, instead of along the Impala’s sidewalls.

“Huh. Well, maybe I can show it to him sometime.” Marcia smiled at him and Dean had a sudden urge to open the door for her. He swung the door shut after she’d folded her long, bare legs inside, and he walked around to the driver’s seat. The shop class had been full by the time Dean enrolled, but Mr. Jenkins might make a valuable ally regardless. If nothing else, he’d probably let Dean use the shop tools for maintenance on the car, and possibly give him an easy “A” – maybe without even going to class.

“We have to make a stop, okay?” Dean said, once the engine roared to life and they pulled out on the main drag. “Pick up my kid brother.”

“You pick him up ever’ day?”

“Yup.”

“Wow. Bill and Ray never did that for me.”

“Yeah, well, I’m an awesome brother,” he told her, wagging his eyebrows and mugging for her amusement. Marcia had a completely kissable mouth, and that giggle just about had Dean wishing he didn’t have Sam to look after.

They pulled up to the middle school lot, where kids in gym shorts and shin guards jogged around the fields to a coach’s bellowing. All the buses were gone and only a couple kids sat by the school yard, waiting for rides. Sam had his nose in a book, as usual, but he looked up when he heard the Impala’s rumble and turned down the page corner to mark his place. His face darkened when he saw that the shotgun seat was occupied.

“Hop in back, there, Sammy,” Dean told him, and Sam opened the rear door and tossed his backpack onto the far side. “This is Marcia. Marcia, my geek brother Sam.”

“Hi, Sam,” Marcia said. Dean liked that she didn’t pick up on his “Sammy” as so many people did – he knew Sam hated when people presumed they could be so chummy so soon – but one look in the rearview told him Sam wasn’t having any of this.

“Bad day?” he asked, trying to deflect Sam’s rudeness. His eyes on Sam in the mirror sent a message, though: Don’t ruin this.

“Not really,” Sam said, and there was a tone in his voice that suggested Dean wasn’t getting through. Or that he was, but Sam didn’t care.

“You’ll have to forgive him, Marcia,” Dean said lightly. “Seventh grade—you know how it is.” Any other day, Dean would have teased Sam about having PMS or something, but not when his chances with Marcia hung in the balance. He was scoring points by being nice to Sam; ribbing him might just backfire, in more ways than one.

“Oh, yeah?” Marcia said, turning to look Sam in the eye. Her black braid flipped over one shoulder. “My sister’s in your class then—Emma Geller?”

Sam looked at her blankly. No, accusingly. Like she’d done something wrong by even speaking to him. “Yeah. So?” he bit out.

Dean took evasive action. “How many of you are there?” he asked Marcia. “You’ve mentioned two brothers and one sister so far.”

“Yeah. I’m smack in the middle of five. I’ve got another brother, he’s ten. And Ray and Bill’s twins. They’re twenty-two.”

“Oh. They, uh…they real protective types, are they?”

Marcia smirked. “Well, let’s say I wasn’t worried about going out with Isaac Sims, ’cause if he’d tried anything, they’d’a filled him with double-aught.”

In the back seat, Sam snorted. Dean grimaced. “Good to know.”

Sam sulked in the back all the way home, but Dean just ignored him, so long as he wasn’t going to shoot off his mouth in front of Marcia. As they pulled up, Dean reached into his jacket for the rental house key and handed it back to Sam. “Look, Sam, let yourself in and do your chores, okay? I’m gonna take Marcia back to her place.”

Sam scowled. “If Dad gets home, I’m not covering for you.”

“I’m not asking you to, am I?” Sam said nothing, only gathered his book bag and crawled out on Dean’s side. “Hey,” Dean called to pull Sam back to the window.

“What?” Sam asked with venom usually reserved for Dad.

Dean lowered his voice. “If I’m not back for dinner, just make yourself something, okay?”

Sam could have shot lasers through the Fortress of Solitude with the look he fixed on Dean, but finally he shrugged and said, “Yeah, okay,” and stalked over to the door.

Following Marcia’s directions, he drove to a nice little neighborhood with trimmed lawns and man-made lakes in common backyard parks. They pulled in to the driveway of a modern colonial with a three-car attached garage, in front of which a convertible Sunfire stood jacked up, a pair of legs sticking out from under it.

The legs pulled out from the car as the Impala pulled in to the drive. Marcia hopped out of the car. “Bill! Like you to meet Dean.”

Bill was six-five if he was a foot. Oil stained his hands, but he wiped them on his coveralls and waved. “Nice car,” he said, and Dean grinned.

“Marcia said you’d like it.”

They stood outside talking cars for a good fifteen minutes. Dean even popped the hood and let Bill take a look at the engine. When Bill said he was going to check the pan of his Sunfire to see if it had drained, Marcia tugged on Dean’s sleeve. “Come on, let’s look at that lab report.”

The inside of the house was about as nice as the outside, but the furniture wasn’t new, nor was the place very picked up. Magazines and books were scattered all over the formal living room, which had its share of scuffs on the chair arms, and bare patches on the rugs. A small layer of dust covered the knick-knacks on the shelves. Family photos of all seven Gellers graced the walls. “What do your parents do?” Dean asked, but then cursed himself, because she would probably ask what his father did, and that could be awkward.

“My dad’s in construction. My mom’s a real estate agent.”

“Oh.”

“My room’s upstairs,” Marcia said, taking his hand. “And it’ll be a couple hours before either of them gets home.”

It occurred to Dean somewhere between second and third base that Marcia must have done this kind of thing before. She kept the lab report and Chemistry textbooks open on the floor, right where they could grab them at the first hint of intrusion. He could hear Bill tinkering with the convertible, heard him turn over the engine to test the timing after the oil change, heard Marcia’s little sister and brother come home, go down to the basement where (Marcia told him) the Nintendo set was. Marcia was, if anything, way less jumpy than he was, offering a breathless explanation for every noise in the house, until she sat up and pushed him away unceremoniously. “That’s Mom’s car. Wanna stay for supper?”

So Dean wasn’t home for dinner that night. Bill liked him, and on the strength of that, Marcia’s parents liked him. He managed to fake his way through the usual questions – Yes, his Dad moved around a lot, due to work that constantly took him on the road; No, they had lost their mother years ago; No, he hadn’t really made any decisions about college yet, probably just work for a year or two and then see. Mr. Geller didn’t seem to like that much, but Mrs. Geller reminded him genially what a year or two of honest work had done for Ray, now off on his own.

Both Gellers worked together to cook dinner. And boy, could they cook. Dean felt a pang of guilt, leaving Sam to choose between Kraft mac-and-cheese or microwave pizza, but it passed by about as quickly as the garlic mashed potatoes going around the table. For food like this, Dean thought, he would gladly go Stepford.

After dinner, Dean and Marcia—her dad called her “Marcy” and her reaction was vaguely like Sam’s to being called “Sammy”—pulled out their textbook in the living room and conferred quickly over the lab report. “Well, it’s getting kinda late,” Marcia said loudly. “Think you can find your way back?”

“Sure,” said Dean, who hardly ever got lost once he’d been someplace. Backtracking shouldn’t be a problem at all. “So, I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Okay,” Marcia said, and walked him to the door. She kissed him once on the porch and once leaning into the car window. “See ya.”

He did get turned around, but only because there was a one-way street he wasn’t expecting.

Two nights later played almost like a repeat performance. So did three nights the following week. At least he didn’t have to pick up Emma as well as Sam; Marcia’s sister had field hockey after school and came home later. Dean still hadn’t quite managed to get Marcia to go all the way, something about how her mom would notice if they messed up the sheets. Dean supposed that her still being a virgin had something to do with it, too. But the next Friday, as they drove to the middle school, Marcia said, “Did you say your dad is out of town a lot?”

“Yeah,” Dean said. “But…that’s not a good idea.”

“What isn’t?”

“My house. Sammy, for one thing.”

“You think he’d tell on you?”

Dean smirked. “Tell on me? What are we, six? No, just…we share a room. And…it’s just not going to work, going there.” He didn’t mention how run-down the rental property was, how he’d be embarrassed to bring her inside, how he’d be unable to explain the weapons and the salt and the full-sized bed he and Sam still shared, even though they were way too old for that, how he was sure she’d take one look and realize that he wasn’t the normal, if knock-around, guy she thought he was. He glanced at the empty back seat. “But…I could pick you up tomorrow night. We could go to Lookout Point.”

Marcia didn’t answer right away. Dean wondered if the car was the right place for this, if it would be too uncomfortable for her. “Or…I could get a hotel room,” he offered.

She still said nothing until they were pulling up to the curb for Sam. Just before he got in, she said, “Okay,” and Dean wasn’t sure if she meant Lookout Point, or the hotel. He decided to play it the way Magnum would and splurge on the comforts of a room.

Saturday, he let himself into his father’s room and rummaged through the duffel bags until he found a couple condoms that hadn’t expired. He packed the purloined condoms in his backpack, along with a change of clothes and his trusty tube of KY, the one he hoped Dad wasn’t sure he kept in with his gear. He tucked one of the fake credit cards into his wallet and went to pick up Marcia. They caught a movie first, and then he drove out toward the highway where the truck stops and travel inns were always to be found. The clerk looked back and forth from his fake ID to his face, but Dean was practiced at looking harmless, and older. The guy ran the credit card without looking at the name at all.

“Have you done this before?” Marcia asked as he let them into the room.

“No,” Dean lied, telling her what she wanted to hear. “It'll be fine.”

The next day, he used the ID to buy more KY and a box of condoms, and slipped two fresh ones into Dad’s bag.

Three weeks after that night, the Winchesters pulled up stakes and left. At least Dad gave them a little notice, so he could break it to Marcia. He took her up to Lookout Point and they fooled around in the Impala (apparently twentieth-time sex was okay in the car, just not first-time), and then he told her that they were moving away. She blinked at him. “When?”

“Tomorrow. Right after school.”

“Wow. Your Dad doesn’t give you a lot of notice, does he?”

Dean laughed. “Actually, this is a pretty big window, for us.”

Marcia cocked her head at him, still buttoning her blouse back up. “You never did say what he does.”

Dean said nothing.

“Fine. Whatever. Take me home.”

“Hey, look—”

“Take me home, Dean.” He drove, silent, and when they arrived she just got out of the car, no goodbye, no kiss. She cut him dead all day in school, too, as the minutes ticked by and Dean began to long for the open road, following Dad’s truck and just concentrating on the drive. Sam would be back up in the shotgun seat, where he belonged. Just looking at Marcia made his chest feel tight, and that scared Dean. He hated this hicksville, was just as glad to see it recede in the mirror, never come back. But then he thought of dinners at the Geller house, and Marcia’s lips on his, their bodies moving together, and he couldn’t decide what he wanted more. That’s when he realized his mistake, when he knew that Dad was wrong to keep them in one place so long. Forming attachments just made it that much harder to leave.

How could you be so stupid? he asked himself as he cleaned out his locker for the last time. He hadn’t gone and made a friend—not close like this—since probably first or second grade. If it had felt like ripping out his heart to leave dumbass Tommy Forrester and his Star Wars action figures, then why in God’s name had he allowed himself to care about Marcia? “Never again,” he promised himself. “No more going steady. Ever.”

He left a neat stack of county textbooks in the bottom of his locker, slammed the door, and twisted the combination to keep it closed. By the time he finished, the halls were empty, and his sneakers squeaked on the linoleum floors as he walked toward the double-doors and out of yet another chapter in his education.

“Dean! Wait a sec!”

He looked up to see Marcia Geller loping toward him across the parking lot. He put the Impala in park and waited for her to climb in.

“I can’t take you home,” he started to explain.

“I know. You have to go meet your dad and then you’re getting out of here. But look.” She handed him a slip of blue notebook paper. “This is my address and phone number. Stay in touch? Tell me how you’re doing, and where you are?”

“Okay.” Dean tucked the page in his pocket. She leaned over and kissed him, then got out and turned to put her head back through the open window.

“Don’t forget me, okay?” she asked sincerely.

“Nope,” Dean promised, smiling, and pulled away to pick up Sam and hit the road.

He never forgot her—he kept that promise, at least. But when they stopped a few hours later for supper, he balled up the notebook page and tossed it in the men’s room trashcan.


4. 2007

Dean had learned over the years that some promises meant more than others. Some requests carried with them more weight. “You boys be good now,” as so-often heard when they were leaving after a job, was not one of those instructions. “Don’t be a stranger” was another request destined hardly ever to be fulfilled. Promises to outsiders, even people they saved, didn’t really count. They were just words, something said to pass for normal. But promises to each other—to Sam, to his father—they meant something. Dad’s orders—they were generally imperatives.

So when Dad had leaned over his hospital bed, a tear glistening on his stubbly cheek, and whispered into Dean’s ear, Dean prepared himself to carry out his father’s task. Until he heard what it was Dad expected him to do.

Dean had rarely, if ever, argued with his father, and when he did, it was nearly always respectfully, not hostile and accusing like Sam had been before Stanford, but calmly: Just wanting to clarify, Dad, not questioning your judgment. Just want to get on the same page. Have a right to an opinion, doesn’t mean I’m going to hesitate when the job needs doing. Just looking for an explanation.

This? This was one of those times when Dean would have looked for an opportunity to sit down with Dad, maybe over a bottle of Beam, and politely but firmly ask his father just what the HOLY FUCK he thought he was doing.

But that was the other thing about this instruction, this order: It had such a…finality to it. Not ten minutes later, Dad was gone. As if he’d known…. As if he’d left them willingly. Left Dean with a legacy he had no desire to inherit. Left Dean with a dying request that Dean didn’t know how to honor. Didn’t know how he’d live with himself if he did; didn’t know how he’d survive if he didn’t.

Hell, maybe he’d get lucky and he and Sam would both die right after they smoked the demon.

Piss-poor commentary on a man’s life, he thought, when he’s not even 30 and his goal in life is simply not to have to outlive his own brother. Let alone kill him in cold blood.

“Before…before he…. Did he say anything to you?” Sam asked, voice thick with tears and smoke and Dad’s ashes. “About anything?”

Dean was nine again, and Sam five, and asking all the questions Dean wouldn’t and couldn’t and didn’t know how to answer. You don’t want to know, Sammy, he kept saying, after every up-turned inflection, every hanging ellipse, every plea for information. You don’t want to know. He never said the other half of that response: And I don’t want to tell you.

“No,” he choked out. “Nothin’.” Maybe Sam knew he was lying. He didn’t care. What Dad said was just for him, anyway. Their secret. Fuck.

But Dean was too good a son—too disciplined a warrior—not to subconsciously follow his father’s orders. He began watching out for Sam. Not just watching over him, as he had always done, but watching Sam, watching for signs or portents, watching to see if there were any changes in his little brother that might signal his decline into evil. For a long time, there was nothing. Dean didn’t know whether to be relieved or angry. He decided he could afford to be a little of both. And wasn’t that just a kick in the pants? Relieved that his own father was wrong, even if it was about Sam? Angry at the old man for laying this on him—worse, for making some sort of trade, to force Dean into the role, instead of reserving it for himself. When they discovered that the Colt was missing, that’s when Dean knew. His father had gone and offered the gun and his soul, and brought his son back only to screw him to the wall. Thanks, Dad. Way to treat your first-born. For the first time, he could understand why so many of Dad’s friendships and contacts came to an abrupt halt at the business end of a shotgun barrel. Whatever else he had been, John Winchester was one selfish, rotten son-of-a-bitch. And he’d made Dean into his own Manchurian Candidate.

Sam was going to be fine, Dean told himself. They were better than some demonic trick. Together they were strong, together they’d beat the thing before it turned Sam into Darth Vader. And still Dean watched, and waited, and feared, and let Sam think it was just Dad’s death – and the deal that went with it—that bothered him.

Then Sam got that damn vision and they found themselves in Rivergrove amidst a freak epidemic that turned everyone it touched into an extra from “28 Days Later.” Dean should have known better. They should have quarantined everyone separately, or better yet, just got the Hell out of Dodge before anyone got the bright idea to slice and dice either of them. It would have to be Sammy.

It was a clear case of infection. The bitch had bled for a good five seconds before Dean got there, more than enough time to introduce the virus into Sam. Dean killed something that used to be human for the third time in two days and didn’t feel at all guilty for it. And Sam…God, Sam was ready. Willing to die rather than spread it further. But somehow, Dean was sure this wasn’t what Dad had meant about Sam becoming like the things they hunted. Whether Dad had got his information from tea leaves, tarot, or friggin’ goat entrails, Sam’s fate was wrapped up with the Demon’s, not with this shit.

So he had waited. Sent everyone else away. And if Sam turned darkside, he told himself, he’d shoot him then. Only then.

Somehow, he wasn’t surprised when Sam had proven immune. Not happy that they never got an adequate answer to what had happened in that place, but pleased to put it in their mirror. He wasn’t surprised that Sam wheedled the truth out of him, or even, really, that Sam had taken off shortly thereafter for some “alone time.” He wasn’t thrilled about their second encounter with Gordon, but he had to admit that Sam set a pretty good trap for the bastard. He’d thought then that Sam had got things out of his system. Mostly. Apart from being hopelessly emo about the whole “destiny” crap, Sam seemed perfectly normal. Dean couldn’t detect anything remotely demonic about his brother, and once more, he believed that maybe Dad had been wrong and Sam’s very own Clark Kent nature would keep him from becoming a monster. And honestly, Sam angsting over anything – destiny, Sarah Blake, or even laundry – wasn’t really that surprising, in and of itself.

When Sam disappeared some weeks later, however? That had been surprising. And not a little bit unsettling.

Since Sam had run off to the Roadhouse the last time, Dean called Ellen right off the bat. But she hadn’t heard from him, had no idea where to find him. Dean considered backtracking their winding path from Sulphur Springs to Little Rock, then north through the Show-Me state to Kirksville, and finally to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. But instead of doubling back to the south, Dean ultimately decided that staying put was probably the best option. A year ago, he could have filed a missing persons report, but thanks to the Feds, that option was not available. Last thing he needed to do was waltz into a police district building. He did go so far as to check their website to see how difficult it would be to fake up a report. But even that was too dangerous. Sam’s description, even with a different name, would still bring the wrong kind of attention.

One nice thing about most towns west of the Mississippi was that they were laid out in nice, neat grids. Even Cedar Rapids was mostly square, except where the river messed with the city’s symmetry. Dean covered every last mile in and out of the city limits over the next two days.

Sam still hadn’t called by the third day. Dean had heard Sam’s voice in the voicemail so often he could have mimicked it if he’d had to. He called Ellen again…and in the middle of the phone call: Sam.

“Sam? Where are you?” he asked, listening to the voice on the other end of the line. Sam was speaking slowly, but it was clear to Dean that he was nearly frantic. “Okay, okay, listen: Just stay where you are, okay? I’m coming to get you.”

Twin Lakes was a grey as his mood. He couldn’t stop thinking during the drive that he should never have allowed himself to relax. Sam was a powder-keg. Sam was a time bomb. Dad had been right. And if so, that meant…he had to do it.

Still, there were other things that could cause blackouts, time loss. He kept trying to think of an alternative explanation, one that would once again prove Sam innocent. Brain in overdrive, he listed all the ways in which Sam’s situation could be Not That Bad, Really.

He got to the hotel room and saw Sam covered in dried blood. Still, Dean refused to admit Dad’s prediction might be coming true. They traced Sam’s steps—and crap, if there wasn’t something freaky going on here, because hello? His Sammy smoking? Menthols, for chrissakes?—and found the hunter, found the security tape, saw Sam’s face as he slit Steve Wandell’s throat. And Dean’s brain went into hyperdrive.

Because he knew, he knew without a doubt, now that he was faced with it, that there were some orders he couldn’t follow. Some promises he would not keep, even if it was a promise to Dad. Even if it was Dad’s orders. He was no saint, but he was no Cain, either. He simply would not kill his own brother.

Not even if it meant the end of the world.


5. 2008

“We can’t.”

“Why the hell not, Sam?”

“Because we need her.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Dean said. He threw down the rag he’d been using to clean one of the shotguns and paced the motel room just to have somewhere to go with his exasperation. “Sam, there’s not a single thing she’s done that has been useful.”

“No? How about when she fixed the Colt? How about when she saved your life in Massachusetts, Dean?”

“Sam, will you listen to me? She’s changing you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean back in Monument? You woulda never thought about killing that girl on your own.”

Sam swallowed. He looked over at the mirror in the open section outside the bathroom, where the sink and the Kleenex were.

“Sam?” Dean prompted. “You would never have killed that girl. Not without Ruby egging you on. Besides, she's lying to you. She—” he broke off. Anger had loosened his tongue more than he wanted.

“She what, Dean?”

“Nothin’. Goin’ to get a beer.” He shrugged into his jacket and was out the motel door ten seconds later.

The bar had a pool table, which was a plus, and a lack of chicks, which was a serious minus. Though honestly, he hadn’t felt like hooking up too much recently. Maybe too much of it right after the Devil’s Gate had opened or something. Not that that had ever mattered before.

“Feeling down?” Ruby said next to him.

Dean congratulated himself on not jumping. She was sitting on the next stool—a stool that had been empty when Dean sat down. She was so close he could practically feel her thigh along his.

“Don’t sneak up on me,” he said, with as much menace as he could.

“Who’s sneaking? You’re just distracted.” She smirked. “Aw. Wassamatter, Deano? Are you possibly depressed because you realize you’ve done a shitty job turning Sam into the warrior you know he needs to be?”

“Piss off, bitch.”

Ruby bristled. “I told you to stop calling me that.”

“And I told you to piss off!” Dean shouted. The conversation in the bar stopped and all eyes turned to them. “Get the hell outta here, you skank,” Dean continued over the attention.

“Problem?” the bartender asked.

“No. No problem,” Dean replied, eyes still on Ruby, who had risen from her stool at the counter.

“You have no idea what’s going on, do you?” Ruby said slyly. “You better listen, Dean: Lilith is out there, and she is not going to wait for you and Sam to come up with a brilliant plan. Oh, and let’s not forget: your year? It’s almost up. How long do you think Sam’s going to last without you?”

“You know what? You want to help, help. But I’m sick of playing your games.” Dean dropped a ten onto the bar and stalked into the parking lot.

Predictably, Ruby followed a moment later. “I’m not kidding around and I’m not playing games,” she called out.

“Yeah, right,” Dean shot back. He led her through the lot toward the motel room. There weren’t even any cars on the road, let alone any witnesses to their argument. The tavern had no window except a small square in the door; the motel entrance was around the other side of the building. Only a handful of cars dotted the motel lot, and the lights were out in all but two rooms. “Let’s kill a virgin! Let’s use the Colt at any opportunity! You want Sam to be a killing machine, but why? So he can survive? What good’s that do him if he becomes one of you?”

“You forget, you’re going to become one of us, too, Dean.” Ruby came up close to him, made a motion as if to touch his face. He flinched away and she aborted the gesture. “Sam’s different. He can harness his powers again, if he’d only try.”

Dean moved in close. “You can’t save me, you admitted that.”

“That’s right,” Ruby said.

“So why do you want Sam to win, Ruby? What’s in it for you?”

Ruby blinked up at him doe-eyed. “Maybe I just think he’s the least problematic of winners.”

“Oh, I believe that. You know what else I believe?”

“What?”

“You’re not going to be around to find out.” Dean pulled back…and drew her knife out of its sheath as he took his distance. In a flash of metal, he brought the knife across and up. The blade caught just above her breast and slashed diagonally through her neck.

Ruby gasped; then the air escaped through the wide maw where her host’s throat had been. The human’s skin flickered red and orange and then the body collapsed in the parking lot.

“Sorry, Sammy,” Dean said into the empty parking lot. “We’ll figure something else out.”

Sam was waiting in the motel room, and although Dean was officially dead—they both were—that didn’t mean the cops here wouldn’t take an interest in a new murder case. But oddly, the parking lot suddenly seemed cheerful, holding the promise of the open road and an end to their war. Though it was only a short walk back to the room, he quickened his pace.




Additional notes: In the episode (Something Wicked), Dean is playing AndoDunos. However, AndroDunos didn’t come out until 1992, three/four years after the incident is supposed to have taken place. (What’s more, it’s highly unlikely that a crappy motel in small-town Wisconsin would have even purchased a brand-new video game even when it did come out, making this continuity error as much as seven years out of date.) For the purposes of this story (and restoring the time continuum), I’ve decided that Dean’s flashback error is due to his own faulty memory, and really he was playing an arcade game that was available in 1988.