fic: Shades of Winter
Title: Shades of Winter
Author: lies_unfurl
Characters/pairings: Dean, Sam, John; gen (with background Dean/OFC)
Rating/warnings: PG-13/mentions of underage alcohol consumption, language
Word-count: 5500
Summary: John goes off on a hunt without leaving word of when he'll be back. Dean does his best to keep things together.
Notes: Written for hoodie_time's Dean-focuses h/c fic and art challenge, for this prompt by biketest. Title is adapted from the song A Hazy Shade of Winter. Fairly sure this fills my prompt for Vulnerability on my angst_bingo card, because there's Dean being vulnerable. And stuff.
January 23, 1995
Hunting in Newport, the note reads in Dad's hastily-scrawled handwriting. That's it. No gone after a werewolf/ghost/black dog. No back in three/five/ten days/weeks. Nothing to indicate where he's staying, or that he'll actually check in. Just a reminder that he's gone, as if Dean wouldn't notice.
"Where's Dad?" Sam asks when he gets home from school. He dumps his backpack on the ragged carpet and looks around the cramped motel room, like their father might be hiding behind a lamp or something.
"Hunting. Where else?" Dean shrugs, tries to look casual. He does his best to not hint that we've only got forty dollars left or I don't know what we have to be prepared for, Sam.
"When's he getting back?" Sam asks, bouncing onto one of the beds. He's small for twelve, and Dean thinks that he really needs more to eat than he's been getting-that, or he needs better food to eat. Food that Dean doesn't grab off of the reduced rack at the nearest grocery store. Something without little white spots to be carefully scraped off before it's served.
"He gets back when he gets back," he answers tersely. "Don't worry about it, Sam."
Sam raises an eyebrow, and Dean knows that he probably shouldn't have taken on that tone, because losing his cool, more than anything, is just a clear code for, "I don't know and I'm worried." So he tries to soften it with, "He was planning to leave yesterday. He's just gonna gank it and then come home, okay?"
His brother looks skeptical, and Dean is more or less certain that he hasn't actually fooled him all the way. Or part of the way, for that matter. "Pretty sure Dad spent all last night chewing you out, Dean."
"Yeah, well, he was planning this before that," he snaps back. "Okay, Sam? Anything else you wanna ask about?"
Sam shrinks back, looking wounded. Then, seconds later, he's throwing up his hands in a gesture that would probably be hilariously overdramatic, if it wasn't for the way that Dean's heart is pounding and his palms are getting all sticky. "No. If that's all you're gonna tell me then I guess there's no point in trying to get more from you."
"Good," he growls. "Go do your homework, Sam."
He doesn't do anything to make his younger brother think that he's mildly freaking out at the moment, that he doesn't know if he can keep up images long enough for Dad to get back. He doesn't say, this is my fault.
*
Dean isn't an idiot.
No, he knows what this is. He knows that Dad is punishing him, because he's sixteen years old, and he can be, well, really goddamn stupid sometimes.
And Dean knows that he fucked up. He really, really does. He knows that when Janie Miller came up to where he way sitting at lunch and bent over, and asked him if he'd like to hang out after school that he should have just told her no, I have to get home and watch my younger brother. He knows that he shouldn't have been so distracted by the way that her long red braid brushed against his shoulder; knows that he should've just ignored the suggestions in her voice when she spoke.
But fuck it, Dean's a sixteen years old boy with a sex drive that generally pushes him to want more than a few cold showers when he can get away with them. Sometimes, he's stupid.
When he'd caught up with Sam as the middle school was getting out and told him to go straight home to Dad, tell him that he'd be home in time for supper, and that he was sorry, but he had to study for a test, Sam had just raised his eyebrows. "Must be some girl."
"Shut up." Dean had punched him lightly in the arm. "Think you can do that?"
Sam just grinned at him and winked. "You can count on me."
And Dean had counted on him, and it wasn't like Sam had let him down. He's one hell of a wingman, even at twelve. No, it was Dean's own goddamn stupidity that had done him in, he knows that. He knows that the moment he opened up the Sam Adams Janie had with her, he was doing something that he shouldn't, and even if getting drunk under the bleachers with the hottest girl in school is practically a rite to manhood? That shouldn't matter. Dean knows that when he's defining himself, he's got to put Winchester before everything else, even teenage boy.
So yeah, he'll accept responsibility and admit that maybe he had stumbled in a few hours after supper. Maybe he had been drunk, and probably smeared with cherry-red lipstick; maybe the smell of some sort of fruity perfume had been clinging to him along with the unmistakable cloud of booze.
Fuck it, Dean thinks, reading Dad's note for the millionth time. Fuck, he'd probably just leave himself too, if he could.
*
"You're not going to school?" Sam asks the next morning, when Dean is standing by the door with his backpack left abandoned in the corner, books and papers partially spilling out from it. "Dad would be pissed if he knew you were skipping."
"I'm not skipping. I'm waiting to see if he'll call."
Sam frowns and shakes his head, an air of childlike indignation about him-which probably makes sense, considering that he's only twelve. "Dad never calls when we're in school."
Dad never leaves without telling me where he's going, Dean thinks. "Well, today might be different."
"You just want to cut." Sam frowns and sweeps past him, opening up the door and letting in a rush of frigid New England air. "Are you going to go tomorrow or are you just gonna skip out all week?"
"Jesus, Sammy. I don't plan that far ahead." Dean slams shut the door to the cheap motel. They have rent paid for three more days in advance, he remembers. If Dad is back before then, great. If he isn't, they're probably screwed.
Sam's middle school is only a five-minute walk from the downtown area where they're staying. It passes mostly in a moody silence today, with Sam glaring righteously at nothing, and Dean shuffling along besides him, thinking about the future and wondering if there's anything productive he can get done today, while he stays at the motel, waiting for a call that he doesn't think is coming.
It's nothing special, the area they're staying in-the same sort of Main Street, USA that Dean seems to find himself on no matter where he goes. On the way to the school, he and Sam pass a barber shop or two, some small convenience stores that sell the crappy food that'll probably end up being their dinner, and a couple of other irrelevant shops that sell cheap junk to any tourist stupid enough to think that this is someplace special.
The one interesting thing that he and Sam pass is a bakery, a small building with wide glass windows out front and a faded sign with an unpronounceable Italian name. The smell of fresh-baked bread warms the air, and Dean can feel his mouth watering. Even Sam, as pissy as he is this morning, drops his determined anger long enough to stare longingly inside as they pass it, to where sticks of bread with warm golden crusts share shelves with elaborately-frosted pastries.
Dean sighs. The abject longing on Sam's face hurts, and he's pretty damn hungry this morning too, but they really don't have dollars to spare. "When Dad gets back I'll see if he's got some extra cash one of these mornings, okay, Sam?"
"All right," his brother replies, tearing his eyes away from the tantalizing display. It's as close to an apology as either of them will get these days.
Sam starts moving quicker down the slushy sidewalk, like he just realized how he'd slowed to look at the food. Dean matches his pace, and they walk the rest of the way to school in silence.
*
Less than ten minutes later Dean is going by the bakery again. The smell of bread has gotten worse since last time, and it hangs thick in the air, mocking him with the homey, delicious scent of loaves that will go stale within a day or two of purchase, something that he probably can't afford. Dean refuses to look in as he walks past.
To distract himself from the smell, he focuses on the puffs of air that his breath makes in the cold of January. They bloom up like car exhaust, and okay, that's a totally stupid thought, but damn it, Dean doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know what to think about or focus on any more than he knows when Dad is coming back.
Dean opens the door to the motel room with numb fingers. He doesn't bother to take off his jacket while he resets the salt lines and, for no reason at all, checks the room for hex bags. He makes sure that there's no trace of sulfur anywhere, and it's only after he gradually starts to warm up that he lets himself think that the cold seeping into every inch of the tiny suite is a natural one, not some ghost-caused effect.
Eventually, he has to admit to himself that there's nothing of the supernatural sort here. He needs to just relax and hope that Dad calls soon, tells him where he is and what's going on.
He ends up polishing the guns and sharpening the knives that were left behind. Dad doesn't call, and Dean isn't really disappointed, because in the back of his mind he hadn't expected him to, anyway.
*
For supper that night Dean uses up the last four pieces of bread; he had to scrape mold off of one of the slices to make Sam's toast, so he figures that he'd better just finish it all tonight. He sticks some cheap cheese ends that he bought before between them and fries them up, making a dry but passable version of grilled cheese. He finds, miracle of miracles, a single can of tomato soup, and splits it between the two of them. All in all, it's not their worst low-budget dinner ever.
Halfway through it, though, Sam starts to talk, and sometimes that's not really a good thing. "Dad call?"
"Nope." Dean uses the corner of his grilled cheese to absorb the last of his salty red soup. He doesn't look at Sam.
"You think he will?"
"If he's not too busy."
"Are you going to school tomorrow?"
Dean almost snaps at him, almost says What's the fucking point of school? How's school gonna put food on the table? How's school gonna bring Dad home? But at the last moment, he realizes that if he spends another day like he did this one-staying inside and prepping all of their weapons until they're frigging flawless two times over-then he's probably going to go crazy, and that really isn't something that would help. He knows that he's in a sad place when school would offer up a distraction but, well. He'll take what he can get. "Yeah, probably."
Sam grins, and Dean rolls his eyes; God only knows why it is that Sam cares more than he does about seeing to it that he graduates high school. "Awesome!"
And then Dean grudgingly smiles at Sam's bizarre enthusiasm, and that night is actually pretty good.
*
The morning comes cold and rainy. Dean and Sam both are sour and cranky, their snaps at each other practically drowned out by the pounding droplets against the motel roof. The walk to school is hellish, the rain turning the piles of snow leftover from last week's storm into a completely mushy, soggy compound that runs down the sidewalks and soaks through the cheap shoes that they both wear.
The one redeeming feature is when they pass the bakery. Yellow light shines from inside, and they both longingly glance in at it, as if reflexively.
From behind the counter, a woman with grey hair catches Dean's eyes. She smiles at him from above the ball of dough that her hands are busily kneading on the counter; he ducks his head and looks away, muttering a low, "Come on, Sammy. We're gonna be late."
The smell of bread follows him as he drops off Sam, and he thinks that he can still catch a whiff here and there as he trudges on to the high school.
*
Dean skips lunch that day, pretty sure that even the scent of the cheap canned-glop that passes as food in the cafeteria is going to be enough to set his stomach off growling like a heart-crazed werewolf. He's decided not to eat today, since their rent runs out tomorrow, and he already doesn't have enough to cover it all. Mr. Alton, who owns the dig they're staying at, is a decent guy with a wife and three kids; he can probably be persuaded to let them off with only half. But even he's got his limits, and Dean doesn't know where he's going to end up if Dad doesn't get back soon.
Janie Miller finds him in the library, where he's pretending to care about chemistry. "Hey, you," she says teasingly, draping her arms all over the chair. "I missed you yesterday."
And despite everything, she still manages to bring a smile to his face. "Wish I could've been here. Family emergency, and all that."
"Aww. Sorry to hear that." She reaches out one of those long-fingered hands with the bright blue nails and runs it along his brow line. "You wanna forget all about it with me? After school, same place, same time?"
Yeah, he definitely does, because Janie's a sweet girl with a knack for painting, a passion for cheering, and a mouth that kisses really, really well. He could use her sort of distraction tonight.
But, well, the whole reason that Dad is gone is to teach him a lesson about being stupid and sneaking off with girls, right? And doesn't he need to worry about money, and whether or not they've got enough to eat, and all of that? Worrying is the only way he's going to be able to find a solution, after all. Or at the very least, he's more likely to find one doing that than he is by making out under the bleachers in the pouring rain.
"Sorry." He shakes his head. "Got to watch my little brother."
"You sure?" She straightens up, tugging out the sweater that she's wearing. "He's almost a teenager, right? I'm sure he'll be fine on his own…"
"I wish. The kid'll probably set himself on fire if I leave him alone for two seconds." Dean shakes his head and sends a silent apology to Sam. "Sorry, Janie. Really."
"I get it. Don't worry." She starts to walk out, and as she leaves, calls, "If you're ever free, you know where to find me!"
"Course I do," he replies, and despite himself, he's grinning. Because maybe he is worried as hell about rent and food and where the fuck his father is, but when you get down to it all, Dean is still kind of a teenage boy.
*
The bakery has a sign up that afternoon, advertising a special on cannoli. Dean's stomach rumbles embarrassingly when they pass it.
It's a detail that doesn't escape Sam's notice. He glances at Dean, and then at the window, slowing despite his obvious eagerness to get out of the rain that's pounding down onto the gray streets. "Leave the gun, take the cannoli? C'mon Dean, Dad doesn't have to know."
Dean snorts, both at the Godfather reference, and at the idea that it's their father finding out how he's spending the money that's behind Dean barely feeding them. "Sam, we got rent that needs to be paid tomorrow. We can't go out and waste it on cannoli."
"Oh." Sam deflates slightly, and Dean mentally berates himself. His brother is old enough to understand the realities of the low-wage life they live, but he still feels guilty for exposing him so blatantly.
He tries to soften the blow by saying, "Look, maybe we can check it out when Dad gets back, okay? He's probably done some hustling while he's out in Newport. I'm sure he'll bring back extra cash."
"Yeah, maybe." Sam doesn't sound like he believes Dean's lie, and spends a moment longer staring at the shelves of pastries and bread that run through the bakery, lit under a warm golden light and being doled out by an older woman with steel-gray hair, the same one from the morning. It's only when Dean claps a hand down onto his shoulder that he gets moving again, tearing his eyes away with some effort.
Dean knows that it's his fault that his father is gone, that John would be in close contact with them if he had actually bothered to just not be an ass that one time and come home instead of making out with a girl behind some uncomfortably damp bleachers. But that knowledge doesn't stop him from cursing John almost as much as he curses himself as he and Sam walk home in the cold rain, drenched and hungry when they get back to a motel room with an almost-empty fridge and a rent that's coming up quick.
*
Dean wakes up that night with his heart pounding and his head rushing. The room falls around him, a dizzying twist of dark striped wallpaper and stained brown carpet. His palms convulse around the sheet he's clenching as he sits up and tries to regain his bearings.
We're not going to make it is the thought that's running through his head at the moment, probably a completely absurd notion because he doesn't know what he's talking about or why they wouldn't make it, but his breath is going in and out, and his the beat in his chest is rapid enough so that he'd be calling up the hospital if he were an old man with high cholesterol, insurance or no insurance.
Not that it's insurance that he's worried about right now, 'cause he's not hurt and Sam's not hurt, thank God, but it's the goddamn-fucking rent. He doesn't know if he's going to be able to pay, and if he can't then he doesn't know where they can go, since Dad left no way for them to contact him, and he can't just mosey on down to Bobby's or Caleb's or Jim's. Not without telling Dad where they'll be.
Dean remembers feeling like this only once before, a number of years ago. He'd been on his way out of middle school, two weeks after the first time he'd shot something that looked like a person, and it had just happened in the middle of social studies: this dizziness and heartbeat made everything around him seem unreal, like it was only the sudden, stupid fear inside of him that existed.
The school nurse had called it a panic attack. John had clapped him on the shoulder and, in a moment of uncharacteristic gentleness, told him that they happened to the best of them.
But Dean had passed that off as a onetime thing, since he hadn't had once since. Now it's back in full force, and there's no one around to ask him if he's okay and give him something else to focus on besides the lightness in his head and the fucking trembling that his whole goddamn body is doing. There's no hand on his shoulder and no voice telling him just to breathe, that it'll be okay-
Dean forces his shaking fingers into a fist and bites down hard onto his knuckles. He orders himself to focus on the sudden pain that arises, to inhale/exhale, inhale/exhale, until he doesn't feel like he's going to either collapse or throw up. He doesn't know how long it takes, but it feels like it might have been hours.
When it's all over with, the exhaustion overwhelms him, and he falls into a deep, gray sleep, and when he wakes up from it, his limbs are heavy and he feels like there's a giant, soaking wet blanket weighing down his chest. The rent is due, and Dad hasn't called.
*
Dean doesn't bother to go to school. He tells Sam that he isn't feeling well, and apparently he looks like crap enough for the lie-if it is a lie; he doesn't even know anymore-to take. After Sam is safe at school, and Dean has walked twice past a bakery that he refuses to look into, even though the way that it smells like a dream is entirely impossible to escape, he goes straight to the motel to count up his money. Before he goes through the short stack of bills, he sends up a quick prayer to God or the Universe, or whoever else happens to be listening, asking them to please have thrown a Benjamin down into the mix of fives and tens.
$70. His heart sinks, and he resists the urge to just start packing his bags and getting out now. Another week's going to set them back $150 at the very least; this might get them another day, but there won't be any money left for food, and the cabinets are empty. They're screwed, and royally so.
Dean goes to see Mr. Alton before he comes banging at their door. He figures that it's in his best interest to make himself look like a diligent, upstanding young fellow, not some pothead druggie who can't tell Monday from Friday.
"My dad is only going to be another day," he tells the older man with a burgeoning beer belly and more than a hint of stubble spread out over his chin. "Please. He's just finishing up a sale in Newport; he said he's gonna be back tomorrow at the latest." He pushes over two twenties and a ten. "Just let us stay the night? We should be out of your hair by tomorrow."
Mr. Alton hesitates. Despite his appearances, which bring to mind the lowest of the lowlifes at a truck stop, Dean knows that he's a decent guy with a wife and a couple of kids. He prays that that'll work to his advantage when it comes to tugging heartstrings. "Kid, what's your dad doing, going off and leaving you and your kid brother on your own? He doesn't realize that that's a crime?"
"He only meant to be out for a couple of days. Sometimes you can't control things like this, you know?"
No, Mr. Alton doesn't look like he knows. In fact, the expression he's wearing right now is more along the lines of, "I'm calling CPS as soon as you're out of this office," and so Dean pulls the last string that he has, sliding another ten across the table. "Please, man. We're not going to cause you any trouble. Our dad's a good guy; he just got caught up in making this one sale, one that's going to bring in a lot of cash when he makes it. He'll pay you as soon as he comes back."
The hotel manager hesitates, but in the end he's just a lower-middle class guy trying to make a living, and he pockets the cash with a firm, "You make sure your dad's back by tomorrow night, okay?"
"Can do." Dean stands, as dizzy with a rush of temporary relief as he was with panic yesterday. This won't last long, seeing as Dean is almost sure that Dad's not going to show up by tomorrow, just as the Universe's way of spiting him, but it's something. They're not going to spend the evening out in the rain.
*
"What are we having for supper tonight?" Sam finally asks at around seven. Dean's heart sinks, even though he knew that Sam had to ask at some point. Because the fact of the matter is, they've got exactly ten dollars left, and maybe one more night with a roof over their heads and without CPS on their asses. Money for food isn't really part of the picture, although at the same time, it's unfortunately not exactly an option.
"I dunno. Um." He thinks quickly, trying to remember what else is around here, besides that inappropriately-good smelling bakery. "There's a McDonald's down the street, right? Why don't I just run out and grab something."
Sam raises an eyebrow, but he must have gotten the gist of not-so-great their situation is, because he doesn't comment on that. Dad doesn't usually just take them to chain places; he prefers the mom-and-pop corner diners of America. Better quality, according to him; just because he and Sam are growing up on the streets doesn't mean that they shouldn't get home-cooked meals. He just doesn't have much care for who cooks them. "I call dibs on the fries that fall into the bag."
"Bitch." Dean shrugs on his leather coat. "You good here?" He hates leaving Sam alone, but he also knows that his almost-teenage brother isn't going to quietly go outside into the pouring rain.
"I'll be fine." Sam waves his hand. "Don't worry about me; just go and get the food."
So Dean does. The McDonald's smells like a Heaven made of French fries and burgers from suspicious, probably-not-real-beef sources. He ends up spending just over half of their leftover cash on food, but it means that they're going to go to bed with something warm in their stomachs, and that's good. That's important.
He's halfway back to the motel, soaking wet and clutching a paper bag with grease stains that blend in with the marks made by the rain, when he hears the voice. "Excuse me? Young man?"
Dean slows and tenses. His free hand curls up automatically, and his legs stiffen, prepared to run. He isn't entirely sure where the speaker is. "Yeah?"
"I'm sorry for bothering you." An older woman steps out into the rain from beneath the awning of a shop-no, not a shop, he realizes. The bakery. He'd been so intent on getting out of the rain that he hadn't stopped to fantasize about being able to afford quality food. "It's just, I'm shutting down for the evening, and I have several loaves of bread left over. We can't sell day-old bread, and I was wondering if you would like to take them off of our hands?"
Dean stares at her. She's short, stout, with gray hair that curls all around her head. The same woman who made eye contact with him that one morning; who doesn’t actually know him, and who has no reason to offer him anything. "Why?"
She looks a bit taken aback, and Dean realizes that he probably did sound kind of hostile with that. "I just hate to see them go to waste. And I see you walk by here every morning, and well…" she smiles at him, and the sheer gentleness of it strikes him more than he'd care to admit. "I just thought you might like them."
He has about five seconds to decide whether he'd rather be a charity case or an asshole. And because there're five dollars in his pocket and his Dad probably won't be home tonight, he decides that for now, he'd rather be a charity case. "Thanks. Um, I'd like them. A lot; thanks." God willing, she's not some sort of witch.
"Come on it." She beckons him inside the bakery, and he follows. It smells even better in here than it did in the McDonald's, even though it's probably been hours since they baked the last loaf of the day. His mouth waters as he forces himself to not stare at the rows of cake slices, biscotti, and countless other baked goods with names he can't recall.
The gray-haired woman steps behind the counter and effortlessly slides two golden sticks of bread out from crumb-filled shelves. "Terrible weather we've been having. I can't imagine what it must be like having to walk in this."
Dean tries not to bristle at the words: he's willing to take charity, but pity is something else entirely. "It's not so bad once you're used to it."
"Oh, I imagine so." She nods vigorously, putting the bread into bags and then putting said bags on the countertop. Dean is about to take them and get out of here, to somewhere where he can regain his dignity and isn't depending on two sticks of unsold bread to last him until his father returns, when the woman says, "Wait a minute, dear. We have some unsold sweets left over; wouldn't you do me a favor and take those too?"
And there's no way that Dean can possibly refuse that, is there? Because he can't possibly make it believable that cookies would just be a burden, and anyway, if Sam knew that he had refused free dessert, he would probably refuse to speak to him for a week. So Dean pastes on his best smile, and hopes that his face isn't too red as he says, "Thanks. That'd be amazing."
In the end, he walks from the bakery with two sticks of bread and a white paper bag loaded full of Italian-style cookies, in addition to the bag of cooling food from McDonald's. The woman waves him on and gives him firm instructions to come back tomorrow. Dean doesn't know her name, and he doesn't ask.
*
"Holy crap," Sam says, his eyes wide as Dean dumps the food out onto the table. "Did you rob the bakery, Dean?"
"Course not." He smirks as he tosses out the burgers and fries. "Lady there was so charmed by my good looks that she gave them to me for free."
Sam's forehead knits together in a frown-he's smart enough to know that Dean is lying, of course, but Dean doubts he can get what the truth is. Which is a good thing, because Dean Winchester does not admit to his little brother that old ladies take pity on him. "Can we have some tonight?"
"Yeah. Not a lot, but you can have a piece." He tears one off of the end of the stick for himself and bites into it, not yet bothering with his burger or fries. The bread has a crisp crust and a soft, chewy inside, and he closes his eyes as he savors the doughy taste. Rent is still a problem, but at least they've got something to tide them over for food. Bread and cookies might not make the healthiest meal in the world, but goddamn it, it's food in their stomachs, and that's always better than starving.
*
John's gruff voice pulls Dean out of a dream of vague and undefined anxieties. "You wasting my money on bakeries now?"
Dean sits up straight, his heart pounding as he quickly leaves the disorienting land of sleep. "Dad. Um. No. No, sir." He shakes his head and rubs at his eyes. "Got it for free. Where were you?"
"I left you a note, Dean. Newport, after a nest of harpies." John looks at him a moment longer and then asks, "You keep things up while I was gone?"
"Course I did. Rent needs to be paid tomorrow, though, or we're gonna get thrown out." He yawns loudly.
"That's not going to be a problem. We're leaving in the morning." John walks to the motel's small bathroom, but stops in the doorway. Dean can feel the scrutiny of his gaze, sits up straighter under it. "Dean? You gonna give me any more trouble like you did before, running off without leaving a note?"
"No, Dad," Dean says honestly, because he knows that the past days, the panic over food and rent, waking up with sweat on his forehead and fear gripping his heart like a vice-even if Dad didn't plan them, they were part of his punishment. And Dad doesn't punish just for the sake of it; he does it so that they can learn, and not fuck up the same way twice. So, because he's not stupid in that, Dean won't. He'll keep his word, because that's what's expected of him, and you know what? That's fair. He's got his responsibilities, and he can't just throw them aside and go off with barely a word, because sometimes people out there aren't so fucking charitable, and he and Sam could have easily ended up starving up on the streets. Dean would have been responsible, and maybe he's a selfish son of a gun, but he's not about to have that on his back. "No, I'm not gonna do it again."
John nods and says, "Good," before he disappears inside the small bathroom. Dean stares at the closed door for a second longer, before he finally lies down, able to sleep peacefully for the first time since Dad left.
Author: lies_unfurl
Characters/pairings: Dean, Sam, John; gen (with background Dean/OFC)
Rating/warnings: PG-13/mentions of underage alcohol consumption, language
Word-count: 5500
Summary: John goes off on a hunt without leaving word of when he'll be back. Dean does his best to keep things together.
Notes: Written for hoodie_time's Dean-focuses h/c fic and art challenge, for this prompt by biketest. Title is adapted from the song A Hazy Shade of Winter. Fairly sure this fills my prompt for Vulnerability on my angst_bingo card, because there's Dean being vulnerable. And stuff.
January 23, 1995
Hunting in Newport, the note reads in Dad's hastily-scrawled handwriting. That's it. No gone after a werewolf/ghost/black dog. No back in three/five/ten days/weeks. Nothing to indicate where he's staying, or that he'll actually check in. Just a reminder that he's gone, as if Dean wouldn't notice.
"Where's Dad?" Sam asks when he gets home from school. He dumps his backpack on the ragged carpet and looks around the cramped motel room, like their father might be hiding behind a lamp or something.
"Hunting. Where else?" Dean shrugs, tries to look casual. He does his best to not hint that we've only got forty dollars left or I don't know what we have to be prepared for, Sam.
"When's he getting back?" Sam asks, bouncing onto one of the beds. He's small for twelve, and Dean thinks that he really needs more to eat than he's been getting-that, or he needs better food to eat. Food that Dean doesn't grab off of the reduced rack at the nearest grocery store. Something without little white spots to be carefully scraped off before it's served.
"He gets back when he gets back," he answers tersely. "Don't worry about it, Sam."
Sam raises an eyebrow, and Dean knows that he probably shouldn't have taken on that tone, because losing his cool, more than anything, is just a clear code for, "I don't know and I'm worried." So he tries to soften it with, "He was planning to leave yesterday. He's just gonna gank it and then come home, okay?"
His brother looks skeptical, and Dean is more or less certain that he hasn't actually fooled him all the way. Or part of the way, for that matter. "Pretty sure Dad spent all last night chewing you out, Dean."
"Yeah, well, he was planning this before that," he snaps back. "Okay, Sam? Anything else you wanna ask about?"
Sam shrinks back, looking wounded. Then, seconds later, he's throwing up his hands in a gesture that would probably be hilariously overdramatic, if it wasn't for the way that Dean's heart is pounding and his palms are getting all sticky. "No. If that's all you're gonna tell me then I guess there's no point in trying to get more from you."
"Good," he growls. "Go do your homework, Sam."
He doesn't do anything to make his younger brother think that he's mildly freaking out at the moment, that he doesn't know if he can keep up images long enough for Dad to get back. He doesn't say, this is my fault.
*
Dean isn't an idiot.
No, he knows what this is. He knows that Dad is punishing him, because he's sixteen years old, and he can be, well, really goddamn stupid sometimes.
And Dean knows that he fucked up. He really, really does. He knows that when Janie Miller came up to where he way sitting at lunch and bent over, and asked him if he'd like to hang out after school that he should have just told her no, I have to get home and watch my younger brother. He knows that he shouldn't have been so distracted by the way that her long red braid brushed against his shoulder; knows that he should've just ignored the suggestions in her voice when she spoke.
But fuck it, Dean's a sixteen years old boy with a sex drive that generally pushes him to want more than a few cold showers when he can get away with them. Sometimes, he's stupid.
When he'd caught up with Sam as the middle school was getting out and told him to go straight home to Dad, tell him that he'd be home in time for supper, and that he was sorry, but he had to study for a test, Sam had just raised his eyebrows. "Must be some girl."
"Shut up." Dean had punched him lightly in the arm. "Think you can do that?"
Sam just grinned at him and winked. "You can count on me."
And Dean had counted on him, and it wasn't like Sam had let him down. He's one hell of a wingman, even at twelve. No, it was Dean's own goddamn stupidity that had done him in, he knows that. He knows that the moment he opened up the Sam Adams Janie had with her, he was doing something that he shouldn't, and even if getting drunk under the bleachers with the hottest girl in school is practically a rite to manhood? That shouldn't matter. Dean knows that when he's defining himself, he's got to put Winchester before everything else, even teenage boy.
So yeah, he'll accept responsibility and admit that maybe he had stumbled in a few hours after supper. Maybe he had been drunk, and probably smeared with cherry-red lipstick; maybe the smell of some sort of fruity perfume had been clinging to him along with the unmistakable cloud of booze.
Fuck it, Dean thinks, reading Dad's note for the millionth time. Fuck, he'd probably just leave himself too, if he could.
*
"You're not going to school?" Sam asks the next morning, when Dean is standing by the door with his backpack left abandoned in the corner, books and papers partially spilling out from it. "Dad would be pissed if he knew you were skipping."
"I'm not skipping. I'm waiting to see if he'll call."
Sam frowns and shakes his head, an air of childlike indignation about him-which probably makes sense, considering that he's only twelve. "Dad never calls when we're in school."
Dad never leaves without telling me where he's going, Dean thinks. "Well, today might be different."
"You just want to cut." Sam frowns and sweeps past him, opening up the door and letting in a rush of frigid New England air. "Are you going to go tomorrow or are you just gonna skip out all week?"
"Jesus, Sammy. I don't plan that far ahead." Dean slams shut the door to the cheap motel. They have rent paid for three more days in advance, he remembers. If Dad is back before then, great. If he isn't, they're probably screwed.
Sam's middle school is only a five-minute walk from the downtown area where they're staying. It passes mostly in a moody silence today, with Sam glaring righteously at nothing, and Dean shuffling along besides him, thinking about the future and wondering if there's anything productive he can get done today, while he stays at the motel, waiting for a call that he doesn't think is coming.
It's nothing special, the area they're staying in-the same sort of Main Street, USA that Dean seems to find himself on no matter where he goes. On the way to the school, he and Sam pass a barber shop or two, some small convenience stores that sell the crappy food that'll probably end up being their dinner, and a couple of other irrelevant shops that sell cheap junk to any tourist stupid enough to think that this is someplace special.
The one interesting thing that he and Sam pass is a bakery, a small building with wide glass windows out front and a faded sign with an unpronounceable Italian name. The smell of fresh-baked bread warms the air, and Dean can feel his mouth watering. Even Sam, as pissy as he is this morning, drops his determined anger long enough to stare longingly inside as they pass it, to where sticks of bread with warm golden crusts share shelves with elaborately-frosted pastries.
Dean sighs. The abject longing on Sam's face hurts, and he's pretty damn hungry this morning too, but they really don't have dollars to spare. "When Dad gets back I'll see if he's got some extra cash one of these mornings, okay, Sam?"
"All right," his brother replies, tearing his eyes away from the tantalizing display. It's as close to an apology as either of them will get these days.
Sam starts moving quicker down the slushy sidewalk, like he just realized how he'd slowed to look at the food. Dean matches his pace, and they walk the rest of the way to school in silence.
*
Less than ten minutes later Dean is going by the bakery again. The smell of bread has gotten worse since last time, and it hangs thick in the air, mocking him with the homey, delicious scent of loaves that will go stale within a day or two of purchase, something that he probably can't afford. Dean refuses to look in as he walks past.
To distract himself from the smell, he focuses on the puffs of air that his breath makes in the cold of January. They bloom up like car exhaust, and okay, that's a totally stupid thought, but damn it, Dean doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know what to think about or focus on any more than he knows when Dad is coming back.
Dean opens the door to the motel room with numb fingers. He doesn't bother to take off his jacket while he resets the salt lines and, for no reason at all, checks the room for hex bags. He makes sure that there's no trace of sulfur anywhere, and it's only after he gradually starts to warm up that he lets himself think that the cold seeping into every inch of the tiny suite is a natural one, not some ghost-caused effect.
Eventually, he has to admit to himself that there's nothing of the supernatural sort here. He needs to just relax and hope that Dad calls soon, tells him where he is and what's going on.
He ends up polishing the guns and sharpening the knives that were left behind. Dad doesn't call, and Dean isn't really disappointed, because in the back of his mind he hadn't expected him to, anyway.
*
For supper that night Dean uses up the last four pieces of bread; he had to scrape mold off of one of the slices to make Sam's toast, so he figures that he'd better just finish it all tonight. He sticks some cheap cheese ends that he bought before between them and fries them up, making a dry but passable version of grilled cheese. He finds, miracle of miracles, a single can of tomato soup, and splits it between the two of them. All in all, it's not their worst low-budget dinner ever.
Halfway through it, though, Sam starts to talk, and sometimes that's not really a good thing. "Dad call?"
"Nope." Dean uses the corner of his grilled cheese to absorb the last of his salty red soup. He doesn't look at Sam.
"You think he will?"
"If he's not too busy."
"Are you going to school tomorrow?"
Dean almost snaps at him, almost says What's the fucking point of school? How's school gonna put food on the table? How's school gonna bring Dad home? But at the last moment, he realizes that if he spends another day like he did this one-staying inside and prepping all of their weapons until they're frigging flawless two times over-then he's probably going to go crazy, and that really isn't something that would help. He knows that he's in a sad place when school would offer up a distraction but, well. He'll take what he can get. "Yeah, probably."
Sam grins, and Dean rolls his eyes; God only knows why it is that Sam cares more than he does about seeing to it that he graduates high school. "Awesome!"
And then Dean grudgingly smiles at Sam's bizarre enthusiasm, and that night is actually pretty good.
*
The morning comes cold and rainy. Dean and Sam both are sour and cranky, their snaps at each other practically drowned out by the pounding droplets against the motel roof. The walk to school is hellish, the rain turning the piles of snow leftover from last week's storm into a completely mushy, soggy compound that runs down the sidewalks and soaks through the cheap shoes that they both wear.
The one redeeming feature is when they pass the bakery. Yellow light shines from inside, and they both longingly glance in at it, as if reflexively.
From behind the counter, a woman with grey hair catches Dean's eyes. She smiles at him from above the ball of dough that her hands are busily kneading on the counter; he ducks his head and looks away, muttering a low, "Come on, Sammy. We're gonna be late."
The smell of bread follows him as he drops off Sam, and he thinks that he can still catch a whiff here and there as he trudges on to the high school.
*
Dean skips lunch that day, pretty sure that even the scent of the cheap canned-glop that passes as food in the cafeteria is going to be enough to set his stomach off growling like a heart-crazed werewolf. He's decided not to eat today, since their rent runs out tomorrow, and he already doesn't have enough to cover it all. Mr. Alton, who owns the dig they're staying at, is a decent guy with a wife and three kids; he can probably be persuaded to let them off with only half. But even he's got his limits, and Dean doesn't know where he's going to end up if Dad doesn't get back soon.
Janie Miller finds him in the library, where he's pretending to care about chemistry. "Hey, you," she says teasingly, draping her arms all over the chair. "I missed you yesterday."
And despite everything, she still manages to bring a smile to his face. "Wish I could've been here. Family emergency, and all that."
"Aww. Sorry to hear that." She reaches out one of those long-fingered hands with the bright blue nails and runs it along his brow line. "You wanna forget all about it with me? After school, same place, same time?"
Yeah, he definitely does, because Janie's a sweet girl with a knack for painting, a passion for cheering, and a mouth that kisses really, really well. He could use her sort of distraction tonight.
But, well, the whole reason that Dad is gone is to teach him a lesson about being stupid and sneaking off with girls, right? And doesn't he need to worry about money, and whether or not they've got enough to eat, and all of that? Worrying is the only way he's going to be able to find a solution, after all. Or at the very least, he's more likely to find one doing that than he is by making out under the bleachers in the pouring rain.
"Sorry." He shakes his head. "Got to watch my little brother."
"You sure?" She straightens up, tugging out the sweater that she's wearing. "He's almost a teenager, right? I'm sure he'll be fine on his own…"
"I wish. The kid'll probably set himself on fire if I leave him alone for two seconds." Dean shakes his head and sends a silent apology to Sam. "Sorry, Janie. Really."
"I get it. Don't worry." She starts to walk out, and as she leaves, calls, "If you're ever free, you know where to find me!"
"Course I do," he replies, and despite himself, he's grinning. Because maybe he is worried as hell about rent and food and where the fuck his father is, but when you get down to it all, Dean is still kind of a teenage boy.
*
The bakery has a sign up that afternoon, advertising a special on cannoli. Dean's stomach rumbles embarrassingly when they pass it.
It's a detail that doesn't escape Sam's notice. He glances at Dean, and then at the window, slowing despite his obvious eagerness to get out of the rain that's pounding down onto the gray streets. "Leave the gun, take the cannoli? C'mon Dean, Dad doesn't have to know."
Dean snorts, both at the Godfather reference, and at the idea that it's their father finding out how he's spending the money that's behind Dean barely feeding them. "Sam, we got rent that needs to be paid tomorrow. We can't go out and waste it on cannoli."
"Oh." Sam deflates slightly, and Dean mentally berates himself. His brother is old enough to understand the realities of the low-wage life they live, but he still feels guilty for exposing him so blatantly.
He tries to soften the blow by saying, "Look, maybe we can check it out when Dad gets back, okay? He's probably done some hustling while he's out in Newport. I'm sure he'll bring back extra cash."
"Yeah, maybe." Sam doesn't sound like he believes Dean's lie, and spends a moment longer staring at the shelves of pastries and bread that run through the bakery, lit under a warm golden light and being doled out by an older woman with steel-gray hair, the same one from the morning. It's only when Dean claps a hand down onto his shoulder that he gets moving again, tearing his eyes away with some effort.
Dean knows that it's his fault that his father is gone, that John would be in close contact with them if he had actually bothered to just not be an ass that one time and come home instead of making out with a girl behind some uncomfortably damp bleachers. But that knowledge doesn't stop him from cursing John almost as much as he curses himself as he and Sam walk home in the cold rain, drenched and hungry when they get back to a motel room with an almost-empty fridge and a rent that's coming up quick.
*
Dean wakes up that night with his heart pounding and his head rushing. The room falls around him, a dizzying twist of dark striped wallpaper and stained brown carpet. His palms convulse around the sheet he's clenching as he sits up and tries to regain his bearings.
We're not going to make it is the thought that's running through his head at the moment, probably a completely absurd notion because he doesn't know what he's talking about or why they wouldn't make it, but his breath is going in and out, and his the beat in his chest is rapid enough so that he'd be calling up the hospital if he were an old man with high cholesterol, insurance or no insurance.
Not that it's insurance that he's worried about right now, 'cause he's not hurt and Sam's not hurt, thank God, but it's the goddamn-fucking rent. He doesn't know if he's going to be able to pay, and if he can't then he doesn't know where they can go, since Dad left no way for them to contact him, and he can't just mosey on down to Bobby's or Caleb's or Jim's. Not without telling Dad where they'll be.
Dean remembers feeling like this only once before, a number of years ago. He'd been on his way out of middle school, two weeks after the first time he'd shot something that looked like a person, and it had just happened in the middle of social studies: this dizziness and heartbeat made everything around him seem unreal, like it was only the sudden, stupid fear inside of him that existed.
The school nurse had called it a panic attack. John had clapped him on the shoulder and, in a moment of uncharacteristic gentleness, told him that they happened to the best of them.
But Dean had passed that off as a onetime thing, since he hadn't had once since. Now it's back in full force, and there's no one around to ask him if he's okay and give him something else to focus on besides the lightness in his head and the fucking trembling that his whole goddamn body is doing. There's no hand on his shoulder and no voice telling him just to breathe, that it'll be okay-
Dean forces his shaking fingers into a fist and bites down hard onto his knuckles. He orders himself to focus on the sudden pain that arises, to inhale/exhale, inhale/exhale, until he doesn't feel like he's going to either collapse or throw up. He doesn't know how long it takes, but it feels like it might have been hours.
When it's all over with, the exhaustion overwhelms him, and he falls into a deep, gray sleep, and when he wakes up from it, his limbs are heavy and he feels like there's a giant, soaking wet blanket weighing down his chest. The rent is due, and Dad hasn't called.
*
Dean doesn't bother to go to school. He tells Sam that he isn't feeling well, and apparently he looks like crap enough for the lie-if it is a lie; he doesn't even know anymore-to take. After Sam is safe at school, and Dean has walked twice past a bakery that he refuses to look into, even though the way that it smells like a dream is entirely impossible to escape, he goes straight to the motel to count up his money. Before he goes through the short stack of bills, he sends up a quick prayer to God or the Universe, or whoever else happens to be listening, asking them to please have thrown a Benjamin down into the mix of fives and tens.
$70. His heart sinks, and he resists the urge to just start packing his bags and getting out now. Another week's going to set them back $150 at the very least; this might get them another day, but there won't be any money left for food, and the cabinets are empty. They're screwed, and royally so.
Dean goes to see Mr. Alton before he comes banging at their door. He figures that it's in his best interest to make himself look like a diligent, upstanding young fellow, not some pothead druggie who can't tell Monday from Friday.
"My dad is only going to be another day," he tells the older man with a burgeoning beer belly and more than a hint of stubble spread out over his chin. "Please. He's just finishing up a sale in Newport; he said he's gonna be back tomorrow at the latest." He pushes over two twenties and a ten. "Just let us stay the night? We should be out of your hair by tomorrow."
Mr. Alton hesitates. Despite his appearances, which bring to mind the lowest of the lowlifes at a truck stop, Dean knows that he's a decent guy with a wife and a couple of kids. He prays that that'll work to his advantage when it comes to tugging heartstrings. "Kid, what's your dad doing, going off and leaving you and your kid brother on your own? He doesn't realize that that's a crime?"
"He only meant to be out for a couple of days. Sometimes you can't control things like this, you know?"
No, Mr. Alton doesn't look like he knows. In fact, the expression he's wearing right now is more along the lines of, "I'm calling CPS as soon as you're out of this office," and so Dean pulls the last string that he has, sliding another ten across the table. "Please, man. We're not going to cause you any trouble. Our dad's a good guy; he just got caught up in making this one sale, one that's going to bring in a lot of cash when he makes it. He'll pay you as soon as he comes back."
The hotel manager hesitates, but in the end he's just a lower-middle class guy trying to make a living, and he pockets the cash with a firm, "You make sure your dad's back by tomorrow night, okay?"
"Can do." Dean stands, as dizzy with a rush of temporary relief as he was with panic yesterday. This won't last long, seeing as Dean is almost sure that Dad's not going to show up by tomorrow, just as the Universe's way of spiting him, but it's something. They're not going to spend the evening out in the rain.
*
"What are we having for supper tonight?" Sam finally asks at around seven. Dean's heart sinks, even though he knew that Sam had to ask at some point. Because the fact of the matter is, they've got exactly ten dollars left, and maybe one more night with a roof over their heads and without CPS on their asses. Money for food isn't really part of the picture, although at the same time, it's unfortunately not exactly an option.
"I dunno. Um." He thinks quickly, trying to remember what else is around here, besides that inappropriately-good smelling bakery. "There's a McDonald's down the street, right? Why don't I just run out and grab something."
Sam raises an eyebrow, but he must have gotten the gist of not-so-great their situation is, because he doesn't comment on that. Dad doesn't usually just take them to chain places; he prefers the mom-and-pop corner diners of America. Better quality, according to him; just because he and Sam are growing up on the streets doesn't mean that they shouldn't get home-cooked meals. He just doesn't have much care for who cooks them. "I call dibs on the fries that fall into the bag."
"Bitch." Dean shrugs on his leather coat. "You good here?" He hates leaving Sam alone, but he also knows that his almost-teenage brother isn't going to quietly go outside into the pouring rain.
"I'll be fine." Sam waves his hand. "Don't worry about me; just go and get the food."
So Dean does. The McDonald's smells like a Heaven made of French fries and burgers from suspicious, probably-not-real-beef sources. He ends up spending just over half of their leftover cash on food, but it means that they're going to go to bed with something warm in their stomachs, and that's good. That's important.
He's halfway back to the motel, soaking wet and clutching a paper bag with grease stains that blend in with the marks made by the rain, when he hears the voice. "Excuse me? Young man?"
Dean slows and tenses. His free hand curls up automatically, and his legs stiffen, prepared to run. He isn't entirely sure where the speaker is. "Yeah?"
"I'm sorry for bothering you." An older woman steps out into the rain from beneath the awning of a shop-no, not a shop, he realizes. The bakery. He'd been so intent on getting out of the rain that he hadn't stopped to fantasize about being able to afford quality food. "It's just, I'm shutting down for the evening, and I have several loaves of bread left over. We can't sell day-old bread, and I was wondering if you would like to take them off of our hands?"
Dean stares at her. She's short, stout, with gray hair that curls all around her head. The same woman who made eye contact with him that one morning; who doesn’t actually know him, and who has no reason to offer him anything. "Why?"
She looks a bit taken aback, and Dean realizes that he probably did sound kind of hostile with that. "I just hate to see them go to waste. And I see you walk by here every morning, and well…" she smiles at him, and the sheer gentleness of it strikes him more than he'd care to admit. "I just thought you might like them."
He has about five seconds to decide whether he'd rather be a charity case or an asshole. And because there're five dollars in his pocket and his Dad probably won't be home tonight, he decides that for now, he'd rather be a charity case. "Thanks. Um, I'd like them. A lot; thanks." God willing, she's not some sort of witch.
"Come on it." She beckons him inside the bakery, and he follows. It smells even better in here than it did in the McDonald's, even though it's probably been hours since they baked the last loaf of the day. His mouth waters as he forces himself to not stare at the rows of cake slices, biscotti, and countless other baked goods with names he can't recall.
The gray-haired woman steps behind the counter and effortlessly slides two golden sticks of bread out from crumb-filled shelves. "Terrible weather we've been having. I can't imagine what it must be like having to walk in this."
Dean tries not to bristle at the words: he's willing to take charity, but pity is something else entirely. "It's not so bad once you're used to it."
"Oh, I imagine so." She nods vigorously, putting the bread into bags and then putting said bags on the countertop. Dean is about to take them and get out of here, to somewhere where he can regain his dignity and isn't depending on two sticks of unsold bread to last him until his father returns, when the woman says, "Wait a minute, dear. We have some unsold sweets left over; wouldn't you do me a favor and take those too?"
And there's no way that Dean can possibly refuse that, is there? Because he can't possibly make it believable that cookies would just be a burden, and anyway, if Sam knew that he had refused free dessert, he would probably refuse to speak to him for a week. So Dean pastes on his best smile, and hopes that his face isn't too red as he says, "Thanks. That'd be amazing."
In the end, he walks from the bakery with two sticks of bread and a white paper bag loaded full of Italian-style cookies, in addition to the bag of cooling food from McDonald's. The woman waves him on and gives him firm instructions to come back tomorrow. Dean doesn't know her name, and he doesn't ask.
*
"Holy crap," Sam says, his eyes wide as Dean dumps the food out onto the table. "Did you rob the bakery, Dean?"
"Course not." He smirks as he tosses out the burgers and fries. "Lady there was so charmed by my good looks that she gave them to me for free."
Sam's forehead knits together in a frown-he's smart enough to know that Dean is lying, of course, but Dean doubts he can get what the truth is. Which is a good thing, because Dean Winchester does not admit to his little brother that old ladies take pity on him. "Can we have some tonight?"
"Yeah. Not a lot, but you can have a piece." He tears one off of the end of the stick for himself and bites into it, not yet bothering with his burger or fries. The bread has a crisp crust and a soft, chewy inside, and he closes his eyes as he savors the doughy taste. Rent is still a problem, but at least they've got something to tide them over for food. Bread and cookies might not make the healthiest meal in the world, but goddamn it, it's food in their stomachs, and that's always better than starving.
*
John's gruff voice pulls Dean out of a dream of vague and undefined anxieties. "You wasting my money on bakeries now?"
Dean sits up straight, his heart pounding as he quickly leaves the disorienting land of sleep. "Dad. Um. No. No, sir." He shakes his head and rubs at his eyes. "Got it for free. Where were you?"
"I left you a note, Dean. Newport, after a nest of harpies." John looks at him a moment longer and then asks, "You keep things up while I was gone?"
"Course I did. Rent needs to be paid tomorrow, though, or we're gonna get thrown out." He yawns loudly.
"That's not going to be a problem. We're leaving in the morning." John walks to the motel's small bathroom, but stops in the doorway. Dean can feel the scrutiny of his gaze, sits up straighter under it. "Dean? You gonna give me any more trouble like you did before, running off without leaving a note?"
"No, Dad," Dean says honestly, because he knows that the past days, the panic over food and rent, waking up with sweat on his forehead and fear gripping his heart like a vice-even if Dad didn't plan them, they were part of his punishment. And Dad doesn't punish just for the sake of it; he does it so that they can learn, and not fuck up the same way twice. So, because he's not stupid in that, Dean won't. He'll keep his word, because that's what's expected of him, and you know what? That's fair. He's got his responsibilities, and he can't just throw them aside and go off with barely a word, because sometimes people out there aren't so fucking charitable, and he and Sam could have easily ended up starving up on the streets. Dean would have been responsible, and maybe he's a selfish son of a gun, but he's not about to have that on his back. "No, I'm not gonna do it again."
John nods and says, "Good," before he disappears inside the small bathroom. Dean stares at the closed door for a second longer, before he finally lies down, able to sleep peacefully for the first time since Dad left.