Rules for Hunting, A Supernatural Fanfiction
Title: Rules for Hunting
Rating: PG for language, eating disorders
Characters: Dean, Sam, John, mention of Bobby. Gen
Word Count: ~2600
Summary: Written for the prompt at hoodie_time: Dean had bulimia. "Had" being rather loosely defined- the main thing is that Dean's not binge eating or throwing up anymore and in traditional Winchester fashion the issue's been swept under the carpet. Except that John's been gone on a hunt longer than expected and the food supply is running low. Dean's been sneakily giving most of it to Sam and is starving hungry and worried about where John is. Eventually John gets back on halloween, with food, and Dean manages to choke down some dinner like a normal person. But John's also brought back some candy for trick or treaters- exactly the sort of thing Dean used as binge food. John can't work out why Dean's so jittery, until he realises that with his blood sugar all messed up and the worry Dean's worried about relapsing.
“Just a few more days” sinks into his empty stomach in a hard knot. “Taking a little longer than I thought” is the sweat on his palm, the phone slipping so he just catches it against his collarbone. “You can make do with what I left, right?” beats his heart hard enough he can see his ribs vibrating with the force of it.
“We’re fine,” roughens his throat, makes his voice hoarse. “Take your time” tightens around his neck and he hangs up before anyone hears him gasp for air.
“Dean?” He inhaled through his nose, past the noose of words, spins around to face his brother with the wall intact.
“Fear is vulnerability. If I can see it, so can everything else.”
“Just a few more days, Sammy,” he says and grins so Sam won’t see the panicked clench of his teeth, the numbers and plans spinning behind his eyes. “Guess you’re stuck with me a while longer.”
“It’s Sam,” Sam insists because apparently no teenager worth his salt has a two-syllable name anymore, and Dean remembers that Sam has hit thirteen and a growth spurt since the last time this happened. Remembers that while Sammy ate plenty, Sam eats like a fucking horse, and they have no food left at all because Dad was supposed to be back today. Remembers that he has less than ten bucks left in his wallet, including the emergency cash he dipped into a week ago, and that Sam has some kind of moral objection to eating peanut butter for more than two meals each day.
Picking up his jacket to leave, he allows himself a moment to be grateful for the anxiety twisting his stomach because that’s just one less mouth to feed.
“You’ve got to have a plan. Don’t go in half-cocked. You’ll get someone killed.”
He sits on the bench with the sale ads, tears out the coupons he needs, scratches out a plan in the margin of the paper with tip of a pen that has run out of ink. “Just a few more days” always means at least four days but not more than seven, but he plans for a week just in case. Boxed macaroni is two for a dollar, store brand bread is a dollar for twenty slices, peanut butter is a dollar fifty, and he can get canned tuna with the rest. He does the math in his head, seven boxes and three cans and one jar and one loaf and eight and a half percent tax, fuck these blue-blood New England towns, comes to eight dollars and ninety-five cents, which is perfect, because he has nine dollars in his pocket. That’s a week of dinners, because Sam will eat a whole box of macaroni himself, and a week of lunches because he takes a sandwich and a half (it’s just the right amount, like he’s fucking Goldilocks or something), and the tuna mixes in with the pasta because Sam has a thing for complete proteins or fatty acids or some shit Dean doesn’t remember.
He wakes up hungry, cold, achy, shuffles Sam out the door and to school on time, thanking God Sam isn’t a breakfast person. At lunch, he flirts his way into a handful of fries or chips, a bite of a cookie, wants to try out Sam’s puppy dog eyes but it makes him feel like a stray begging for food. Each night he steals a couple bites of Sam’s macaroni, pre-tuna because that stuff is disgusting, and tells Sam he already ate, will eat later, had a big lunch, is too tired. Goes to bed hungry, cold, achy, counting in his head the slices of bread, the boxes of pasta, tablespoons of peanut butter, breathing through the emptiness of his stomach.
“Hunting is control. You have to be in control, always. If you aren’t, you’re dead.”
Dean is in control. He will prove this time that he can take care of everything. It doesn’t have to be like all the other times, the hunger leading into eating, the eating devolving into the reason Dad hasn’t left them alone for more than a day or two in the last few months.
If Dad can be gone for weeks on end hunting, doing something important, Dean can handle taking care of Sam. He can handle this one simple thing, and maybe when Dad gets back and sees that Dean can do this, maybe he’ll trust Dean again. Maybe Dean will finally be able to erase the memory of the look in Dad’s eyes, the hurt and disappointment and anger when he walked into the bathroom and Dean was on his knees, fingers down his throat.
Dad never said anything about it, just closed the bathroom door and quietly took them to Bobby’s and only took short jobs, hung around more, especially after meals. Dean never said anything about it either, but that was the last time he threw up. He started to, once, because “Be ready, all the time. Evil sons of bitches don’t show up on a schedule” and how could he be ready with his stomach so full, slowing him down? But he remembered Dad’s face, the echo of that door closing, and he walked back out of the bathroom and worked on cars all afternoon and didn't dare overeat again.
Dean wakes up on the seventh day so worried he thinks he could throw up the absolutely nothing in his stomach without even trying. Because Dad should have been back, because the hunt is taking too long, because Dad hasn’t called, because they will be out of food by tonight, because he only has fifteen cents in his wallet.
It’s Halloween today, he remembers, but his stomach is in knots and his heart is in his throat and even though he hasn’t had more than a mouthful of food at a time in a week, he can’t eat a single piece of the free candy. He pockets it to give to Sam, because even teenagers with one-syllable names like Halloween candy.
“Why are you giving this to me?” Sam asks suspiciously, and Dean rolls his eyes. Like he starved all week so Sam could eat, just to poison him?
“Because I’m an awesome brother,” he says instead. “If you don’t want it, give it back.” He makes a grab for it, an exaggerated lunge just for show and Sam dodges, pocketing all but one piece, which he unwraps and shoves in his mouth. Through sticky chocolate, Sam chatters about school and how his Spanish class had a party and somewhere along the line exits onto some weird tangent about how maybe they won’t learn about pilgrims in November because they already finished colonial times or something, Dean isn’t really listening, barely feels Sam tugging at his pocket when they round the corner and he sees the Impala, thinks she has never looked prettier than she does right now.
Dad is inside, a feast’s worth of takeout boxes spread across the table and he grins at them. “Hey, boys. Hungry?” and it’s like a chasm opens up inside Dean, every meal he didn’t eat all week an empty space inside him and he thinks he could eat all of this and more and he starts to panic.
Sam pushes past where Dean has frozen halfway in the door, and sits at the table, pulling a container to him enthusiastically. “Starving. I was getting so sick of macaroni.”
Dean steps inside and closes the door, cautiously sits at the table, not yet reaching for anything. Dad sits across from him, pushes one of the containers at him and opens his own. “Yeah, I noticed there wasn’t much food,” Dad says around a mouthful of burger and Dean swallows hard as he catches Dad’s eye. Hurt and disappointment and anger.
Dean eats mechanically, slowly, barely tasting his food, long pauses between each bite, willing the chasm in his stomach to shrink.
Dad and Sam are done before Dean has finished even half of what is in his container, but he pushes it away, because if he takes one more bite he won’t be able to stop himself from finishing everything, from eating until it hurts, and Dad is already looking at him with the hurt and disappointment and anger he remembers even though he’s trying so hard.
“You okay, Deano?” Dad is staring at him, hard, scrutinizing, and Dean forces a nod, muscles so tight he’s almost shaking. Dad nods, shortly, looks away, reaches down to a bag next to the table, pulls it up to set it in the middle. Halloween candy. Several pounds of it. Dean almost throws up right there.
He should have been prepared for something like this, because Dad’s not going to just forget how Dean fucked up just because it’s been a couple months. A test, to see if Dean really is done fucking up.
“You’re training. Do it over again. Ten times the right way for every time you mess up. How will you do it right when it matters if you can’t do it right now?”
Dad used to bring candy after every hunt, a down payment on Sam’s upset at not being normal, at being left, at missing his Dad, because even teenagers can be bought off with candy. Dad would bring them something normal, something to make up for the things they did without, watched them eat the candy with a small smile like the payment was working, like he had convinced them the world was okay again just for a moment. Dad never smiled like the world was okay and Dean would unwrap piece after piece just to watch that smile, this moment of being a normal family with kids who eat candy and parents who like to see their kids happy. Piece after piece until his stomach was achingly full, until he remembered “Hunters have to be in shape. You never know when you’ll have to run for your life.”
Sam is eating candy and Dad is watching Dean stare at it, waiting for Dean to fail this test because he can’t control himself and hunting is control but he can still taste the candy coming back up, can’t possibly just swallow one piece because his hunger is gravity and everything is drawn to the emptiness.
“You okay, Dean?” Dad says gruffly.
“Had a big lunch,” he lies and immediately wishes he hadn’t because he knows what Dad must be thinking now, that he’s refusing the test because he already failed.
“Sammy, why don’t you take your candy and go do your homework in your room?” Dad says, never moving his eyes from Dean.
Sam mutters something with “Sam” being the only distinct word, but obediently shoulders his bag and grabs another handful of candy, shuffles to the bedroom of the tiny apartment and closes the door.
Dad moves to the chair next to Dean’s, leaning in, elbows on his knees, hands clasped in front of him. “Dean?”
Dean can feel himself shaking, his chest tight and he can’t breathe quite enough, can’t make himself look at Dad, just stares at the candy and remembers it coming back up, stares and remembers how easy it is to be hungry when Sam needs the food, how hard it is when he doesn’t have to choose between Sam and himself.
“Dean, look at me.” It’s that ordering voice and he can’t help but snap to attention, eyes fixed on his father’s.
“What’s wrong? Are you sick?”
“No, sir,” he says softly, shaking his head. “Nothing’s wrong.”
“Something’s wrong,” John insists. “Look at you. You’re pale, you’ve lost weight…” His eyes harden suddenly. “Dean, have you been eating?”
“What?” Dean asks, startled.
“Have you been eating?” John repeats, his giving orders voice back and Dean forces himself to focus.
“I haven’t been eating too much, sir,” he says and pauses, trying to find words for enough to get by but not enough to throw up, without those words because they don’t talk about this.
Dad follows Dean’s eyes back to the bag of candy and realization sweeps his features. “Oh, shit. Dean. I didn’t -” He grabs the bag, ties the top, removes it from the table, sets it somewhere out of Dean’s sight. He grabs both of Dean’s shoulders, forces Dean to look at him. “You’re worried about…” he pauses, then forces himself to continue “relapsing?”
Dean nods almost imperceptibly.
“You haven’t been eating,” Dad says and it isn’t a question, but Dean tries to answer anyway.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he mumbles. “I didn’t plan well enough, we didn’t have enough left this week. I didn’t want Sam to be hungry.”
“Jesus, Dean, why didn’t you tell me?” Dad drops his hands from Dean’s shoulders and Dean folds in on himself just a little.
“The hunt,” he says softly. “I didn’t want to fuck everything up just because I couldn’t -”
“I should have planned better,” Dad cuts him off. “Should’ve realized how long this job would take, left you more.”
“You’ve got to have a plan. Don’t go in half-cocked. You’ll get someone killed.”
“Your blood sugar’s got to be seriously fucked,” Dad says. “Think you can eat a little more of this?” He taps the top of the container Dean had picked at earlier.
Dean shakes his head because he’s weak and dizzy and so, so hungry and if he starts, he won’t be able to stop and he can’t do that in front of Dad.
“Just this box. I won’t let you go overboard,” Dad promises and Dean finally nods, opens the container. He still eats slowly, Dad watching him, forcing his heart to slow, the panic to ease, and it’s easier with every bite.
“Hunting is control. You have to be in control, always. If you aren’t, you’re dead.”
“You can’t do this,” Dad says, voice rough and Dean thinks hurt and disappointment and anger, but Dad isn’t looking at him at all, he's blinking at a spot somewhere above Dean's shoulder. “You can’t starve. What if something showed up and you hadn’t eaten for days? You think you’re going to fight it off?”
Be ready, all the time. Hunters have to be in shape. Evil sons of bitches don’t show up on a schedule. You never know when you’ll have to run for your life.”
Dean shakes his head. “I’m sorry, sir.”
“Tell me, next time, okay?” Dad says, patting him on the shoulder and standing up. “Don’t be afraid.”
“Fear is vulnerability. If I can see it, so can everything else.”
Dean nods, but Dad is done with the conversation, has moved over to the couch, back turned to Dean. Dean stands, makes his way to the bedroom while Dad flips through channels, sprawls across the bed closest to the door. Sam doesn’t even look up from his book.
Dean starts to roll over, but feels the shape of something in his jacket pocket, slips his hand in and comes out with a single Reese’s peanut butter cup, remembers the tug at his pocket when Sam tried to sneakily slip something in on the walk home. He unwraps the candy, holds it in his hand for a long moment.
“You’re training. Do it over again. Ten times the right way for every time you mess up. How will you do it right when it matters if you can’t do it right now?”
He eats the Reese’s cup slowly, in no less than five bites, breathing deeply between each because hunting is control. And he listens to Sam flipping pages and Dad flipping channels and feels the warmth of food in his stomach and he finally doesn’t feel sick at all.
End.
Sequel: All the Empty Spaces, in which Sam learns of Dean's problem.
Rating: PG for language, eating disorders
Characters: Dean, Sam, John, mention of Bobby. Gen
Word Count: ~2600
Summary: Written for the prompt at hoodie_time: Dean had bulimia. "Had" being rather loosely defined- the main thing is that Dean's not binge eating or throwing up anymore and in traditional Winchester fashion the issue's been swept under the carpet. Except that John's been gone on a hunt longer than expected and the food supply is running low. Dean's been sneakily giving most of it to Sam and is starving hungry and worried about where John is. Eventually John gets back on halloween, with food, and Dean manages to choke down some dinner like a normal person. But John's also brought back some candy for trick or treaters- exactly the sort of thing Dean used as binge food. John can't work out why Dean's so jittery, until he realises that with his blood sugar all messed up and the worry Dean's worried about relapsing.
“Just a few more days” sinks into his empty stomach in a hard knot. “Taking a little longer than I thought” is the sweat on his palm, the phone slipping so he just catches it against his collarbone. “You can make do with what I left, right?” beats his heart hard enough he can see his ribs vibrating with the force of it.
“We’re fine,” roughens his throat, makes his voice hoarse. “Take your time” tightens around his neck and he hangs up before anyone hears him gasp for air.
“Dean?” He inhaled through his nose, past the noose of words, spins around to face his brother with the wall intact.
“Fear is vulnerability. If I can see it, so can everything else.”
“Just a few more days, Sammy,” he says and grins so Sam won’t see the panicked clench of his teeth, the numbers and plans spinning behind his eyes. “Guess you’re stuck with me a while longer.”
“It’s Sam,” Sam insists because apparently no teenager worth his salt has a two-syllable name anymore, and Dean remembers that Sam has hit thirteen and a growth spurt since the last time this happened. Remembers that while Sammy ate plenty, Sam eats like a fucking horse, and they have no food left at all because Dad was supposed to be back today. Remembers that he has less than ten bucks left in his wallet, including the emergency cash he dipped into a week ago, and that Sam has some kind of moral objection to eating peanut butter for more than two meals each day.
Picking up his jacket to leave, he allows himself a moment to be grateful for the anxiety twisting his stomach because that’s just one less mouth to feed.
“You’ve got to have a plan. Don’t go in half-cocked. You’ll get someone killed.”
He sits on the bench with the sale ads, tears out the coupons he needs, scratches out a plan in the margin of the paper with tip of a pen that has run out of ink. “Just a few more days” always means at least four days but not more than seven, but he plans for a week just in case. Boxed macaroni is two for a dollar, store brand bread is a dollar for twenty slices, peanut butter is a dollar fifty, and he can get canned tuna with the rest. He does the math in his head, seven boxes and three cans and one jar and one loaf and eight and a half percent tax, fuck these blue-blood New England towns, comes to eight dollars and ninety-five cents, which is perfect, because he has nine dollars in his pocket. That’s a week of dinners, because Sam will eat a whole box of macaroni himself, and a week of lunches because he takes a sandwich and a half (it’s just the right amount, like he’s fucking Goldilocks or something), and the tuna mixes in with the pasta because Sam has a thing for complete proteins or fatty acids or some shit Dean doesn’t remember.
He wakes up hungry, cold, achy, shuffles Sam out the door and to school on time, thanking God Sam isn’t a breakfast person. At lunch, he flirts his way into a handful of fries or chips, a bite of a cookie, wants to try out Sam’s puppy dog eyes but it makes him feel like a stray begging for food. Each night he steals a couple bites of Sam’s macaroni, pre-tuna because that stuff is disgusting, and tells Sam he already ate, will eat later, had a big lunch, is too tired. Goes to bed hungry, cold, achy, counting in his head the slices of bread, the boxes of pasta, tablespoons of peanut butter, breathing through the emptiness of his stomach.
“Hunting is control. You have to be in control, always. If you aren’t, you’re dead.”
Dean is in control. He will prove this time that he can take care of everything. It doesn’t have to be like all the other times, the hunger leading into eating, the eating devolving into the reason Dad hasn’t left them alone for more than a day or two in the last few months.
If Dad can be gone for weeks on end hunting, doing something important, Dean can handle taking care of Sam. He can handle this one simple thing, and maybe when Dad gets back and sees that Dean can do this, maybe he’ll trust Dean again. Maybe Dean will finally be able to erase the memory of the look in Dad’s eyes, the hurt and disappointment and anger when he walked into the bathroom and Dean was on his knees, fingers down his throat.
Dad never said anything about it, just closed the bathroom door and quietly took them to Bobby’s and only took short jobs, hung around more, especially after meals. Dean never said anything about it either, but that was the last time he threw up. He started to, once, because “Be ready, all the time. Evil sons of bitches don’t show up on a schedule” and how could he be ready with his stomach so full, slowing him down? But he remembered Dad’s face, the echo of that door closing, and he walked back out of the bathroom and worked on cars all afternoon and didn't dare overeat again.
Dean wakes up on the seventh day so worried he thinks he could throw up the absolutely nothing in his stomach without even trying. Because Dad should have been back, because the hunt is taking too long, because Dad hasn’t called, because they will be out of food by tonight, because he only has fifteen cents in his wallet.
It’s Halloween today, he remembers, but his stomach is in knots and his heart is in his throat and even though he hasn’t had more than a mouthful of food at a time in a week, he can’t eat a single piece of the free candy. He pockets it to give to Sam, because even teenagers with one-syllable names like Halloween candy.
“Why are you giving this to me?” Sam asks suspiciously, and Dean rolls his eyes. Like he starved all week so Sam could eat, just to poison him?
“Because I’m an awesome brother,” he says instead. “If you don’t want it, give it back.” He makes a grab for it, an exaggerated lunge just for show and Sam dodges, pocketing all but one piece, which he unwraps and shoves in his mouth. Through sticky chocolate, Sam chatters about school and how his Spanish class had a party and somewhere along the line exits onto some weird tangent about how maybe they won’t learn about pilgrims in November because they already finished colonial times or something, Dean isn’t really listening, barely feels Sam tugging at his pocket when they round the corner and he sees the Impala, thinks she has never looked prettier than she does right now.
Dad is inside, a feast’s worth of takeout boxes spread across the table and he grins at them. “Hey, boys. Hungry?” and it’s like a chasm opens up inside Dean, every meal he didn’t eat all week an empty space inside him and he thinks he could eat all of this and more and he starts to panic.
Sam pushes past where Dean has frozen halfway in the door, and sits at the table, pulling a container to him enthusiastically. “Starving. I was getting so sick of macaroni.”
Dean steps inside and closes the door, cautiously sits at the table, not yet reaching for anything. Dad sits across from him, pushes one of the containers at him and opens his own. “Yeah, I noticed there wasn’t much food,” Dad says around a mouthful of burger and Dean swallows hard as he catches Dad’s eye. Hurt and disappointment and anger.
Dean eats mechanically, slowly, barely tasting his food, long pauses between each bite, willing the chasm in his stomach to shrink.
Dad and Sam are done before Dean has finished even half of what is in his container, but he pushes it away, because if he takes one more bite he won’t be able to stop himself from finishing everything, from eating until it hurts, and Dad is already looking at him with the hurt and disappointment and anger he remembers even though he’s trying so hard.
“You okay, Deano?” Dad is staring at him, hard, scrutinizing, and Dean forces a nod, muscles so tight he’s almost shaking. Dad nods, shortly, looks away, reaches down to a bag next to the table, pulls it up to set it in the middle. Halloween candy. Several pounds of it. Dean almost throws up right there.
He should have been prepared for something like this, because Dad’s not going to just forget how Dean fucked up just because it’s been a couple months. A test, to see if Dean really is done fucking up.
“You’re training. Do it over again. Ten times the right way for every time you mess up. How will you do it right when it matters if you can’t do it right now?”
Dad used to bring candy after every hunt, a down payment on Sam’s upset at not being normal, at being left, at missing his Dad, because even teenagers can be bought off with candy. Dad would bring them something normal, something to make up for the things they did without, watched them eat the candy with a small smile like the payment was working, like he had convinced them the world was okay again just for a moment. Dad never smiled like the world was okay and Dean would unwrap piece after piece just to watch that smile, this moment of being a normal family with kids who eat candy and parents who like to see their kids happy. Piece after piece until his stomach was achingly full, until he remembered “Hunters have to be in shape. You never know when you’ll have to run for your life.”
Sam is eating candy and Dad is watching Dean stare at it, waiting for Dean to fail this test because he can’t control himself and hunting is control but he can still taste the candy coming back up, can’t possibly just swallow one piece because his hunger is gravity and everything is drawn to the emptiness.
“You okay, Dean?” Dad says gruffly.
“Had a big lunch,” he lies and immediately wishes he hadn’t because he knows what Dad must be thinking now, that he’s refusing the test because he already failed.
“Sammy, why don’t you take your candy and go do your homework in your room?” Dad says, never moving his eyes from Dean.
Sam mutters something with “Sam” being the only distinct word, but obediently shoulders his bag and grabs another handful of candy, shuffles to the bedroom of the tiny apartment and closes the door.
Dad moves to the chair next to Dean’s, leaning in, elbows on his knees, hands clasped in front of him. “Dean?”
Dean can feel himself shaking, his chest tight and he can’t breathe quite enough, can’t make himself look at Dad, just stares at the candy and remembers it coming back up, stares and remembers how easy it is to be hungry when Sam needs the food, how hard it is when he doesn’t have to choose between Sam and himself.
“Dean, look at me.” It’s that ordering voice and he can’t help but snap to attention, eyes fixed on his father’s.
“What’s wrong? Are you sick?”
“No, sir,” he says softly, shaking his head. “Nothing’s wrong.”
“Something’s wrong,” John insists. “Look at you. You’re pale, you’ve lost weight…” His eyes harden suddenly. “Dean, have you been eating?”
“What?” Dean asks, startled.
“Have you been eating?” John repeats, his giving orders voice back and Dean forces himself to focus.
“I haven’t been eating too much, sir,” he says and pauses, trying to find words for enough to get by but not enough to throw up, without those words because they don’t talk about this.
Dad follows Dean’s eyes back to the bag of candy and realization sweeps his features. “Oh, shit. Dean. I didn’t -” He grabs the bag, ties the top, removes it from the table, sets it somewhere out of Dean’s sight. He grabs both of Dean’s shoulders, forces Dean to look at him. “You’re worried about…” he pauses, then forces himself to continue “relapsing?”
Dean nods almost imperceptibly.
“You haven’t been eating,” Dad says and it isn’t a question, but Dean tries to answer anyway.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he mumbles. “I didn’t plan well enough, we didn’t have enough left this week. I didn’t want Sam to be hungry.”
“Jesus, Dean, why didn’t you tell me?” Dad drops his hands from Dean’s shoulders and Dean folds in on himself just a little.
“The hunt,” he says softly. “I didn’t want to fuck everything up just because I couldn’t -”
“I should have planned better,” Dad cuts him off. “Should’ve realized how long this job would take, left you more.”
“You’ve got to have a plan. Don’t go in half-cocked. You’ll get someone killed.”
“Your blood sugar’s got to be seriously fucked,” Dad says. “Think you can eat a little more of this?” He taps the top of the container Dean had picked at earlier.
Dean shakes his head because he’s weak and dizzy and so, so hungry and if he starts, he won’t be able to stop and he can’t do that in front of Dad.
“Just this box. I won’t let you go overboard,” Dad promises and Dean finally nods, opens the container. He still eats slowly, Dad watching him, forcing his heart to slow, the panic to ease, and it’s easier with every bite.
“Hunting is control. You have to be in control, always. If you aren’t, you’re dead.”
“You can’t do this,” Dad says, voice rough and Dean thinks hurt and disappointment and anger, but Dad isn’t looking at him at all, he's blinking at a spot somewhere above Dean's shoulder. “You can’t starve. What if something showed up and you hadn’t eaten for days? You think you’re going to fight it off?”
Be ready, all the time. Hunters have to be in shape. Evil sons of bitches don’t show up on a schedule. You never know when you’ll have to run for your life.”
Dean shakes his head. “I’m sorry, sir.”
“Tell me, next time, okay?” Dad says, patting him on the shoulder and standing up. “Don’t be afraid.”
“Fear is vulnerability. If I can see it, so can everything else.”
Dean nods, but Dad is done with the conversation, has moved over to the couch, back turned to Dean. Dean stands, makes his way to the bedroom while Dad flips through channels, sprawls across the bed closest to the door. Sam doesn’t even look up from his book.
Dean starts to roll over, but feels the shape of something in his jacket pocket, slips his hand in and comes out with a single Reese’s peanut butter cup, remembers the tug at his pocket when Sam tried to sneakily slip something in on the walk home. He unwraps the candy, holds it in his hand for a long moment.
“You’re training. Do it over again. Ten times the right way for every time you mess up. How will you do it right when it matters if you can’t do it right now?”
He eats the Reese’s cup slowly, in no less than five bites, breathing deeply between each because hunting is control. And he listens to Sam flipping pages and Dad flipping channels and feels the warmth of food in his stomach and he finally doesn’t feel sick at all.
End.
Sequel: All the Empty Spaces, in which Sam learns of Dean's problem.