Hide in the Lights

[purple_carpets]

Title: Hide in the Lights
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 2800
Disclaimer: Not my boys. Kripke broke them long before I ever got to them.
Summary: Dean is all bruised-up and miserable from his last hunt. The townsfolk jump to conclusions (hey, they've all met the boys' Dad. It's not like anyone's surprised).

Written for the Summer H/C Comment Fic Meme on

Comments

[katsheswims]

This was a great little snippet of a possible moment from their childhood. I can imagine it happening.

This is totally Sam: "because Dean stopped acting like he liked him ages ago and Sam doesn't know what he did to deserve that but he can sure as hell give as good as he gets." But it still makes me want to slap him and tell him to show his care for Dean.

I had heard Cats in the Cradle before, but I could only remember the chorus words. I looked it up, and wow I never knew all the lyrics. It really does fit Dean, though even as an adult Dean hadn't yet managed to become like his dad in the leaving his father/ignoring way. It was only after his death that he could realize (verbalize?) John's faults. Though Dean did still become very like his father--intentionally as a youth and unintentionally later.

[purple_carpets]

Well, to be fair, thirteen-year-olds aren't particularly known for their social...competence ^^

Ah, I just love that song. It just fits so perfectly with all my Dean/John theories.

[annartism]

I love the prompt and I LOVE what you made of it! So much angst on a sunny summer day! <3

Back when they were little, Dean would grab Sam's sweaty baby hand and drag him out into the playground and they'd just have friends. Dean could do that to people, make them be his friends, make them like him and laugh at his stupid jokes. He still can, Sam reckons, he just doesn't do it anymore unless it's for girls or hunting and somehow that makes Sam's eyes sting all over again.
That part just killed me… *sniffs into coffee once more*

And the way you write Sam´s teenagery self and the boys brotherly dynamic is so spot-on.

Shamefully, I didn´t know „Cats in the cradle“ and had to look it up. I´m afraid my knowledge of music is even more limited than Sam´s ;P

[purple_carpets]

Well, what's the point of a nice summer day when there is no angst? Is that even a thing?

That part with Dean and making friends has been part of my headcanon forever. People tend to paint pre-series!Dean as a social outcast, but if you look at him in Hollywood Babylon or Folsom Prison Blues or even After School Special...god, I hate that episode, he's really, really good at fitting in and adapting to new situations and making friends when he needs them and Sam's the one who is always awkwardly on the outside. I feel like at some point, Dean just decided that making friends for the sake of making friends wasn't worth it. It doesn't have much to do with an actual inability to make friends.

*glances up at that convoluted mess*
Ignore me. I'm probably still drunk...

[catsintheattic]

Your Sam here is fabulously characterised in his sulking, teenaged way, until he realises that Dean is a lot more hurt than he was letting on. We get those glimpses of Sam being angry at and feeling sorry for and also being jealous of Dean, we see Sam's anger directed against John, and his fear of the "normal world" coming to their rescue when they don't need rescuing, together with the whole baggage of being a teenager and feeling completely out of place. And we get a brilliant view of Dean, through Sammy's eyes, always the big brother, self-reliant, obedient, hurt, protective and strong, proud of his dad, and keeping his family together.

[purple_carpets]

Yeah, remember being thirteen? Trying to be all tough and cool and grown up when everyone's looking down at you and treating you like a little kid and then something happens and you want to be a little kid again, but you can't do that either and everything is just horrible and intense and...yeah, poor Sammy probably has it a thousand times worse than that.

[marlowe78]

Aww, I so love your inner-Sam! He's just the right kind of teenager, and his feelings of unfairness are quite realistic, if I remember my own terrible teenager-years correctly :-D

Somehow, it's sad that the people who actually CARE about potentially abused kids so often get the bad-guy-seal in fiction. It's not their fault that they don't know that teenagers go out hunting monsters, is it?

Anyway, a wonderful little story, and that song-reference is really cool.

[purple_carpets]

Yeah, my inner Sam is really just thirteen-year-old!me coming out to play. It's really, really fun to write. Everything is stream if consciousness and everything is just so intense and obviously just about him.

Well, from the boys' POV, they are the bad guys. They're the outside world, trying to mess with their lives. But yeah, they were doing the right thing, but with the wrong kids (except...you know, sending your teenaged kids after supernatural monsters instead of making them go to school isn't exactly solid parenting either.)

[amberdreams]

Oh teenagers....! So oblivious most of the time, yet open to those moments of revelation that they think make them wise. You write this age so well!

[purple_carpets]

Aw, thank you so much. I have such vivid memories of that time, it just comes naturally xD