SPN Fic: To Your Future
Category: Gen, pre-series
Title: To Your Future
Rating: PG-13 for mild language
Word Count: 1950
Characters: Sam, Dean, John
Disclaimer: Supernatural and its characters are the property of its creators and the CW network.
Summary: My dream was to go to Stanford, get away from my Dad and his obsession, have a normal life. I’d worked so hard for this, but wouldn’t be able to go.
Author’s Note: Ever so slightly AU. Not AU at all if you turn your head to the side and squint. Special thanks to my betas
fateschewtoy and
just_ruth for their awesome suggestions!
When Dad got the letter it was already too late anyway.
“What the hell is this?”
I looked up from the table where I was doing my homework to see Dad holding up the ripped envelope.
I jumped up and grabbed it from him. The logo on the return address was Stanford Admissions and Financial Services.
“Last I checked it was against the law to open someone else’s mail.” I sounded snotty and didn’t care.
“You’re seventeen years old, damn it and I’m your father.” He looked as if he was about to blow his top, but I ignored him and read the letter.
It explained that the first tuition payment was past due. My dream was to go to college, get away from my Dad and his obsession, have a normal life. I’d worked so hard for this, but hadn’t thought about how I was going to pay for it. I just figured I’d wait until I got in and then figure it out. Well, I’d gotten in but I still hadn’t figured out the tuition thing. Even with all my scholarships there was no way. Tears prickled my eyes and I was glad Dean wasn’t there to call me a wuss.
“When were you going to tell me that you’re planning on abandoning this family?”
“Dad, I hardly think going to college constitutes abandonment. Besides, if anyone should know about abandonment, it’s you.”
He slammed his bag down on the table and my school papers went flying.
“Don’t you talk to me like that.” He shook his finger inches from my face.
In the past year I’d grown a lot and stood a head taller than him, but he was still intimidating as hell.
Dean took that inopportune moment to come in the door. He stood there in the doorway looking at us. He hated it when Dad and I fought, and we fought a lot.
“I’m sorry, sir.” I managed to calm down a bit and get an even voice. It had been unfair for me to say he’d abandoned us. He would have done anything for us and I knew it. “It’s just that . . . Stanford is a pretty big deal. And most parents would be thrilled.”
Dean closed the door, afraid someone outside might hear us. “Stanford? As in the hoity-toity smart kids’ college?” Even though he sounded as if everything was O.K. he had that deer-in-headlights look he gets when he freaks out.
“Besides, it doesn’t matter because I can’t go anyway.” Tears burned hot in my eyes. “The tuition . . .” I didn’t want to elaborate so I grabbed my motel key and shoved past Dean on my way out the door.
When I got home that night Dean was sitting on his bed watching T.V. with a beer in his hand.
“Where’s Dad?”
“Left. Said he’d be gone a couple of days.” Dean pretended not to look at me as I cleaned up my school papers.
“A couple of days? I didn’t know he’d found another hunt.”
“Neither did I. Did you need any help with that mess you call homework, Sammy?”
“Naw, I’m good.”
I hardly ever needed help with homework, but Dean always asked. He never got this far in high school, so I was sure he wouldn’t be able to help me anyway.
I grabbed some leftovers out of the fridge and looked up to see Dean avert his eyes back to the T.V.
I leaned over the counter towards him. “Dude, what’s up with you?”
“What?” Dean took a swig of his beer and acted like he does when he’s trying to act cool.
“You’re looking at me like I’m about to sprout wings and fly around the room.”
He rolled his eyes. “It’s just . . . you never told me you wanted to go to college.”
I couldn’t think of anything to say.
Dean looked hurt. “Does this college thing have anything to do with that guidance counselor who was so excited about the score you got on that what’s-it-called test?”
“You mean the SAT?”
Dean shrugged and nodded.
“That test was a big deal, man. Stanford is a big deal.”
“Yeah, and that bitch tried to tell me Dad and I were wasting your potential.” Dean had gone to my parent meeting with the guidance counselor since Dad couldn’t show up. “She also said you’re some kind of genius, but it doesn’t take a genius to know you’re no Einstein, dumbass.” Dean laughed to himself and took another swig.
He liked that I was smart even if he’d never admit it.
Dean flipped off the T.V. and ran his hand through his hair. “Sam, we’re a family. And now you want to leave us and have a mundane life? What about loyalty?”
“Loyalty? To a father who’s obsessed with revenge? Dad’s been looking for the thing that killed Mom forever and he’s never going to find it!”
Dean looked as if I’d slapped him. “Don’t you talk about Dad like that.”
His palm collided with my sternum and I fell back against the couch. Dean always had a blind loyalty to Dad I could never understand. My earliest memories were of Dean tying my shoes, Dean fixing me dinner, Dean putting Band-Aids on my scraped knees. Where had Dad been during all that? “All Dad cares about is creating perfect little soldiers to help him hunt and take his orders.”
It was Dean’s turn to storm out, and I wiped the tears off my cheeks and finished my dinner. Why did I have to be the one who cried at the drop of a hat? I never saw Dad or Dean cry, but me? Crying for me was as frequent as filling up the Impala with gasoline.
I steered clear of Dean after that, but every time I saw him he had this hurt look on his face that I couldn’t stand seeing on my tough big brother. Dad got home after a few days and we fought just like we always did. Even Dean seemed tired of trying to break it up.
About a week after he found out I wanted to go to college, Dean was waiting for me in the Impala outside school.
“Hey Dean, what are you picking me up for? Do we have to hit the road again? I’m only a couple of weeks from graduation.” I think I was whining.
“You don’t have to worry. We’re sticking around.” Dean just sat there in the car with his hands on the steering wheel.
“You, uh, want to wait around here all day? There’s a line of cars behind you.”
“I was just…just thinking about you and that high and mighty school you wanna go to.”
“You mean the high and mighty school I can’t afford even with my scholarships?”
“Yeah, about that. I called that bitchy guidance counselor from your old school, the one who called you a…genius.” Dean whispered “genius” and rolled his eyes. He really didn’t want to be having this conversation. “She made a couple of calls and you’re all set.”
“What? What do you mean ‘all set’?”
“I mean...” Dean looked out the driver side window. “That tuition thing has been taken care of.” He swallowed his last words so I wasn’t sure I heard him.
My heart beat against my ribcage so hard it hurt. But oh, was it a good hurt.
“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
“Yes, you can go to your crappy-ass school.”
“Whoo!” I jumped out of the car and ran around hollering.
Dean drove off without me, but I didn’t mind walking home.
The next day I called my old guidance counselor to thank her but she said she hadn’t heard from Dean for months. She didn’t even know I’d been accepted to Stanford. After she calmed down from her excitement at the news I thanked her, said goodbye, and sat there in the school office until the secretary kicked me out.
I asked Dean, but he wouldn’t talk to me about it. He wouldn’t talk to me about school at all and I left not too long after that. Dad and I got into a fight of monumental proportions and I took that as my cue to head to California early to look for a part-time job.
I’d been in Palo Alto for less than a month when I met Jess. By midterms we were inseparable. She was cheerful, beautiful, smart. Best of all, Jess was innocent of all things supernatural and it was going to stay that way.
“To Professor Dahl, for letting us out early tonight so we didn’t miss trying out our new IDs.” Jess raised her glass for a toast. She liked toasts a lot.
“To Professor Dahl!”
“Cheers!” The alcohol felt warm running down into my stomach.
“To Sam, for making our IDs!”
“To Sam!”
“To our parents, for supporting us all the way.” Jess was smiling but looked directly at me as she said this, as if she suspected what had happened between me and my father.
“To our parents!”
I didn’t participate in this particular toast.
“So Sam, what do you want for the future?” Jess was always trying to get me to open up.
“The honest to God truth is I have no idea.” All I knew was that I didn’t want to hunt.
“I can drink to that. To Sam’s future!” Our buddy Victor raised his glass.
Jess scooted close to me and clinked her glass against mine. “To your future.”
O O O
Dad and I sat in the idling car outside the bar and watched Sam making toasts with his friends. A sexy-blond chick was hovering really close to my kid brother. ‘Atta boy, Sam.
“We’ve been following him around all day, Dad. I think it’s safe to say he’s fine.”
“You’re right,” he said, but didn’t move to drive away.
It looked like he wanted to go in and say hello, but I knew he wouldn’t. In the past months Dad had found every excuse to stop by and check on Sam. We’d been conveniently “in the neighborhood” five times and those were the visits I knew about.
Sam never knew we were there. I wanted to see my little brother, but Dad insisted Sam live his own life without us. I didn’t think Sam wanted to see me anyway so I was fine with his decision.
When I told Sam that he could go to school after all, I hated it. I hated being Dad’s message boy when he told me Sam could go to Stanford and to let him know. I hated that it got fixed and Sam left us, especially since Dad didn’t even tell me how he did it.
“You want to grab a Whopper?” Dad’s eyes didn’t leave the bar window as he said this.
“Hell yes, sir. I’m starving.”
“There’s a Burger King by the financial aid office.” Dad put the Impala into gear and started driving away from Sam.
“And you know where the financial aid office is because…?”
“Lucky guess.”
“Yeah right.”
End
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