Five Times Dean Was Hungry (Age 14)
Title: Five Times Dean Was Hungry (Age 14)
Author: balder12
Recipient: spn_summergen*
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: ~3,000
Warnings: children experience hardship
Summary: Dean does his best to see that he and Sam get by when John is away.
* Where the intended recipient defaulted, stories are posted as gifts for the community as a whole.
I.
The bell attached to the door jangles and Dean’s hit in the face by a blast of refrigerated air. The floor’s tacky under his sneakers like someone spilled soda or beer or God knows what. It’s exactly like every other convenience store that Dean’s ever been in.
This was easier when Dean was little. Kids are cute; the clerks used to smile at him and ask where his mom was. Sometimes they gave him candy bars for free. He’d eat half and pocket the rest to take home to Sammy. But those days are over. Teenage boys only come into stores to steal and destroy, and everybody knows it. Careful doesn’t cut it when you’re being watched from the moment you walk in. You have to be fast.
He meets the eye of the woman behind the counter and gives her his most charming grin, but she just squints in suspicion. He stays well away from the beer case. Any hint he was eyeing the booze would have her off her stool and hovering over him in an instant. Instead he walks calmly down what passes for the grocery aisle. There’s Wonder bread and peanut butter. He’s wearing a long shirt, and he’s learned he can fit up to four candy bars in his pockets if he arranges them right, but there’s no way in hell he’s getting a loaf of bread down his pants. Dad isn’t coming home until Friday though, and he and Sam can’t live on Snickers for three days. He grabs the bread in one hand and the peanut butter in the other, silently steels himself, and runs for the door.
The clerk steps between him and freedom. She’s old, like forty, but she’s got three inches and fifty pounds on him, and she’s stronger than he expected. She uses her bulk to herd him toward the counter.
She sets down the bread and peanut butter and picks up the phone. Shit. If she calls the cops he’ll be stuck in juvie until Dad comes for him. And Sam will be alone in a motel room with no food. Or worse, they’ll find out somehow where Sam’s staying and take him away. It’s not the end of the world if Dean winds up in foster care-he’s practically a grown up, he’ll just run away and find Dad-but Sam’s still a kid. What if Dad can’t track him down? What if Dean never sees him again?
“I’m really sorry,” Dean says. “Ma’am,” he adds after a moment. “Really, really. It was stupid. I’ve learned my lesson.” He tries his best to look sincere. When his eyes start to water it’s kind of a con, but he kind of means it too.
“Ain’t my call, kiddo. Corporate policy.” She nods toward the ‘Shoplifters will be prosecuted’ sign. “I cut you loose, my ass gets fired.” Dean wills his lip to tremble and she looks a little regretful. “You’ll be back on the street by this time tomorrow. Cops don’t give a shit what you kids do.” She dials the phone.
Dad taught Dean never to hit a woman. Never ever, ever. You shouldn’t hit guys either, obviously, unless it’s on a hunt, but sometimes they have it coming and then it’s kind of okay. Only a total douchebag raises his hand to a girl, though. Dean doesn’t want to be a total douchebag. She doesn’t even have it coming-he was stealing from her, after all. But she’s calling the cops and he’s going to lose Sam.
He elbows her in the stomach as hard as he can. When she doubles over he grabs the bread and peanut butter and runs through the door. He keeps running all the way to the motel, until his chest burns and his knees are weak. He never looks back to see if she’s after him.
That night he and Sam have peanut butter sandwiches for dinner, and it’s a hell of a lot better than the saltines and grape jelly they had the night before. Dean lies awake until dawn, listening for the police sirens and helicopters that chase after escaped criminals. He listens for days, until Dad finally comes home and they flee like fugitives to the next town.
II.
The last time Dad called he said he was going into the woods after a wendigo. That was a week ago. He was supposed to be home last Tuesday. Dean has a highlight reel of horrible possibilities playing through his head, and it gets harder to ignore with every hour Dad is missing. He can’t concentrate in school. He pictures Dad’s arm ripped off in geometry, pictures his throat torn out in social studies.
On top of everything else, the cabinets are empty. Dad left them more than enough money to cover the time he was supposed to be gone-he always does-but he was only supposed to be gone five days, not two weeks.
The bologna sandwiches have all been made, the spaghetti’s been boiled, even the Count Chocula and Lucky Charms are gone. All that’s left is one can of beefaroni.
Dean dumps it into one of the sketchy, chipped bowls that came with the furnished apartment and nukes it before setting it down on the kitchen table next to Sam’s math textbook. Sam stares at the bowl and then up at Dean with a gaze too shrewd for any ten year old. “I’m not hungry,” he says.
Dean knows that’s a lie. The kid eats like he’s got a hole in his neck. “I don’t give a shit if you’re hungry or not. Eat your dinner.”
Sam shoves the bowl away and Dean cringes. If it spills he’ll kick Sam’s ass, little brother or not. “You eat it,” Sam says. He looks Dean dead in the eye.
“I already ate,” Dean lies. Sam holds eye contact for second, then kicks the kitchen chair over and runs off to his room. Dean hears the door slam. Jesus, Sam’s only ten and he already flips out over every tiny thing like he’s a girl who didn’t get asked to the prom. Dean dreads what he’ll be like when he actually hits his teens. Dean briefly considers eating the beefaroni-he hasn’t had anything since last night-but instead he scrapes it into a Tupperware container and puts it in the fridge.
That night Dean hears Sam toss and turn on the cot next to his bed, and feels a bitter satisfaction. This is what the little bastard gets for going to bed hungry. Dean went to bed hungry too, though, and the beefaroni calls to him like a siren. At 2am he goes out to the kitchen and brings it back to the bedroom cold, with two spoons stuck in it.
He sits down on Sam’s cot and takes a bite, then holds out the container. Sam grabs the other spoon and takes a bite, then looks defiantly up at Dean. Dean takes another bite. That’s how they eat it, each one stubbornly careful not to take a drop more than the other, until they’ve scraped the last bit of sauce off the plastic.
Dean’s still hungry when it’s done, and he’s sure Sam is too. He sets the container down on the nightstand and lies down next to his brother, curling cautiously around his back. They’re both too old for this, and they both know it, but for once in his life Sam doesn’t complain.
III.
“I don’t want to,” Sam says. His bangs fall forward to cover his face, a perfect prop to his sullen resistance.
There was a time not long ago when Dean only had to imply that he wanted something and Sam went running to do it, like making Dean happy was the most important thing in the world. Those days are over. Sam hit his rebellious phase early. He’s always been mature for his age.
“I don’t care what you want,” Dean says. “It’s training, Dad said you had to.” This isn’t entirely true. Dad never said that Sam should help Dean pick pockets. But Dad is gone, and they need money, and Dad is always saying that the boys should pitch in however they can.
Sam frowns, but gives a toss of his head that Dean decides to take as a ‘yes.’
The rush hour crowd on the street is dense and aggressive, jostling them on all sides. Perfect for what they’re planning. Dean gestures toward a man in a brown suit with a bulge in his back pocket. “Him,” he whispers. He walks away and doesn’t look back.
He doesn’t know whether Sam’s behind him or not-it would be just like his brother to sneak off home and leave Dean strutting through downtown alone like a fool-but a minute later Sam runs past him and he feels a nudge against his hand. He doesn’t look down. He pockets the wallet and walks directly into the music store next to him.
He ducks behind the display case of Nirvana CDs and waits for Sam to join him. He’s never actually done this particular con, but one of the guys in detention told him it was easy. A little kid runs past a mark and snatches his wallet and then he passes it off to you. No one makes you as the thief, and if the kid gets caught afterward it doesn’t matter because he doesn’t have anything on him. Not that Dean expects Sam to get caught. He’s outrun Dean plenty of times.
Dean lingers in front of the plate glass window, looking for any sign of Sam. He should be here by now. Then he sees his brother across the street. The man in the brown suit has him by the arm. Dean can’t hear what they’re saying, but the man is shouting and Sam looks scared.
Dean’s first impulse is to run out the door and give the man his wallet back. Say he took it, say whatever it takes to make the man let Sam go. That’s stupid, though. He’d just be showing that both of them were guilty. The guy can’t prove Sam did anything. That’s the whole point. Dean digs his nails into his palm and silently curses himself, and the man in the brown suit, and everyone else who’s ever been mean to Sam.
Sam’s head is bowed, half-hidden behind his hair. After a moment, though, he looks up at the man and studies him, brow furrowed. Wheels spin behind his eyes. And then he smiles.
Sam’s scream splits the air like a banshee’s wail. Dean hears every word: “Help! I don’t know him! He’s not my dad! He touched me in a bad place!”
People on the street stop and stare, and the man drops Sam’s arm like it’s a red hot iron. Sam darts away into the crowd.
A few minutes later Sam strolls up to Dean, beaming like he won first place at the science fair. Dean feels absurdly proud of him.
“Okay,” Dean admits, “that was a little cool.”
“Veggie lover’s,” Sam says.
This morning they’d fantasized about the pizza they’d order with their pickpocketing money, and for reasons Dean would never understand Sam had wanted to top it with an entire salad. Dean’s a sausage and pepperoni guy himself, but he supposes he can pick off the mushrooms, just this once.
IV.
It’s amazing what people throw away. Fucking ridiculous, really. Look behind any grocery store and you’ll find unopened boxes of cereal with one stained edge, dented canned goods, and bags of barely bruised fruit. Dean’s gotten good at digging through dumpsters for treasure.
This is his first time going through the dumpster behind a bakery, though, and he wishes he’d thought of it sooner. He hasn’t been able to find any pie-maybe even people this wasteful realize that throwing away good pie is a sin-but he’s surrounded by plastic bags full of day old chocolate croissants and eclairs. He munches on a powdered sugar donut while he considers his options for getting it all home. He wants to grab every bag he sees, but he feels like dragging a half dozen garbage bags dripping icing all the way to the motel would be kind of conspicuous. Besides, not even Dean believes that he and Sam can eat two dozen bear claws.
He fills up one bag with the choice cuts-anything with chocolate and cream filling-and tosses out the crap like fruit tarts and guava pastries. When he’s satisfied with his selections he levers himself out of the dumpster.
He hits the ground three feet away from Steve Somebody. They sit next to each other in home room. Steve’s clutching a cigarette between his thumb and forefinger with studied carelessness, striking a pose that’s a cross between a movie gangster and a guy who’s never smoked a cigarette before.
Steve looks startled when Dean lands in front of him, and then pleased with himself. He’s been caught in the act of being cool. “The fuck you doing in there, Dean?” He enunciates the word ‘fuck’ carefully, like he got it out of a foreign phrase book.
Dean wipes his fingers off on his Metallica T-shirt, leaving behind a sticky whitish trail of sugar. He’s embarrassed, but he can’t think of a lie that explains why he’s hauling a garbage bag of pastries out of a dumpster, so he goes with the truth.
“There’s a ton of cake and donuts and shit in there. It’s awesome,” Dean says.
Steve’s veneer of cool melts away. “Sick, man. You eat garbage?”
“It’s not garbage garbage.” The distinction feels totally valid to Dean, but he can see in Steve’s face that he’s not buying it. Steve already doesn’t like Dean. Dean’s new and weird and the girls leave notes on his backpack between classes, signing their names with little hearts over the “i’s.” The other boys are just looking for a reason to hate him.
Dean holds out a donut to Steve like a dare. “Eat it. They’re really good.” Steve looks at it like it’s covered in maggots. “Come on, don’t be a pussy.” Steve grinds his cigarette out under his heel with a dramatic flourish and stalks off.
That night Dean wants to tell Steve how much more of a badass his ten year old brother is than Steve will ever be. Sam knows where the pastries came from and he doesn’t even blink. After a dinner of donuts Sam spends half the night bouncing around the motel room on a sugar high, but Dean doesn’t bitch about it too much. At least one of them is happy.
The next day someone’s put Oscar the Grouch stickers all over Dean’s locker. It’s so fucking lame that he almost convinces himself it doesn’t hurt.
V.
Dean wakes up to the roar of the Impala. He considers shaking Sam, who’s dead to the world three feet away, but the kid’s always a cranky bitch when he doesn’t get his beauty sleep. Besides, some selfish little part of Dean wants Dad to himself. He runs to the living room when he hears the key in the lock.
Dad stumbles in the front door smelling of whiskey. His left arm is in a cast. “What happened?” Dean says. Dad stares at him for a long moment. His eyes are red, and Dean doesn’t think it’s just from drinking.
“Nothing,” he says when he comes back to himself. “It’s just a sprain. Go back to bed.”
“Are you sure? I can . . .” Dean doesn’t know how to finish that sentence. He isn’t sure what he can do, but whatever it is he wants to do it.
“Dean. Bed. Now.” Dean recognizes the bark of military authority. He mutters, “Yes, sir,” and scampers back to his room. He’s so giddy with relief-Dad’s alive, Dad’s okay, Dad’s home-that it takes him hours to fall back to sleep.
Most days Dad blasts the boys out of bed at sunrise, even on weekends, but today he sleeps in. Dean doesn’t wake up until ten, and he’s still the first one up. He goes out to the kitchen and makes coffee. He’s been drinking it for a year and he still doesn’t like the way it tastes. He takes it black, though, even with no one watching, because that’s what real men do.
When Dad walks into the kitchen around noon Dean hands him a mug and feels unreasonably proud of having poured it for him. Dad’s still quiet, but Dean can’t help himself-unprompted he runs down a list of all the training exercises he’s done since Dad’s been gone. Dad claps him on the back with one huge hand and says, “Good work, son.” Only the knowledge that Dad definitely wouldn’t approve keeps Dean from dancing across the kitchen floor.
“How about I make us some breakfast?” Dad says. He likes to cook. Nothing fancy, just stews, casseroles, and the occasional barbecue when there’s a place to cook it, but he can whip up a pretty good omelette.
He starts opening cabinets and rummaging around the refrigerator. After awhile he turns back to Dean, looking uncomfortable. “I guess we need to make a grocery run. But first what do you say I take you boys out to eat?”
Dad takes them to a burger joint and lets them order anything on the menu. These aren’t skinny, limp, fast food burgers, either. Dean can barely fit his bacon cheeseburger in his mouth. And there are piles of crispy onion rings and a chocolate malt. Between Dad, Sam, and cheeseburgers, everything Dean has ever wanted in life is at this table. Dad even said they could have pie for dessert.
Sam’s not nearly as ecstatic as Dean. Dean can’t see anything wrong with Sam’s grilled cheese other than it’s not as awesome as his cheeseburger, but Sam is pulling it apart with quiet suspicion. Sam is fine one day and only eats white things the next, depending on how the mood strikes him and how difficult he wants Dean’s life to be.
“Eat your lunch,” Dad says. Sam reluctantly picks up a fry and puts it in his mouth. It’s the most resentful French fry eating Dean’s seen in his life.
Dad shoots Dean a ‘What the hell?’ look. It makes Dean feel like a grown up, like the two of them are in on something together. Dean just shrugs. Sam’s always been weird about food.
Author: balder12
Recipient: spn_summergen*
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: ~3,000
Warnings: children experience hardship
Summary: Dean does his best to see that he and Sam get by when John is away.
* Where the intended recipient defaulted, stories are posted as gifts for the community as a whole.
I.
The bell attached to the door jangles and Dean’s hit in the face by a blast of refrigerated air. The floor’s tacky under his sneakers like someone spilled soda or beer or God knows what. It’s exactly like every other convenience store that Dean’s ever been in.
This was easier when Dean was little. Kids are cute; the clerks used to smile at him and ask where his mom was. Sometimes they gave him candy bars for free. He’d eat half and pocket the rest to take home to Sammy. But those days are over. Teenage boys only come into stores to steal and destroy, and everybody knows it. Careful doesn’t cut it when you’re being watched from the moment you walk in. You have to be fast.
He meets the eye of the woman behind the counter and gives her his most charming grin, but she just squints in suspicion. He stays well away from the beer case. Any hint he was eyeing the booze would have her off her stool and hovering over him in an instant. Instead he walks calmly down what passes for the grocery aisle. There’s Wonder bread and peanut butter. He’s wearing a long shirt, and he’s learned he can fit up to four candy bars in his pockets if he arranges them right, but there’s no way in hell he’s getting a loaf of bread down his pants. Dad isn’t coming home until Friday though, and he and Sam can’t live on Snickers for three days. He grabs the bread in one hand and the peanut butter in the other, silently steels himself, and runs for the door.
The clerk steps between him and freedom. She’s old, like forty, but she’s got three inches and fifty pounds on him, and she’s stronger than he expected. She uses her bulk to herd him toward the counter.
She sets down the bread and peanut butter and picks up the phone. Shit. If she calls the cops he’ll be stuck in juvie until Dad comes for him. And Sam will be alone in a motel room with no food. Or worse, they’ll find out somehow where Sam’s staying and take him away. It’s not the end of the world if Dean winds up in foster care-he’s practically a grown up, he’ll just run away and find Dad-but Sam’s still a kid. What if Dad can’t track him down? What if Dean never sees him again?
“I’m really sorry,” Dean says. “Ma’am,” he adds after a moment. “Really, really. It was stupid. I’ve learned my lesson.” He tries his best to look sincere. When his eyes start to water it’s kind of a con, but he kind of means it too.
“Ain’t my call, kiddo. Corporate policy.” She nods toward the ‘Shoplifters will be prosecuted’ sign. “I cut you loose, my ass gets fired.” Dean wills his lip to tremble and she looks a little regretful. “You’ll be back on the street by this time tomorrow. Cops don’t give a shit what you kids do.” She dials the phone.
Dad taught Dean never to hit a woman. Never ever, ever. You shouldn’t hit guys either, obviously, unless it’s on a hunt, but sometimes they have it coming and then it’s kind of okay. Only a total douchebag raises his hand to a girl, though. Dean doesn’t want to be a total douchebag. She doesn’t even have it coming-he was stealing from her, after all. But she’s calling the cops and he’s going to lose Sam.
He elbows her in the stomach as hard as he can. When she doubles over he grabs the bread and peanut butter and runs through the door. He keeps running all the way to the motel, until his chest burns and his knees are weak. He never looks back to see if she’s after him.
That night he and Sam have peanut butter sandwiches for dinner, and it’s a hell of a lot better than the saltines and grape jelly they had the night before. Dean lies awake until dawn, listening for the police sirens and helicopters that chase after escaped criminals. He listens for days, until Dad finally comes home and they flee like fugitives to the next town.
II.
The last time Dad called he said he was going into the woods after a wendigo. That was a week ago. He was supposed to be home last Tuesday. Dean has a highlight reel of horrible possibilities playing through his head, and it gets harder to ignore with every hour Dad is missing. He can’t concentrate in school. He pictures Dad’s arm ripped off in geometry, pictures his throat torn out in social studies.
On top of everything else, the cabinets are empty. Dad left them more than enough money to cover the time he was supposed to be gone-he always does-but he was only supposed to be gone five days, not two weeks.
The bologna sandwiches have all been made, the spaghetti’s been boiled, even the Count Chocula and Lucky Charms are gone. All that’s left is one can of beefaroni.
Dean dumps it into one of the sketchy, chipped bowls that came with the furnished apartment and nukes it before setting it down on the kitchen table next to Sam’s math textbook. Sam stares at the bowl and then up at Dean with a gaze too shrewd for any ten year old. “I’m not hungry,” he says.
Dean knows that’s a lie. The kid eats like he’s got a hole in his neck. “I don’t give a shit if you’re hungry or not. Eat your dinner.”
Sam shoves the bowl away and Dean cringes. If it spills he’ll kick Sam’s ass, little brother or not. “You eat it,” Sam says. He looks Dean dead in the eye.
“I already ate,” Dean lies. Sam holds eye contact for second, then kicks the kitchen chair over and runs off to his room. Dean hears the door slam. Jesus, Sam’s only ten and he already flips out over every tiny thing like he’s a girl who didn’t get asked to the prom. Dean dreads what he’ll be like when he actually hits his teens. Dean briefly considers eating the beefaroni-he hasn’t had anything since last night-but instead he scrapes it into a Tupperware container and puts it in the fridge.
That night Dean hears Sam toss and turn on the cot next to his bed, and feels a bitter satisfaction. This is what the little bastard gets for going to bed hungry. Dean went to bed hungry too, though, and the beefaroni calls to him like a siren. At 2am he goes out to the kitchen and brings it back to the bedroom cold, with two spoons stuck in it.
He sits down on Sam’s cot and takes a bite, then holds out the container. Sam grabs the other spoon and takes a bite, then looks defiantly up at Dean. Dean takes another bite. That’s how they eat it, each one stubbornly careful not to take a drop more than the other, until they’ve scraped the last bit of sauce off the plastic.
Dean’s still hungry when it’s done, and he’s sure Sam is too. He sets the container down on the nightstand and lies down next to his brother, curling cautiously around his back. They’re both too old for this, and they both know it, but for once in his life Sam doesn’t complain.
III.
“I don’t want to,” Sam says. His bangs fall forward to cover his face, a perfect prop to his sullen resistance.
There was a time not long ago when Dean only had to imply that he wanted something and Sam went running to do it, like making Dean happy was the most important thing in the world. Those days are over. Sam hit his rebellious phase early. He’s always been mature for his age.
“I don’t care what you want,” Dean says. “It’s training, Dad said you had to.” This isn’t entirely true. Dad never said that Sam should help Dean pick pockets. But Dad is gone, and they need money, and Dad is always saying that the boys should pitch in however they can.
Sam frowns, but gives a toss of his head that Dean decides to take as a ‘yes.’
The rush hour crowd on the street is dense and aggressive, jostling them on all sides. Perfect for what they’re planning. Dean gestures toward a man in a brown suit with a bulge in his back pocket. “Him,” he whispers. He walks away and doesn’t look back.
He doesn’t know whether Sam’s behind him or not-it would be just like his brother to sneak off home and leave Dean strutting through downtown alone like a fool-but a minute later Sam runs past him and he feels a nudge against his hand. He doesn’t look down. He pockets the wallet and walks directly into the music store next to him.
He ducks behind the display case of Nirvana CDs and waits for Sam to join him. He’s never actually done this particular con, but one of the guys in detention told him it was easy. A little kid runs past a mark and snatches his wallet and then he passes it off to you. No one makes you as the thief, and if the kid gets caught afterward it doesn’t matter because he doesn’t have anything on him. Not that Dean expects Sam to get caught. He’s outrun Dean plenty of times.
Dean lingers in front of the plate glass window, looking for any sign of Sam. He should be here by now. Then he sees his brother across the street. The man in the brown suit has him by the arm. Dean can’t hear what they’re saying, but the man is shouting and Sam looks scared.
Dean’s first impulse is to run out the door and give the man his wallet back. Say he took it, say whatever it takes to make the man let Sam go. That’s stupid, though. He’d just be showing that both of them were guilty. The guy can’t prove Sam did anything. That’s the whole point. Dean digs his nails into his palm and silently curses himself, and the man in the brown suit, and everyone else who’s ever been mean to Sam.
Sam’s head is bowed, half-hidden behind his hair. After a moment, though, he looks up at the man and studies him, brow furrowed. Wheels spin behind his eyes. And then he smiles.
Sam’s scream splits the air like a banshee’s wail. Dean hears every word: “Help! I don’t know him! He’s not my dad! He touched me in a bad place!”
People on the street stop and stare, and the man drops Sam’s arm like it’s a red hot iron. Sam darts away into the crowd.
A few minutes later Sam strolls up to Dean, beaming like he won first place at the science fair. Dean feels absurdly proud of him.
“Okay,” Dean admits, “that was a little cool.”
“Veggie lover’s,” Sam says.
This morning they’d fantasized about the pizza they’d order with their pickpocketing money, and for reasons Dean would never understand Sam had wanted to top it with an entire salad. Dean’s a sausage and pepperoni guy himself, but he supposes he can pick off the mushrooms, just this once.
IV.
It’s amazing what people throw away. Fucking ridiculous, really. Look behind any grocery store and you’ll find unopened boxes of cereal with one stained edge, dented canned goods, and bags of barely bruised fruit. Dean’s gotten good at digging through dumpsters for treasure.
This is his first time going through the dumpster behind a bakery, though, and he wishes he’d thought of it sooner. He hasn’t been able to find any pie-maybe even people this wasteful realize that throwing away good pie is a sin-but he’s surrounded by plastic bags full of day old chocolate croissants and eclairs. He munches on a powdered sugar donut while he considers his options for getting it all home. He wants to grab every bag he sees, but he feels like dragging a half dozen garbage bags dripping icing all the way to the motel would be kind of conspicuous. Besides, not even Dean believes that he and Sam can eat two dozen bear claws.
He fills up one bag with the choice cuts-anything with chocolate and cream filling-and tosses out the crap like fruit tarts and guava pastries. When he’s satisfied with his selections he levers himself out of the dumpster.
He hits the ground three feet away from Steve Somebody. They sit next to each other in home room. Steve’s clutching a cigarette between his thumb and forefinger with studied carelessness, striking a pose that’s a cross between a movie gangster and a guy who’s never smoked a cigarette before.
Steve looks startled when Dean lands in front of him, and then pleased with himself. He’s been caught in the act of being cool. “The fuck you doing in there, Dean?” He enunciates the word ‘fuck’ carefully, like he got it out of a foreign phrase book.
Dean wipes his fingers off on his Metallica T-shirt, leaving behind a sticky whitish trail of sugar. He’s embarrassed, but he can’t think of a lie that explains why he’s hauling a garbage bag of pastries out of a dumpster, so he goes with the truth.
“There’s a ton of cake and donuts and shit in there. It’s awesome,” Dean says.
Steve’s veneer of cool melts away. “Sick, man. You eat garbage?”
“It’s not garbage garbage.” The distinction feels totally valid to Dean, but he can see in Steve’s face that he’s not buying it. Steve already doesn’t like Dean. Dean’s new and weird and the girls leave notes on his backpack between classes, signing their names with little hearts over the “i’s.” The other boys are just looking for a reason to hate him.
Dean holds out a donut to Steve like a dare. “Eat it. They’re really good.” Steve looks at it like it’s covered in maggots. “Come on, don’t be a pussy.” Steve grinds his cigarette out under his heel with a dramatic flourish and stalks off.
That night Dean wants to tell Steve how much more of a badass his ten year old brother is than Steve will ever be. Sam knows where the pastries came from and he doesn’t even blink. After a dinner of donuts Sam spends half the night bouncing around the motel room on a sugar high, but Dean doesn’t bitch about it too much. At least one of them is happy.
The next day someone’s put Oscar the Grouch stickers all over Dean’s locker. It’s so fucking lame that he almost convinces himself it doesn’t hurt.
V.
Dean wakes up to the roar of the Impala. He considers shaking Sam, who’s dead to the world three feet away, but the kid’s always a cranky bitch when he doesn’t get his beauty sleep. Besides, some selfish little part of Dean wants Dad to himself. He runs to the living room when he hears the key in the lock.
Dad stumbles in the front door smelling of whiskey. His left arm is in a cast. “What happened?” Dean says. Dad stares at him for a long moment. His eyes are red, and Dean doesn’t think it’s just from drinking.
“Nothing,” he says when he comes back to himself. “It’s just a sprain. Go back to bed.”
“Are you sure? I can . . .” Dean doesn’t know how to finish that sentence. He isn’t sure what he can do, but whatever it is he wants to do it.
“Dean. Bed. Now.” Dean recognizes the bark of military authority. He mutters, “Yes, sir,” and scampers back to his room. He’s so giddy with relief-Dad’s alive, Dad’s okay, Dad’s home-that it takes him hours to fall back to sleep.
Most days Dad blasts the boys out of bed at sunrise, even on weekends, but today he sleeps in. Dean doesn’t wake up until ten, and he’s still the first one up. He goes out to the kitchen and makes coffee. He’s been drinking it for a year and he still doesn’t like the way it tastes. He takes it black, though, even with no one watching, because that’s what real men do.
When Dad walks into the kitchen around noon Dean hands him a mug and feels unreasonably proud of having poured it for him. Dad’s still quiet, but Dean can’t help himself-unprompted he runs down a list of all the training exercises he’s done since Dad’s been gone. Dad claps him on the back with one huge hand and says, “Good work, son.” Only the knowledge that Dad definitely wouldn’t approve keeps Dean from dancing across the kitchen floor.
“How about I make us some breakfast?” Dad says. He likes to cook. Nothing fancy, just stews, casseroles, and the occasional barbecue when there’s a place to cook it, but he can whip up a pretty good omelette.
He starts opening cabinets and rummaging around the refrigerator. After awhile he turns back to Dean, looking uncomfortable. “I guess we need to make a grocery run. But first what do you say I take you boys out to eat?”
Dad takes them to a burger joint and lets them order anything on the menu. These aren’t skinny, limp, fast food burgers, either. Dean can barely fit his bacon cheeseburger in his mouth. And there are piles of crispy onion rings and a chocolate malt. Between Dad, Sam, and cheeseburgers, everything Dean has ever wanted in life is at this table. Dad even said they could have pie for dessert.
Sam’s not nearly as ecstatic as Dean. Dean can’t see anything wrong with Sam’s grilled cheese other than it’s not as awesome as his cheeseburger, but Sam is pulling it apart with quiet suspicion. Sam is fine one day and only eats white things the next, depending on how the mood strikes him and how difficult he wants Dean’s life to be.
“Eat your lunch,” Dad says. Sam reluctantly picks up a fry and puts it in his mouth. It’s the most resentful French fry eating Dean’s seen in his life.
Dad shoots Dean a ‘What the hell?’ look. It makes Dean feel like a grown up, like the two of them are in on something together. Dean just shrugs. Sam’s always been weird about food.