Chapter Five - August 1997
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V
August, 1997 - Dean
The apartment in Manhattan is broken down and tiny. He shares it with three other guys, two of which he’s pretty sure are hustlers in Alphabet City, and works at a diner with the third, waiting for school to get into session. The apartment reminds him of their first apartment, the one they had in Richmond before Mary went a little off the deep end and cut them off from their entire family on her side. When he is not at work, he is studying for exams he doesn’t expect to ever take, let alone pass; when he is not studying, he is sleeping with headphones over his ears to ignore the sounds of his hustler roommates talking about dope and johns, and the neighbors above them fucking.
Manhattan isn’t anything like what he thought it would be, but he’s not all that surprised that it’s something completely foreign from everything he’s ever known. He knows, deep in his heart, that Mary kept them safe and hidden from the wide, frightening world.
Lying on his futon, back to the drafty window on the eastern side of the room, he wonders how Sam is faring, but cannot bring himself to spare the change to call everyone he knows the numbers of and ask if they’ve seen him around anywhere. He wonders how Mary is faring back in Blue Earth, or if she’s even still there. Maybe she’s moved on. Maybe she’s tracked down Deacon, now that there are no boys to watch out for. Maybe she’s at the Roadhouse with the Harvell’s.
Nobody asks about his occasional brooding, not around the apartment, but Dean can see the look in his co-worker’s eyes, aching to ask and have Dean betray his dark life history. Part of him wants to go and cry on the guy’s shoulder-he’s a twenty-something California transplant, San Fransisco if Dean remembers right, with pale hair and gentle eyes and a name that starts with a K or an L or some other letter that names don’t normally start with but that still manages to be bland and easily forgotten. Dean likes him, and he wonders about that as he lies awake on his futon and worries about Sammy.
When he finally breaks down and tells the guy all about his sordid history, it’s a blistering day without a breath of wind and they’re standing on the 87 platform in the cool of the underground. The guy smokes a cigarette, and Dean inhales the smoke offhandedly but never asks for a drag.
He tells the guy everything he can think of, in a quiet, seedy voice so the guy has to lean in real close. A couple pricks give them funny, sidelong looks, but Dean ignores them. There’s no commentary back at him, and when he’s all done, he just says, “That’s it. That’s all. So you can stop watchin’ out like I’m gonna open my wrists in the bathroom, okay?”
It never comes up again.
-----
He calls Blue Earth first, and Pastor Jim tells him that Mary’s in South Dakota with Bobby, but they’re probably on a Hunt. Still, once Dean hangs up on Pastor Jim’s dial tone, he loads in a few more coins and dials Bobby’s number.
The call takes a second to connect, and he can hear a vague echo to the ringing. He leans against the Plexiglas that sides the phone’s little cubicle, ducks his head and feels the sun beat down on the back of his neck, and starts up when he hears the phone get picked up.
“Hey, Uncle Bobby.”
“Dean? Damn boy, haven’t heard from you in an age.”
“Yeah. ‘S Momma there?”
“Yeah. Yeah, son, lemme go get her.” He hears the phone get set down on the counter, and Bobby shouting away from the phone-and he can just see him: leaning through the back door of the kitchen, one hand on the jamb and the other on the screen to hold it open-for Mary to come talk to her boy.
Mary’s near breathless when she picks up the phone. “Dean? Baby boy, is that you?”
“Yup. Hey, Momma.”
“Oh, baby boy,” she murmurs. Then, suddenly, there’s the sound of her hitting the counter and her surprising, heavy swearing. “Damnit, Dean, don’t you ever do such a fool thing again, you hear me? I was worried sick until that first letter came, and I’m still not entirely keen on the idea of you being out there all on your own.”
“I’m fine, Momma,” Dean assures.
Mary scoffs. “Yeah. I’m sure Sam thinks he’s fine too. And that’s all well and good until one of you gets abducted or raped or murdered, now isn’t it?”
“Nobody’s raping or murdering or abducting either of us, Momma.” A woman walking beside her daughter looks at him, scandalized, and turns her daughter away to the other side of the sidewalk quickly. Dean sticks his tongue out at her back and shakes his head. “I just wanted to call in and check up on you, Momma. Still a few more weeks until school gets in.”
“How is it?”
“Hot,” he laughs, and shakes his head a little. “Damn hot, Momma. And the apartment I’m in until the dorms open is this chincy little place with three other guys and not even a window-mount air conditioner.”
“Sounds lovely, baby boy,” Mary whispers, then sighs. “I miss you, Dean. It’s lonely without you around. It’s quiet without Sammy. I miss you both.”
He braves up at that point. “Any sign of him around?” Mary murmurs negatively, and he can practically see her shaking her head. “Oh. Well, I’m sure if he wants to get found, he will. He can’t stay hidden forever.”
“I did,” she murmurs. “Until I met John-your father.”
“Yeah,” Dean says noncommittally. He twists the cord around his little finger. “Momma, I’m running up time. I need to go.”
“Are you on a damn pay phone, Dean Garett Winchester?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Get lost,” she growls, but he can hear the smile and love in her voice.
He leans into the protection of the booth and murmurs, “Love you, Momma.” She whispers it back, soft and sad, just as he moves the receiver away from his ear and crashes it down on the cradle.
-----
He sits up in the warm of the night and contemplates being nineteen years old and a fucking virgin. Here he is in Manhattan, rooming up with two hustlers and an obviously interested San Fran twink, and he can’t even get over being five years old and worrying about his mother until she came stumbling back in with that Deacon guy attached to her face.
Used to be he blamed Deacon and seeing his mom like that for not being terribly interested in girls. But high school locker rooms and living close-quarters with three relatively attractive guys got him thinking. He isn’t about to say he’s a fag, but there’s every possibility he’s just not interested in anything. It would be nice to find out.
He stares over at his co-worker, asleep with his leg over the back of the couch. He watches the rise and fall of the guy’s chest, traces the shadow of his hand on his belly, fixates on the leg of the guy’s boxers, trying to see through the shadows to what’s underneath the thin cotton. Vaguely, a part of him tells him that he’s being really obvious and also really creepy. But that doesn’t stop him from staring at the guy like he’s a piece of meat or something.
The guy shifts in his sleep, spreads his legs a little more, and Dean gets a flash of downy inner-thigh. His breath stutters in his chest and he brings a hand between his legs to press against himself. He can do this; this is easier than asking for anything that might not be given, this is free and he’s done this before. This is no different than any other time he’s gotten himself off, except this time he actually has something to look at.
He knows the guy’s awake when he hears the couch squeak, but he can’t stop. The guy’s legs go deliciously wide, and he watches between the guy’s legs as he gets hard. That tips Dean over the edge, and he tilts to the side to arch and smother his noises in his pillow.
“You okay, Dean-o?”
“Yeah,” he murmurs. “Yeah, I’m good.”
-----
Jonah doesn’t call before he shows up, he just proves that stubborn persistence comes from their grandmother’s side and tracks him down one day in the middle of the month. Dean is working an odd shift, and Jonah finds him at the diner. For a while, Dean doesn’t even recognize him-admittedly, he hasn’t seen Jonah since they were five years old and Mary marched them out of Richmond, but when he does his double take, he can see Jonah’s parents mingled in his face, and he remembers that.
“Jonah? Jonah Cohen?”
“Hey, Dean,” Jonah murmurs. His voice has gone deep and gravely and deliciously forbidden, and Dean swallows embarrassment and a goofy smile. “Been a while, hasn’t it?”
“Yeah! Yeah, it has. What brings you to Manhattan?”
“Visiting Grandma. Had to get out of the house, though. She was driving me insane.”
Dean doesn’t have many memories of their grandmother. She never visited when he was young, and he only knows what she looks like from a few spare pictures that weren’t lost in the fire or kept as evidence for a criminal investigation that went nowhere. He does know about Mary’s falling out with her, though, and understands that she is the source of the obstinacy and bullheadedness that Sam certainly inherited. He gives Jonah a slight smile of apology.
“Marisol heard from Dad from Aunt Mary that you were here, so I thought I might try and pick you out of a line-up. Easier than I thought it’d be.”
“Uncle Joe and Momma are talkin’ again?” Dean sits across from Jonah because he has about twenty minutes left on his shift and what does he care, really. This is his cousin he hasn’t seen in fourteen years; the manager will understand.
“Not much. She told him in case Grandma tracked you down and started holy hell.”
“Good thing, then,” Dean chuckles, and can’t keep down the goofy smile. “You’re better company than Lonnie, I figure.”
Jonah laughs: he throws his head back and pushes his hair behind his ear and the entire effect goes straight down Dean’s spine in a way he knows it really shouldn’t. When Jonah calms, he just smiles, and they get down to talking, relating the events of their lives since they were separated from each other.
Dean is sad to find out that Uncle Joe and Aunt Carlotta divorced, but is pleased that Uncle Joe remarried and that Jonah seems to approve of her; he’s personally aghast that Marisol is engaged to be married in two months and not a word of it to anyone outside the family, which Dean was deemed in (which is apparently the reason for her and Jonah being in New York); and silently pleased to hear that Jonah is thinking seriously about Annapolis, if only because students in Annapolis constantly come down to New York on their breaks. Jonah is genuinely impressed by the amount of moving Dean did, and still manage to get into a college after the Alternative Learning Facilities; he says nothing when Dean says he’s not entirely sure where Mary’s holed up now anyway; and expresses his deepest condolences when Dean tells him Sam’s run off and managed to stay hidden this time.
“Isn’t he only fifteen?” Dean nods. Jonah shakes his head a little. “I don’t get it. He was a great baby. Quiet and boring and everything. I wish Jana’s kids were like that.”
“Didn’t say you had kid-siblings,” Dean chastens with a wink. Jonah smiles a little goofily, goes pink on the cheeks, shrugs one shoulder.
“I don’t spend a whole lot of time around Dad and Jana, really. Moved out when I turned seventeen. But, yeah, three little girls now: Isabelle, Jamison and Lea.”
“Triplets?”
Jonah laughs and plays with his coffee mug. “Apparently Dad throws multiples.” Dean chuckles a little, then checks his watch. He looks up, surprised by the time, and swears a little. Jonah looks concerned, quickly asking, “What? Something wrong?”
“I was supposed to walk back to the apartment with Quinn an hour ago.” He worries his lip, then shrugs a little. “He’s a big boy. I’m sure he got back to the apartment fine.”
“Oh. Okay.” Jonah nods. He stares at his coffee and is still staring at it when he says, “So, I’ve got a hotel room a couple blocks from here. Wanna go troll cable channels and play some Nintendo or something until Marisol comes back and complains about my obsession with so-called Japanese Porn?”
Dean grins. “Sounds cool.”
-----
Dean doesn’t know how it happens, but he knows the catalyst of the whole thing, and that’s Marisol.
She shows up at quarter-of six in the evening, squeals when she sees him, and demands to know if he can come to the wedding. He promises that he’ll see what his class schedule is and try to come. After she’s done having a minor fit, she tells Jonah that she’s going over to see Chris-who Dean assumes to be her fiancé-kisses them both on the cheek, and tells them not to wait up for her because she has no intention of coming back.
“She really shouldn’t be wearing white on her wedding day,” Jonah chastises. They keep playing video games and drinking out of the mini-bar-apparently the whole suite is on Grandma’s dime, so what does Dean care about a few tequila chasers and nuts and stuff-until they are a little drunk and they retire together to the king bed in the actual bedroom of the suite.
Jonah turns on the television and flips through to pay-per-view, which advertises something with a trite, obviously pornographic title. Dean lies on his back at the head of the bed, legs slightly apart, feeling buzzed and a little tripped out by how attractive he finds Jonah. They watch two young men on screen who, needless to say, end up fucking each other in a well-furnished kitchen.
Jonah watches intently. Dean glances between the screen and his cousin until he finally asks, “That interesting?”
“I’ve never seen it before,” Jonah admits. He tilts his head to the side. Dean watches his legs slide apart and his hands descend between his thighs. When he speaks again, his voice is a little drawn. “It’s not so bad.”
“Better when you do it,” Dean offers.
Jonah doesn’t say anything, and the movie plays in the background-one man meeting with several strangers and fucking or getting fucked by each and every one of them-as Jonah climbs up the bed and delivers to Dean his first real in depth kiss, followed up by Dean’s first time getting his cock sucked, followed up by Dean’s first time getting fucked.
As Jonah slips from his body, sweaty and sated but grumbling to himself about how he shouldn’t have done that, Dean curls on his side and tries to ignore the ache between his legs and a certain strange ache in his chest.
V
August, 1997 - Dean
The apartment in Manhattan is broken down and tiny. He shares it with three other guys, two of which he’s pretty sure are hustlers in Alphabet City, and works at a diner with the third, waiting for school to get into session. The apartment reminds him of their first apartment, the one they had in Richmond before Mary went a little off the deep end and cut them off from their entire family on her side. When he is not at work, he is studying for exams he doesn’t expect to ever take, let alone pass; when he is not studying, he is sleeping with headphones over his ears to ignore the sounds of his hustler roommates talking about dope and johns, and the neighbors above them fucking.
Manhattan isn’t anything like what he thought it would be, but he’s not all that surprised that it’s something completely foreign from everything he’s ever known. He knows, deep in his heart, that Mary kept them safe and hidden from the wide, frightening world.
Lying on his futon, back to the drafty window on the eastern side of the room, he wonders how Sam is faring, but cannot bring himself to spare the change to call everyone he knows the numbers of and ask if they’ve seen him around anywhere. He wonders how Mary is faring back in Blue Earth, or if she’s even still there. Maybe she’s moved on. Maybe she’s tracked down Deacon, now that there are no boys to watch out for. Maybe she’s at the Roadhouse with the Harvell’s.
Nobody asks about his occasional brooding, not around the apartment, but Dean can see the look in his co-worker’s eyes, aching to ask and have Dean betray his dark life history. Part of him wants to go and cry on the guy’s shoulder-he’s a twenty-something California transplant, San Fransisco if Dean remembers right, with pale hair and gentle eyes and a name that starts with a K or an L or some other letter that names don’t normally start with but that still manages to be bland and easily forgotten. Dean likes him, and he wonders about that as he lies awake on his futon and worries about Sammy.
When he finally breaks down and tells the guy all about his sordid history, it’s a blistering day without a breath of wind and they’re standing on the 87 platform in the cool of the underground. The guy smokes a cigarette, and Dean inhales the smoke offhandedly but never asks for a drag.
He tells the guy everything he can think of, in a quiet, seedy voice so the guy has to lean in real close. A couple pricks give them funny, sidelong looks, but Dean ignores them. There’s no commentary back at him, and when he’s all done, he just says, “That’s it. That’s all. So you can stop watchin’ out like I’m gonna open my wrists in the bathroom, okay?”
It never comes up again.
-----
He calls Blue Earth first, and Pastor Jim tells him that Mary’s in South Dakota with Bobby, but they’re probably on a Hunt. Still, once Dean hangs up on Pastor Jim’s dial tone, he loads in a few more coins and dials Bobby’s number.
The call takes a second to connect, and he can hear a vague echo to the ringing. He leans against the Plexiglas that sides the phone’s little cubicle, ducks his head and feels the sun beat down on the back of his neck, and starts up when he hears the phone get picked up.
“Hey, Uncle Bobby.”
“Dean? Damn boy, haven’t heard from you in an age.”
“Yeah. ‘S Momma there?”
“Yeah. Yeah, son, lemme go get her.” He hears the phone get set down on the counter, and Bobby shouting away from the phone-and he can just see him: leaning through the back door of the kitchen, one hand on the jamb and the other on the screen to hold it open-for Mary to come talk to her boy.
Mary’s near breathless when she picks up the phone. “Dean? Baby boy, is that you?”
“Yup. Hey, Momma.”
“Oh, baby boy,” she murmurs. Then, suddenly, there’s the sound of her hitting the counter and her surprising, heavy swearing. “Damnit, Dean, don’t you ever do such a fool thing again, you hear me? I was worried sick until that first letter came, and I’m still not entirely keen on the idea of you being out there all on your own.”
“I’m fine, Momma,” Dean assures.
Mary scoffs. “Yeah. I’m sure Sam thinks he’s fine too. And that’s all well and good until one of you gets abducted or raped or murdered, now isn’t it?”
“Nobody’s raping or murdering or abducting either of us, Momma.” A woman walking beside her daughter looks at him, scandalized, and turns her daughter away to the other side of the sidewalk quickly. Dean sticks his tongue out at her back and shakes his head. “I just wanted to call in and check up on you, Momma. Still a few more weeks until school gets in.”
“How is it?”
“Hot,” he laughs, and shakes his head a little. “Damn hot, Momma. And the apartment I’m in until the dorms open is this chincy little place with three other guys and not even a window-mount air conditioner.”
“Sounds lovely, baby boy,” Mary whispers, then sighs. “I miss you, Dean. It’s lonely without you around. It’s quiet without Sammy. I miss you both.”
He braves up at that point. “Any sign of him around?” Mary murmurs negatively, and he can practically see her shaking her head. “Oh. Well, I’m sure if he wants to get found, he will. He can’t stay hidden forever.”
“I did,” she murmurs. “Until I met John-your father.”
“Yeah,” Dean says noncommittally. He twists the cord around his little finger. “Momma, I’m running up time. I need to go.”
“Are you on a damn pay phone, Dean Garett Winchester?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Get lost,” she growls, but he can hear the smile and love in her voice.
He leans into the protection of the booth and murmurs, “Love you, Momma.” She whispers it back, soft and sad, just as he moves the receiver away from his ear and crashes it down on the cradle.
-----
He sits up in the warm of the night and contemplates being nineteen years old and a fucking virgin. Here he is in Manhattan, rooming up with two hustlers and an obviously interested San Fran twink, and he can’t even get over being five years old and worrying about his mother until she came stumbling back in with that Deacon guy attached to her face.
Used to be he blamed Deacon and seeing his mom like that for not being terribly interested in girls. But high school locker rooms and living close-quarters with three relatively attractive guys got him thinking. He isn’t about to say he’s a fag, but there’s every possibility he’s just not interested in anything. It would be nice to find out.
He stares over at his co-worker, asleep with his leg over the back of the couch. He watches the rise and fall of the guy’s chest, traces the shadow of his hand on his belly, fixates on the leg of the guy’s boxers, trying to see through the shadows to what’s underneath the thin cotton. Vaguely, a part of him tells him that he’s being really obvious and also really creepy. But that doesn’t stop him from staring at the guy like he’s a piece of meat or something.
The guy shifts in his sleep, spreads his legs a little more, and Dean gets a flash of downy inner-thigh. His breath stutters in his chest and he brings a hand between his legs to press against himself. He can do this; this is easier than asking for anything that might not be given, this is free and he’s done this before. This is no different than any other time he’s gotten himself off, except this time he actually has something to look at.
He knows the guy’s awake when he hears the couch squeak, but he can’t stop. The guy’s legs go deliciously wide, and he watches between the guy’s legs as he gets hard. That tips Dean over the edge, and he tilts to the side to arch and smother his noises in his pillow.
“You okay, Dean-o?”
“Yeah,” he murmurs. “Yeah, I’m good.”
-----
Jonah doesn’t call before he shows up, he just proves that stubborn persistence comes from their grandmother’s side and tracks him down one day in the middle of the month. Dean is working an odd shift, and Jonah finds him at the diner. For a while, Dean doesn’t even recognize him-admittedly, he hasn’t seen Jonah since they were five years old and Mary marched them out of Richmond, but when he does his double take, he can see Jonah’s parents mingled in his face, and he remembers that.
“Jonah? Jonah Cohen?”
“Hey, Dean,” Jonah murmurs. His voice has gone deep and gravely and deliciously forbidden, and Dean swallows embarrassment and a goofy smile. “Been a while, hasn’t it?”
“Yeah! Yeah, it has. What brings you to Manhattan?”
“Visiting Grandma. Had to get out of the house, though. She was driving me insane.”
Dean doesn’t have many memories of their grandmother. She never visited when he was young, and he only knows what she looks like from a few spare pictures that weren’t lost in the fire or kept as evidence for a criminal investigation that went nowhere. He does know about Mary’s falling out with her, though, and understands that she is the source of the obstinacy and bullheadedness that Sam certainly inherited. He gives Jonah a slight smile of apology.
“Marisol heard from Dad from Aunt Mary that you were here, so I thought I might try and pick you out of a line-up. Easier than I thought it’d be.”
“Uncle Joe and Momma are talkin’ again?” Dean sits across from Jonah because he has about twenty minutes left on his shift and what does he care, really. This is his cousin he hasn’t seen in fourteen years; the manager will understand.
“Not much. She told him in case Grandma tracked you down and started holy hell.”
“Good thing, then,” Dean chuckles, and can’t keep down the goofy smile. “You’re better company than Lonnie, I figure.”
Jonah laughs: he throws his head back and pushes his hair behind his ear and the entire effect goes straight down Dean’s spine in a way he knows it really shouldn’t. When Jonah calms, he just smiles, and they get down to talking, relating the events of their lives since they were separated from each other.
Dean is sad to find out that Uncle Joe and Aunt Carlotta divorced, but is pleased that Uncle Joe remarried and that Jonah seems to approve of her; he’s personally aghast that Marisol is engaged to be married in two months and not a word of it to anyone outside the family, which Dean was deemed in (which is apparently the reason for her and Jonah being in New York); and silently pleased to hear that Jonah is thinking seriously about Annapolis, if only because students in Annapolis constantly come down to New York on their breaks. Jonah is genuinely impressed by the amount of moving Dean did, and still manage to get into a college after the Alternative Learning Facilities; he says nothing when Dean says he’s not entirely sure where Mary’s holed up now anyway; and expresses his deepest condolences when Dean tells him Sam’s run off and managed to stay hidden this time.
“Isn’t he only fifteen?” Dean nods. Jonah shakes his head a little. “I don’t get it. He was a great baby. Quiet and boring and everything. I wish Jana’s kids were like that.”
“Didn’t say you had kid-siblings,” Dean chastens with a wink. Jonah smiles a little goofily, goes pink on the cheeks, shrugs one shoulder.
“I don’t spend a whole lot of time around Dad and Jana, really. Moved out when I turned seventeen. But, yeah, three little girls now: Isabelle, Jamison and Lea.”
“Triplets?”
Jonah laughs and plays with his coffee mug. “Apparently Dad throws multiples.” Dean chuckles a little, then checks his watch. He looks up, surprised by the time, and swears a little. Jonah looks concerned, quickly asking, “What? Something wrong?”
“I was supposed to walk back to the apartment with Quinn an hour ago.” He worries his lip, then shrugs a little. “He’s a big boy. I’m sure he got back to the apartment fine.”
“Oh. Okay.” Jonah nods. He stares at his coffee and is still staring at it when he says, “So, I’ve got a hotel room a couple blocks from here. Wanna go troll cable channels and play some Nintendo or something until Marisol comes back and complains about my obsession with so-called Japanese Porn?”
Dean grins. “Sounds cool.”
-----
Dean doesn’t know how it happens, but he knows the catalyst of the whole thing, and that’s Marisol.
She shows up at quarter-of six in the evening, squeals when she sees him, and demands to know if he can come to the wedding. He promises that he’ll see what his class schedule is and try to come. After she’s done having a minor fit, she tells Jonah that she’s going over to see Chris-who Dean assumes to be her fiancé-kisses them both on the cheek, and tells them not to wait up for her because she has no intention of coming back.
“She really shouldn’t be wearing white on her wedding day,” Jonah chastises. They keep playing video games and drinking out of the mini-bar-apparently the whole suite is on Grandma’s dime, so what does Dean care about a few tequila chasers and nuts and stuff-until they are a little drunk and they retire together to the king bed in the actual bedroom of the suite.
Jonah turns on the television and flips through to pay-per-view, which advertises something with a trite, obviously pornographic title. Dean lies on his back at the head of the bed, legs slightly apart, feeling buzzed and a little tripped out by how attractive he finds Jonah. They watch two young men on screen who, needless to say, end up fucking each other in a well-furnished kitchen.
Jonah watches intently. Dean glances between the screen and his cousin until he finally asks, “That interesting?”
“I’ve never seen it before,” Jonah admits. He tilts his head to the side. Dean watches his legs slide apart and his hands descend between his thighs. When he speaks again, his voice is a little drawn. “It’s not so bad.”
“Better when you do it,” Dean offers.
Jonah doesn’t say anything, and the movie plays in the background-one man meeting with several strangers and fucking or getting fucked by each and every one of them-as Jonah climbs up the bed and delivers to Dean his first real in depth kiss, followed up by Dean’s first time getting his cock sucked, followed up by Dean’s first time getting fucked.
As Jonah slips from his body, sweaty and sated but grumbling to himself about how he shouldn’t have done that, Dean curls on his side and tries to ignore the ache between his legs and a certain strange ache in his chest.