Fresh Fic: That Story
The angst that ate my brain is finished. And betaed. And adjusted. And I know that Saturday afternoon is a stupid time to post new fic because no one's at their computer and it'll just get lost in the general flotsam and jetsam of the lj world but I have to post this frelling thing before it drives me mad. Mad, I tell you.
I've always said that I just write the stories I have to tell. I know, pretty much exactly where this came from: a request for a story, the brilliant fulfilment of that request causing my thoughts to go in other directions, an argument about incest, someone's comment that Dean fills the role of the mother in the triad, and the knowledge that defining your self worth with sex is something that has to be learned at an early age.
This story has been referred to as "The story no one in fandom will read." by three separate people, one of whom then added, "or will admit to having read." Not because it's bad or particularly graphic but because it's... disturbing.
It's good for me to work outside my comfort zone, which this so very much is, and as much as I could use some reassurances, please, pay attention to the warnings. These are desceptively mild in a fandom that warns for improper use of a confessional and misuse of candy, but sincere.
Much thanks to barkley for beta-ing through squick. (a dozen or so messages back and forth all under the heading of "that story" *g*) And just as an aside, Americans are amazingly profligate with commas. The British tend to use them less, allowing the conjunctions to manufacture the necessary pauses. In typical Canadian fashion, I've split the difference. Sometimes I wanted clauses to cascade. Thus, any remaining gramatical idiosyncrasies are my own and are probably there on purpose for cadence. Don't blame barkley . (and you'll likely never hear me say that again.)
Canon has been knowingly adjusted in one instance -- I'm disregarding Dean's comment to Gordon about when he had his first kill.
Warnings
-15 yr old Dean/John
-adult content
-consensual with the qualifier that this situation is never consensual
-this is not my default John Winchester, it's a John Wincester
-small spoiler for Devil's Trap
Familiar Admonishments
The winter he turned fifteen, Dean woke up one night to find his father sitting on the edge of his bed, one hand stroking his hair. He blinked a couple of times but remained perfectly still, uncertain of what was going on. Except for the familiar smell of whiskey and cigarette smoke, he'd have thought he was dreaming. He couldn't remember the last time his father had touched him with anything other than rough affection -- slaps on the shoulder, manly hugs, a big hand wrapped around his jaw, the pressure just this side of pain, but not this.
Dark eyes were locked on his face and although it was hard to tell in the light spilling in from the hall, Dean thought he could see fear.
And that was stupid because his father wasn't afraid of anything.
He drew a tongue over dry lips and managed to find enough voice to murmur, "Dad?"
"Shhh, Dean. You'll wake Sammy."
There was a sound in his dad's voice Dean couldn't identify. It was almost like when he hit the bulls-eye with all three knives, or when he remembered all the words to some dumbass Latin ritual. It was almost approval but not quite. Close enough that something tight inside him released and he felt himself begin to relax.
"That's good, Dean." Calluses snagged hair and pulled free as the gentle rhythm of his father's hand against his head continued. "Go back to sleep."
He knew an order when he heard it, knew better than to question it. He closed his eyes...
"Dean!"
The bellow from the bedroom door rocketed him nearly all the way up onto his feet. His eyes snapped open in time to see his father standing just inside the room, shrugging into a jacket.
"Get your butt out of bed or you'll be late for school! Make sure Sammy eats breakfast and both of you, clean shirts today - yesterday's clothes practically walked themselves to the laundry. Lunches are in the fridge, but I'll be home late so you're on your own for supper."
Before Dean could protest that if he was hunting he'd need someone to watch his back, he was gone. Frowning at the memory of a warm hand stroking his hair, Dean wondered if he'd dreamed the visit as he grabbed his pillow and threw it at the lump in the other bed. "Haul ass, Sammy. We're wasting daylight."
The apartment, on the third floor over the town's only hardware store, was basically three rooms; the bedroom, the bathroom, and a big room with a kitchen across one end that did for everything else. It was a pit, and Dean knew it. He'd rather be in one of the cheap motel rooms they used in the summer when they were moving around because at least that didn't pretend to be a home. Home was the Impala and Sammy kicking the back of his seat and trying to slip a Zeppelin tape in between Cash and Cline, but Dad had said they were stuck for the rest of the school year if they didn't want the state coming after them so he sucked it up and made the best of it.
Sammy's school was six blocks from his so he had to bust a hump to make it to homeroom before first bell but he slid into his desk seconds before Ms. Henderson closed the door. They'd gotten along okay at first, but ever since Halloween when he'd over-reacted to a guy in a zombie mask - although he hadn't really hurt him -- she'd decided he was trouble. It wasn't like he could explain so he gave her just enough attitude to fulfill minimal expectations but not enough to get his dad involved. It was a tricky balance to maintain but it kept him amused through the bullshit of grades and bell curves and all the other crap that had nothing to do with his life. He aced a math test once, just to prove he could, but he'd ended up having to forge his dad's signature on the paper because he'd been gone for four days hunting banshees and Mr. Morris, the math teacher, had been convinced he'd cheated anyway so what the fuck.
"I'm almost eleven," Sammy said that afternoon when they walked home.
"You're ten."
"Not for much longer." He'd always resented the four months Dean was numerically five years older.
"All right. So?"
"So, Bobby Dawson says I don't need you to walk me home."
"Do I look like I care what Bobby Dawson thinks?"
Sammy peered up at him, hazel eyes serious. "No," he said after a minute.
"Well, all right then."
Dean put Sammy to bed at nine but stayed up until nearly midnight, filling shells with rock salt listening for the roar of the Impala. Eleven forty-seven, he heard it out front and hurriedly cleaned up. There was a baloney sandwich in the fridge and he'd made up the sofa bed and the first aid kit was out on the kitchen counter. He was pretty sure from the sound of his dad's boots on the stairs things were okay, but he stayed where he was until the door opened and he could actually see there were no visible wounds.
"Go to bed, Dean."
"Yes, sir."
Three nights later, he woke to a familiar touch against his hair.
And two nights after that.
And the next night.
And then not again for almost a week. He wondered if he'd done something wrong so he trained a little harder and watched Sammy a little closer and nearly broke the nose of some pissant senior who'd called his dad a drunk. That would have been enough to summon his dad to the school except there wasn't a seventeen year old in the world who'd complain about having his ass handed to him by a kid two years his junior.
When he finally felt the touch again, when he finally opened his eyes and saw his dad sitting there, he was so relieved he pushed back against the pressure, rubbing his head against his dad's palm. Except maybe he shouldn't have moved, maybe he was supposed to stay still, because his dad drew in a long, shuddering breath and, just for a minute, closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, Dean nearly got lost in the raw need. It was terrifying and exhilarating. He could fell his whole body flush. He could feel his heart pounding and his lungs fighting to draw in enough air.
And then his dad looked away, looked down at the floor, and he said, "Dean?"
His name, just his name, barely whispered. Barely breathed. He didn't understand the question, not all of it, but he heard the part that said, "Do you trust me?" There was and ever would be only one answer to that. So he said, "Yes." Just as quietly.
Calloused fingers trailed down his cheek and along his neck and under the blankets, ghosting over the worn t-shirt, tracing the outline of his body. The rest of his father never moved, only his arm and his fingers. His gaze never lifted up off the floor. The stiff line of his back and shoulders never relaxed.
Then hard pads of his fingertips paused on Dean's hip where his t-shirt had pulled away from his pajama bottoms and lightly, lightly stroked the exposed skin.
Dean felt too hot and too cold and his skin felt too tight and his body was responding and he couldn't stop it.
Two fingers followed the line of the elastic down over the curve of his stomach, rubbed against the soft hair that had just started growing under his belly button, slid under the elastic, and brushed lightly against the top of his penis.
It jerked, and Dean jerked with it, and his dad's hand stilled. Withdrew. His hand slid out from under the blankets and touched Dean's cheek again. His thumb trailed over Dean's lower lip. Eyes locked on his dad's face, Dean moved his head just enough to pull the tip into his mouth, sucking on it, working his tongue against the skin.
When his dad pulled his thumb free with a soft, wet pop, he was breathing like he'd been running and he looked he was in pain.
Suddenly terrified that he'd done the wrong thing, Dean tried to free a hand from the covers but his dad shook his head and he stilled instantly.
"Go back to sleep, Dean."
"Yes, sir"
But when it was just him and Sammy in the room, he thrust a hand inside his pajamas and in half a dozen quick jerks brought himself off. For the first time in three months he didn't think of Mary Elizabeth Nielson or her cleavage.
The next day, Ms. Henderson called him sullen. In the safety of his own head, he called her a fat, frigid, bitch; confident she was too stupid to read the words off his face.
That night Dean kept himself awake by mentally stripping his guns down and putting them back together again, by going over the four signs of werewolves, by silently reciting the chant to cleanse a blood curse, by listing the steps necessary to change the brake pads in the Impala. Getting desperate, he was about to go over his American History notes when he heard the door open.
He opened his eyes when the edge of the bed dipped under his dad's weight. He knew better than to think the dark offered safety - that the dark offered blood and violence in equal measure was something a Winchester learned young. He wasn't stupid and he wasn't a kid and he knew that when this kind of thing happened in houses with white picket fences and mini vans in the driveway that it was at least six different kinds of fucked up. But the last time he'd seen a white picket fence he'd been kicking a picket off it to use as a weapon against a really pissed off pookah and he'd rather be dead than in a mini-van and this, here and now, this was...
...was...
Needed.
Last summer his dad needed him to go forty-four hours without sleep while they hunted a werewolf through the woods in Maine. Needed him to obey orders, watch his back, and, when it came down to it, shoot the furry fucker right between the eyes, slowing her down enough for his dad to put a silver bullet through her heart.
Now he needed this.
Dean opened his eyes. He needed his dad to know he was there for him, that nothing was being taken here, that whatever happened he was giving it freely. After a long moment, his dad's eyes closed and when they opened again, they were damp, glistening in the spill of light from the hall. He shook his head but Dean had no idea what he was denying.
"Dad?"
A warm finger pressed across his lips and stayed there as his dad's other hand slid under the blankets, stroked down his chest and stomach, and cupped his dick through his pajamas. He'd been half hard while he waited and, with the heat of his father's hand pressing in on him, blood surged south so fast he was glad he was lying down.
No one had ever...
Well, Mary Elizabeth almost had but it was more of a quick grope while she was moving to her seat at a basketball game and there was like two layers of denim and she'd been off a bit and...
No one had ever... like this.
No one had ever touched him like he was something special. Like he was worth something.
His heart was pounding so loud he just knew it was going to wake Sam and he'd be all cranky and want to know what was happening and this wasn't for him. This was just him and Dad.
Dean kind of missed the moment when it became skin on skin but strong fingers were definitely wrapped around his dick, stroking and pulling and...
He bit his lip to keep from crying out and would have died from embarrassment at how fast he'd gotten off, except his dad looked almost as astonished by the whole thing as he felt and that sort of made it better. And then there was a handful of tissues wiping him clean, taking care of him, and the gentle touch was almost more than he could stand. He wrapped his hand around his dad's wrist and stopped the movement. His dad stared down at him for a long moment, eyes shadowed. Right about the time he read the answer off his father's face, Not now, Dean, not yet. Dean realized what he'd been offering.
It was only fair. But over the next few weeks, it was just his dad taking care of him.
Taking care of him.
He'd always known he was necessary - he took care of Sam, hell, he took care of their father too -- but this, this made him feel needed. No, better than needed. Wanted. And not wanted for what he could do, just wanted for himself.
And that was amazing.
Dad didn't show up every night, but often enough even Mrs. Henderson remarked on his attitude improvement. He'd have gotten a week's detention, just on principle, but Sammy had to be walked home after school so he settled for honing his scowl.
"At lunch time today, Bobby Dawson called us poor white trash."
Sammy sounded matter-of-fact rather than upset so Dean bit back his first response and asked, "What did you do?"
"Well, we're poor and we're white, right?"
"Yeah."
"So I only punched him once."
"He get back up again?"
"No. He was crying too hard."
"You get in trouble?"
"Little bit."
"That's my boy."
Sammy got an extra hotdog that night for dinner even though it was near the end of the month and groceries were getting stretched. Hell, if they had to, they could live on toast and peanut butter for a couple of days. It wouldn't be the first time.
Dad was going to be gone until Sunday night so, on Saturday, Dean made Sammy help him with the laundry.
"Because I'm not your fucking servant, okay?"
Sammy'd shrugged. "Okay."
While Sammy sprawled in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs and read a library book, Dean stood in the window and watched a group of kids from school hanging out across the street in front of the Woolworths. Four boys, three girls with nothing better to do than act like idiots, blocking the sidewalk, blocking the entrance, blocking any decent escape routes. Two of the boys started horsing around, pretending to fight while the others cheered them on, and Dean sneered. They had no idea of what it meant to really fight, to know losing wasn't an option because losing not only meant that another little kid's, young mother's, old man's name joined the list of the dead. Oh yeah, and you were dead too. Which kind of sucked.
They were laughing and having fun and they had no idea of the horrors that existed outside the borders of their safe, pointless little lives.
Then one of the girls turned and looked right at the laundromat, right at him, except he might not have even been standing there.
They had no idea he existed either.
Fine with him. Assholes.
Sunday night, Dean sent Sammy to bed at nine and, after he whined for twenty minutes about how unfair it was being younger, let him read until ten. Sitting at the kitchen table, shotgun to hand, scrawling out a last minute essay on the War of 1812 - Like who cared? They'd lost to Canada for fucksake. -- he thought about being poor white trash, and how they weren't no matter what it looked like from the outside. They were Winchesters. They were Hunters. And maybe they weren't normal - he nearly spat after the word - but they were family. And those were the only labels that mattered.
At half past one, when he heard the purr of the Impala, he'd had everything ready for hours.
At two, he was tightening the dressing over the six stitches he'd put into his father's arm. "I should've been with you."
"You were looking after your brother."
"He could've come too. I was hunting when I was nearly eleven." Once. Sammy had been at Pastor Jim's and Dean had gone along on a routine salt and burn. It wasn't much of a hunt, but it wasn't a lie either.
His dad smiled, like the pain killers were finally kicking in. He raised his good arm and closed his hand over Dean's shoulder and he said quietly... proudly, "Sammy's not you."
For a minute, Dean was afraid he'd been possessed. His chest felt tight, he couldn't breathe and his eyes were itching like crazy.
"You need to get some sleep, son. It's late."
He wanted to ask, will you be in later but Winchesters didn't talk about what happened in the dark in the light of day. Or in the light over the kitchen table. Or ever. He nodded and stood. "There's soup in the pot on the stove. Just needs to be heated up."
It was almost five when he finally fell asleep, eyes on the door, Sammy's breathing the only thing keeping him company. The next day, he had no trouble living down to Mrs. Henderson's expectations.
Monday evening was one of those times when neither of them could do anything right. Dad had come home late from work smelling like beer and engine grease. Stan Anderson, the asshole who owned the garage, liked to take advantage of his dad's papers not being current. He'd pay him under the table, sure, but he'd work him twelve, fourteen hours a day just because he could and he'd drop hints about how grateful some people should be to even have a job. Dean wanted to punch Stan right in his fat greasy face every time he saw the man; he had no idea how his dad managed to work in the same place as him.
Stan was a shitty mechanic too, everyone said so, but he was the only game in town.
Dean meant to tell his dad that the hot water was acting up again but by the time he finished laying the new salt line across the inside of the threshold, the swearing from the bathroom suggested he was too late.
Hair wet, his skin rubbed red, his dad dropped into his chair at the kitchen table, took one look at his bowl and snarled about supper being crap soup again. Dean made him a fried egg sandwich with the last two eggs. The toast kind of burned.
"Jesus fucking Christ, Dean. You can't even make toast now?"
Dean made more toast, carefully this time, but that meant they'd be two slices of bread short for Tuesday's lunches. Didn't matter.
Then he ragged on Sammy for always studying and ragged on Dean for not studying enough and Dean knew that another few beers would take the edges off but there was no beer left so the edges just got sharper.
Sammy went to bed early but he was still awake when Dean came in a couple of hours later.
"You didn't mean to burn the toast," he said quietly.
"I should've been paying more attention."
"He didn't have to yell."
"That kind of thing, not paying attention, it can get you killed on a hunt."
"Yeah," Sammy snorted, sounding older than nearly eleven. "If you're hunting toast."
The cold burnt toast wasn't that bad with a lot of peanut butter on it. Next morning Dean put both pieces in his lunch and smacked Sammy on the back of the head when he suggested they both take one. Kid had enough trouble fitting in - no reason to make it any harder for him.
He didn't stay awake that night. Used the tricks his dad had taught him to force himself to relax, to sleep. A guy had his pride after all.
He didn't know what woke him, a sound, a feeling but as Dean snapped up from sleep, he could feel that prickle at his hairline that told him he was being watched. He could hear Sammy breathing in the next bed, the hum of the clock radio on the TV table between them, nothing else. There was no weight on the outside edge of the mattress, no hand touching his hair. Rolling over slowly, hoping it looked like he was still asleep, he carefully cracked open his eyes.
His father was standing in the doorway.
Dean opened his eyes wider, and frowned, wondering what the hell was going on. He raised himself up on his elbows, caught his father's gaze, and nearly forgot how to breathe.
Want.
Need.
Shame.
Want.
Need.
Fear.
Around and around and around.
Then his father closed his eyes for a moment and swallowed and took a breath that looked painful, even in the dark, even from across the room. When he opened his eyes again, Dean could see that he'd settled something. Decided. Eyes locked on Dean's face, he stepped back and waited.
Dean had spent the last eleven years of his life learning to identify the moment when a choice had to be made. Step forward or step back. Pull the trigger or don't. But make a decision. Even a bad decision was better than passively waiting for the things that hide in the dark places to make the choice for you. This was one of those moments. He knew that the choice he made now would change... everything.
Quietly, so as not to disturb Sammy, he slid out from under the covers and stood.
His dad backed up another step.
One step at a time, the cheap tile icy cold under his bare feet, Dean followed him out into the main room of the apartment.
Eventually, they ended up beside the sofa bed. This close, Dean could smell the whiskey and that was bad two days before pay day because it meant Dad was running a tab at the bar again and sooner or later grocery money or ammo money or money for Sam's new runners would have to go to pay it.
Don't think of that now, he told himself firmly. Not now.
The light from the hardware store sign blasted through the cheap drapes so it wasn't exactly dark, the shadows too pale to hide danger. The door was locked; Dean could see the deadbolt, both chains, and the freshly chalked hex marks above the salt line. The white sheets on the bed, kind of grey and dingy in the daytime, seemed to glow with a weird inner light. When he finally lifted his gaze back to his dad's face the raw need he saw left him feeling dizzy.
Exalted.
It felt a little like the time he'd been pulled under water by the nixie as he raised his arms and let his dad gently pull his t-shirt over his head. He gasped as cool fingers traced his shoulders, along his collar bone, and down his chest. He closed his eyes when those fingers tugged the tie of his pajama bottoms free and they slid down his legs to pool around his ankles. Obedient to the pressure on first one hip then the other, he raised his feet, stepped clear of the fabric and up against the edge of the bed.
Another gasp as rough denim brushed against his skin and a second later his father's voice in his ear. "Shhh, Dean. You'll wake Sammy."
Half hard already, he let his father lay him out on the bed. A rough cheek brushed his. A rougher voice, barely audible even though he could feel the whiskey breath lapping moist against his neck. "Open your eyes, son. I need you to be here, with me on this."
Dean's eyes snapped open and, barely breathing, he watched his dad undress. He'd seen the man naked before. Hell, he'd dealt with most of the minor wounds drawn as white lines across his father's skin. He'd knelt on those shoulders as Bobby'd cauterized the werewolf bite on the right thigh. He'd wrapped the bandage, now grimy and grease stained, around his dad's arm only - he counted back - only three days earlier. So yeah, he'd seen his father naked.
This was different.
This was for him. Not for Sammy asleep in the bedroom. Not for the guys his dad went drinking with. Not for the assholes he had to suck up to at the garage to keep a pissant job. Not for the monsters he hunted. For him.
His dad saw him when no one else did.
Jesus, his dad was a big guy. And there was a lot of hair. And his dick was... bigger. It wasn't even completely hard yet and it was dark and... Dean frowned.
His dad looked confused for a moment, then he glanced down and then he grinned as he lowered himself down onto the bed. "You're fifteen," he murmured against Dean's neck. "Give it time."
"I wasn't..." He barely breathed the protest.
"You were. But that's okay." Then the words grew ragged around the edges. "I'll make it good for you, Dean. I promise."
The heat coming off his dad's body was amazing and as Dean arched up into the rough caresses he felt like he'd never been warm in his life before now. Then he couldn't think of anything beyond the heated length of his dad's dick rubbing up against his. He made a noise that sounded embarrassingly close to a whimper and pressed his face against his dad's shoulder to muffle the sounds he knew he wouldn't be able to stop himself from making.
Then strong fingers wrapped around his length - around both of them together - and he thrust up into the grip, rubbing against the silk and steel of his dad's dick as his grip grew slick and impossibly hotter. He wanted... He needed...
He might have bit down as he came. He thought he tasted salt on his lips as his head lolled back against the thin pillow and his body jerked to the rhythm of his dad jacking himself off hard and fast. Then a word he didn't quite hear and a spill of more heat still across his belly and the sudden collapse of his dad's weight over him.
It was dark and warm and okay, maybe he was having a little trouble breathing, but lying under his dad's body, skin to skin - he felt warm and wanted and...
...safe. Nothing could touch him here. Nothing could hurt him.
And then that breathing thing got to be a bit of a problem and, grunting, he heaved his dad's body off him and onto the mattress where he lay, mouth open slightly, snoring a little, looking as peaceful as Dean could ever remember him looking.
I did that.
He slid out of the opposite side of the bed, walked around, and covered his dad with a blanket before he pulled on his pajamas.
"What're you grinning about?" Sammy demanded next morning on the way to school.
Because he'd never lied to his baby brother - well, not about anything that really mattered - he said, "Feeling safe."
"And that makes you look like a big dope?"
"You wouldn't understand."
Sammy rolled his eyes and elbowed Dean hard in the side. For a chubby kid, he had friggin' boney elbows. "Jerk."
"Ass."
"Don't let Dad hear you call me that," he snorted.
Dean wanted to say, "It's okay, Dad and me, we have an understanding." But he knew Sam would ask questions and this was something he couldn't share.
It didn't happen often. But it happened often enough that Dean began to crave it when it didn't. The heat and the need and feeling safe... Sometimes he wondered what it would happen if he crept out to the livingroom on his own, stripped down, and slid under the covers, whispering, "Shhh, Dad, you'll wake Sammy," as his father responded to the unexpected touch.
They had a party for Sammy when he finally turned eleven, with cake and ice cream and pizza ordered in like other kids did. Dean had taken the money their dad gave him to pay for it, sensing the guilt but unable to figure out where it was coming from. He might be a little hit or miss when it came to them growing out of their clothes or knowing exactly how much food they could go through in a week but he never forgot a birthday. Last year, he'd even called from a hunt to tell Dean where his present was hidden.
Dean got Sammy a huge stack of Justice League comics, sixty-two of them, that he'd found in the back of the Second Time Around Shop buried under a set of yellow curtains that looked like they'd been used to wrap a body. The comics smelled a little musty so he talked them down to a nickel a piece and that left enough money to have Sam's name put on the cake.
Dean'd been able to pick a top of the line Schlage when he was twelve. The locked coin trays on the washers and dryers had given him less than no trouble.
Stuffing his own face with pizza, Dean watched his father and his brother eat, happy that Sammy was happy, wondering what the hell their father had been thinking getting an eleven year old a Glock. A Berretta would have made more sense, although he supposed Sammy would eventually grow into the larger gun.
The whiskey bottle came out after Sammy went to bed, staggering a little under the weight of the comics.
"Don't read too long," Dean told him, as he disappeared.
Sammy stuck his head back out into the big room. "It's my birthday."
"Duh. That's why I said not too long."
He did the rest of the cleaning up - Sammy got a free pass on his birthday - feeling his father's eyes on him the entire time. His palms were damp and his throat was dry and he couldn't seem to do anything right. He knocked the pizza box onto the floor.
"You should have seen the edge was sticking out there, Dean. You need to pay more attention to the things around you. Some of them can kill you."
"Yes, sir."
He had trouble fitting the leftover cake into the ancient fridge.
"Don't just stand there with the door open, boy. We're not cooling the whole damned room."
"No, sir."
And, finally, while he was lifting the plates into the cupboard the top one slid off the pile. He made grab for it but it bounced off the ends of his fingers and shattered on the floor.
"Jesus Christ, Dean, take a little care! I'm not made of fucking money."
"I know..."
"Are you being a smart ass?"
"No, sir!"
He finished his homework under the spotlight of his father's disapproval, whiskey glass rising and fall rhythmically at the other end of the kitchen table. Closing his books evoked a dismissive grunt and he moved silently into the bedroom, wondering what had happened, wishing he knew how to make it better.
Sammy had fallen asleep, comic books piled around him on the bed, one spread open on his chest, chubby hand splayed out and holding it in place even asleep. The weak light from the lamp between the beds barely reached the book. Dean shook his head as he gently lifted his brother's hand and tugged the comic free. If Sammy read himself into needing glasses, their dad would be seriously pissed.
He piled the books against the wall where Sammy could see them the next morning, padded barefoot to the bathroom to do his teeth without looking toward the kitchen table, checked the salt line on the window ledge, and went to bed.
No way Dad would want him tonight, not the way he'd screwed up.
He didn't wake when the bedroom door opened, didn't know how long his dad had been standing there when his lids finally snapped up. He sat, heart pounding, blood roaring in his ears, unable to believe that he'd actually slept on, oblivious. Sure, this time it was their father, but what if it had been something after Sammy?
Ashamed, he followed his dad out to the sofa bed and stripped out of his pajamas, climbing up over his dad's bare legs and straddling his thighs. No matter what he did, he couldn't get his father's cock to than half hard - right hand, left hand, both hands... nothing. His dad's eyes had gone from half closed to completely shut as he sagged back against the sofa cushions but Dean knew he was awake from the almost painful way he kept squeezing and releasing Dean's shoulder.
Then from shoulder to neck. To cupping the back of his head. To pushing his head down...
Dean froze, mouth above his dad's cock, his own erection wilting. He'd never...
But his dad wanted him to.
Needed him to.
He could do this. Christ, it wasn't like he was some stupid, scared kid. He was Dean Winchester.
It didn't taste like anything much - a little bit the way his dad smelled, like whiskey and sweat, and a little bitter - but mostly, after a while, it just tasted like spit. And he might as well have been sucking his own thumb for all the effect he had. His neck hurt from the angle, his jaw ached, and he felt like he wasn't getting enough air in through his nose. No matter what he did, his dad never got more than half hard.
After what seemed like hours, strong fingers gripped his shoulder and pulled his head up. His lips came off the top of his dad's cock with a surprisingly loud pop and he half expected to hear, "Shhh, Dean. You'll wake Sammy." But he didn't.
What he heard instead wrapped iron bands around his chest.
"Go back to bed, son."
Mouth wet and swollen, more ashamed than he'd ever felt, Dean crawled backwards off the end of the sofa bed and pulled on his pajama bottoms. He bit the inside of his cheek so hard it bled but his hands did not tremble as he tied the drawstring.
As he turned to go, a hand closed around his wrist and he looked up to see in the flickering hardware store sign, a suspicious glisten in the corners of his dad's eyes.
Tears?
"I'm sorry Dean, I'm so sorry."
Dean had no idea what his dad was sorry about. He was the one who'd failed.
part two
I've always said that I just write the stories I have to tell. I know, pretty much exactly where this came from: a request for a story, the brilliant fulfilment of that request causing my thoughts to go in other directions, an argument about incest, someone's comment that Dean fills the role of the mother in the triad, and the knowledge that defining your self worth with sex is something that has to be learned at an early age.
This story has been referred to as "The story no one in fandom will read." by three separate people, one of whom then added, "or will admit to having read." Not because it's bad or particularly graphic but because it's... disturbing.
It's good for me to work outside my comfort zone, which this so very much is, and as much as I could use some reassurances, please, pay attention to the warnings. These are desceptively mild in a fandom that warns for improper use of a confessional and misuse of candy, but sincere.
Much thanks to barkley for beta-ing through squick. (a dozen or so messages back and forth all under the heading of "that story" *g*) And just as an aside, Americans are amazingly profligate with commas. The British tend to use them less, allowing the conjunctions to manufacture the necessary pauses. In typical Canadian fashion, I've split the difference. Sometimes I wanted clauses to cascade. Thus, any remaining gramatical idiosyncrasies are my own and are probably there on purpose for cadence. Don't blame barkley . (and you'll likely never hear me say that again.)
Canon has been knowingly adjusted in one instance -- I'm disregarding Dean's comment to Gordon about when he had his first kill.
Warnings
-15 yr old Dean/John
-adult content
-consensual with the qualifier that this situation is never consensual
-this is not my default John Winchester, it's a John Wincester
-small spoiler for Devil's Trap
Familiar Admonishments
The winter he turned fifteen, Dean woke up one night to find his father sitting on the edge of his bed, one hand stroking his hair. He blinked a couple of times but remained perfectly still, uncertain of what was going on. Except for the familiar smell of whiskey and cigarette smoke, he'd have thought he was dreaming. He couldn't remember the last time his father had touched him with anything other than rough affection -- slaps on the shoulder, manly hugs, a big hand wrapped around his jaw, the pressure just this side of pain, but not this.
Dark eyes were locked on his face and although it was hard to tell in the light spilling in from the hall, Dean thought he could see fear.
And that was stupid because his father wasn't afraid of anything.
He drew a tongue over dry lips and managed to find enough voice to murmur, "Dad?"
"Shhh, Dean. You'll wake Sammy."
There was a sound in his dad's voice Dean couldn't identify. It was almost like when he hit the bulls-eye with all three knives, or when he remembered all the words to some dumbass Latin ritual. It was almost approval but not quite. Close enough that something tight inside him released and he felt himself begin to relax.
"That's good, Dean." Calluses snagged hair and pulled free as the gentle rhythm of his father's hand against his head continued. "Go back to sleep."
He knew an order when he heard it, knew better than to question it. He closed his eyes...
"Dean!"
The bellow from the bedroom door rocketed him nearly all the way up onto his feet. His eyes snapped open in time to see his father standing just inside the room, shrugging into a jacket.
"Get your butt out of bed or you'll be late for school! Make sure Sammy eats breakfast and both of you, clean shirts today - yesterday's clothes practically walked themselves to the laundry. Lunches are in the fridge, but I'll be home late so you're on your own for supper."
Before Dean could protest that if he was hunting he'd need someone to watch his back, he was gone. Frowning at the memory of a warm hand stroking his hair, Dean wondered if he'd dreamed the visit as he grabbed his pillow and threw it at the lump in the other bed. "Haul ass, Sammy. We're wasting daylight."
The apartment, on the third floor over the town's only hardware store, was basically three rooms; the bedroom, the bathroom, and a big room with a kitchen across one end that did for everything else. It was a pit, and Dean knew it. He'd rather be in one of the cheap motel rooms they used in the summer when they were moving around because at least that didn't pretend to be a home. Home was the Impala and Sammy kicking the back of his seat and trying to slip a Zeppelin tape in between Cash and Cline, but Dad had said they were stuck for the rest of the school year if they didn't want the state coming after them so he sucked it up and made the best of it.
Sammy's school was six blocks from his so he had to bust a hump to make it to homeroom before first bell but he slid into his desk seconds before Ms. Henderson closed the door. They'd gotten along okay at first, but ever since Halloween when he'd over-reacted to a guy in a zombie mask - although he hadn't really hurt him -- she'd decided he was trouble. It wasn't like he could explain so he gave her just enough attitude to fulfill minimal expectations but not enough to get his dad involved. It was a tricky balance to maintain but it kept him amused through the bullshit of grades and bell curves and all the other crap that had nothing to do with his life. He aced a math test once, just to prove he could, but he'd ended up having to forge his dad's signature on the paper because he'd been gone for four days hunting banshees and Mr. Morris, the math teacher, had been convinced he'd cheated anyway so what the fuck.
"I'm almost eleven," Sammy said that afternoon when they walked home.
"You're ten."
"Not for much longer." He'd always resented the four months Dean was numerically five years older.
"All right. So?"
"So, Bobby Dawson says I don't need you to walk me home."
"Do I look like I care what Bobby Dawson thinks?"
Sammy peered up at him, hazel eyes serious. "No," he said after a minute.
"Well, all right then."
Dean put Sammy to bed at nine but stayed up until nearly midnight, filling shells with rock salt listening for the roar of the Impala. Eleven forty-seven, he heard it out front and hurriedly cleaned up. There was a baloney sandwich in the fridge and he'd made up the sofa bed and the first aid kit was out on the kitchen counter. He was pretty sure from the sound of his dad's boots on the stairs things were okay, but he stayed where he was until the door opened and he could actually see there were no visible wounds.
"Go to bed, Dean."
"Yes, sir."
Three nights later, he woke to a familiar touch against his hair.
And two nights after that.
And the next night.
And then not again for almost a week. He wondered if he'd done something wrong so he trained a little harder and watched Sammy a little closer and nearly broke the nose of some pissant senior who'd called his dad a drunk. That would have been enough to summon his dad to the school except there wasn't a seventeen year old in the world who'd complain about having his ass handed to him by a kid two years his junior.
When he finally felt the touch again, when he finally opened his eyes and saw his dad sitting there, he was so relieved he pushed back against the pressure, rubbing his head against his dad's palm. Except maybe he shouldn't have moved, maybe he was supposed to stay still, because his dad drew in a long, shuddering breath and, just for a minute, closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, Dean nearly got lost in the raw need. It was terrifying and exhilarating. He could fell his whole body flush. He could feel his heart pounding and his lungs fighting to draw in enough air.
And then his dad looked away, looked down at the floor, and he said, "Dean?"
His name, just his name, barely whispered. Barely breathed. He didn't understand the question, not all of it, but he heard the part that said, "Do you trust me?" There was and ever would be only one answer to that. So he said, "Yes." Just as quietly.
Calloused fingers trailed down his cheek and along his neck and under the blankets, ghosting over the worn t-shirt, tracing the outline of his body. The rest of his father never moved, only his arm and his fingers. His gaze never lifted up off the floor. The stiff line of his back and shoulders never relaxed.
Then hard pads of his fingertips paused on Dean's hip where his t-shirt had pulled away from his pajama bottoms and lightly, lightly stroked the exposed skin.
Dean felt too hot and too cold and his skin felt too tight and his body was responding and he couldn't stop it.
Two fingers followed the line of the elastic down over the curve of his stomach, rubbed against the soft hair that had just started growing under his belly button, slid under the elastic, and brushed lightly against the top of his penis.
It jerked, and Dean jerked with it, and his dad's hand stilled. Withdrew. His hand slid out from under the blankets and touched Dean's cheek again. His thumb trailed over Dean's lower lip. Eyes locked on his dad's face, Dean moved his head just enough to pull the tip into his mouth, sucking on it, working his tongue against the skin.
When his dad pulled his thumb free with a soft, wet pop, he was breathing like he'd been running and he looked he was in pain.
Suddenly terrified that he'd done the wrong thing, Dean tried to free a hand from the covers but his dad shook his head and he stilled instantly.
"Go back to sleep, Dean."
"Yes, sir"
But when it was just him and Sammy in the room, he thrust a hand inside his pajamas and in half a dozen quick jerks brought himself off. For the first time in three months he didn't think of Mary Elizabeth Nielson or her cleavage.
The next day, Ms. Henderson called him sullen. In the safety of his own head, he called her a fat, frigid, bitch; confident she was too stupid to read the words off his face.
That night Dean kept himself awake by mentally stripping his guns down and putting them back together again, by going over the four signs of werewolves, by silently reciting the chant to cleanse a blood curse, by listing the steps necessary to change the brake pads in the Impala. Getting desperate, he was about to go over his American History notes when he heard the door open.
He opened his eyes when the edge of the bed dipped under his dad's weight. He knew better than to think the dark offered safety - that the dark offered blood and violence in equal measure was something a Winchester learned young. He wasn't stupid and he wasn't a kid and he knew that when this kind of thing happened in houses with white picket fences and mini vans in the driveway that it was at least six different kinds of fucked up. But the last time he'd seen a white picket fence he'd been kicking a picket off it to use as a weapon against a really pissed off pookah and he'd rather be dead than in a mini-van and this, here and now, this was...
...was...
Needed.
Last summer his dad needed him to go forty-four hours without sleep while they hunted a werewolf through the woods in Maine. Needed him to obey orders, watch his back, and, when it came down to it, shoot the furry fucker right between the eyes, slowing her down enough for his dad to put a silver bullet through her heart.
Now he needed this.
Dean opened his eyes. He needed his dad to know he was there for him, that nothing was being taken here, that whatever happened he was giving it freely. After a long moment, his dad's eyes closed and when they opened again, they were damp, glistening in the spill of light from the hall. He shook his head but Dean had no idea what he was denying.
"Dad?"
A warm finger pressed across his lips and stayed there as his dad's other hand slid under the blankets, stroked down his chest and stomach, and cupped his dick through his pajamas. He'd been half hard while he waited and, with the heat of his father's hand pressing in on him, blood surged south so fast he was glad he was lying down.
No one had ever...
Well, Mary Elizabeth almost had but it was more of a quick grope while she was moving to her seat at a basketball game and there was like two layers of denim and she'd been off a bit and...
No one had ever... like this.
No one had ever touched him like he was something special. Like he was worth something.
His heart was pounding so loud he just knew it was going to wake Sam and he'd be all cranky and want to know what was happening and this wasn't for him. This was just him and Dad.
Dean kind of missed the moment when it became skin on skin but strong fingers were definitely wrapped around his dick, stroking and pulling and...
He bit his lip to keep from crying out and would have died from embarrassment at how fast he'd gotten off, except his dad looked almost as astonished by the whole thing as he felt and that sort of made it better. And then there was a handful of tissues wiping him clean, taking care of him, and the gentle touch was almost more than he could stand. He wrapped his hand around his dad's wrist and stopped the movement. His dad stared down at him for a long moment, eyes shadowed. Right about the time he read the answer off his father's face, Not now, Dean, not yet. Dean realized what he'd been offering.
It was only fair. But over the next few weeks, it was just his dad taking care of him.
Taking care of him.
He'd always known he was necessary - he took care of Sam, hell, he took care of their father too -- but this, this made him feel needed. No, better than needed. Wanted. And not wanted for what he could do, just wanted for himself.
And that was amazing.
Dad didn't show up every night, but often enough even Mrs. Henderson remarked on his attitude improvement. He'd have gotten a week's detention, just on principle, but Sammy had to be walked home after school so he settled for honing his scowl.
"At lunch time today, Bobby Dawson called us poor white trash."
Sammy sounded matter-of-fact rather than upset so Dean bit back his first response and asked, "What did you do?"
"Well, we're poor and we're white, right?"
"Yeah."
"So I only punched him once."
"He get back up again?"
"No. He was crying too hard."
"You get in trouble?"
"Little bit."
"That's my boy."
Sammy got an extra hotdog that night for dinner even though it was near the end of the month and groceries were getting stretched. Hell, if they had to, they could live on toast and peanut butter for a couple of days. It wouldn't be the first time.
Dad was going to be gone until Sunday night so, on Saturday, Dean made Sammy help him with the laundry.
"Because I'm not your fucking servant, okay?"
Sammy'd shrugged. "Okay."
While Sammy sprawled in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs and read a library book, Dean stood in the window and watched a group of kids from school hanging out across the street in front of the Woolworths. Four boys, three girls with nothing better to do than act like idiots, blocking the sidewalk, blocking the entrance, blocking any decent escape routes. Two of the boys started horsing around, pretending to fight while the others cheered them on, and Dean sneered. They had no idea of what it meant to really fight, to know losing wasn't an option because losing not only meant that another little kid's, young mother's, old man's name joined the list of the dead. Oh yeah, and you were dead too. Which kind of sucked.
They were laughing and having fun and they had no idea of the horrors that existed outside the borders of their safe, pointless little lives.
Then one of the girls turned and looked right at the laundromat, right at him, except he might not have even been standing there.
They had no idea he existed either.
Fine with him. Assholes.
Sunday night, Dean sent Sammy to bed at nine and, after he whined for twenty minutes about how unfair it was being younger, let him read until ten. Sitting at the kitchen table, shotgun to hand, scrawling out a last minute essay on the War of 1812 - Like who cared? They'd lost to Canada for fucksake. -- he thought about being poor white trash, and how they weren't no matter what it looked like from the outside. They were Winchesters. They were Hunters. And maybe they weren't normal - he nearly spat after the word - but they were family. And those were the only labels that mattered.
At half past one, when he heard the purr of the Impala, he'd had everything ready for hours.
At two, he was tightening the dressing over the six stitches he'd put into his father's arm. "I should've been with you."
"You were looking after your brother."
"He could've come too. I was hunting when I was nearly eleven." Once. Sammy had been at Pastor Jim's and Dean had gone along on a routine salt and burn. It wasn't much of a hunt, but it wasn't a lie either.
His dad smiled, like the pain killers were finally kicking in. He raised his good arm and closed his hand over Dean's shoulder and he said quietly... proudly, "Sammy's not you."
For a minute, Dean was afraid he'd been possessed. His chest felt tight, he couldn't breathe and his eyes were itching like crazy.
"You need to get some sleep, son. It's late."
He wanted to ask, will you be in later but Winchesters didn't talk about what happened in the dark in the light of day. Or in the light over the kitchen table. Or ever. He nodded and stood. "There's soup in the pot on the stove. Just needs to be heated up."
It was almost five when he finally fell asleep, eyes on the door, Sammy's breathing the only thing keeping him company. The next day, he had no trouble living down to Mrs. Henderson's expectations.
Monday evening was one of those times when neither of them could do anything right. Dad had come home late from work smelling like beer and engine grease. Stan Anderson, the asshole who owned the garage, liked to take advantage of his dad's papers not being current. He'd pay him under the table, sure, but he'd work him twelve, fourteen hours a day just because he could and he'd drop hints about how grateful some people should be to even have a job. Dean wanted to punch Stan right in his fat greasy face every time he saw the man; he had no idea how his dad managed to work in the same place as him.
Stan was a shitty mechanic too, everyone said so, but he was the only game in town.
Dean meant to tell his dad that the hot water was acting up again but by the time he finished laying the new salt line across the inside of the threshold, the swearing from the bathroom suggested he was too late.
Hair wet, his skin rubbed red, his dad dropped into his chair at the kitchen table, took one look at his bowl and snarled about supper being crap soup again. Dean made him a fried egg sandwich with the last two eggs. The toast kind of burned.
"Jesus fucking Christ, Dean. You can't even make toast now?"
Dean made more toast, carefully this time, but that meant they'd be two slices of bread short for Tuesday's lunches. Didn't matter.
Then he ragged on Sammy for always studying and ragged on Dean for not studying enough and Dean knew that another few beers would take the edges off but there was no beer left so the edges just got sharper.
Sammy went to bed early but he was still awake when Dean came in a couple of hours later.
"You didn't mean to burn the toast," he said quietly.
"I should've been paying more attention."
"He didn't have to yell."
"That kind of thing, not paying attention, it can get you killed on a hunt."
"Yeah," Sammy snorted, sounding older than nearly eleven. "If you're hunting toast."
The cold burnt toast wasn't that bad with a lot of peanut butter on it. Next morning Dean put both pieces in his lunch and smacked Sammy on the back of the head when he suggested they both take one. Kid had enough trouble fitting in - no reason to make it any harder for him.
He didn't stay awake that night. Used the tricks his dad had taught him to force himself to relax, to sleep. A guy had his pride after all.
He didn't know what woke him, a sound, a feeling but as Dean snapped up from sleep, he could feel that prickle at his hairline that told him he was being watched. He could hear Sammy breathing in the next bed, the hum of the clock radio on the TV table between them, nothing else. There was no weight on the outside edge of the mattress, no hand touching his hair. Rolling over slowly, hoping it looked like he was still asleep, he carefully cracked open his eyes.
His father was standing in the doorway.
Dean opened his eyes wider, and frowned, wondering what the hell was going on. He raised himself up on his elbows, caught his father's gaze, and nearly forgot how to breathe.
Want.
Need.
Shame.
Want.
Need.
Fear.
Around and around and around.
Then his father closed his eyes for a moment and swallowed and took a breath that looked painful, even in the dark, even from across the room. When he opened his eyes again, Dean could see that he'd settled something. Decided. Eyes locked on Dean's face, he stepped back and waited.
Dean had spent the last eleven years of his life learning to identify the moment when a choice had to be made. Step forward or step back. Pull the trigger or don't. But make a decision. Even a bad decision was better than passively waiting for the things that hide in the dark places to make the choice for you. This was one of those moments. He knew that the choice he made now would change... everything.
Quietly, so as not to disturb Sammy, he slid out from under the covers and stood.
His dad backed up another step.
One step at a time, the cheap tile icy cold under his bare feet, Dean followed him out into the main room of the apartment.
Eventually, they ended up beside the sofa bed. This close, Dean could smell the whiskey and that was bad two days before pay day because it meant Dad was running a tab at the bar again and sooner or later grocery money or ammo money or money for Sam's new runners would have to go to pay it.
Don't think of that now, he told himself firmly. Not now.
The light from the hardware store sign blasted through the cheap drapes so it wasn't exactly dark, the shadows too pale to hide danger. The door was locked; Dean could see the deadbolt, both chains, and the freshly chalked hex marks above the salt line. The white sheets on the bed, kind of grey and dingy in the daytime, seemed to glow with a weird inner light. When he finally lifted his gaze back to his dad's face the raw need he saw left him feeling dizzy.
Exalted.
It felt a little like the time he'd been pulled under water by the nixie as he raised his arms and let his dad gently pull his t-shirt over his head. He gasped as cool fingers traced his shoulders, along his collar bone, and down his chest. He closed his eyes when those fingers tugged the tie of his pajama bottoms free and they slid down his legs to pool around his ankles. Obedient to the pressure on first one hip then the other, he raised his feet, stepped clear of the fabric and up against the edge of the bed.
Another gasp as rough denim brushed against his skin and a second later his father's voice in his ear. "Shhh, Dean. You'll wake Sammy."
Half hard already, he let his father lay him out on the bed. A rough cheek brushed his. A rougher voice, barely audible even though he could feel the whiskey breath lapping moist against his neck. "Open your eyes, son. I need you to be here, with me on this."
Dean's eyes snapped open and, barely breathing, he watched his dad undress. He'd seen the man naked before. Hell, he'd dealt with most of the minor wounds drawn as white lines across his father's skin. He'd knelt on those shoulders as Bobby'd cauterized the werewolf bite on the right thigh. He'd wrapped the bandage, now grimy and grease stained, around his dad's arm only - he counted back - only three days earlier. So yeah, he'd seen his father naked.
This was different.
This was for him. Not for Sammy asleep in the bedroom. Not for the guys his dad went drinking with. Not for the assholes he had to suck up to at the garage to keep a pissant job. Not for the monsters he hunted. For him.
His dad saw him when no one else did.
Jesus, his dad was a big guy. And there was a lot of hair. And his dick was... bigger. It wasn't even completely hard yet and it was dark and... Dean frowned.
His dad looked confused for a moment, then he glanced down and then he grinned as he lowered himself down onto the bed. "You're fifteen," he murmured against Dean's neck. "Give it time."
"I wasn't..." He barely breathed the protest.
"You were. But that's okay." Then the words grew ragged around the edges. "I'll make it good for you, Dean. I promise."
The heat coming off his dad's body was amazing and as Dean arched up into the rough caresses he felt like he'd never been warm in his life before now. Then he couldn't think of anything beyond the heated length of his dad's dick rubbing up against his. He made a noise that sounded embarrassingly close to a whimper and pressed his face against his dad's shoulder to muffle the sounds he knew he wouldn't be able to stop himself from making.
Then strong fingers wrapped around his length - around both of them together - and he thrust up into the grip, rubbing against the silk and steel of his dad's dick as his grip grew slick and impossibly hotter. He wanted... He needed...
He might have bit down as he came. He thought he tasted salt on his lips as his head lolled back against the thin pillow and his body jerked to the rhythm of his dad jacking himself off hard and fast. Then a word he didn't quite hear and a spill of more heat still across his belly and the sudden collapse of his dad's weight over him.
It was dark and warm and okay, maybe he was having a little trouble breathing, but lying under his dad's body, skin to skin - he felt warm and wanted and...
...safe. Nothing could touch him here. Nothing could hurt him.
And then that breathing thing got to be a bit of a problem and, grunting, he heaved his dad's body off him and onto the mattress where he lay, mouth open slightly, snoring a little, looking as peaceful as Dean could ever remember him looking.
I did that.
He slid out of the opposite side of the bed, walked around, and covered his dad with a blanket before he pulled on his pajamas.
"What're you grinning about?" Sammy demanded next morning on the way to school.
Because he'd never lied to his baby brother - well, not about anything that really mattered - he said, "Feeling safe."
"And that makes you look like a big dope?"
"You wouldn't understand."
Sammy rolled his eyes and elbowed Dean hard in the side. For a chubby kid, he had friggin' boney elbows. "Jerk."
"Ass."
"Don't let Dad hear you call me that," he snorted.
Dean wanted to say, "It's okay, Dad and me, we have an understanding." But he knew Sam would ask questions and this was something he couldn't share.
It didn't happen often. But it happened often enough that Dean began to crave it when it didn't. The heat and the need and feeling safe... Sometimes he wondered what it would happen if he crept out to the livingroom on his own, stripped down, and slid under the covers, whispering, "Shhh, Dad, you'll wake Sammy," as his father responded to the unexpected touch.
They had a party for Sammy when he finally turned eleven, with cake and ice cream and pizza ordered in like other kids did. Dean had taken the money their dad gave him to pay for it, sensing the guilt but unable to figure out where it was coming from. He might be a little hit or miss when it came to them growing out of their clothes or knowing exactly how much food they could go through in a week but he never forgot a birthday. Last year, he'd even called from a hunt to tell Dean where his present was hidden.
Dean got Sammy a huge stack of Justice League comics, sixty-two of them, that he'd found in the back of the Second Time Around Shop buried under a set of yellow curtains that looked like they'd been used to wrap a body. The comics smelled a little musty so he talked them down to a nickel a piece and that left enough money to have Sam's name put on the cake.
Dean'd been able to pick a top of the line Schlage when he was twelve. The locked coin trays on the washers and dryers had given him less than no trouble.
Stuffing his own face with pizza, Dean watched his father and his brother eat, happy that Sammy was happy, wondering what the hell their father had been thinking getting an eleven year old a Glock. A Berretta would have made more sense, although he supposed Sammy would eventually grow into the larger gun.
The whiskey bottle came out after Sammy went to bed, staggering a little under the weight of the comics.
"Don't read too long," Dean told him, as he disappeared.
Sammy stuck his head back out into the big room. "It's my birthday."
"Duh. That's why I said not too long."
He did the rest of the cleaning up - Sammy got a free pass on his birthday - feeling his father's eyes on him the entire time. His palms were damp and his throat was dry and he couldn't seem to do anything right. He knocked the pizza box onto the floor.
"You should have seen the edge was sticking out there, Dean. You need to pay more attention to the things around you. Some of them can kill you."
"Yes, sir."
He had trouble fitting the leftover cake into the ancient fridge.
"Don't just stand there with the door open, boy. We're not cooling the whole damned room."
"No, sir."
And, finally, while he was lifting the plates into the cupboard the top one slid off the pile. He made grab for it but it bounced off the ends of his fingers and shattered on the floor.
"Jesus Christ, Dean, take a little care! I'm not made of fucking money."
"I know..."
"Are you being a smart ass?"
"No, sir!"
He finished his homework under the spotlight of his father's disapproval, whiskey glass rising and fall rhythmically at the other end of the kitchen table. Closing his books evoked a dismissive grunt and he moved silently into the bedroom, wondering what had happened, wishing he knew how to make it better.
Sammy had fallen asleep, comic books piled around him on the bed, one spread open on his chest, chubby hand splayed out and holding it in place even asleep. The weak light from the lamp between the beds barely reached the book. Dean shook his head as he gently lifted his brother's hand and tugged the comic free. If Sammy read himself into needing glasses, their dad would be seriously pissed.
He piled the books against the wall where Sammy could see them the next morning, padded barefoot to the bathroom to do his teeth without looking toward the kitchen table, checked the salt line on the window ledge, and went to bed.
No way Dad would want him tonight, not the way he'd screwed up.
He didn't wake when the bedroom door opened, didn't know how long his dad had been standing there when his lids finally snapped up. He sat, heart pounding, blood roaring in his ears, unable to believe that he'd actually slept on, oblivious. Sure, this time it was their father, but what if it had been something after Sammy?
Ashamed, he followed his dad out to the sofa bed and stripped out of his pajamas, climbing up over his dad's bare legs and straddling his thighs. No matter what he did, he couldn't get his father's cock to than half hard - right hand, left hand, both hands... nothing. His dad's eyes had gone from half closed to completely shut as he sagged back against the sofa cushions but Dean knew he was awake from the almost painful way he kept squeezing and releasing Dean's shoulder.
Then from shoulder to neck. To cupping the back of his head. To pushing his head down...
Dean froze, mouth above his dad's cock, his own erection wilting. He'd never...
But his dad wanted him to.
Needed him to.
He could do this. Christ, it wasn't like he was some stupid, scared kid. He was Dean Winchester.
It didn't taste like anything much - a little bit the way his dad smelled, like whiskey and sweat, and a little bitter - but mostly, after a while, it just tasted like spit. And he might as well have been sucking his own thumb for all the effect he had. His neck hurt from the angle, his jaw ached, and he felt like he wasn't getting enough air in through his nose. No matter what he did, his dad never got more than half hard.
After what seemed like hours, strong fingers gripped his shoulder and pulled his head up. His lips came off the top of his dad's cock with a surprisingly loud pop and he half expected to hear, "Shhh, Dean. You'll wake Sammy." But he didn't.
What he heard instead wrapped iron bands around his chest.
"Go back to bed, son."
Mouth wet and swollen, more ashamed than he'd ever felt, Dean crawled backwards off the end of the sofa bed and pulled on his pajama bottoms. He bit the inside of his cheek so hard it bled but his hands did not tremble as he tied the drawstring.
As he turned to go, a hand closed around his wrist and he looked up to see in the flickering hardware store sign, a suspicious glisten in the corners of his dad's eyes.
Tears?
"I'm sorry Dean, I'm so sorry."
Dean had no idea what his dad was sorry about. He was the one who'd failed.
part two