His window’s already passed, so he’s shooting at the glass.⋆˚࿔
WARNINGS: teenage angst. mentions of underage smoking. possible misrepresentation of the midwest. time jumps. 4.4k
Sioux Falls is a quiet town, mostly.
Especially if you live on the outskirts. A few cars drive by, the laughter of children playing on the street reaches you sometimes, and occasionally, the salvage yard next to your house interrupts the silence—but never long enough for it to matter.
That’s why, when a loud gunshot suddenly rumbles through the air, you almost jump out of your skin.
You have a habit of climbing through your bedroom window and sitting on the tilted roof, enjoying the feeling of sun-warmed clay tiles under your bare thighs and the cool breeze that comes at this height, so much better than the humid, suffocating air closer to the ground.
You catch your paperback before it plunges into the front yard and quickly sweep your eyes around, trying to figure out if you should run and hide before a stray bullet finds you. From here, you have a pretty good view of your surroundings. You can make out the edge of town in the distance, and you have a perfect view of the nearby houses. Including the salvage yard.
In the middle of it, looking tiny between all the broken car parts and old machines, is a boy. He looks a little older than you—around twelve. He’s pouting, at least from what you can make out, arms crossed like he’s about to stomp his feet on the ground. There’s also a fresh wound on his cheekbone, still bloody and raw.
Next to him stands Bobby Singer, the owner of the salvage yard. He’s the one with the gun in hand, seemingly explaining how to aim.
You frown, squinting to get a clearer view. Who teaches a barely teenage boy how to shoot? But you’d learned how to walk around your house without making the floor creak, and how to scrub vomit out of the carpet by the time you were seven—so maybe it isn’t your place to judge.
You watch curiously as Bobby hands the boy the gun, pointing toward a line of cans on top of a rotting car. The boy huffs but takes it. He aims, his pout vanishing, replaced by pure concentration.
You consider hiding, just in case, but the cans are lined up to your left, not toward your house, and you doubt a bullet would ricochet that far. So you keep watching, quiet and careful—like a ghost.
The boy aims, and there’s a moment of silence. Then, a loud bang makes you flinch, even though you were expecting it. It’s followed by another, then another, and one more. Once it stops, all the cans are on the ground, and the boy wears a proud little grin on his face.
That’s not the last time you see him.
Every day, you walk home from whatever you did that day—going to church, picking something up for dinner at the corner store because your mother was passed out and forgot to cook, a trip to the local library—and climb onto your roof, your worn-out copy of Flowers in the Attic in hand, even though you know you’ll probably end up not reading.
Because just a few minutes in, he would emerge from the salvage yard. Ripped jeans, an old t-shirt, always frowning. Sometimes, he’d practice shooting again. Other times, he’d just walk around, kicking at old metal junk and complaining about something, startling you with the loud clatter.
Sometimes, behind him, there would be another boy. Younger, maybe a year or two younger than you. The tiny boy would follow the older one around like a lost puppy, rambling about something, or sometimes even reading a book himself. His younger brother, you assume. Maybe a cousin.
Those are your favorite afternoons. Because the older boy stops frowning, his steps become more secure and less angry, his movements gentler, and the way words leave his mouth softer. He stops kicking around trash, stops the resounding bangs disturbing the peace, stops fighting. Instead, you're left to listen to the soft whispering of the breeze whooshing through the trees as you watch carefully, as the two boys play around.
They throw their heads back in laughter, only a phantom of it reaching your ears. The little one tries to jump the older one, and they start to play-fight on the dirt. Then they lay down on the ground, soaking up the sunlight that softly kisses their faces.
They look peaceful. The older boy looks like a kid again, the grin he wore from handling the gun replaced with something softer, sweeter, warmer.
The sight fills you with something thick and poisonous. It washes down your throat, wrapping around your insides. It festers, rotting you from the inside out. But you keep watching.
It isn’t until a few years later that you begin to recognize it as yearning.
Three years have gone by, and you're just as alone and ghostly as you were back then.
After another long day at school—of not talking to anyone, hiding in the shadows, silently observing your peers act like animals just let out of their cages—you crawl back onto the roof outside your bedroom.
You try to suppress the flickering hope igniting in your chest, keeping your eyes glued to The Secret History in your hands instead of letting them wander to the empty salvage yard.
Dean—you learned the boy's name just a few days after he disappeared for the first time, when you accidentally roamed around Bobby Singer’s house and overheard him talking to someone on the phone about “Sam and Dean deserve better, John”—has the tendency to materialize when you least expect it.
You know the older boy is Dean because, on one chilly autumn when you were eleven—when it was way too cold to be outside, but the brothers had come back after being gone for months, so you sat on the roof, slowly freezing to death—you had been listening to music on your walkman, one headphone pulled away from your ear to catch any stray whisper of laughter or joyful screaming.
Your eyes were focused on the sketchbook in your hands when a screech, piercing through the air and reaching you like thunder, made you drop your pencil into the hydrangea bushes below and look up so abruptly that your neck cracked.
Your eyes quickly found the younger boy, who looked like he'd just fallen off one of the car piles, lying on the ground, holding his wrist and sobbing. The older boy ran to him, looking at the bridge of tears, but at the sight of his brother’s distress, he changed. His shoulders squared, his face neutralized, and he seemed to stand taller. A leather mask slipped over his youthful face and transformed him into someone older. It felt unnatural. The look in his eyes made you feel both protected and warm, but a crushing sadness flooded your chest at the same time.
Now, at thirteen, you’ve learned not to wait for Dean.
He and his brother come and go all the time, sometimes visiting Bobby for a day, sometimes staying for weeks. There’s no pattern to follow, no warning signs. It could be early in the day, in the dead of night. Around Christmas or when the flowers are blooming—or once, right in the middle of Halloween.
Every time, you sit on the safety of your roof and watch. You see a black, classic car drop them off. Sometimes the man walks in with the boys, sometimes he barely waits for them to climb out of the car before speeding away.
Every time, Dean looks angry.
Is it creepy to be so aware of the brothers? Maybe, yeah.
But to be fair, you used to sit in this exact spot long before the boy with the gun ever showed up.
All you know is that the sight of Dean makes the loneliness in your heart feel both lighter and more suffocating at the same time. It makes your heart flutter, but your stomach drop. He’s like sweet, thick honey washing down your throat, luscious and sickening.
You try not to perk up when you hear tires scratching against the asphalt of Bobby’s driveway.
Still, you peek over the edge of your novel, gnawing at your lower lip—already bleeding from earlier in the day.
The car stops. The boys slide out. The car leaves.
Your eyes find Dean immediately, and something inside your chest snarls like a starving animal.
His face has matured quickly, chubby cheeks replaced by sharp cheekbones by the age of fifteen. He’s taller, his back broader, and he has a few new visible scars. His old shirts have been traded for a worn-out camo jacket, and his holed-up sneakers became combat boots. His hair has grown a little longer, not as blond as it used to be but still a honey color. His grasp on the gun now in his pocket is more comfortable, his movements more aggressive but less impulsive. Confident, smug, precise.
Sam looks about the same as he did that first day, just a bit taller.
As always, both of them walk into the house without sparing you a glance. You’re pretty sure neither of the brothers has noticed your stalker tendencies yet.
Good. Because the only thing worse than Dean not knowing who you are… is him being aware of your existence.
You read until it gets too dark, then crawl back inside your bedroom. No sign of the brothers that day—or the next.
But on Thursday, they’re already in the salvage yard by the time you sit on the roof. Dean seems to be teaching Sam… bow-hunting? Who even bow-hunts anymore?
Either way, they’re arguing. Sam keeps pointing at a half-deflated soccer ball while Dean tries to get him to grab the bow. It looks handmade, the wood clumsily carved and the string a little too loose—at least from what you’ve read bows are supposed to look like.
That’s when you accidentally kick one of the clay tiles loose. It clatters to the ground and shatters loud enough for Dean to whip around. You freeze. The only sounds reaching your ears being the rustling wind against your white dress and the pounding of your heart.
Dean turns like a predator, like he’s ready to annihilate whatever’s in his way. Like a hunter.
You feel the weight of his green eyes even from a distance, pinning you in place and stealing the air from your lungs. His expression is unreadable, alert. His grip on the bow tightens slightly. He studies you for a moment, then decides you’re not a threat.
Still, his gaze lingers—not soft, not warm, not gentle. Not the way he looks at Sam or even Bobby sometimes when they’re talking over car parts. No. This look is analytical. Detached. Almost bored.
You stare back, wild hair dancing in the breeze and wide eyes, like a trembling doe staring down the barrel of a loaded gun.
Next to Dean, Sam moves. He turns his head, searching for what his brother is looking at, finding you on the roof of the house next door. He feels safer, so your eyes dart to him. Still scared, still caught.
But Sam just gives you a bright smile, raising his hand and waving. It’s so unexpected that you need a few seconds to react. You shakily wave back, managing your best smile.
Sam deems it good enough. He opens his mouth to say something, then seems to realize his voice won’t reach you. He looks around, trying to figure out a way to communicate, and it makes your heart skip a beat.
Oh, he wants to talk to you. You’re not used to that.
But that’s when Dean finally peels his eyes off you. He turns to his brother, a small smile appearing on his face at Sam’s actions. It makes your breath catch. He smacks Sam’s shoulder lightly, then tries to hand him the bow again.
They turn around and start practicing, and you're so shaken by the encounter that you slide back into your room and, for the first time in years, close the curtains.
The rest of the evening is spent with you staring at the ceiling, playing your favorite mixtape on your Walkman, and letting your mind wander. You dream of green eyes and skilled hands. Of camo jackets and pocket pistols. Of soft smiles and hard stares. You dream of Dean, wondering if he’s thinking of you, too.
You assume he wasn’t, because for the next few days, Dean doesn’t glance your way again. Every time he steps into the salvage yard, it’s as if that afternoon never happened. He helps Bobby fix a car or fiddles with one of his own. He practices shooting, bow-hunting, or even knife throwing—seriously, what kind of kids are these?—but he never looks at you.
Sam, though, does. The first thing he does when stepping out of the house is look toward yours. When he sees you there, book or sketchbook in hand, he raises his arm as high as he can and waves. You always wave back, less nervously each day.
He does it on Friday, and Saturday, and Sunday. Then, the next week, he doesn’t come out of the house.
Screams echo from Bobby’s house. They don’t sound like young voices—probably Bobby arguing with some other adult. Maybe the man who drops off the boys, or that pesky neighbor who lets his pet rabbit eat everyone’s gardens and poop all over their front porches.
But after that, you don’t see the boys again.
You force any disappointment out of your chest. It’s okay. It’s not like you’d ever actually talk to them. Dean is clearly too old for you, too cool, too… not weird.
It’s okay. It would only become another item on the long list of things you couldn’t have.
Three years go by. You grow up, and so does your body. You read more fucked-up books, listen to even more fucked-up music. Your style shifts from church-girl to church-girl-who-listens-to-Nine-Inch-Nails. You keep your flowy white dresses but add leather bracelets and combat boots. You learn how to handle a butterfly knife, become something of a cinephile, and—maybe most importantly—get prettier.
You learn how to handle yourself. You’re still quiet and eerie, but you’re not trembling anymore. You still have no friends, still hate everyone from your school, still spend far too much time on the roof. But now, you know how to do your makeup, and how to find and collect bones from decaying animals, and how to survive off of mac n cheese and cigarettes.
It’s another torturous day of high school. Junior year, and your classmates still act like kindergarteners. Finally, it’s your last period. Philosophy—a class that gives the stuck-up douchebags a chance to talk out of their asses with pretentious words they don’t even understand, and the football douchebags a chance to make low-hanging jokes and moan noises. Both types will find any excuse to slip in a misogynistic comment, so you just zone out and try to survive.
You sit at the back of the classroom, staring out the window, waiting for the hellish torture to begin.
“Good day, class,” the teacher—some old white lady who loves to turn every discussion into something about God—announces from the front of the room. “Please, everyone welcome our new transfer student, Dean Winchester.”
The name makes you whip around like an owl, heart nearly pounding out of your chest. And there he is, in all his glory. Dean.
He looks like he’s spent the last three years on the West Coast, his hair returned to that sandy blond shade he had as a kid, sun-bleached and wind-tousled. His skin is golden, tanned, sun-kissed—making the scar on his right cheekbone stand out even more. His eyes are just as green, his posture just as relaxed, and his grin just a touch meaner. He looks mostly the same, just taller and, for lack of a better word, hotter.
The girls in the back start to whisper. The stuck-up guys judge his worn-out jacket and peeling combat boots. One of the meatheads in the front row even fist-bumps him. Dean stays nonchalant, just like he was that day he stared up at you.
He looks around the room with confidence, and then his eyes meet yours.
You immediately snap your gaze back to the window, your heart ready to jump out of your throat and straight to the floor.
Dean Winchester, the boy with the gun, is back. And this time, he’s in your school, which suggests something more long-term. You try to stomp out the sparks of hope already flaring in your chest, smothering them before they catch.
Even if he’s staying, he’ll never want to talk to you.
A chair screeches against the floor beside you, making you jump. From the corner of your eye, you catch Dean settling into the empty seat next to yours. There are two open spots at the front, but he chooses this one.
He probably just prefers sitting in the back, you tell yourself.
You keep your eyes glued to the board for the entire period. You don’t waver, don’t even think about turning his way. Your shoulders stay tense, your hands tremble, your mouth is dry.
The second the bell rings, you bolt.
That day, you don’t crawl out of your window. Because Dean Winchester is back—the boy who has shamefully plagued your daydreams and nightmares for the past few years. The boy who made the beast in your chest growl and lay down, tummy up. The boy who inspired the first page of your sad-girl poetry journal. The one who made you feel weird and dewy for the very first time. He’s back.
For the next whole week, you continue to evade Dean. You watch him from your locker as he chats up a cheerleader—then quickly walk away. You see him greet Sam in the hallway before slipping into the bathroom to avoid them both. You walk home glancing over your shoulder, making sure he isn’t behind you. In class, you ignore his casual glances like your life depends on it.
Maybe he remembers you. You can't be sure, but just in case, you keep your face hidden behind your hair or your book. That silly childhood crush and the thick smoke of old yearning in your lungs mix with new sensations. The shiver that runs up your spine at the sound of his voice. The tingle in your thighs when you catch sight of his hands fidgeting with a pencil—silver ring on his middle finger. The way your legs clench and something low in your core heats up when you watch him shoot, now from inside the window.
It’s a week later when, as you make your way down the front stairs of the school, a figure appears in your periphery.
You turn your head, startled, still all doe eyes and bitten-raw lips.
There, standing beside you, is Dean. He’s wearing the same camo jacket he did back then, but the necklace is new. Or maybe you just never caught sight of it from a distance. He also smells good, like cigarettes and something a little bitter. Like gunpowder. Like death.
You stare at him with a blank expression, freaking out on the inside. He chuckles, clearly amused by your empty look and tense posture.
“You live in the house across from Bobby’s, right?”
There’s an easy smile on his face, and the fact that it’s directed at you has the rabid animal in your chest salivating. You nod before you even fully register the question.
“Cool, so we’re heading the same way.”
You want to say something—anything—but instead, you just nod again, turn around, and start walking.
You hear quick steps behind you, then Dean catches up, hands in his pockets and a lazy strut that contrasts with your tight, calculated pace and clenched jaw.
You grab your Walkman, slipping on your headphones before you even think about how rude that might seem. Awkwardly, you tug back the ear cup on the side facing Dean, hoping it’s enough of a sign that you’re not trying to push him away.
If he notices your nervous fumbling, he doesn’t show it.
“I’m Dean Winchester,” he says, like you don’t already know. “We’ve got last period together, I think. What’s your name?”
You mutter it, too quiet the first time, and have to repeat yourself. God, you hate people who are good at small talk—or any kind of talk, really.
You walk the next two blocks in silence before Dean speaks again.
“What are you reading?” He points at the book tightly clutched in your hand.
That’s a safe topic, so you finally turn to face him and stutter your way through a short, hesitant summary of The Virgin Suicides. From there, the conversation doesn’t exactly take off—but it doesn’t die either.
Mostly, Dean talks. He admits that he doesn’t do much reading but loves watching movies, and how he’s been kind of into horror lately. Your heart jumps out of your chest, and you mutter back about how you love horror anything.
You want to ask him what his favorite movie is, but something wraps around your throat—cutting and painful, like barbed wire—and it stops you from saying anything. He isn’t deterred by the lack of response.
He keeps poking fun at movie stereotypes, then shifts to your classmates. All you can do is giggle and nod. Because you agree. Because when he calls the pretentious asshole from philosophy Richie Rich and mocks his obnoxious use of the phrase “let me play devil’s advocate for a second,” you want nothing more than to join in.
Instead, you open your mouth, close it again, then open it once more, and by then it’s too late. So you just chuckle, nod, and look away. The laughs seem to be good enough, though, because Dean keeps talking all the way until you reach the path that splits the salvage yard from the rest of the neighborhood.
“Uhm—my house is that way.” Your voice is barely louder than a whisper, almost lost in the distant sound of a waterfall crashing against rocks. You point to your right, down the smaller path you’re standing at—the opposite direction of Bobby’s.
“Let’s go, then.” Dean shrugs and starts to walk past you.
“You—” you pause, clear your throat, fingers fumbling with the edge of your skirt. “You don’t have to walk me all the way. You’ll just have to walk back and…” Your voice dies in the back of your throat, not very sure of how to finish that sentence.
Your eyes stay fixed on the yellow grass beneath your feet until Dean takes a step forward, making you look up at him. God, his hair looks lighter, and his eyes are more olive under the sun. You feel that same heat travel down your insides and concentrate lower.
“Come on, I’ll walk you home.” He nods toward the dirt path, and this time, you don’t argue. You simply walk past him, waiting for him to catch up before continuing toward your house.
The walk is silent, but it’s not as uncomfortable as it was at the start. The quiet feels peaceful, relaxing, natural. You spot a few squirrels darting through the grass, a patch of flowers in the distance sweetens the air, and Dean’s big frame next to you somehow makes you feel protected.
Once you're standing in front of your driveway, you turn to Dean. The sun is hitting his face just right, accentuating his sharp features. He looks down at you, tilting his head slightly as if he's taking you in for the first time, his hand absentmindedly fiddling with something in his pocket.
“T-thank you,” you mumble, before quickly turning around and rushing into your house, not daring to look back.
God, he must think you're so weird right now.
Inside your house, your mother is passed out drunk on the couch. You almost wish Dean had asked you to do something else. That he would’ve taken you out of this place, maybe to Bobby’s house, or to hang out by the waterfall. Maybe he could’ve taken you to the woods and used his pistol on you. He could’ve made you run, chasing you down through the trees before shooting you with the precision he shoots those cans.
The stench of rotting food and stale vodka fills the air, so you quickly retreat to your room, shutting the door behind you. You spend the next few hours with your journal, letting all those swallowed down words spill out.
The next morning, Dean is waiting for you at the path division, empty backpack slung over his shoulder and that same relaxed smile on his face. That same afternoon, he's waiting for you outside of school. And the day after that. And the day after that.
Dean and you don’t hang out outside of your daily walks to and from school, but it’s enough.
You learn more about him in your short shared time. His music taste—Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath and “anything classic rock, because everything else is too lame.” His obsession with old western movies—because he saw some old black cowboy boots your mother used to wear when she actually left the house and almost lost his mind over how “fucking cool they are!” And his interest in mechanics—since one time, you mention in a whisper that the character in your book has a classic Cadillac, and he goes on a full rant about how “Cadillacs don’t got a thing on Chevys—which is short for Chevrolet,” he had to explain to you. “Their engines are so much better, and the muffler…”
He kind of lost you on that one. Not only because you understood only about ten percent of what he was saying, but also because your mind kept drifting to images of Dean, hair sweaty and sticking to his forehead, in a thin shirt and smudged with motor oil.
Dean looks like he was made to work with his hands. The rugged look fits him, all rough edges and hard surfaces.
You want him to take you in his hands and disassemble you like one of his rifles, strip you down into pieces and suck the rot from your bones, then put you back together however he wants. However he needs.
A few weeks go by, and just like that, a little tradition begins—and the beast in your chest only gets hungrier.
NOTES: part one is out!!! I actually love writing this series. writing teenage angst is a little cringe but also so much fun. I have never been to the Midwest nor Sioux falls, so the descriptions may not be accurate, I'm sorry. anyway, I am having a blast with this one. please let me know what you think, it makes my sick brain go all fuzzy. I love you all, hope you liked it!!!
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