#going around

So, Dean stayed outside. Ears ringing with the echoes of bullets singing through the air. He wanted to make his Dad proud, to show him that he was ready to be a hunter and to back him up on hunts, but worry still nagged at him at the sounds coming from the cabin. 

He heard a shout that could only have come from his father’s mouth, and seconds later a man baring his teeth in a snarl burst through the door. 

“Dean!” his father shouted.

Dean could only stare at the werewolf in shock as it barreled towards him. But he finally managed to raise his gun and aim. The wolf was so close that his long claws raked across Dean’s stomach just as he fired, sending a silver bullet through the beasts heart.

The werewolf fell to the ground, dead, and Dean was left to meet his father’s gaze. 

John Winchester only blinked a few times at Dean before grabbing him by the arm and pulling him into the Impala. He tossed Dean a rag and instructed him to put pressure on the wound before sending them off back to the motel. 

That’s where Dean sat now, in their motel room, in a chair beside the barely-standing table that held all the first aid supplies his Dad always kept with him. 

Dean had bitten the inside of his cheeks so hard that he could taste blood as he tried to will away the tears prickling at his eyes. 

He would not cry. 

The needle moving in and out of his shredded skin, as his father worked to close the wound, felt like he was being stabbed by tiny knives. His Dad didn’t speak a word as he focused on his task, and so Dean didn’t try to talk either. 

Finally, the wound was declared sutured and his father wiped around it with a rag that smelled heavily of alcohol and plastered a bandage to it. 

“There, you’re done,” John said as he stood up. 

Dean nodded slowly and was ordered to bed. 

Safely under the covers, head turned away from his father, he let the tears fall. The pain threatened to swallow him up, but his father had offered him had nothing to ease it. He was careful not to make any noise, so careful not to let his father know that his son was crying. 

But his father’s anger filled voice rang in his ears nonetheless. 

Men don’t cry.

After the age of six, crying was unacceptable under any circumstances. 

When Dean was caught crying over a scraped knee, his father had sat him down and leveled him with the most intense rage-filled glare. 

“You stop that right now, Dean,” he’d snapped. 

Dean sniffled and wiped at his eyes but he couldn’t stop the tears. 

“I c-can’t,” he’d hiccupped. 

His father took him by the shoulders and gave him a shake, not too hard, but not soft either. 

“No son of mine, is going to be seen crying like a girl over a scraped knee. You’re a man now, Dean. Men don’t cry. Do you hear me? Men don’t cry.” 

Dean nodded, eyes still red, nose running, and tears finishing their tracks on his cheeks. “Yes, sir,” he mumbled as one last tear fell from his eyes. 

His father nodded curtly and then stood up, leaving Dean to follow him. 

Lying under the covers, tears dampening his pillow, he couldn’t get himself to stop. The sharp voice of his father barely kept the sobs that wanted to escape his chest at bay, but it couldn’t stop the tears. 

It hurt so much and there was only one person he wanted, only one person who could ease his pain. 

He wanted his Mom. 

But she was dead, gone, burned on the ceiling by a monster his father had yet to catch. 

Soon his tears of pain became tears of longing. He missed his Mom, he hardly remembered what her voice sounded like, but he knew it was soft, and loving, nothing like the rough gravel that was John’s, whose every word left scrapes under his skin that no one could see; but that didn’t mean they weren’t there.

His father hadn’t even praised him for a job well done. He’d hardly spoken a word to Dean since they got back. He knew his father well enough to know that something Dean had done had made him angry, and that something lay stitched under a bandage. 

He’d had gotten hurt on the hunt because he wasn’t quick enough, and so John was disappointed. 

Dean had wanted so badly to impress his father, to show him he was ready, but he’d failed, because that was all he knew how to do. 

He never did anything right. 

Slowly, he wiped the tears from his face and then pulled the blankets up to his chin before shutting his eyes. Somehow, he managed to block out the pain enough to let himself fall into a restless sleep. 

Maybe one day he’d stop being a failure and John Winchester would be able to look at him without the glint of disgust that always shimmered in his eyes.

tag list, ask to be added or removed: