#preseries

And as he drives, down dead suburban streets with dark, sleeping houses, he's followed only by the shadows of gnomes and hydrangeas and mini wishing wells in tightly maintained front yards. He doesn't see a single soul, a single pair of headlights on the road other than his own. It’s rare, actually, that Dean knows such quiet. Such aloneness. And if there’s something comforting about it - well, it’s been a busy day. Lots of noise. Lots of people. 

In fact, as Dean makes it to his own street - in one tipsy piece and sans new criminal record - he finds himself slowing down. Stopping altogether just on the corner, shifting the handbrake touched thoughtlessly again and again by his father’s hands; and Dean takes a second, just a second, to lean back in the cool old-leather seat he has vague, time-faded memories of Dad occupying, listening to the music he has vague, time-faded memories of Dad playing, if a little distorted now with taperot and age - and he thinks about how driving the Impala is kind of like sitting in a time capsule. Kind of like slipping unnoticed into someone else’s shape, someone else’s imprint on the world; somewhere Dean can quietly belong, in this moment anyway, because Dean’s so entirely, incredibly alone right now, and no one can tell him that he can’t.

And Dean runs his thumbs along that steering wheel - really listens to the music. It's new to him, Dad's old classic rock stuff, but he likes it, he thinks. Stuff Mom can't have on in the house, because it's too painful; stuff that he'd never think to seek out himself anyway. Kids at his school are mostly into Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Tupac, and Dean is into them too by osmosis, because it’s all he ever really gets to listen to. But maybe he too would have liked hair metal and face-melting classic rock, if Dad had lived.

He’s only had Dad’s Impala for a few months. Had no idea Mom planned to give him the keys for his eighteenth birthday; hadn’t ever really thought about it ever coming out of its tarpaulin wrapping in the garage again, like a sheet covering the dead. And Dean had been alone then, too; alone with that moment, as he’d peeled back that sheet with a trembling hand and opened the driver door to find everything exactly as he remembered. 

Dad had been pretty messy. There was still a half-full cigarette packet on the dashboard, open so Dean could see the speckled beige tips, like Dad had been planning on coming back to them later. Cassette tapes on the passenger's seat, scattered, either stuffed into the wrong jewel cases or missing them entirely. There was a fast food wrapper under a layer of dust in the footwell. And the smell - car oil and blue collar sweat and trace cologne underneath. It kicked Dean square in the chest, that smell; flooded him with fragmented memories of this giant who’d come home in the evenings with dirty hands and pink tired eyes but still scoop Dean up in his arms with a big grin and a hey, buddy , spinning him around in the air until Dean was giddy and squealing, and Dad would be red in the face from laughing; and he’d take him out to the yard to kick a ball around before dinner even though he must’ve been exhausted, then at the weekends he’d ferry Dean down to the park and buy him an ice cream as big as his head with his finger on his grinning lips and a whispered, don’t tell your mother. And Dean had felt these memories like a freight train; climbed into the seat where Dad used to sit, and put his hands on the steering wheel Dad used to touch, and then he’d pushed his head against it too, and, alone and unseen, he broke down into the most violent, pathetic sobs of his life.

It’s hard, in the moment, not to do the same again. Hasn't been easy all day. Turns out there's nothing like graduating high school as the only kid in his grade without a father watching to bring it all back.

When he finally brings himself to stop the tape and get out of the car, he feels a little more sober; he can see a faint light still on in the living room. He breathes in a lungful of cooled but still humid night air, and thinks to himself, not for the first time, that he had absolutely no business going out tonight in the first place. If Dean’s feeling Dad’s absence today then god knows how Mom is feeling. But his friends wanted to party, and they wanted Dean to party with them, and they wanted Dean to drink and dance and hit on girls, and Dean just kind of gets swept up in things that way. He remembered wanting it strongly in the way Dean doesn’t usually want things, to do something normal, something kids his age are meant to do. Feel normal, like everyone else, when he felt anything but.

He opens the front door quietly. Sam will be asleep, or maybe awake with his headphones on and a book open under torchlight covers, but either way Dean doesn’t want to disturb him. Sam isn’t speaking to him at the moment. He’s not really speaking to Mom either, but that's just par for the course these days. He's fourteen and he’s sullen and he's angry. Mom says he's going through a phase. 

The light is coming from that gothic looking lamp on the side table. There's a near full bottle of white wine next to it, accompanied by a glass with just dregs left inside. Mom is on the couch, in her silk white night slip, sitting with her bare legs crossed underneath her. Her shoulders rise as Dean comes in,  but she doesn't look up. 

“Mom?”

She runs a hand through her hair, scraped back off her face in the remnants of that pretty updo she spent an hour on before the ceremony, now a little unravelled and wild. 

"Mom?” He tries a smile. “I'm home."

Her arms gather at her waist. She doesn't answer.

From her side profile, Dean can tell enough; her eyes are bleary, bloodshot, from the wine, sure, but Dean knows from the puffiness underneath and the mascara smears on her cheeks that she's been crying. Shit.

"I… I lost track of time. Didn't - uh, I didn't realize how late it was."

"Do you have any idea what's been going through my head, Dean?"

She still doesn't look at him. Like she can't bring herself to. The thought pierces Dean. He hovers, awkward hands by his side. “I'm -”

"I was about to pick up the phone and report you missing. Or dead, maybe. Not like I had any damn way of knowing."

That pit grows; he's never seen Mary this upset.

"Guess it would have killed you to answer your phone, huh? Guess a little courtesy call to let me know you weren't lying dead in a wreck somewhere was too much to ask."

"I - Mom, it won't happen again, I swear. I was - I was with the guys, and -"

“The guys. Sure.” Mary snatches up that wine glass. “But screw me, right? I’m only your mother.”

“Mom, don't - come on. It wasn’t like that.”

Except; it kind of was like that. It kind of was like Dean ignoring the vibrations of his phone, letting her calls go to voicemail unanswered. It was letting the texts that said things like Call me I’m worried and Baby come home its late barely read and unanswered. It took five missed calls in quick succession and a message reading Dean I really need you for Dean to get his ass in the car and drive back. To stop leaving his mother to rot. His loving, doting, widowed mother.

There are often nights like this, with Mom, where she gets all upset. Where Dean has to prise that wine bottle out of her hand and use every one of his learned tricks to get her to go to bed. But Dean doesn’t remember ever being the cause of her misery.

His mother drains the dregs in her glass in one angry gulp. Ignoring Dean. She’s never ignored Dean before. And it's like the world tilts the wrong way. Dean feels panicked, sick.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Snippet 2:

“Anyway,” Mary says, “I wanna hear more about the party.”

Dean isn't sure there's much to tell. He spent most of it a few stone’s throws away from the center of the action. He watched dance-offs. He returned hugs from drunk girls and listened to their stories about how Mr Clement is such an asshole and how could he only give me a B?, making consoling noises in the right places. He remembers making himself very, very scarce when a game of seven minutes in heaven broke out. 

Dean asks, “What do you want to know?”

Mary picks up the wine bottle again. “You know, I loved partying when I was your age. It’s so fun, isn’t it? You’re young. You’re excited. All you wanna do is have a good time.”

Theres a smile on her face, but Dean can't quite place it. “I didn't know you used to party.”

Again, probably not the kind of thing a mother shares with her son either. But glimpses of Mary's life before, before Dad, before him and Sammy, are scarcely given, no matter what they look like, and Dean can't help but be obsessed with them when they arise.

“Oh, yeah.” Dean watches her top up her wine; fill the glass almost to the brim. “I went through that phase, honey. Drinking, boys. Sneaking out of the house.”

“Really? You did?”

Dean's half surprised; half thinking about how that's another thing. Sneaking out of the house - from who? From Dean's grandparents? Mom never really talks about them, either. Aside from things like this, as part of something else, a vague implication of their existence; not that they exist anymore, anyway. They died years before Dean was born.

“It's an exciting time,” Mary says. “You've got your whole lives ahead of you. You're at that age where you really believe you're gonna change the world.”

“It's too late to get philosophical, Mom,” Dean says, with a laugh. An apprehensive one.

Mary isn't quite looking at him. “Who was at the party, Dean?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Dean says. “Everyone, I guess.”

“Everyone,” Mary repeats, with this look on her face that Dean can’t quite translate. “Who’s everyone?”

“I don't know. Just - everyone.” Dean laughs a little. Feels like he’s answering the question wrong.

That look doesn’t wane. “You're being very vague, Dean.”

“I'm - not really sure what you want from me here.”

Mary's lips irk up in something that isn't quite a smile. “Were there girls, Dean?”

“Yeah, Mom, of course there were girls. Everyone in our grade was out.” 

“Dean. What I’m getting at - is there a girl?”

A girl. Singular. And Dean guesses there was a girl. Kind of, depending on how you translate these things. He spent about five minutes in the blue part of the evening making out with Lara Stamp tonight; lovely Lara, with her pretty face and her wealthy Dad and her celebrity status popularity, her cheerleading tricks and her hair extensions and her designer perfume, her acrylic nails that kept catching on loose threads in Dean’s shirt when her hands wandered over his body, braver and more unrestrained than Dean’s. They'd been in Isaac Jones’ parents’ bedroom, the lights off, and Dean had tried to finger her a little, but she'd kept mewling and complaining he was hurting her - god, haven't you done this before? - and eventually she'd batted his hand away and she'd seemed annoyed when she'd kissed him again, and it was dry and awkward that time, the fire-fervor burned out. And Dean still doesn’t really know what he did wrong - why she muttered its like you’re somewhere else, Dean, its like youre always somewhere else - why she'd got up without a word and done her bra up again with her back to him, and then she'd said see you around and left, and Dean hadn’t seen her around at all, he hadn't seen her again all night. And Dean remembers going to look for another beer, unable to stop thinking about how strange her pussy had felt around his fingers, the first he’d ever touched, hot and squishy and somehow not like he expected; and he felt like an idiot, and a child, and a disappointment. 

Yeah - after tonight, there’s definitely no girl. 

“There’s no girl, Mom,” Dean confirms, aloud. Well aware of the pause he left before answering.

A faint smile passes Mary’s lips. “I’m not stupid, honey.”

“Mom -”

“Home so late? Didn't hear your phone?"

Mary looks towards her lap; she really thinks she's right, Dean realizes. He wonders if the tears and texts make more sense now. How strange it is that that would cross his mind at all.

"It’s only natural at your age, honey. I thought we don't keep.secrets from each other?”

Dean thinks back to those bank statements. “There’s no girl,” Dean says again. “I'd tell you, Mom, I swear.” 

“Hmm,” Mary drags it out, like she doesn’t quite believe him. That smile gets a little sharper. “Well. I’ve got my eye on you, Dean Winchester.”

“Mom,” Dean tuts. 

But Mary laughs, and takes such a long gulp of her wine that Dean feels a little sick by proxy. “Your father never strayed, Dean. Not once.”

“That's - good.” But of course Dad would never do something like that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Snippet 3

“This is all I always wanted, you know, To have things like this to worry about,”

She says it like she had worse to worry about once. Dean can feel those ceramic angels’ eyes staring into the back of his head from the cabinet, silent and knowing.

Mary’s lip quivers again, and when she takes Dean’s hand, the inside of her palm feels condensation cold. “Mom, what’s wrong?”

She shakes her head a little; a watery smile bursts through. “Nothing, honey. I just keep thinking about you up there today. How grown up and handsome you looked.”

Dean scoffs a bit. Handsome is Brad Pitt  or salt-and-pepper bearded guys, not an awkward kid graduating high school, walking across a rickety stage in ill-fitting hire robes. Fighting the urge to hide his face for his mother's ear splitting cheering, louder than anyone else's. He shouldn’t be embarrassed. He has no reason to be embarrassed.

“I looked like an idiot,” he mumbles.

Mary narrows her eyes. Makes this deep furrow in her brow. “This is what I’m talking about, Dean. You just don’t see what everyone else sees.”

Dean finds himself thinking of the time his homeroom teacher waved him over before first period and handed him a flyer for some after school programme, Self Esteem and Me, telling him quietly that he should think about attending. He’d promptly thrown it in the trash on the way to first period and tried to forget about it. 

And anyway, there’s this way Mary looks at him sometimes, when she’s had too much wine and too much to think; a look that’s unplaceable to anything Dean’s ever experienced. He thinks he knows what it is though; he thinks it’s a mother’s love. Mary says it’s the most powerful thing on the planet. And Dean knows he’s lucky to have it. There aren't many things in life that Dean feels good about, not really, overwhelmingly happy-good anyway. But that? That makes him feel amazing.

Mary touches his hair, gentle as when he was a little kid; runs her hands through it. He leans up into it like a dog, because her love really does feel so good . Like a warm blanket, or a hard drug.  “You know what your father used to say, Dean?”

The mention of Dad is kind of jarring. As felt as he’s been all day, he’s remained unspoken, like he always does on big occasions. Like he always does unless Mary brings him up first. You keep Dad to yourself; you keep him in your head, ignore the elephant, no matter how violently it swings its trunk around. You never know how Mary will react.

Mary doesn't wait for Dean to respond. “He used to watch you for hours. Couldn’t take his eyes off of you. Playing with your toys, reading your books. You used to sound out the letters. Did you know that you taught yourself to read?”

Mary tells him these things sometimes. If you listen to Mary, Dean could tell the time at the ripe old age of eighteen months as well. He scoffs; “Yeah, Mom, sure. I was one of those Hemingway toddlers.” 

“Dean. Listen.”

Dean listens.

“And do you know what he’d say?” Mary’s voice catches a little; her fingers get a bit more insistent in Dean’s hair. “He’d say, look at him. This kid is special. And I know all parents think their kid is special. But we didn’t just think it. We knew it. And - ”

Dean doesn’t hear most of those words. “Dad really used to say that?”

“Yeah,” Mary smiles, watery and weak. “He loved you so much, Dean.”

Dean can see tears crystallizing in her eyes again. He squeezes her hand, harder than he means to, but Mary doesn’t flinch.

“I  only wish he could’ve seen you today. He’d be so damn proud of you.”

“Mom,” Dean whispers. He means to add, don’t cry . Or maybe just, don’t.

Would Dad have yelled the place down too? Would Dad have clapped him on the back and brought him home for a quick illegal beer and told Dean with tears in his eyes, son, I’m so proud of you ? Would Dad remember that time Dean sat in his lap looking at a space book, astronaut, with love in his voice, you work hard, kiddo, and you can be whatever you wanna be. You’re gonna make me so proud of you some day.

“Me and your father,” Mary says, with trembling lips, “we made your bones.”

Mary always says this. Dean doesn’t know exactly what it means, but sometimes it’s just better to let her talk.

“You,” she whispers, “You - you’re all I have left of him.”

“Don’t say that, Mom.” But Dean can see how it’s true. What else is there?

“It’s not fair,” Mary whispers. “It’s just - it’s so damn unfair .”

It is. Unfairness has been a curse on this house, their lives, and as Mary’s voice cracks on the word, Dean feels that like a knife, this blunt, breath-snatching agony in the center of his chest; he hides it from Mom though, because seeing Dean sad only ever upsets her even more. She doesn’t need that tonight; so Dean shoves it down, as Mary lays her head against his, one of her ways of seeking comfort. On his shoulder.

Dean gives it by laying a steadying arm around her. the way he envisioned Dad might do if he were to comfort her, if he had to be strong for her. He feels that delicate warmth under his palm, the way her chest is heaving a little, and he wishes with everything inside him that he knew how to take her pain away. But he can’t.

Dean isn't good at many things in life. But he's good at giving comfort.

He listens to Mary draw a breath. Feels it himself, like the wind. “But hey, Dean. It’s our lot in life, right?”

She calls it that a lot, our lot in life. And Dean thinks about it often; sounds like something you were given, something you can’t help, something you cant change even if you wanted to. That lack of control is terrifying, but there’s something oddly comforting about it too.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Snippet 4:

They sit there like that for a while. Close, quiet. Dean thumbing away the tears on his mother’s cheeks. Her forehead sticky against his. Her hand gripping his so tight that it smarts, but Dean can handle it. There’s not a sound from upstairs, from outside. Suburban quiet, peaceful and dead still, enough that Dean can hear his breaths, hear Mary’s, out of sync with each other. Dean can feel Dad alright. Billowing around the room like smoke. Multiple sets of his eyes looking out at them from the photographs lining sideboards, cabinets, staring out into this beautiful suburban living room that should’ve been his home forever.

Sometimes it niggles at Dean, that he doesn’t know entirely what happened. When he got a little older, old enough to understand things a little better, he was told Dad died in an accident at work, with the kind of sparse details that hinted he really didn’t want to know them. But Dean has this vague memory, before that, maybe not long after it happened; he was small enough to sit in his mother’s lap still, and he wasn’t speaking, he remembers that; he didn’t speak for a whole year after it happened. But he remembered Mom holding onto him a little bit like now, crying a lot like now, and holding Dean so close his little ribs felt like they’d snap, and she kept whispering over and over, it got him, baby. The demon got him.

And as he’s gotten older Dean has thought back to that moment and how he must be misremembering. How Mom must have said demons plural. As in Dad’s demons got him; that maybe Dad made the accident happen, on purpose, to pulverize those demons along with his body.  He wonders though; what those demons were. He knows Dad was a veteran. Mary keeps his dog tags on the shelf with his photos. Could be something to do with that, maybe. 

Or something different entirely. Dean remembers Mom and Dad fighting sometimes. He remembers it getting worse after Sammy was born. He remembers being woken up by the sound of Sammy’s fitful newborn cries, underpinned by stage whispers, clearly not for his ears, but Dean could hear them, harsh and venomous, and then the whispers would stop altogether and there’d be yelling, there’d be words that Dean knew were curse words, then a door would slam and Dean would hear the Impala starting up in the driveway, and then he’d hear a rattle, like Mom was kicking or punching something, and he’d clutch his tatty blue teddybear close to his chest and not be able to sleep until he heard Dad come back again. He remembers this fear, this loud, cold fear, that Dad might not come back at all. 

It happened.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Snippet 5:

“Please, Dean?” A wan, slightly pleading smile. “I don’t wanna be alone right now. Can we just stay up and talk or something?”

Her voice cracks, and Dean can’t bear it. And besides; he knows his mother is incredibly, desperately lonely. The air in the room is warm, musky, balmy air filtering in through the open window. Smells fresh, intertwines with the Fresh Linen and Orange Blossom reed diffusers Mary has on her shelves. The traces of Diorella perfume on Mary’s body, all she’ll ever wear, because Dad loved the smell. It’s so - it’s all so comforting to Dean. All he’s ever known.

He smooths her hair out of her face; “Alright, Mom. I’ll - we can talk. Sure.”

There’s a new flush of life on her face, like she’s reanimated. “Lay down with me, Dean?”

Dean can’t explain his hesitation to himself. The words hitting him wrong again. It won’t be the first time he’s had to sleep next to her. Making sure she doesn’t aspirate on her own vomit, if she’s been throwing up for reasons she attributes to anything but alcohol or medication, or when he hears her having one of her nightmares, the really bad kind where she cries out in her sleep. And as Mary hoists herself up on the bed, shifts over clumsily to make room for Dean, he thinks about Sam - it’s weird, the two of you are weird, and no, we’re not , he snaps back at him in his mind. Sam just doesn’t understand, doesn’t even know he’s fucking born.

And with that in mind, Dean shrugs it off and carries on taking care of his mother. Climbs up onto the bed, with its Febreze locked into the fibres, the smell of Mary’s citrus shampoo on the pillows; and Mary’s facing him and leaning on an elbow, and she shifts a little closer on the mattress, until her bare calves are brushing against Dean’s.

Everything is very, very quiet. So quiet that Dean can hear the blood go solid in his veins. Dad’s blood. Dad’s bones. We made your bones.

So quiet that he can hear the elevation in Mary’s breath. Hear the whisper of his shirt under Mary’s fingers as she runs them down his chest. There’s a different quality to her wine-spaced eyes, a quality Dean recognizes; the way Lara Stamp looked at him earlier before he let her down. Adjacent to the feeling stirring the hairs on the back of his neck when he’d sense his gym coach staring at him sometimes. Maybe not the first time Mary has looked at him that way, if Dean is really honest with himself, especially not on nights like this; there’s an amnesia block on that look , whenever it isnt happening.

But this is different. This is the first time Dean can really see the shiver rolling through his mother’s body.

Mom’s lips part. “Promise that no matter what - you’d never leave me?”

“I’m - Mom, are you with me? You know I’m -”

Not Dad dies on his tongue. Mary is with him alright.

There’s a strangeness to it that makes the world feel off kilter, upside down, and entirely changed in just a second; and he watches Mary’s lips flutter. “Can I show you something, Dean?”

She cups Dean’s face in her hand and leans in close, so close; and she doesn’t wait for an answer. Mary’s lips taste like ethanol and sugar, and her little gasp snags on the corner of Dean’s mouth; and her tongue is - god - Mary’s tongue is on his, plush wet and insistent; and there’s this heat-rush in Dean’s blood, this sense of the body he feels indifferent to and disconnected from most of the time switching on in a way it never has before.

He makes a choked sound. He might actually be choking. It’s panic; it’s something more complicated. And Mary draws back immediately, and her face is burst capillary flushed and her breaths are rough and she looks so pretty and fragile and she’s everything, she’s everything to Dean, and he’d do anything for her, and he’s mixed up and sick with it, and maybe that’s why he’s shaking, an earthquake in his bones -

“It’s okay,” Mary whispers, hands running manically through his hair. “Don’t be scared, baby. It’s okay.”

She whispers it over and over, like a prayer, like a mantra; hooks a leg over his waist, presses her chest up to his, and Dean can feel the press of her tits, her crotch. Her - her cunt .

His head is spinning. It’s moving fast, fast . Mary rolls her hips, slow, shudders through her lips; insistent press into Dean’s dick, rush of cotton-denim friction -

“Dean,” Mary sighs, eyes devil dark, both hands on his face, “Have you ever fucked a girl before, Dean?”

“N-no,” Dean stutters out. 

It’s the first time he’s admitted it out loud; and he’s sure the shame of that shows on his face, but Mary would never judge him, never think less of him for anything; and Mary just lets out this long breath and says, “Okay. That’s okay. I’ll show you.”

It occurs to Dean that maybe Mary seems more sober than she did just now; and he lets her take his hand, he lets her, Dean lets her; he watches her parted lips brush over his fingers like they aren’t his.

“I’ll show you,” Mary says again, breathless. “Just relax. Let Mommy show you, okay?”

“O-okay,” Dean chokes again as Mary’s lips close around his fingertips, and she holds his gaze as she suckles around them gently; her mouth feels soft and hot, and the sensation is new to Dean, alien, and he can’t decide what he feels for it. Mary gasps; and Dean watches, watches the glisten of saliva that isn’t his on his fingers, watches Mary move his hand between her legs. Beneath her white slip, she’s been wearing white all day; she's not wearing panties.

Mary’s eyes roll. “You feel that?” 

Dean does. Silk heat, wiry hair. Wet. She feels different to Lara. 

A sound catches in his throat.

“Touch me,” she breathes out, millimetres from his lips. “It’s okay. I want you to.”

“Mom,” Dean stutters back, and no, and don't just won’t quite follow; and Mary catches it on her mouth, and her kiss is so rough this time that Dean’s blood hums and his hips jerk; and he can feel Mary’s hands, on his shoulders, on his chest, hear her moan dragging against his teeth, and then heat-air hits his chest, she’s getting his shirt open; and Dean’s supposed to be touching , so that’s what he does. Blindly drags his saliva-wet fingers across Mary’s folds, her gasp like an electric shock; lips going slack against his as he cautiously pushes one inside. Silk soft clutch, and Dean isn’t sure what to do, whether he’s supposed to move it or what; but then Mary growls, fists his half-open shirt, and Dean’s breath catches for the drag of teeth against his lower lip.

“God, now,” she mutters. “Dean, I need you now.”

And it happens fast, it happens so so fucking fast ; Dean’s body is stiff and puppet-like all at once, and the light in the room is too bright, those laundry-perfume scents in his throat, and he’s staring up at Mary, straddling his hips, her eyes closed as she tugs at his belt buckle, the zipper on his jeans; the hiss of it hits Dean’s back teeth. And something washes over him, then; like a feverish waking dream. Looming vivid images of himself loading up the Impala at the quiet crack of dawn, filling the trunk, backseats, with labelled cardboard boxes, a college acceptance letter in the glove compartment on top of the photograph of his family and his enrolment paperwork. Parties, people from different states and countries, coffee shops and lecture halls; and Dean would change, he’d grow, he’d find himself , that’s what his teachers kept saying about college, that you find yourself there; and maybe Dean would meet a beautiful girl who was studying law or medicine or something, and on graduation day he’d propose to her and give a spiel about her being the love of his life, down on one knee outside the lecture hall where they first met, and she’d cry and jump and say yes, yes , and there’d be a beautiful wedding and Dean would get onto a graduate scheme and go to work in a suit and they’d go for fancy dinners and they’d travel, they’d live the kind of life his friends want. Although it wouldn’t even need to be that fancy; Dean could stay in Lawrence, he could move out now, he could get a job as a bartender or a bricklayer and rent a shitty apartment, he could run into Lara Stamp at the mall or the gas station one day on accident and end up reconnecting, and she’d give him another chance, and he’d blink and he’d be married, and her rich Daddy would buy them a beautiful house in an upmarket neighbourhood, and they’d have three beautiful babies who’d go to private school and go on to do great things, and Dean would be stable, life would be stable, and Lara would age beautifully and he’d be the kind and steady glue man-of-the-house holding it all together, and it would be a damn fucking good apple pie life.

But that’s not Dean’s life, because his father is dead, and his home is sad and broken, and his baby brother’s got the devil in him these days, and his mother needs him louder than the oxygen in her blood. And Dean thinks back to that drink-drive video Miss Osterberg showed, the deaths, the injuries, the statistics. Thinks about what it would be like if Dean became one of them, if he’d given into careless driving and veered off the road and if his car had rolled over three times and caught fire, and it’d be gruesome and bloody, and god, what would happen if Dean never made it home at all -

But he did, and now this is happening. His dick is bare, it’s hard and his mother’s hand is on it, her other hand on his chest, and she’s bared over him, bracing herself, and her hair is in his face, and this is fucking happening ; and Dean’s panting and still, and Mary’s face is close to his, and she’s panting too; and if Dean is crying a little, no one seems willing to point it out, least of all himself.

“I love you,” she whispers, tender like a promise, gut-suck horrifying; “I love you so much, my sweet baby boy.”

And Dean clings to that. Clings to Mary, to her hips, unsure what to do with his hands, as she sinks down onto his cock, silk-hot-clutch, god, brand new sensation, scrambles Dean’s head, he’s never felt anything like it; and Mary’s eyes flutter closed, she moans, pitchy-loud, a sound Dean should never know. But it can’t hurt when you’re nothing, and you don’t know what you want.

“Love you,” she gasps again, head tilting back, “fuck, love you so much.”