Coat of Many Colors
Title: Coat of Many Colors
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 1600
Disclaimer: Not my boys. Kripke broke them long before I got them out of the box.
Summary: There was a time before After School Special when Dean wasn't cool and he wasn't bad-ass, he wasn't even a real hunter yet. Before, he was just a sad 14-year old kid.
Written as a fill for 'Isolation' on my angst_bingo card and to keep me sane during long hours of writing my BB studying.
Yes, this thing is named after a Dolly Parton song. So sue me, my brain is being eaten by my International Media Systems notes.
"So, how does Jane's ambiguous social position play into the maine theme of the book?"
She wrote the stupid question down on the blackboard too, like she wanted to give them time to think up the most inspired answers possible.
Dean grunts, fiddles with the pencil in his hand and looks out the window, like he didn't notice Ms Carrigan was talking to him.
They're reading Virginia Wolf. Possibly Jane Austin. There's a picture of an ugly-ass dead chick on the first page, so it's gotta be one of those. Dean hasn't bothered examining it any more closely than that.
I'm not too dumb, I just can't be bothered.
He always has a smart-ass bullshit reason when they ask him why he can't answer this question or that one, why he failed his History test again and they shake their heads and write him off as another lost case from the wrong sides of the tracks that even the pathetic little punk crowd don't want to hang out with.
Sometimes he just looks down at the doodles where his notes should be and lists all the ways to kill every monster he knows in alphabetical order to keep from thinking about the sad, disappointed glares too much.
Sam calls him stupid sometimes, when Dean asks something that's terribly obvious to his genius of a little brother. He giggles when he says it and he almost never means it that way, but it still stings and sometimes Dad will get mad at Sam and make him do double sets during training that night. Other times he just scoffs into his coffee and tells Dean to make sure there aren't any more calls from principals or counselors.
Sam hates the extra training and Dean wants to feel bad for the squirt when Dad starts yelling at him, but mostly he feels insanely smug.
When they're out hunting Dad claps him on the shoulder and tells him good job, Ace and it makes Dean feel like maybe he isn't a worthless fuck-up in every part of his life. With a loaded gun in his hand, or matches and some lighter fluid he's a natural, a prodigy. It's being a fourteen year-old high school kid he sucks at.
"Hey, Losechester," that kid Brad shouts at him later, when Dean's sitting at his empty table, waiting for the other kids to finish their meals. "Mommy forget to pack your lunch today?"
Funny how since first grade nobody's come up with a new nickname. Funny how it still stings just as much.
He feels his fingers curl into the palms of his hands, leaving little half moon imprints. Dad had some things to say last time Dean got kicked out of school for breaking some smug asshole's face. Dean's not too keen on repeating that particular experience.
A couple of girls walk past Dean's table. Billie Jo and Belle and Abbie Gail or something else ridiculously Southern. They're giggling and whispering in each other's ears and Dean is almost sure they're laughing at him. His too-small shirt and too-long jeans. Sammy's and Dad's.
One of them lets her gaze wander from the uneven buzz-cut Dad gave him last week all the way down to his army boots. There's a dark black-red stain on the left heel from last time Dean got to be bait. He blushes under her cold scrutiny, blinks rapidly and focuses on the linoleum table. He knows he doesn't look bad - enough fucked-up dudes in dark parking lots have told him that much, but long lashes and big, pouty lips aren't enough here. High school kids are like the hyenas in those nature documentaries Sammy likes to watch. They see someone that's different, wrong, not one of them, can fucking feel it in their guts the moment Dean enters their classrooms and he can't tell if they're scared of him or think he's beneath them, but he knows they don't want him around.
Not that he wants to fit in with their fuckin' Little House on the Prairie, wholesome country act anyway.
He doesn't go back to class after lunch. Not like Dad is home to take any calls or give Dean hell for forging his signature or whatever.
He sits down in the middle of the football field, toes off his boots and lets the hot Tennessee sun burn and singe his face and forearms until it almost feels like last year when Dad kept them out of school all spring because they needed to hole up in some cabin in Arizona.
A couple of Camels are still stuffed into his back pocket, the pack crumpled and stained and Dean sighs with relief when the thick smoke hits his lungs. We're very disappointed in you, Mr Winchester, he imagines the old principal's lazy drawl, Mr Public-Service-Announcement's one and only comment every time Dean's been to his office.
He showed him an ancient paddle one time and Dean admits it's probably a seriously intimidating threat for his class mates, but he's pretty sure even Uncle Bobby's given him worse than the old principal could dole out on his best day, so he's decided he doesn't give a fuck.
He sucks in the warm, soothing smoke the way Caleb showed him last summer ("But don't you start doing this for real, Dean. Your Dad would shoot us both on the spot." Yeah, Right. Whatever. Not like Dad's around enough to notice when Dean's clothes smell like cigarettes.)
He lets it wrap around his lungs until they feel warm and constricted and the mad ache right between his eyes starts to cool off.
His walk man is in his other pocket, headphones sitting lopsided on top of his head, lips silently moving in time with the R-rated lyrics around the second cigarette in his mouth, then the third.
"Hey, there."
A small hand is shaking his shoulder and Dean looks up, blinks against the bright sunlight in his eyes. "H-hi," he stutters back.
"You're Dean, right? I'm Brandi."
Dean nods. He knows who she is (just been calling her Florence Lee in his head, 's all.) Brandi. Dark curls and bronze skin and a dazzling smile full of pearly white teeth. She's the one with the short shorts and the even shorter tops. The one who tends to twirl and dance around on her tippy toes when other girls would just be walking.
Not that Dean's been watching her or anything.
"You oughta be in history class," he tells her, painfully aware of his bare toes he's been digging into the damp grass. Probably looks like a retarded pre-schooler playing in the mud.
She just shrugs with a coy smile and flops down on the grass next to him. "Yeah, I figured I could do without his lecture on the Capture of Memphis. I'm sure I'll catch it next year. Or the year after that." She giggles. "Or the year after that. What's your excuse?"
"Figured more than one or two educational experiences was pretty much overkill. Don't wanna ruin my appetite for tomorrow."
Dean finds himself staring at the little reflections the sun makes on her hair. The floppy curls bounce up and down when she throws her head back and Dean fumbles with the cigarette in his mouth to get his mind off of just leaping forward and kissing her neck.
"You're funny, Dean Winchester," she says and runs her hand over the freckled skin of his arm.
Dean doesn't know what to do with that. People don't call him funny. Wise-ass and moron sure, but just funny? "Thanks," he mumbles, feels a blush creep up his sunburned cheeks.
"Cute, too," she says and leans forward just a bit until her small, firm breasts are pressed up against Dean's shoulder and a small gasp splutters past his lips when all the blood starts rushing down again. "Stacy says I should get over this stupid crush," she breathes into his ear. Her voice drawling over the words and the thick accent sends a stab of pleasure right into his groin. "She thinks you're just some washed-up punk from outa town, but I think you kinda look like Joey McIntyre."
"Who?" Dean gasps and suddenly her lips are hovering just above his and his fingers are digging deeper into the grass, dirt getting stuck under his fingernails.
"Don't tell anyone I said that, though," she whispers and pulls away.
Dean nods mutely, blinks a couple of times, thinks he should probably test her with the silver knife in his back pocket, Dad's lecture on sucubi on high school campuses still fresh in his mind.
"Can i have one?" Brandi asks with a slight nod at the almost gone cigarette in Dean's hand.
Her fingers are still brushing up and down Dean's arm, raising goosebumps all over his back and he has to swallow several times before he manages to croak out "Sorry, 'm all out."
"Brandi!"
They booth turn around, Brandi scrambling to her feet when she sees her group of friends standing over by the stands.
"Just don't tell anyone," she hisses under her breath, roughly shoves his shoulder and starts walking.
"Hey," Dean calls after her, slightly out of breath and not completely sure what's happening. "Hey, do you wanna..."
...grab some burgers some time?
...be my girlfriend?
...run away together so we can live happily ever after with a swing on the porch and all that crap?
"Freak," she spits, loud enough for him to hear all the way across the field. "Tried to sell me drugs or something. Seriously messed up..."
They laugh and giggle, all of them.
Brandi twirls her hair and giggles along.
Dean just keeps sitting there with his headphones around his neck.
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 1600
Disclaimer: Not my boys. Kripke broke them long before I got them out of the box.
Summary: There was a time before After School Special when Dean wasn't cool and he wasn't bad-ass, he wasn't even a real hunter yet. Before, he was just a sad 14-year old kid.
Written as a fill for 'Isolation' on my angst_bingo card and to keep me sane during long hours of writing my BB studying.
Yes, this thing is named after a Dolly Parton song. So sue me, my brain is being eaten by my International Media Systems notes.
"So, how does Jane's ambiguous social position play into the maine theme of the book?"
She wrote the stupid question down on the blackboard too, like she wanted to give them time to think up the most inspired answers possible.
Dean grunts, fiddles with the pencil in his hand and looks out the window, like he didn't notice Ms Carrigan was talking to him.
They're reading Virginia Wolf. Possibly Jane Austin. There's a picture of an ugly-ass dead chick on the first page, so it's gotta be one of those. Dean hasn't bothered examining it any more closely than that.
I'm not too dumb, I just can't be bothered.
He always has a smart-ass bullshit reason when they ask him why he can't answer this question or that one, why he failed his History test again and they shake their heads and write him off as another lost case from the wrong sides of the tracks that even the pathetic little punk crowd don't want to hang out with.
Sometimes he just looks down at the doodles where his notes should be and lists all the ways to kill every monster he knows in alphabetical order to keep from thinking about the sad, disappointed glares too much.
Sam calls him stupid sometimes, when Dean asks something that's terribly obvious to his genius of a little brother. He giggles when he says it and he almost never means it that way, but it still stings and sometimes Dad will get mad at Sam and make him do double sets during training that night. Other times he just scoffs into his coffee and tells Dean to make sure there aren't any more calls from principals or counselors.
Sam hates the extra training and Dean wants to feel bad for the squirt when Dad starts yelling at him, but mostly he feels insanely smug.
When they're out hunting Dad claps him on the shoulder and tells him good job, Ace and it makes Dean feel like maybe he isn't a worthless fuck-up in every part of his life. With a loaded gun in his hand, or matches and some lighter fluid he's a natural, a prodigy. It's being a fourteen year-old high school kid he sucks at.
"Hey, Losechester," that kid Brad shouts at him later, when Dean's sitting at his empty table, waiting for the other kids to finish their meals. "Mommy forget to pack your lunch today?"
Funny how since first grade nobody's come up with a new nickname. Funny how it still stings just as much.
He feels his fingers curl into the palms of his hands, leaving little half moon imprints. Dad had some things to say last time Dean got kicked out of school for breaking some smug asshole's face. Dean's not too keen on repeating that particular experience.
A couple of girls walk past Dean's table. Billie Jo and Belle and Abbie Gail or something else ridiculously Southern. They're giggling and whispering in each other's ears and Dean is almost sure they're laughing at him. His too-small shirt and too-long jeans. Sammy's and Dad's.
One of them lets her gaze wander from the uneven buzz-cut Dad gave him last week all the way down to his army boots. There's a dark black-red stain on the left heel from last time Dean got to be bait. He blushes under her cold scrutiny, blinks rapidly and focuses on the linoleum table. He knows he doesn't look bad - enough fucked-up dudes in dark parking lots have told him that much, but long lashes and big, pouty lips aren't enough here. High school kids are like the hyenas in those nature documentaries Sammy likes to watch. They see someone that's different, wrong, not one of them, can fucking feel it in their guts the moment Dean enters their classrooms and he can't tell if they're scared of him or think he's beneath them, but he knows they don't want him around.
Not that he wants to fit in with their fuckin' Little House on the Prairie, wholesome country act anyway.
He doesn't go back to class after lunch. Not like Dad is home to take any calls or give Dean hell for forging his signature or whatever.
He sits down in the middle of the football field, toes off his boots and lets the hot Tennessee sun burn and singe his face and forearms until it almost feels like last year when Dad kept them out of school all spring because they needed to hole up in some cabin in Arizona.
A couple of Camels are still stuffed into his back pocket, the pack crumpled and stained and Dean sighs with relief when the thick smoke hits his lungs. We're very disappointed in you, Mr Winchester, he imagines the old principal's lazy drawl, Mr Public-Service-Announcement's one and only comment every time Dean's been to his office.
He showed him an ancient paddle one time and Dean admits it's probably a seriously intimidating threat for his class mates, but he's pretty sure even Uncle Bobby's given him worse than the old principal could dole out on his best day, so he's decided he doesn't give a fuck.
He sucks in the warm, soothing smoke the way Caleb showed him last summer ("But don't you start doing this for real, Dean. Your Dad would shoot us both on the spot." Yeah, Right. Whatever. Not like Dad's around enough to notice when Dean's clothes smell like cigarettes.)
He lets it wrap around his lungs until they feel warm and constricted and the mad ache right between his eyes starts to cool off.
His walk man is in his other pocket, headphones sitting lopsided on top of his head, lips silently moving in time with the R-rated lyrics around the second cigarette in his mouth, then the third.
"Hey, there."
A small hand is shaking his shoulder and Dean looks up, blinks against the bright sunlight in his eyes. "H-hi," he stutters back.
"You're Dean, right? I'm Brandi."
Dean nods. He knows who she is (just been calling her Florence Lee in his head, 's all.) Brandi. Dark curls and bronze skin and a dazzling smile full of pearly white teeth. She's the one with the short shorts and the even shorter tops. The one who tends to twirl and dance around on her tippy toes when other girls would just be walking.
Not that Dean's been watching her or anything.
"You oughta be in history class," he tells her, painfully aware of his bare toes he's been digging into the damp grass. Probably looks like a retarded pre-schooler playing in the mud.
She just shrugs with a coy smile and flops down on the grass next to him. "Yeah, I figured I could do without his lecture on the Capture of Memphis. I'm sure I'll catch it next year. Or the year after that." She giggles. "Or the year after that. What's your excuse?"
"Figured more than one or two educational experiences was pretty much overkill. Don't wanna ruin my appetite for tomorrow."
Dean finds himself staring at the little reflections the sun makes on her hair. The floppy curls bounce up and down when she throws her head back and Dean fumbles with the cigarette in his mouth to get his mind off of just leaping forward and kissing her neck.
"You're funny, Dean Winchester," she says and runs her hand over the freckled skin of his arm.
Dean doesn't know what to do with that. People don't call him funny. Wise-ass and moron sure, but just funny? "Thanks," he mumbles, feels a blush creep up his sunburned cheeks.
"Cute, too," she says and leans forward just a bit until her small, firm breasts are pressed up against Dean's shoulder and a small gasp splutters past his lips when all the blood starts rushing down again. "Stacy says I should get over this stupid crush," she breathes into his ear. Her voice drawling over the words and the thick accent sends a stab of pleasure right into his groin. "She thinks you're just some washed-up punk from outa town, but I think you kinda look like Joey McIntyre."
"Who?" Dean gasps and suddenly her lips are hovering just above his and his fingers are digging deeper into the grass, dirt getting stuck under his fingernails.
"Don't tell anyone I said that, though," she whispers and pulls away.
Dean nods mutely, blinks a couple of times, thinks he should probably test her with the silver knife in his back pocket, Dad's lecture on sucubi on high school campuses still fresh in his mind.
"Can i have one?" Brandi asks with a slight nod at the almost gone cigarette in Dean's hand.
Her fingers are still brushing up and down Dean's arm, raising goosebumps all over his back and he has to swallow several times before he manages to croak out "Sorry, 'm all out."
"Brandi!"
They booth turn around, Brandi scrambling to her feet when she sees her group of friends standing over by the stands.
"Just don't tell anyone," she hisses under her breath, roughly shoves his shoulder and starts walking.
"Hey," Dean calls after her, slightly out of breath and not completely sure what's happening. "Hey, do you wanna..."
...grab some burgers some time?
...be my girlfriend?
...run away together so we can live happily ever after with a swing on the porch and all that crap?
"Freak," she spits, loud enough for him to hear all the way across the field. "Tried to sell me drugs or something. Seriously messed up..."
They laugh and giggle, all of them.
Brandi twirls her hair and giggles along.
Dean just keeps sitting there with his headphones around his neck.