Nowhere to Be Found
Title: Nowhere to Be Found
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 1300
Disclaimer: Not my boys. Kripke broke them long before I ever got to them.
Summary: Post 3x10 - Dream a Little Dream Of Me. Dean takes Demon!Dean's words to heart and tries to be his own person beyond Daddy's blunt little instrument. It's somehow also about clothes and the boys going shopping, because I am me.
Written for the Dean-focused hurt/comfort comment-fic meme (#6) on hoodie_time
He looks like a one-man St. Paddy’s Day parade.
Green makes your eyes pop, some girl told him years ago in a bar he was at least three years too young to be at, drowning in Dad’s green flannel because he’d somehow convinced himself it would make him look older.
This shirt isn’t like that. Or maybe it is, Dean isn’t really sure.
He stares at himself in the mirror, but all he sees is how the color would stand out too much in a crowd and how really fucking difficult it’d be to get out the tiniest splatter of blood or slime or graveyard dirt.
There’s a pile of perfectly acceptable, plain black T-shirts on the table behind him, but he already has five plain black shirts and the old Drylake Speed Racing shirt that used to be black three owners ago and that he only really wears when he’s working on his car.
And that’s the problem right there. Because even that is really only Dad’s car.
Dad’s car and Dad’s old flannels and Dad’s rules on what other clothes they’d spend money on (pick something dark, you need a warmer jacket, we’ll get you boots next month, put those jeans back, yours are good for another year at least).
Do you even have an original thought?
He has to look away from the mirror or else his eyes are gonna flash black.
Somewhere, several racks to the left Sam is asking where he might find jeans his size, followed by a flustered girly giggle and an offer to show him to the other end of the thrift store.
Dean needs new jeans too. The pair he’s wearing right now feels like it’s about one trip across state lines shy of being downright indecent. He can’t go looking for jeans though. Not as long as he hasn’t found at least one shirt he likes.
It’s kind of ridiculous, looking for this kind of stuff now, when he’s only got five months left anyway (four months, twenty-two days, but he’s trying really hard to look at his situation in a glass half full kind of way). It’s ridiculous, but it’s also his last chance to find out that there are some decent songs on Sam’s iPod or that he really, really likes wearing bright colored shirts that make him look like a fuckin’ leprechaun.
So far he’s figured out that most of Sam’s geeky, West Coast college kid emo music sucks just as much as he’s always assumed, but maybe some of the lyrics aren’t entirely horrible. And one or two songs would even be halfway okay if the singers didn't sound so goddamn whiney.
Sam’s also got a couple of shirts that Dad definitely wouldn’t have approved of too. Red and white and purple with ridiculous prints on them and as far as Dean knows they haven’t turned his brother into any more of a monster chew-toy than whatever shade of black Dean happens to be wearing so why can’t he just take the damn green shirt and like it?
He imagines Dad frowning, shaking his head, pointing at the clothes he picked out and Dean just doesn’t know.
There’s a dark-haired woman down the aisle, sorting through dress shirts with one hand, holding a whining four-year-old with the other. Dean walks up to her with his biggest, brightest teeth-showing smile firmly put into place, twisting the hem between his fingers before nervously pointing at his chest.
“Hey, do you think I can pull this off?”
He sounds strange, even to his own ears. Awkward and kind of loud, not like himself at all, and for a moment she just stares at him with wide eyes, her mouth slowly falling open.
“No hablo ingles,” she says, shaking her head. “No English.”
And now that kid’s saying something and she’s snapping at the kid and Dean tries to tell her sorry, he doesn’t speak any Spanish and isn’t that just the most ridiculous non conversation he’s ever had?
She drags the kid off towards another rack with slightly smaller shirts and Dean walks back towards his plain T-shirts table. Someone else is standing in front of the mirror by now so Dean just keeps on walking around the table.
He tries to imagine himself in red. He likes the washed-out red over shirts he and Dad picked out the year before Dad sent him off to New Orleans.
That’s another thing. Most of the clothes in Dean’s duffel are either hand-me-downs from Dad or they’re something they bought for both of them to share anyway. Dean has never really shared clothes with Sam. First the kid was too small and then overnight he grew too big, but Dad, well once Dean started putting on some muscle there really wasn’t any point in thinking in terms of Dad’s clothes or Dean’s. They picked generic stuff that fit them both and wore whatever they happened to pick up in the morning.
And now Dean doesn’t have the first clue if he likes black shirts or if he likes them because Dad did.
He looks down, pulls the hem forward slightly to get a better look. He could probably wear a darker green flannel and jacket over it and blend right in in a forest. It could be his special T-shirt just for forest hunts and maybe if it doesn’t get torn up or soaked with blood he can wear it later at the bar and if enough girls tell him that they like the color on him he’ll know. And if they don’t he’ll still have his special T-shirt just for forest hunts wich is also kind of cool.
He touches one of the red shirts on the table, wonders if there’s a chance he’ll find a hunt in the Grand Canyon in the next couple of months. He’s almost sure he wants to try it on when Sam dumps a pile of clothes on top of it.
“You done?” he asks, then stops when he actually looks at Dean.
His eyes travel up and down Dean’s torso. His lips do that thing where he presses them together until his dimples show.
“Green?”
Dean shrugs. Says, “yeah, so?”
“Nothing.” The corner of Sam’s mouth is starting to twist upwards. “Nothing, It’s just… I dunno, green?”
It makes my eyes pop, Dean wants to say. And what if we have to blend in with a couple of trees? but now that he’s got Sam looking him up and down like that he’s pretty sure that the whole idea was a colossal mistake.
What good is it, developing a huge hang up over his personal freackin’ style of all things when he’s practically on his death bed, anyway?
“Yeah, you’re right,” he mumbles, pulling the shirt over his head and rolling it back up military style before he remembers that’s not how most stores decide to display their products. “I was just tryin’ it on. Made me feel like a giant asshole anyway.”
Dean turns away to put on his old shirt (grey-ish black with a frayed collar and stitched-up bullet holes in the shoulder). Sam throws his arms up in exasperation.
“Dude, I was just asking. It’s fine if you wanna get something different for a change.”
Dean shakes his head, grabs two black shirts and Dad’s old leather jacket. He was thinking of leaving it here, get a couple of bucks out of it, but suddenly he just can’t.
“I’m done here,” he says with his voice rougher than usual.
He doesn’t need new jeans anyway. He’ll patch up his old ones and they’ll be good for another five months at least.
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 1300
Disclaimer: Not my boys. Kripke broke them long before I ever got to them.
Summary: Post 3x10 - Dream a Little Dream Of Me. Dean takes Demon!Dean's words to heart and tries to be his own person beyond Daddy's blunt little instrument. It's somehow also about clothes and the boys going shopping, because I am me.
Written for the Dean-focused hurt/comfort comment-fic meme (#6) on hoodie_time
He looks like a one-man St. Paddy’s Day parade.
Green makes your eyes pop, some girl told him years ago in a bar he was at least three years too young to be at, drowning in Dad’s green flannel because he’d somehow convinced himself it would make him look older.
This shirt isn’t like that. Or maybe it is, Dean isn’t really sure.
He stares at himself in the mirror, but all he sees is how the color would stand out too much in a crowd and how really fucking difficult it’d be to get out the tiniest splatter of blood or slime or graveyard dirt.
There’s a pile of perfectly acceptable, plain black T-shirts on the table behind him, but he already has five plain black shirts and the old Drylake Speed Racing shirt that used to be black three owners ago and that he only really wears when he’s working on his car.
And that’s the problem right there. Because even that is really only Dad’s car.
Dad’s car and Dad’s old flannels and Dad’s rules on what other clothes they’d spend money on (pick something dark, you need a warmer jacket, we’ll get you boots next month, put those jeans back, yours are good for another year at least).
Do you even have an original thought?
He has to look away from the mirror or else his eyes are gonna flash black.
Somewhere, several racks to the left Sam is asking where he might find jeans his size, followed by a flustered girly giggle and an offer to show him to the other end of the thrift store.
Dean needs new jeans too. The pair he’s wearing right now feels like it’s about one trip across state lines shy of being downright indecent. He can’t go looking for jeans though. Not as long as he hasn’t found at least one shirt he likes.
It’s kind of ridiculous, looking for this kind of stuff now, when he’s only got five months left anyway (four months, twenty-two days, but he’s trying really hard to look at his situation in a glass half full kind of way). It’s ridiculous, but it’s also his last chance to find out that there are some decent songs on Sam’s iPod or that he really, really likes wearing bright colored shirts that make him look like a fuckin’ leprechaun.
So far he’s figured out that most of Sam’s geeky, West Coast college kid emo music sucks just as much as he’s always assumed, but maybe some of the lyrics aren’t entirely horrible. And one or two songs would even be halfway okay if the singers didn't sound so goddamn whiney.
Sam’s also got a couple of shirts that Dad definitely wouldn’t have approved of too. Red and white and purple with ridiculous prints on them and as far as Dean knows they haven’t turned his brother into any more of a monster chew-toy than whatever shade of black Dean happens to be wearing so why can’t he just take the damn green shirt and like it?
He imagines Dad frowning, shaking his head, pointing at the clothes he picked out and Dean just doesn’t know.
There’s a dark-haired woman down the aisle, sorting through dress shirts with one hand, holding a whining four-year-old with the other. Dean walks up to her with his biggest, brightest teeth-showing smile firmly put into place, twisting the hem between his fingers before nervously pointing at his chest.
“Hey, do you think I can pull this off?”
He sounds strange, even to his own ears. Awkward and kind of loud, not like himself at all, and for a moment she just stares at him with wide eyes, her mouth slowly falling open.
“No hablo ingles,” she says, shaking her head. “No English.”
And now that kid’s saying something and she’s snapping at the kid and Dean tries to tell her sorry, he doesn’t speak any Spanish and isn’t that just the most ridiculous non conversation he’s ever had?
She drags the kid off towards another rack with slightly smaller shirts and Dean walks back towards his plain T-shirts table. Someone else is standing in front of the mirror by now so Dean just keeps on walking around the table.
He tries to imagine himself in red. He likes the washed-out red over shirts he and Dad picked out the year before Dad sent him off to New Orleans.
That’s another thing. Most of the clothes in Dean’s duffel are either hand-me-downs from Dad or they’re something they bought for both of them to share anyway. Dean has never really shared clothes with Sam. First the kid was too small and then overnight he grew too big, but Dad, well once Dean started putting on some muscle there really wasn’t any point in thinking in terms of Dad’s clothes or Dean’s. They picked generic stuff that fit them both and wore whatever they happened to pick up in the morning.
And now Dean doesn’t have the first clue if he likes black shirts or if he likes them because Dad did.
He looks down, pulls the hem forward slightly to get a better look. He could probably wear a darker green flannel and jacket over it and blend right in in a forest. It could be his special T-shirt just for forest hunts and maybe if it doesn’t get torn up or soaked with blood he can wear it later at the bar and if enough girls tell him that they like the color on him he’ll know. And if they don’t he’ll still have his special T-shirt just for forest hunts wich is also kind of cool.
He touches one of the red shirts on the table, wonders if there’s a chance he’ll find a hunt in the Grand Canyon in the next couple of months. He’s almost sure he wants to try it on when Sam dumps a pile of clothes on top of it.
“You done?” he asks, then stops when he actually looks at Dean.
His eyes travel up and down Dean’s torso. His lips do that thing where he presses them together until his dimples show.
“Green?”
Dean shrugs. Says, “yeah, so?”
“Nothing.” The corner of Sam’s mouth is starting to twist upwards. “Nothing, It’s just… I dunno, green?”
It makes my eyes pop, Dean wants to say. And what if we have to blend in with a couple of trees? but now that he’s got Sam looking him up and down like that he’s pretty sure that the whole idea was a colossal mistake.
What good is it, developing a huge hang up over his personal freackin’ style of all things when he’s practically on his death bed, anyway?
“Yeah, you’re right,” he mumbles, pulling the shirt over his head and rolling it back up military style before he remembers that’s not how most stores decide to display their products. “I was just tryin’ it on. Made me feel like a giant asshole anyway.”
Dean turns away to put on his old shirt (grey-ish black with a frayed collar and stitched-up bullet holes in the shoulder). Sam throws his arms up in exasperation.
“Dude, I was just asking. It’s fine if you wanna get something different for a change.”
Dean shakes his head, grabs two black shirts and Dad’s old leather jacket. He was thinking of leaving it here, get a couple of bucks out of it, but suddenly he just can’t.
“I’m done here,” he says with his voice rougher than usual.
He doesn’t need new jeans anyway. He’ll patch up his old ones and they’ll be good for another five months at least.