Happy Birthday fic - Losing Control - PG13 gen
At Asylum last weekend, I met the darling annemiek81 again, and she has since been very supportive of my muse, sending it regular injections of Jeffrey Dean Morgan to revive it. It was her birthday on the 15th, and I had half a fic written for her, so I promised I would have it done for the weekend.
This little bunny is one of the many donated to my muse by the wonderful princess_s. She rocks the angst.
Happy Birthday, annemiek81. Have some stern!John and angst spread so thick you could cut it with a knife.
TITLE: Losing Control
RATING: PG13 gen
CHARACTERS: Teen Dean, John (and a little bit of Sammy)
DISCLAIMER: Not my boys
NOTES: 1800 words. Set pre-series. Dean's late home from a party. John waits for him.
WARNING: Parental discipline.
It’s past three when John finally hears the familiar growl of the Impala. The engine cuts out with a snarl, followed by the heavy reassuring clunk of the driver’s door. Soft footsteps next, a little unsteady as he shuffles to the front door, then there’s a moment of frantically quiet scrabbling. Searching for his key, most likely. Takes way too long for him to find it and fit it into the lock.
John stays seated at the kitchen table, his thumb tracing an ancient cigarette scar burned deep into the worn wood. He sags a little, shoulders curving in relief. He’s been sitting in the same position for so long that the sudden ease in tension sends a sharp spike of pain shooting down the length of his spine.
The door opens.
Dean falters for a moment, scrubs his hand over the back of his head, then stumbles through the door, his boots scuffing through the salt lines.
He’s drunk. Not shit-faced, not falling over in the gutter drunk, but just enough to not realise how much trouble he’s in. A couple of hours ago, and John would have felt a twinge of sympathy for him. But not now. Not when he’s had images of tortured metal and crushed limbs dancing through his head for the last hour and a half.
“You got any idea what time it is?” he growls and Dean’s head comes up, meeting John’s eyes warily.
“D’you lose your watch?” Dean says, and John’s on his feet and moving in an instant.
He grabs the back of Dean’s collar, shakes him so that Dean’s head snaps back and forth like a balloon on a stick, his teeth clicking together violently.
“You think this is some kind of joke, son?” he hisses, and Dean squirms out of his grasp, twisting around to face him, his eyes crinkling in confusion.
“Uh, no - I mean, no sir,” he whispers, voice suddenly timid, like he’s only just getting that he’s fucked up.
John lets go of his collar, shoves him lightly and Dean stumbles back a few paces, face pale in the harsh fluorescence of the kitchen light.
“You drive my car drunk, son?”
Dean has enough sense to take a step back, then. He opens his mouth, then closes it again almost immediately. Probably figuring that whatever he says, it’s going to get his dumb ass kicked.
He’s not wrong.
“I trusted you.”
Dean cringes at that, shoulders rising, a slow blush suffusing his cheeks. Good. The kid deserves it.
“I trusted you, and you let me down.” John says it again, slow and deliberate. Dean flinches, drops his gaze. “Look at me when I’m talking to you, Dean.” He leans purposely on his son’s name, puts a little mean into his voice.
It’s an effort, but Dean lifts his chin, meets John’s gaze steadily. His shoulders stiffen, then he straighten almost to attention, his fists pressed tight against the side seam of his jeans. He only sways a little.
“You don’t get to do this-“ John aims his finger hard at Dean’s chest, “-this shit.” He’s suddenly incredibly angry. “What if I’d needed you - what if Sammy had needed you? Christ, Dean. All you had to do was give me a call.”
I would have come got you. He doesn’t tell Dean about the visions of blood and bone and twisted metal that he saw every time he closed his eyes tonight. He can’t.
Dean reaches into his jeans pocket, pulls out his cell. “Forgot to charge it.” He shrugs, a half-embarrassed grin playing at the corners of his mouth. “Um - oops?”
John cuts him off, and grips his elbow, jerking Dean towards him. Dean’s unprepared for the move, and he trips over his own feet, cracking his hip hard against the side of the kitchen table.
Dean sucks his breath in, hisses a barely audible fuck through clenched teeth, then looks up, suddenly realising he’s said it out loud. “Aw, fuck,” he says again, offering John another half-hearted smirk.
It’s that lazily apologetic smile that sends John’s blood pressure sky-rocketing, makes the blood beat through the vein in his temple.
“Something funny?” His voice is low; enough menace in it that even wasted, Dean should get it. “You think I’m kidding around here, son?”
“Dude, come on.” Dean shrugs again. “So I’m a couple of hours late. Just - you know - chill.” He puts out his hand and presses it against John’s chest, palm flat over his heart, pushing lightly.
It’s too much.
John grabs his arm and twists it, forcing Dean to spin around. The boy rises up on tiptoe, back arching as he struggles to remain upright.
“Shit - for fuc-Dad!” Dean yells, fighting to free his wrist, and John just pulls it a fraction higher, presses it into the small of his back. Dean makes a small noise in the back of his throat, a soft broken-off almost yelp.
Dean stills then; John feels the muscles in his arm slacken, the tension bleeding out of his spine. John doesn’t loosen his grip, though. Kid’s not dumb; he knows how to play possum.
Dean lashes his foot back, sudden and vicious, but John’s ready for it. He deflects the kick with his knee, ignoring the wave of pain that instantly radiates from his kneecap. He sweeps Dean’s feet out from under him, using the boy’s momentum and lack of balance to send him tumbling towards the table.
It’s a messy tackle, roughly executed, and the kid goes down hard, his cheek colliding with the table top, the sharp snap of bone on wood clearly audible. Dean struggles to free himself, but John isn’t letting him up any time soon.
Training aside, he can’t remember the last time he and Dean threw down. Lately it’s been all about Sammy; his youngest has been kicking against him, testing him out to see how far it is to the edge of his temper. Not that long a journey, as it turns out.
Dean’s always been biddable, easy to manage. A good kid. Hell, that was the whole reason he let him go to that damn party tonight in the first place. As a reward for putting up with Sammy’s constant pouting, his pissy little tantrums, all that new-found adolescent angst and drama.
Last time Dean had a tantrum, he was maybe four years old. Something to do with green vegetables, and Mary’s insistence that they be consumed prior to dessert. John had given up trying to reason with Dean when the spinach hit the kitchen wall. He’d tipped the kid over his knee, given him a few half-hearted swats, just enough to turn his tears of temper to sorrow.
He’s never had to do much of that with Dean. Certainly not since the kid hit his teens, anyway. Dean knows how to follow orders, John relies on that. He’s not sure what he’ll do if Dean decides to stage his own teenage rebellion. Not like Sammy needs the encouragement. Boy already makes insubordination an art form.
“Dad.” Dean shifts under his hand. “Let me up.” He sounds angry, not apologetic.
John thinks that’s probably his own fault. Dean’s gotten used to being treated as an equal; kid’s forgotten about the chain of command. He looks down at his son, cheek crushed against the table top, dark splotches of freckles inked over his pale face. Lips pressed together in a thin tight line.
Before he’s fully processed the action, John swings his arm, slapping his palm down onto Dean’s ass, the sound echoing in the kitchen like a gunshot.
Dean jumps under his grip. “Christ! Dad-just-” John cuts him off, landing a second blow, hard enough that Dean scoots forward, his knee cracking on the table leg.
“Shit!” Dean has enough sense this time to whisper the obscenities, but he doesn’t submit, doesn’t stop fighting.
“Stay down,” John spits through clenched teeth, yanking Dean’s arm up between his shoulder blades, applying a little more pressure. He draws his arm back again, swats harder, his palm tingling.
“You see what happens when you lose control? You get sloppy. Your reaction time gets shot all to hell, and you leave yourself wide open to attack.”
Dean’s face colours, the blush spreading all the way from his cheeks to the tips of his ears, but he bites down on his lip, won’t answer.
“You think you’re grown, son? Think you’re a big man? Think you can do whatever the hell you please and get away with it?” He punctuates each question with a smack, and Dean jerks and squirms under his hand, his stoic façade crumbling into shallow grunts and bitten-off groans.
“Think again, son.” John really lays into him then, smacking his hand down over and over until his palm aches, prickles with heat.
“Dad?”
It’s not Dean’s voice that stills his hand. John turns, sees Sam standing in the hallway, blinking the sleep out of his eyes.
“Dean?” Sammy’s voice rises, soft and quavering, and John releases Dean’s wrist, takes a step back.
Dean straightens slowly, cautiously, almost as if he’s waiting for John to start in on him again. “S’okay, Sammy.” Dean says his brother’s name softly, a reassurance.
When Dean turns around to face them, John sees a red mark just below his eye, tracing across the top of his cheekbone. It’ll be a bruise tomorrow, like the bracelet of scarlet fingerprints that circle his wrist.
John shakes out his hand, then presses it to his own thigh, the residual heat there burning through his jeans.
“Dean,” he says, and reaches out to settle his hand on the boy’s shoulder. Dean ducks out from under his grip, the movement so slight it’s barely perceptible. He stands, just out of John’s reach, eyes bright with unshed tears. Waiting to be dismissed.
John scrubs his hand over his face. “Go on to bed, son,” he orders, and Dean relaxes visibly, sags like a broken puppet.
The boy cringes past him, cowering like a whipped pup. He turns in the doorway, bites down on his lip, unable to meet John’s eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“Just-” John shakes his head, sighs quietly. “Just-don’t let it happen again, okay?”
“Yes, sir,” he whispers, and then he’s gone.
Sammy doesn’t move, though. He stands at full attention, back ramrod straight, and John sees how tall he’s gotten, that he no longer needs to lift his chin to look John in the eye.
“Sammy,” John begins, but Sam shakes his head, cuts him off.
“It’s okay, Dad. I get it. Dean’s learned his lesson.” Sam pauses, then raises his chin anyway, an act of subtle defiance.
“Guess now we all know what happens when you lose control.”
This little bunny is one of the many donated to my muse by the wonderful princess_s. She rocks the angst.
Happy Birthday, annemiek81. Have some stern!John and angst spread so thick you could cut it with a knife.
TITLE: Losing Control
RATING: PG13 gen
CHARACTERS: Teen Dean, John (and a little bit of Sammy)
DISCLAIMER: Not my boys
NOTES: 1800 words. Set pre-series. Dean's late home from a party. John waits for him.
WARNING: Parental discipline.
It’s past three when John finally hears the familiar growl of the Impala. The engine cuts out with a snarl, followed by the heavy reassuring clunk of the driver’s door. Soft footsteps next, a little unsteady as he shuffles to the front door, then there’s a moment of frantically quiet scrabbling. Searching for his key, most likely. Takes way too long for him to find it and fit it into the lock.
John stays seated at the kitchen table, his thumb tracing an ancient cigarette scar burned deep into the worn wood. He sags a little, shoulders curving in relief. He’s been sitting in the same position for so long that the sudden ease in tension sends a sharp spike of pain shooting down the length of his spine.
The door opens.
Dean falters for a moment, scrubs his hand over the back of his head, then stumbles through the door, his boots scuffing through the salt lines.
He’s drunk. Not shit-faced, not falling over in the gutter drunk, but just enough to not realise how much trouble he’s in. A couple of hours ago, and John would have felt a twinge of sympathy for him. But not now. Not when he’s had images of tortured metal and crushed limbs dancing through his head for the last hour and a half.
“You got any idea what time it is?” he growls and Dean’s head comes up, meeting John’s eyes warily.
“D’you lose your watch?” Dean says, and John’s on his feet and moving in an instant.
He grabs the back of Dean’s collar, shakes him so that Dean’s head snaps back and forth like a balloon on a stick, his teeth clicking together violently.
“You think this is some kind of joke, son?” he hisses, and Dean squirms out of his grasp, twisting around to face him, his eyes crinkling in confusion.
“Uh, no - I mean, no sir,” he whispers, voice suddenly timid, like he’s only just getting that he’s fucked up.
John lets go of his collar, shoves him lightly and Dean stumbles back a few paces, face pale in the harsh fluorescence of the kitchen light.
“You drive my car drunk, son?”
Dean has enough sense to take a step back, then. He opens his mouth, then closes it again almost immediately. Probably figuring that whatever he says, it’s going to get his dumb ass kicked.
He’s not wrong.
“I trusted you.”
Dean cringes at that, shoulders rising, a slow blush suffusing his cheeks. Good. The kid deserves it.
“I trusted you, and you let me down.” John says it again, slow and deliberate. Dean flinches, drops his gaze. “Look at me when I’m talking to you, Dean.” He leans purposely on his son’s name, puts a little mean into his voice.
It’s an effort, but Dean lifts his chin, meets John’s gaze steadily. His shoulders stiffen, then he straighten almost to attention, his fists pressed tight against the side seam of his jeans. He only sways a little.
“You don’t get to do this-“ John aims his finger hard at Dean’s chest, “-this shit.” He’s suddenly incredibly angry. “What if I’d needed you - what if Sammy had needed you? Christ, Dean. All you had to do was give me a call.”
I would have come got you. He doesn’t tell Dean about the visions of blood and bone and twisted metal that he saw every time he closed his eyes tonight. He can’t.
Dean reaches into his jeans pocket, pulls out his cell. “Forgot to charge it.” He shrugs, a half-embarrassed grin playing at the corners of his mouth. “Um - oops?”
John cuts him off, and grips his elbow, jerking Dean towards him. Dean’s unprepared for the move, and he trips over his own feet, cracking his hip hard against the side of the kitchen table.
Dean sucks his breath in, hisses a barely audible fuck through clenched teeth, then looks up, suddenly realising he’s said it out loud. “Aw, fuck,” he says again, offering John another half-hearted smirk.
It’s that lazily apologetic smile that sends John’s blood pressure sky-rocketing, makes the blood beat through the vein in his temple.
“Something funny?” His voice is low; enough menace in it that even wasted, Dean should get it. “You think I’m kidding around here, son?”
“Dude, come on.” Dean shrugs again. “So I’m a couple of hours late. Just - you know - chill.” He puts out his hand and presses it against John’s chest, palm flat over his heart, pushing lightly.
It’s too much.
John grabs his arm and twists it, forcing Dean to spin around. The boy rises up on tiptoe, back arching as he struggles to remain upright.
“Shit - for fuc-Dad!” Dean yells, fighting to free his wrist, and John just pulls it a fraction higher, presses it into the small of his back. Dean makes a small noise in the back of his throat, a soft broken-off almost yelp.
Dean stills then; John feels the muscles in his arm slacken, the tension bleeding out of his spine. John doesn’t loosen his grip, though. Kid’s not dumb; he knows how to play possum.
Dean lashes his foot back, sudden and vicious, but John’s ready for it. He deflects the kick with his knee, ignoring the wave of pain that instantly radiates from his kneecap. He sweeps Dean’s feet out from under him, using the boy’s momentum and lack of balance to send him tumbling towards the table.
It’s a messy tackle, roughly executed, and the kid goes down hard, his cheek colliding with the table top, the sharp snap of bone on wood clearly audible. Dean struggles to free himself, but John isn’t letting him up any time soon.
Training aside, he can’t remember the last time he and Dean threw down. Lately it’s been all about Sammy; his youngest has been kicking against him, testing him out to see how far it is to the edge of his temper. Not that long a journey, as it turns out.
Dean’s always been biddable, easy to manage. A good kid. Hell, that was the whole reason he let him go to that damn party tonight in the first place. As a reward for putting up with Sammy’s constant pouting, his pissy little tantrums, all that new-found adolescent angst and drama.
Last time Dean had a tantrum, he was maybe four years old. Something to do with green vegetables, and Mary’s insistence that they be consumed prior to dessert. John had given up trying to reason with Dean when the spinach hit the kitchen wall. He’d tipped the kid over his knee, given him a few half-hearted swats, just enough to turn his tears of temper to sorrow.
He’s never had to do much of that with Dean. Certainly not since the kid hit his teens, anyway. Dean knows how to follow orders, John relies on that. He’s not sure what he’ll do if Dean decides to stage his own teenage rebellion. Not like Sammy needs the encouragement. Boy already makes insubordination an art form.
“Dad.” Dean shifts under his hand. “Let me up.” He sounds angry, not apologetic.
John thinks that’s probably his own fault. Dean’s gotten used to being treated as an equal; kid’s forgotten about the chain of command. He looks down at his son, cheek crushed against the table top, dark splotches of freckles inked over his pale face. Lips pressed together in a thin tight line.
Before he’s fully processed the action, John swings his arm, slapping his palm down onto Dean’s ass, the sound echoing in the kitchen like a gunshot.
Dean jumps under his grip. “Christ! Dad-just-” John cuts him off, landing a second blow, hard enough that Dean scoots forward, his knee cracking on the table leg.
“Shit!” Dean has enough sense this time to whisper the obscenities, but he doesn’t submit, doesn’t stop fighting.
“Stay down,” John spits through clenched teeth, yanking Dean’s arm up between his shoulder blades, applying a little more pressure. He draws his arm back again, swats harder, his palm tingling.
“You see what happens when you lose control? You get sloppy. Your reaction time gets shot all to hell, and you leave yourself wide open to attack.”
Dean’s face colours, the blush spreading all the way from his cheeks to the tips of his ears, but he bites down on his lip, won’t answer.
“You think you’re grown, son? Think you’re a big man? Think you can do whatever the hell you please and get away with it?” He punctuates each question with a smack, and Dean jerks and squirms under his hand, his stoic façade crumbling into shallow grunts and bitten-off groans.
“Think again, son.” John really lays into him then, smacking his hand down over and over until his palm aches, prickles with heat.
“Dad?”
It’s not Dean’s voice that stills his hand. John turns, sees Sam standing in the hallway, blinking the sleep out of his eyes.
“Dean?” Sammy’s voice rises, soft and quavering, and John releases Dean’s wrist, takes a step back.
Dean straightens slowly, cautiously, almost as if he’s waiting for John to start in on him again. “S’okay, Sammy.” Dean says his brother’s name softly, a reassurance.
When Dean turns around to face them, John sees a red mark just below his eye, tracing across the top of his cheekbone. It’ll be a bruise tomorrow, like the bracelet of scarlet fingerprints that circle his wrist.
John shakes out his hand, then presses it to his own thigh, the residual heat there burning through his jeans.
“Dean,” he says, and reaches out to settle his hand on the boy’s shoulder. Dean ducks out from under his grip, the movement so slight it’s barely perceptible. He stands, just out of John’s reach, eyes bright with unshed tears. Waiting to be dismissed.
John scrubs his hand over his face. “Go on to bed, son,” he orders, and Dean relaxes visibly, sags like a broken puppet.
The boy cringes past him, cowering like a whipped pup. He turns in the doorway, bites down on his lip, unable to meet John’s eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“Just-” John shakes his head, sighs quietly. “Just-don’t let it happen again, okay?”
“Yes, sir,” he whispers, and then he’s gone.
Sammy doesn’t move, though. He stands at full attention, back ramrod straight, and John sees how tall he’s gotten, that he no longer needs to lift his chin to look John in the eye.
“Sammy,” John begins, but Sam shakes his head, cuts him off.
“It’s okay, Dad. I get it. Dean’s learned his lesson.” Sam pauses, then raises his chin anyway, an act of subtle defiance.
“Guess now we all know what happens when you lose control.”