Smearing Memories (Gen, PG)
Title: Smearing Memories
Rating: PG
Characters: Dean and mentions of John
Category: Gen fic
Spoilers: “Pilot”
Word Count: 988
Author’s Notes: Written for Prompt 2: “Daddy Issues” for
psych_30 challenge.
Disclaimer: The following characters and situations are used without permission of the creators, owners, and further affiliates of the Warner Bros television show, Supernatural, to whom they rightly belong. I claim only what is mine, and I make no money off what is theirs.
Because he’s got two beers in him with a third on the way down, he’s feeling pretty damn good. Better than he’s felt in awhile, actually. Not that he would admit to ever allowing anything to penetrate the faux shield he constructs for himself every morning. Yet now, there’s enough alcohol to placate the bitter emotions, but not enough to forget the reasons why.
Sam’s back at the motel, sleeping most likely, perhaps reading or researching if he’s feeling too antsy to lie down. Either way, he’s over five miles away with no transportation. Which is good, because Dean needs this time right now, to be able to order as much beer as he wants, sit back and let it go. More importantly, he needs this time to be alone.
Down the bar, there’s a group of guys who are receiving hooded-eye glances from the barkeeper. They’re all about Sam’s age-maybe younger, but only because Sam seems so damned old compared to his peers, and Dean’s not sure if that’s because his younger brother’s so tall or if he’s been through so much to age him. But these are college boys, Dean figures. Rich, arrogant college boys twirling keys to expensive cars on their fingers and flashing diamonds in their jewelry. They guffaw instead of laugh, swear instead of speak, and chug instead of drink.
They’re talking-complaining-about their dads.
Words roll together in smears of messy dialect. Fingers point in drunken sways.
They curse and defame, slandering the men they will ultimately grow to be. After all, genetics-fate-is not one to be outwitted. They still think they are able to outrun such a transformation.
They also think that if they drink enough to form them into slobbering imbeciles, they will become more attractive to the girls in the far corner so that they can gain a night of free sex.
Thinking, Dean determines, is not one of their stronger points this evening.
The boys continue in their tirade of insults and boasts, each one trying outmatch the others in his stories. The obscenities pile upon one another until Dean-who has never been a saint when it comes to his own language-has to grimace and look down at the beer he’s holding. When he flicks his wrist under the light, he watches the alcohol inside his bottle turn to liquid crystal, and he trips over his own thoughts in an attempt to escape the memories he knows are coming.
“Take your brother outside. Now, Dean, go!” Fire hot and licking. Tasting the backs of his legs as he ran and ran and he leaves his father behind in the house for that moment suspended forever in infinity. He runs across the cold, wet grass-
-even though he can barely breathe and there’s the acidic tang of bile rising in the back of his throat. His father’s behind him, yelling for him not to look back, just to keep on running. He wishes there was enough time to wipe the sweat that drips into his eyes-
(No, not like this, it couldn’t have been.)
-from the fever that wracks his body so viciously. His father sits by his bed, spooning him chicken noodle soup that his mother swore by. He knows there are hunts to be followed and creatures to be killed, but his father stays by his bedside during that month-
-where they spend more nights sleeping outside than inside the dingy apartment they’ve rented. Sam is gone to college, so it’s just the two of them in sleeping bags under the stars, waiting for the hellish creature and holding their guns tight to their chests. On some of the nights, a bottle of beer-
(Perhaps this. Wasn’t it?)
-sits on the table as a sign that this night will be one of fury. He hadn’t meant to turn his back like that during the hunt. It really had been an accident. But, when his father yells, he will stand still and wrap his arms-
-around him, and his father pulls him close to his chest, dark stubble buried in his blonde hair. He whispers words of comfort. Words of love. Words of a father-
-who left after all the promises to stay together despite everything. Never leave a soldier behind. He always made them remember their training. Yet, he forgot the most important lesson to save-
-my life. You always have. Couldn’t be anything of what I am today without you. You made me who I am.
(Yeah, like that.)
Dean sets his bottle, the liquid inside now dwindled to only a fluid saucer, on the wooden bar with a rap that makes the college boys look up from their drinks. They stop talking and watch him as he throws some money on the bar and doesn’t bother to count it. He knows it will be enough to cover his drink and then some.
When he walks past the college boys, he says nothing, but looks up and meets their eyes with the same stare he has given murderous demons or fiendish poltergeists. Instantly, they quiet, and he thinks of all the things he could say to them to make them call their fathers that night and beg for forgiveness. But, he doesn’t. Their awkward shifting and clearing of throats is enough for now.
He exits the building and pulls his coat tighter against the cooled night air that slips inside his lungs and clears his senses. His keys clink together as he unlocks the car door, and their noise seems to echo in the silence of the parking lot.
Inside the car, he settles in the familiar seat, and then he looks in the rearview mirror at his reflection. His father’s eyes stare back, and he wishes there was a name for the feeling pressing itself against the ridges of his chest.
He doesn’t thank his father.
But, he doesn’t curse him either.
End