A/N: Please be gentle, this is my first ever SPN fic and will be a couple of chapters when i'm done. Thank to anyone who bothers to read this! Your awesome. (this is utterly not beta read, any errors are totally mine)
It was the silence that bothered him. Not what most folks would have thought of as silence. But Dean had spent almost every single night of his small, screwed up existence falling asleep to the sound of Sammy's breathing. He could tell if that kid was asleep, dreaming or plain faking it. With his eyes closes, across a motel room. Even with the TV on.
But Sam was gone. Gone off to school. Dean was torn between feeling abandoned and damn proud. Sam had the guts he never had. But that had left him alone with their Dad. Hard enough most of the time but without Sam around the guy was freaking impossible. He had always known his Dad didn't exactly like him all that much but now he wasn't even trying to hide it. When a case came up he had jumped at the chance to go off on his own. Anything to get away from the way Dad kept looking through him.
He had driven along the dark highway, rain driving down, music blaring, trying to keep his thoughts from wandering. Like that was ever going to happen. His mind drifted, as it did when there was no one there to keep the mask in place for, off to a dusty motel car park.
He had been nearly twelve. Sam inside with his head stuck in a book. Seriously something wrong with that kid. They had been there for nearly two whole weeks. Kind of long time, for them. There had been another family across from their cabin. And Dean had made the closest thing he'd had to a friend in all the time he could remember. A boy named Josh. Quiet. Thoughtful. Called Dean out on his bullshit right away. Sweet smile. Hair that just went every which way. Dean had actually found himself making excuses to leave Sam and go see this boy. 'Going for milk Sammy, back in a bit' 'Whatever'. While he had been happy to go see his friend with Sammy happy enough to be left he couldn't help be a little pissed that his brother barley seemed to notice if he was there or not. Books were bad for your brain it seemed to Dean.
They had been sitting on the step. Shoulders touching. Just talking. Sure Dean had a mouth on him. Could talk up a storm. But he never really said anything. Now he had found himself talking. Talking about his Mom. Not the bad stuff. Just the normal stuff. The things you never notice till the ain't there anymore. He could never speak to Sam about her. He was too close. And while his father silently maintained she was the reason for everything he did, he never spoke about her. Ever.
So they had been talking. Well, he had been talking. Josh had been mostly listening. Looking at him with these bright blue eyes, head all cocked to one side like a curious puppy. Dean had turned his head and found him right there. Just looking at him. And the kid had been warm and smelled of home and family and a kind of safty Dean could not quite remember. Or pie. Smelling of pie was the same thing as all those other things to Dean. And his lips had been soft looking and before he had thought they had been kissing and those lips were as soft has they looked and Josh had sighed this little sigh and Dean had felt...happy? Stupid thing to let himself be.
He had forgotten. Forgotten who he was supposed to be, What he was meant to be doing. Forgotten that his Dad was on his way back. Lost in each other they hadn't noticed the other figure that had appeared. The wouldn't have noticed an earthquake. Not until this big hand had clamped down on Josh's collar and thrown him into the dirt. He hand and come back around. Connecting with Dean's face. He had felt his nose fountain blood down his shirt. But he hadn't felt the pain. Just oddly numb as he saw Josh scrabble and run back to his families cabin. Dean had felt curiously light, detached. The icy presence of his father a dark and looming sensation. He had known he had done something very, very wrong. The HE was wrong. He had to fix this, He would. He knew he would never see his friend again