N.B.: I had this idea about Dean and Sam and their remarkably shitty childhood, so I had to write it.
1 – Jockey Full of Bourbon
No matter where you went, there was always a place in town where the teens gathered to drink and make out. It seemed to be some sort of nationwide unwritten law. Dean made a point of always finding out where these places were right away, if they were going to stay in town for any length of time.
To show what a sad excuse for a town Desert Bluffs was, the teen hang spot was an old gravel quarry next to a smattering of scrub land, which had some spindly trees to give the idea of privacy. It was so, so sad. It was probably the saddest excuse for a hang spot he had ever seen, and that included that one in Florida, which was downwind from a landfill. Of course, he shouldn't be so jaded at seventeen, but his lifestyle made that hard.
He found an abandoned red plastic cup with about an inch of watery beer left in it, and scooped it up, spilling it on the arm of his jacket before throwing the cup in the weeds. He needed to smell like he belonged here, and like he was as drunk as your average Joey or Jared, or whatever asshole name people gave their kids nowadays.
He wandered off to the fringes of the clearing, looking for the stragglers. They always liked the stragglers. Some asshole had lit a fire in an old metal barrel, even though it was still seventy degrees out. What was the point of that unless it was cold, or you needed to torch a demon or something? He didn't get teenagers. Never mind that he was one. He didn't feel like one.
Dean found a space to sit down on a rocky hill and observe the party, visible but still out of general view. He tried to look as hunched over, mousy, and born victim-y as possible.
There were maybe a dozen kids scattered about, with one or two extra to round up the numbers. Some were drunkenly making out, others were drunkenly trying to flirt or dance, as someone had brought a CD player and was playing some annoying current pop music. He didn't know what it was, but he fucking hated it. The last new music he listened to and liked was probably that Tom Waits album. That guy had seen some shit.
Eventually, a blonde slip of a girl with vibrant red lipstick and glittery eye shadow sat down next to him. "Haven't seen you around before," she said, giggling slightly.
"I'm new in town," he offered.
"You're cute," she said, eying him thoughtfully. In the flickering light cast from the distant barrel, he saw her in shadowy pieces. Shoulder length blonde hair, eyes as pale blue as a robin's egg, the slightest smattering of acne hidden beneath concealer, a silver earring that looked like a pair of tiny dice. She had nice legs and a very short skirt. She had perfected her drunken smile, her loose body posture, but it didn't hit her eyes. They were sharp, and saw everything. "I'm Kara."
"Tom," he lied.
"So where are you from, Tom?"
"As of late? Mesa, Arizona." Or at least that's where they were on the last job, taking out some werewolves.
"Ah. So this is probably cold for you, huh?" She accidentally on purpose leaned into him, breast pushing up against his arm. It wasn't that he didn't like it, he just had to make sure the person beneath it all was into it too.
He reached inside his jacket, and pulled out a flask. He unscrewed the top and took a swig, as she looked on with bright eyes. "Ooh, what's that?"
"Vodka, from my dad's bar. Good stuff too, expensive. He lost his shit last time I took some." He held the flask out to her, a tacit offer. She grinned, showing white teeth, and took the flask.
"Didn't stop you from stealing it, did it?"
"Oh hell no. Shit's too good."
She took a hearty swig, and he looked around to see if anyone was looking at them. There didn't seem to be. It didn't matter that they were all so close in the quarry; everybody was part of their own drama. That's why Dad said most people didn't notice the supernatural until it killed them. It was just easier not to deal with it.
He took back the flask as she coughed a little, and tapped the base of her throat. "Woo. Quite a kick on that."
"Uh huh. It's holy water," he said, putting the flask back in his pocket. Dean turned back to find the girl staring at him in wide eyed horror. "What is it with you demons preying on drunken teenagers? Seriously, get a new hobby."
Her eyes briefly flashed all black, before her pale pupils flicked back into view. The girl staggered to her feet, and Dean could hear as well as see smoke hissing out of her mouth as the holy water went to work. Still, no one was looking at them.
She staggered a few steps away before collapsing onto her hands and knees, and the demon finally emerged from her, a vomited column of grainy black smoke like a swarm of spectral flies. Dean was ready to throw more holy water on it if necessary, but it swirled out into the night, getting far away from him. Most demons weren't so sensible.
Still, nobody saw it but him. The girl collapsed to the ground, and he wasn't sure if she was dead or not. He got up to find a pulse, and she jerked her head back as he touched her neck. "Oh man, I am so wasted," she said, and hiccuped and laughed. She was drunk; it was the demon who was just playacting. At least she probably would have no memory of being possessed.
"You live around here, Kara?" he asked, helping her to her feet. She was wearing ridiculous high heels, which couldn't have been more inappropriate for a gravel pit unless she traded them for stilts.
"Yeah, over on Mason Road." She looked up at him, giving him an uncertain, leering smile. "Why, cutie? Wanna go home with me?"
He let go of her arm, and she almost fell over, so he grabbed her arm again and looped it around his shoulders. "Sure. Let's go have some fun." She smelled like perfume and stale beer sweat, with just a hint of sulfur.
She giggled, and pressed up against him again, although this time it was a genuine stumble.
It was not easy leading a very drunk girl in very inappropriate shoes and a ridiculously constricting skirt out of a gravel pit, but he managed. The funny thing was, Kara was no better balanced once they hit the street.
She giggled a lot, except for the one time she turned and casually vomited. Even then, she still seemed drunk, and went on with her story as if she hadn't just puked. Dean couldn't follow her story, although he did try for a couple of minutes. Something about a girl named Amanda, and another named Sue, and some guy named Cotton (if he ever met a guy named Cotton he was going to full on punch him in the face). She also said he was cute a couple of different times, although she also added he was not as cute as Roberto who went to State, which was just a random detail that played no part in her wider, drunken ramble of a story. It was possible it was three or four different stories that were just sliding together, like most of her vowels.
He didn't know the town at all, so had to rely on what little memory he had of walking to this place to find Mason Road. He asked her for some help, but knew better than to rely on it. Eventually, they found it.
She was cute, and he could totally see getting together with her, but maybe when she was sober, and not so fresh off a demon possession. Dean just thought he should get her home to get her away from the demon, in case it circled back, and also to get her away from some of those drunken, dead eyed football players at the pit who were eying the drunkest girls like fresh meat on the hoof. He didn't like human predators any better than demonic ones.
She lived in a very nice suburban two story, with a well tended lawn and a hedge for a fence, and a Toyota in the driveway. She tried to give him a kiss, which he dodged, and invited him inside as they staggered up the walk. He agreed, and slipped her keys out of her purse, as she was way too drunk to have fine motor skills. As he unlocked her front door, he suggested he was hungry, and she was probably hungry too, so why didn't she go rustle up some grub before they went upstairs? She agreed, and he dropped her keys just inside the doorway before helping her inside. He made sure she was tottering her way to the kitchen before shutting the door on such a nice, neat suburban house. How did people live like that? The night was dark and full of terrors, and yet they chose to live in comfortable ignorance? How? And better yet, why?
Dean walked across the street, and waited, to make sure she didn't come out again. He left the neighborhood as soon as he saw an upstairs light come on. She was probably knocking over everything in the kitchen, making such an unholy racket it woke up everyone in the house. Good. She probably needed someone to put her to bed and turn her on her side, so she didn't choke on her own vomit.
He walked back to the motel, keeping his eyes and ears sharp, in case the demon found another host and came after him. It was unlikely, but still possible, especially if the demon was a real asshole.
Dean pulled out his real flask, and took a swig of some rotgut whiskey he'd managed to lift the other night. It was just a step above drinking diesel, but it became warm going down, and it made him relax. Sometimes he had a real problem relaxing, and he needed help shifting to another gear. Dad had given him the lecture, about being too young to drink, and how he shouldn't be drinking anyway, but Dean just couldn't go along with his Dad on this. If he did, he might never sleep.
He stopped at a fast food place on the main thoroughfare, buying some food, and a couple blocks later he'd entered the Paradise Motel parking lot. He paused to drain his flask, and started eating some fries, so he was still chewing by the time he unlocked the door to the room and stepped inside.
Sammy was still up, reading, because of course he was. The TV was on some old black and white monster movie, but he wasn't watching it. "Hey Sammy. Hungry?"
He glanced up from his book, and shrugged. "Maybe. You weren't out hunting, were you? Dad said you weren't supposed to until he got back."
"Of course I wasn't. I just wanted a cheeseburger." He tossed Sam his bag of food, and shucked off his denim jacket, aware it smelled of beer. He was going to have to visit the Laundromat tomorrow, wash everything.
Dean collapsed on his bed, sitting against the headboard as he bit into his burger. He'd had better, but it was okay, especially for this time of night. It occurred to him he should tell Sam to get to bed, but then he remembered school was out for now. Summer vacation.
Dad was off to the desert with his hunter friend Miguel. He'd paid for the room for two weeks in advance, but he figured he'd actually be back by Monday. He didn't say what he was hunting, but the fact that he didn't want Dean helping told him it was big. He asked if it was that yellow eyed bastard, and just from the way his father paused before he responded told Dean all he needed to know. Dad's eventual "Maybe," was irrelevant. Dean told him if it was him, he needed to come back and pick him up, as he felt entitled to about fifty percent of that fucker's ass. His dad seemed worried about it, but Dean had no idea why. Nobody trained harder than Dean. He could even make his own shotgun shells, and modify guns. He was ready to take that fucker to school, and send him back to hell.
Dean glanced at Sammy, as he ate fries without looking up from his book. All he wanted was to give Sam as normal a life as possible, considering their circumstances, but he had no way of deciding if he was succeeding or failing. Would he know a normal life if he saw it? Well, Kara's house looked pretty normal. But he still didn't understand how these people lived.
Dean tried to watch the movie, even though the sound was down, as he usually liked ridiculous monster movies, and this was one of his favorite of the genre, the big bug kind. But the big bug was surprisingly lame, even for this genre, and he could tell this was one of those boring ones, who only showed you the bug three times, because even the filmmakers knew it was really sucky. And he had to shift a couple of times on the bed, as the hunting knife he shoved in his jeans was sticking him. He should have taken it off with the jacket, but he didn't want Sammy to see he was wearing it.
Once he finished his burger, he said, "Before you head to the library tomorrow, I want us to spar a little."
Sam groaned, and threw his head back in a very dramatic, thirteen year old way. "Dean, no. You know that's not fair. You're way bigger than me."
"Right. You need to learn how to drop someone bigger than you."
"I already know."
"I wanna make sure it's automatic. Shit can go bad at any time. Gotta be ready."
Sam continued making a noise like Dean was the biggest asshole in the world, which was fine with him. Sam could hate him all he wanted. He was never going to leave his little brother unable to face all the bad shit in the world and come out of it alive. "You're so paranoid," Sam finally said. "I'm not like you, okay? I don't wanna do this. Can't I just be a normal person for like five minutes?"
"Be as normal as you want. You just hafta give me some training time. I'm not asking for the world, kiddo." Finished with his burger, he shoved the balled up wrapper in the bag, and then got up and ducked into the bathroom.
Dean turned the taps in the sink on full, and pulled off the toilet tank lid, where a beer he lifted the other night floated in blissful hiding. Flushing the toilet hid the noise of him cracking the can open, and he chugged it down, grateful for the warmth of the alcohol in his system. He could feel his muscles loosening, the tension gradually leaving his body. It wasn't only Dad he avoided drinking in front of, it was Sammy too. How successful he was he didn't know, but Sam hadn't called him on it yet. Besides, a couple of beers at night was better than any over the counter sleeping pill.
As soon as he had emptied the can, he squashed it flat, and tossed it into the garbage can beside the sink, burying it under various detritus. Maybe they were only going to be here a couple of days, but Dean had already stocked up on the essentials: aspirin, Neosporin, gauze, Band-Aids, butterfly bandages, tape, Super Glue, Tylenol with codeine, small emergency containers of salt and holy water. It always paid to have a well stocked first aid kit standing by. He'd also taped a small caliber handgun to the back of the toilet, 'cause you never knew, did you? He also had a knife hidden under the sink. Sammy knew where they were, in case he needed them.
He brushed his teeth to get the scent of beer off his breath, and wondered if Dad would really be back by Monday. He could probably flip a coin, and be just as right or wrong with his guess.
Dean hoped he'd back soon. He'd been here just long enough to know Desert Bluffs was a fucking bore.
