Meet Me In the Dark (and Never Let Me Go)
Author's Notes
Title is from the Melissa Etheridge song.
I do not own Supernatural or any of it's characters.
I have done a bunch of research into the proper denomination and terminology of the religion I've used in this fic, and for the most part it's pretty non-specific (I don't want to offend anyone) but if I've written something wrong or done something inconsiderate, please let me know and I'll fix it! I am in no way trying to insinuate that all religions are hateful towards LGBT people, nor am I saying that all people who follow religion are like this. I know many wonderful religious people who accept and love everyone, but for the purposes of this fanfiction, I am showing the side of religion that does not approve of the LGBT lifestyle.
This will be a multichaptered fic, and I will update as frequently as possible!
This fic is dedicated to and written for the wonderful improvcrazed, because she's the awesomest person I know and she deserves all of the good things in the world. And although life sometimes can't deliver on that, there's always fanfiction to make the days go by a little easier! I hope it can do that for some of you. Thanks for reading!
Chapter One
A brilliant, blinding light fills Dean's field of vision, colouring the backs of his eyelids bright orange. He throws a forearm over his eyes and tries to fend off the inevitable fatigue that hits each time he wakes up. Up late keeping company with the thoughts that plague his mind, it's usually as if he's never slept at all. He engages his weary muscles, touches his feet to the floor, and begins his morning routine.
Sam, he thinks. I'm thankful for Sam.
I'm thankful for my job.
I'm thankful for my car.
I'm thankful for this house and all its stupid fucking windows.
Cringing, he forces his eyes open to face the full force of the morning sunlight streaming in.
I'm thankful. This is good for us. Sam has a home and I haven't fucked it up yet. I haven't taken off. I'm gonna get through another day in this godforsaken town.
His mind clouds with sleep again, and his body begins to yearn for the feeling of warm sheets tangling through his bare legs.
Nope. Get up.
He pushes himself to standing, and inhales deeply the smell of fresh, open air.
Just make it through another day.
He dutifully supervises Sam as he brushes his teeth, scarfs down a bowl of cereal and finishes a few last-minute math questions at the kitchen table. The home they are in, a fifty year old yellow-brick farmhouse, still feels too comfortable to belong to them. Every morning at the breakfast table, Dean feels the guilt gnawing at his stomach, knowing that the only reason they had it this good was because of the falling out he and his dad had had a few years back. After spending a childhood uprooted from place after place, Dean had gotten fed up with the constant blur of new faces and the charade of being interested in making new friends. He was usually able to push aside his own needs, but he knew it wasn't good for Sammy. Two years ago, after their father had announced that they were moving once again, Dean hadn't been able to stand it. He told him, perhaps a bit more violently than he should have, that either he found him and Sam a permanent home and travelled on his own, or Dean was leaving and taking Sam with him. After hours of screaming and threatening, his father had caved, remorse written all over his face. Dean could still see the pained expression in his mind. But Dean started looking for houses the next day. He found one he liked, big enough for the three of them with an old, abandoned barn out back that Dean planned to renovate into his own space. John Winchester had used the little he'd saved up to buy it for them. They'd had three days together in the house as a family before John was called to work again. Ever since then it had been scarce visits, ins and outs, saying goodbye as quickly as they'd said hello. But Sammy had a home, and that was all Dean cared about.
When he'd chosen this house, he'd thought small town of Aldhaven would be a respite from the anonymity and invisibility he'd always felt when no one really knew him. But now that everyone in town knows who he is, he feels eyes on him all of the time.
It's a different, sharper kind of loneliness.
As the days draw on, he feels walls closing in around him. It's enough to make him wonder if his insistence on a permanent home was a mistake.
He brushes the thoughts away for the fifth time since waking, and herds Sam out to the Impala parked in the gravel driveway. Sam is in his final year of high school and on track to win every scholarship there is. Dean feels useless next to his obvious intelligence, but he does what he can. He drives Sam wherever he needs to be, and he works as hard as he can to keep them both fed and clothed whenever their father's absence starts make itself known financially.
As they pull into the parking lot of the local high school, Dean makes a point of turning down the AC/DC blasting from his speakers. Sam is pretty well adjusted and fairly well-liked, but Dean doesn't want to make Sam's life any harder than it has to be, and he sees the looks he gets from the muscly, macho redneck types when he rolls in in his sleek Chevy, rock music playing. So he turns it down, hurries out of the parking lot, and makes himself as unobtrusive as he can. It's better this way, he tells himself. For Sam.
But the more parts of himself he hides, the smaller he starts to feel.
After his stop at the school, he continues down the county road to Singer's Auto Shop, parks out front, and commences his first and most uncomfortable social encounter of the day. He thinks he's done a decent job of fending off all of the stir-crazy girls in the town, acting like he's interested but obligated to a higher gentlemanly standard. Most of them, discouraged after a while, stop hitting on him. But it seems that Singer's receptionist, Anna Milton, is going for the gold medal in ruthless determination.
"Dean," she greets him with a cute, bashful smile. "How is your morning going?" She hands him a paper cup full of dark, steaming gas station coffee.
"Same old, same old," he answers, feeling the area around his eyes crinkle in his standard-issue fake smile.
"Oh. Great!" she brushes her rust-red hair behind her delicate ears. An expectant silence drags along behind her words.
"Well… thanks for the coffee. I'd better head in…"
"Do you- well, do you think you'll be around at lunch break today? I packed a couple extra sandwiches just in case. I thought we could walk down to the park and have picnic." Her palpable hope hangs in the air like a guillotine over Dean's neck.
"Ah, Anna. I've actually got some errands to run today…"
He watches her face fall, watches her brief struggle for composure. Guilt wraps itself around his gut again.
"But if you keep asking me, I may just have to say yes one of these days." Dean manages a smile again and ducks into the garage so he can breathe. His skin crawls, like something inside of him is curling up to die.
I will make it through another day.
He rolls up his sleeves and buries himself in car grease and sweat until lunch break rolls around. When it does, he sneaks out the back entrance, climbs in the Impala and drives and drives and drives until something dark and heavy tugs at his heart and makes him pull over onto the dusty shoulder of the road. He rests his head on the steering wheel and stares at his hands in his lap until the numbers on the clock force him back down the road again.