A/N: Saw this post online and thought it would be a good prompt to write off of. It's basically the same wording, just in a short story format, but I hope you enjoy nevertheless. Excuse errors and please leave a review! :)
Normal sixth graders get excited over getting an A on a science quiz and or making the basketball team, but that one night as eleven year old Dean Winchester sat at the small table in the crappy motel they were staying at, he was excited about one thing; his sawed shotgun. The boy had been fiddling with some of the trinkets his father would take to his "hunts" and accidentally broke off the end of a real old shotgun. His father, John Winchester, had more, sure, but that didn't stop the fear from tainting his blood and making his limbs fall numb.
Trying to fix what he had broken, Dean scrambled around the small room, his younger brother, Sammy, paying no attention to his older brother as his attention glued to the TV. Coming to the conclusion quickly there wasn't a thing in that space that could help Dean, he began playing with the broken shotgun, manipulating it until it actually became something useful. An instant wave of pride rushed through him as he grinned. The shotgun that laid before him was actually better than the intial one, being shorter for one and just down-right more useful in panic-situations.
So, there Dean sat, at around elevenish at night, waiting for his father to get home. He had placed it in a spot where it looked casual enough for John to notice it, but not as if Dean really wanted it to be shown off to his father; even though he did. It would be the first time in a few years John would look to his boy, place his hand on his little shoulder and nod approvingly. That's all Dean ever wanted, so there he sat, a goofy grin on his face as he waited expectantly for that front door to open.
And it opened all right. Except, a different man walked through those doors. Sure, it was their father, but not the one Dean was expecting. He was walking weird, his words slurring and the older boy soon understood he was drinking that weird looking amber stuff again. John grumbled some inaudible things and when he did close the door and make eyecontact with his eldest, he glared. Immediately, Dean went into submission. His head bowed instantly and he averted his eyes, not even daring to look at his creation as his pride was replaced with fear and embarrassment. He felt like such an idiot. To think he could do something to make his dad proud. A monkey had a better chance of doing that, or so he thought anyway.
Instead of that hair-ruffle and good-job Dean had hoped from his father, he was ordered to bed with a harshness in his father's voice that it sent chills up his arms. Dean doesn't disobey, he's not suicidal, and quickly gathers his shotgun and Sammy, quickly hiding the shotgun under his bed and tucking Sam in. As he climbs into his own bed and allows his head to hit the pillow just in time to watch their father shut off the lights and mumble a quick curse, he remembers something.
It's his job to watch out for Sam, that's it. Not to be breaking things and improvising them and certainly not to be creating new types of guns. And it's definitely not John's responsiblity to ruffle his hair and pat his shoulder and tell him he's a great son. No, that's not his job at all; his job is saving people and hunting the things that go bump in the night. Not catering to some childish dream of his son's. He watches with tears beginning to cloud his vision as his father rolls over and passed out and quietly mutters to himself, "Good goin', Dean,".