The lightning flashed through Bobby's kitchen window, the rain pounded against the window pane, and the thunder rumbled enough to make it feel like the house was shaking but Dean was unfazed by the treacherous storm raging outside. He picked up his can of Coke and took a swig and continued to scribble answers on the piece of paper in front of him. He grinned. "I got this you son of a bitch." He laughed and then flipped to the back of the book, checked his answer, and the smile and spunk melted off of his face and he threw the pencil down, and when the sound of the pencil dropping wasn't satisfactory, he threw the book across the room, and it landed with a satisfying THWACK against Bobby's sink.
"Damnit." He mumbled emphatically. He closed his eyes, and scrubbed at his face trying to will the frustration out of his body. He looked at the book that was lying with its pages askew on the floor in front of the sink and he sighed. He licked his lips, grabbed one of the crutches that was lying beside him and he maneuvered himself and retrieved the book. He got settled again at the kitchen table and began again. Determination was a Winchester trait after all.
The numbers and letters on the page mocked him, they knew, that he didn't understand their secrets, and they knew that he would never pass the test. They knew he was too damn stupid to do anything other than hunt for the rest of his life. They knew it as surely as they knew that Sam could be anything he wanted, because Sam had found the key that unlocked their secrets.
"You okay?" Came Sam's voice from behind his chair. Dean managed to keep himself composed despite being startled.
"Fine." Dean said automatically, and shut the book, put the pencil behind his ear, and started to shift to get up out of the chair.
"You don't have to get up, I was just getting a drink of water." Sam tried to say nonchalantly as he went to the sink.
He got down a glass of water, and was straining so hard to hear Dean open the book and go back to what he was doing, that he hadn't actually gotten the glass down of the cupboard he had opened.
"Dude, you gonna stand there and inspect the glasses or are you going to get one down?" Sam startled at his brother's voice, turned briefly, gave him the patented Sammy Bitch Face, and reached for a glass. He heard Dean open the book, and flip through the pages. Sam slowly filled up the glass full of water that he really didn't want, and stood there and slowly drank it in front of the sink his back to his brother. His back which could feel his brother's intense gaze trying to bore a hole into its center.
Dean tried to look at the book in front of him, tried to concentrate on the offending letters and numbers, and he couldn't. Not with his brother, who was so smart that you could feel it when he walked into a room, standing in front of him, judging him, degrading him, making snarky comments, laughing at his dumb ass brother who dropped out of high school and was having a hard time studying to pass his damn GED. He could hear the comments, he could feel the laughter, and it boiled up in him, and he finally blurted.
"Stop it Sam!" Sam turned around, confused.
"Stop what?"
"You know exactly what you're doing! I don't need you in here judging me. Just get the hell out." Dean demanded.
"I didn't say anything." He said defensively.
"You don't have to say anything, I know exactly what you're thinking."
"So I'm being yelled at for something I'm not even thinking. Whatever dude."
"Oh, you're thinking it."
"What am I thinking? Huh? What am I possibly thinking so loudly that has your underwear in such a knot?"
Dean's eyes smoldered and he looked back down at the book. He picked up the pencil and pretended to continue to work. "Go away Sam."
Then it dawned on the little brother. "Oh. So, apparently I'm thinking that you're a loser and that you are stupid…"
"Stop it Sam." Dean warned.
Sam took a step closer. "I'm thinking that you are worthless, and incompetent…."
"Stop it Sam." Dean said with more heat.
Sam took another step closer. "I'm thinking that I'm embarrassed to be seen with someone as stupid as you, that how is it possible that we are even related…."
"Sam…" Dean spit.
Sam lowered his face right next to his brother's. "Dean. That's not what I'm thinking. That's what YOU'RE thinking."
Green eyes flashed upward and met hazel. "Get out of my face Sam."
"No. You don't get to charge me with thinking stuff like that and not pay the price." Dean lifted his face, defiance gripped his features.
"You are not stupid Dean Winchester. You left school because we didn't have enough money to eat when Dad up and left us. You had to earn money to keep food in my stomach and clothes on my back. You dropped out of school because you had to."
"Didn't matter!" Dean screamed. "Didn't matter! I wasn't going to graduate!" Sam moved away from his brother in surprise. The action didn't go unnoticed. "That changes things doesn't it? I was so far behind, that I wasn't going to graduate. I wouldn't have been able to the next year or the year after that. I was so far behind, and too stupid to catch up, that it didn't matter what the reason was, I was going to have to anyway. I would have been too old to be in school by the time I was able to graduate." Sam sat down in the chair next to his brother. "Changes things, doesn't it, genius?"
Sam shook his head. "No. It doesn't change anything." The heat left Dean instantly, and in its place sadness and embarrassment.
"Bobby…" Dean licked his lips. He continued, anger dripping off of every word, "Bobby said that a smart guy like me should have my high school diploma. Said that when I passed we'd have a bar-b-q, just like they show on TV. That he'd get me my favorite beer, and he'd have Mrs. Wellington, down the way, you know the one he saved from a ghost, bake me my favorite pie. That if I passed we'd have a day like that. It'd be my day. That it would be like a graduation." Dean looked down at his pajamas. "But I'm not smart enough to have that day." Dean couldn't look at his brother. Couldn't get up and run away because his damn leg had a pin in it and he still had to walk around on crutches, but by God he wanted out of here, wanted to go to the bathroom and lick his wounds. He didn't want to have to see the disappointment on his brother's face, his smart, talented, polite, good brother.
The book was scooted across the table and Sam looked at the offending page. "Were you shown how to do this when you were in school?" Sam asked as if the confessional had never occurred, because Winchesters didn't break down and admit their short comings, their hopes, or dreams, they bottled it up, pretended they didn't exist, and when that bottle exploded and the moment occurred, they didn't talk about it, they pretended it didn't happen. Sam had learned that lesson of being a Winchester well.
Dean shrugged. "I don't think so." So Sam explained how to do it, Dean never looking at him, but that was okay, Sam knew his brother was listening, he was just trying to save his pride. And when the lesson was complete Sam got up and left his brother to his own devices. Sam went back to the top of the stairs, where he had been before and listened and waited. Listened to his brother talk to himself, talk himself through the answers, and the questions, and listened as the frustration was replaced by cockiness when Dean started getting more and more of the answers correct.
Dean would never understand that he was smart, that he was competent, and that Sam could never be embarrassed to have him as a brother. After all, Dean had taught Sam how to sit at the top of the stairs and listen, and how to get a glass of water and get the other to vent. Dean had performed that particular trick a thousand times, and Sam was happy that he could finally return the favor. He pulled his own text book back onto his knees and studied while he listened to his brother, waiting to see if he would be needed again.