Title: Tender Age in Bloom
Author: alakewood
Warnings: None.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1400+
Summary: The reason Dean likes his classic rock: it never disappointed him, never let him down.
Disclaimer: As always, I own nothing.
A/N: Title from Nirvana's "In Bloom."
oxoxo
Dean had just turned thirteen the first time he heard it. John had sent him into the gas station to get Sam a snack and something to drink while his father pumped the gas. The cashier, only a few years older than Dean, was headbanging and playing the air-guitar to the song filtering through the boom box on the counter behind him.
Dean headed for the refrigerated coolers in the back, grabbing two sodas, for his father and himself, and a Gatorade for Sam (as if his dweeby brother needed any more caffeine), and pulled a bag of Doritos off the rack at the end of the aisle as he headed back up to the front of the store. A glance out the door showed John back in the car, waiting not so patiently (they were on their way to another exorcism, in some hick town in South Dakota), and Dean set his armload on the counter. "What song is that?" he asked, startling the kid mid-guitar solo.
He pushed his long, stringy hair back from his face. "What?"
"What song is that?" Dean repeated.
"Are you serious?" He looked at Dean like he was a moron. "'Smells Like Teen Spirit.' By Nirvana?" When it became obvious that Dean still had no idea what he was talking about, "Seriously?"
Dean shrugged. He lived a very abnormal, fairly sheltered life.
The kid shook his head and went over to the radio, stopping the tape and ejecting it. "I've got another copy of this at home – you obviously need it more than I do."
Dean slid a twenty across the counter and accepted the tape. "Really?"
"Yeah. Somebody's gotta enlighten you, kid."
Dean was proud of himself for holding back the eye roll that was automatically triggered anytime he was called kid by someone other than his dad or Bobby. "Thanks."
"You're welcome."
Dean returned to the car with John's change of a dollar ninety-seven and the cassette in his pocket.
oxo
As soon as they'd checked into a motel in Sioux Falls, John had gone, leaving Dean money for dinner and specific instructions to stay in their room – as if Dean needed to be told the protocol anymore.
Sam sprawled on one bed, settling on his stomach, leaning up on his elbows so he could read the book he'd picked up somewhere between St. Louis and Omaha.
Dean dug his abused, second-hand walkman out of his duffel and pulled the tape out of his jacket pocket. Eyeing Sam, he slipped the cassette into the tape player then pressed the 'play' button.
The music picked up right where the kid in the gas station had stopped it. "I feel stupid and contagious! Here we are now, entertain us."
When Side A was done, he flipped it over to the B Side, in complete awe all the while, having never heard such gritty, angsty music – never anything that he could actually relate to.
Dean considered himself fully enlightened.
And when they passed through Denver a month later, Dean swiped ten bucks from his dad and bought the tape for Bleach, the first album Nirvana had released the previous year. He didn't quite like it as much as Nevermind, but there were a few tracks that stuck out more than the rest. But nothing ever struck him like 'Smells Like Teen Spirit.'
oxo
They were in a Wal-Mart in Illinois a couple of weeks before Christmas in 1993, stocking up on first aid supplies and rock salt, when Dean wandered off to the music department to see if anything good had been released since the last time he'd looked – which had been sometime around the end of summer.
In the 'Alternative' section, Dean browsed through the "Ns." There it was – a new CD from Nirvana - In Utero. But all Dean had was his crappy walkman and seven dollars. There was no way-
"What've you got there, dude?" John asked, rounding the corner of the aisle.
"Oh. Hey, Dad. Nothing." Dean dropped the CD behind the plastic flap marked "Nirvana."
John reached for a case and looked at it. "Nirvana, huh?" It sounded like "nerve Anna" when he said it, but Dean didn't correct him. John looked through their other albums. "Is this what the kids are listening to nowadays?"
"Some of them, sir."
"And is this why you've got your hair grown out like a goddamn hippie?"
Behind John, Sam giggled at that. "Yeah, Dean, you look like a goddamn hippie."
"You don't even know what a hippie is, Sam," Dean told his little brother.
"I do too."
"Boys," John interrupted, then returned his attention back to Dean. "Were you going to buy this?"
"I don't have a CD player."
In an unusual display of something like affection, John told Dean to go pick one out and told Sam to find something he wanted, too. Apparently, Christmas had come a little early for the Winchester boys.
oxo
A month later, John followed a tip to a hunt in Seattle. Water spirits in Puget Sound.
Dean was excited, going to Kurt Cobain's home state, and his excitement grew tenfold when he was leafing through John's copy of the Seattle Times: in the 'Entertainment' section, there was a huge article about Nirvana headlining a show at the Seattle Center Arena on the seventh.
When John left for his hunt Saturday night, Dean had already had a plan in place. He was terrified to intentionally disobey his father, but he knew he was faced with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see Nirvana.
So, when John had gone, Dean shoved his meager comic collection at Sam. "I have to go out for a little bit, okay? Don't say a word to Dad."
Sam looked a little upset and kind of disappointed, but finally agreed, "Okay," if only because Dean never let him look at his comic books. "Where are you going?"
"None of your business."
But when Dean returned back to the motel room a couple of hours later, he smelled like smoke and stale beer, and it prompted Sam to ask, "Did you go to a bar?"
Dean pulled a wad of cash that he hadn't had before out of his coat pocket as he rubbed at his half-frozen nose. "Maybe. But if you say anything to Dad, you won't see your next birthday."
"I won't tell him a thing," Sam replied fervently. "Doesn't mean he won't smell it on you."
Dean had to agree, he didn't smell all that great, so he let his coat sit outside for a couple of hours in hopes the stink would disappear.
oxo
Going to the concert at the Arena had been more than worth the punishment he faced from his father when he returned back to the motel later that night. He hadn't told John a thing about it, knowing he probably wouldn't allow it, so he just snuck out while John was in the bathroom and told Sam he was going to the vending machines and just ran for the bus stop.
Despite the throbbing in his backside from his beating, Dean had to smile, remembering the crowd and the performance. It had been so much better than he'd though it would be. He'd never forget it.
oxo
Dean was lying on top of his and Sam's bed, listening to Nevermind when Sam smacked the bottom of his foot. Dean pulled back one of the earphones. "What?"
"Look." Sam turned up the volume on the TV. He was watching the news. "They're talking about that band you like."
Dean paused the CD and sat up.
The newscaster looked somber when the program came back from commercial. "Kurt Cobain, front-man of the Aberdeen, Washington-based grunge band Nirvana, was found dead at his home yesterday, victim of an apparent suicide…"
Dean tuned out to the rest of the broadcast, unable to believe what he'd just heard. He saw images of Kurt and Nirvana flashing on the screen, short clips of performances, but couldn't hear any of it, the sound of the blood rushing in his ears drowning everything out.
oxo
It took Dean a few weeks to come to terms with the death of his idol, at which time he got his hair cut short again and threw all his Nirvana stuff away.
"But Dean," Sam said, "you loved that band."
Dean wasn't sure how he could explain to Sam how betrayed he felt by Kurt Cobain's death, how he was disappointed in himself for expecting so much from a band. It was the easiest way for him to deal, just get rid of it all and move on. "You wouldn't understand." And that was the last they spoke of it.
Dean Winchester was fifteen when Kurt Cobain killed himself. Fifteen when his world turned upside down for the second time, and, somehow, didn't end right-side up again.