A/N: Many thanks to Krazy for the great beta job. This fic is roughly based on something 'Dean' says in "Skin".
Dreams Of His Own
by Steffi
The day he turned eighteen Dean thought his life was going to change. He'd heard his classmates at high school talk about colleges and internships. Though he wouldn't show it he was more than just a bit excited. His father would have probably told him to put things in perspective. So he pretended he didn't even bother. It was just high school, right? They were just grades. No big deal. Who needed college? His father had managed to get by without college. Nothing would change.
He hadn't told his father or Sam about his dreams. They didn't know that he was dreaming of going away, of going to college or abroad, possibly Europe. He had never let anything slip about his plans because he was afraid Sam and John might take his dreams away. Rip them apart. Tell him they were ridiculous. Ask him what the hell he was thinking.
Actually most likely John would be the one to do that. Sam would probably be too stunned by the fact Dean had even graduated from high school. His illiterate older brother. The very same who was - by Sam - barely fiddling through highschool.
How little they knew! They had no clue that Dean had, in fact, excellent grades. That he would graduate highest of his year. They would have never guessed. His memory was excellent and he could remember things so well he barely ever bothered to pick up a book to revise. The few times he did, he did it in secret at a library where nobody would have ever suspected him.
Sammy thought he was a lazy guy who could barely tell the difference between prose and poetry. Whose main occupation was to get laid as frequently as possible. Maybe Sam needed to feel that way, maybe he needed a reason to look down on his brother so that when the time came, leaving would be easier for him.
Dean didn't confide in his brother nor his father about his grades. He hid his certificates which was a pretty easy thing to do. To his father it mattered more that he could shoot a target from a distance of thirty metres. Dean wasn't too sure his father even realised his son had to receive certificates every now and then, too. Sam would usually show his to his father, but apparently John had forgotten every student got them, including his other son. Or maybe he thought Dean just didn't care enough about highschool to inform his father about his grades, and he'd more or less accepted it. John would never admit it but secretly he was very proud of his hard-working younger son with the outstanding grades. He had no clue Dean was just as clever as Sam. And Dean never made any attempt to prove him wrong.
They'd been living in this town for almost nine months now, and John was getting restless. They hadn't moved because Dean was having his final exams. Also John had realised that starting a new school twice within nine months, now that Dean was almost done with school, could result in Dean not graduating at all. And for some unknown reason John wanted his sons to graduate. Maybe he felt like he owed it to them. He just didn't care whether they excelled or not.
Dean had plans, yes. He'd secretly applied to several colleges after his guidance counsellor and his teachers had urged him to. He was dreaming of seeing the world, going to New Zealand maybe or Great Britain, home of so many rock bands. He wanted to see the Eiffel tower, the Sydney Opera House, the Great Wall Of China. The Alpes, too. The Himalayas. Africa. He didn't want to lead this life of demon hunting forever. He'd done that these past fourteen years. He'd done everything his father had asked him to, never refused a thing, been the best son he could be. Was it too much to ask for a little freedom now?
He knew the answer, or else he'd have told his father long ago. Still, he was determined to do it. He longed to be someone else but a son, a brother and a hunter. He wanted to be himself.
The day he'd sent out his applications he'd gotten himself a post office box. In case some of the colleges sent letters that he didn't want to find Sam or John them before he did.
And then, one fine day, he stopped by the post office and there they were, two big envelopes, waiting to be opened. One was bearing the address of Stanford, the other one the logo of Harvard. Dean could feel his knees weakening as he let his hands run carefully over the envelopes. This was it, this was his future and he was holding it right in his hands. He couldn't go home and open the letters there. He couldn't do it here, either. In the end he decided to go to a park nearby where he sat down on a bench and opened the envelopes with trembling fingers.
He'd done it. He'd gotten into Harvard. He couldn't believe it.
Although Dean had applied for the colleges and dreamt of leaving, he'd never actually thought it might happen. And now that it had, it frightened him a little. How was he going to explain this to his father? Or to Sam?
Sam was desperately waiting for his 18th birthday and the day he could just turn his back on his family and walk away. Dean assumed he'd be more than a little envious. But in the end it'd be okay, because Sam would not begrudge this to him.
Dean would do it, though. He was going to stand up to their father and say that he'd go to college. To Harvard even. That he had a right to do so. That maybe his father should be a little proud of him.
He wanted it more than anything else. He wanted a taste of the real life. He wanted friends, a home. If having a real home meant moving away, he would be willing to do that.
By the time the church tower stroke 6pm, it felt like he'd been barely sitting there for fifteen minutes.It was hours in fact. He put the letters in his bag and made for his way home. Slowly. He tried to come up with a speech and rehearsed it in his head, so that, when he got home, he could present his father the facts - "I'm going, and that's it!" . It wasn't easy, because he was quite sure John would throw a fit as soon as Dean informed him. They were both good at that, Sam and his father.
He opened the frontdoor with a funny feeling in his stomach and realised that there was cold sweat on his forehead. Oh great, now that would surely make him appear confident. The first thing he heard when he entered the hallway was his father and Sam yelling at each other. He couldn't really make out what it was about, possibly something of minor importance, there was Sam's muffled voice "You never let me do what I want to do, I hate you!" and then his brother came storming down the stairs, throwing a furious and fully undeserved glance at Dean, before he ran outside, smashing the door behind him.
For a moment silence returned and Dean remained like rooted to the spot, baffled. What had they been fighting about now? But then, it didn't really matter, did it? They were always fighting.
Dean hadn't really thought about it, but what would happen if he left? Usually he was the one to calm the two sides down and more than once he'd actually convinced Sam to apologise to John. He was the one that the peace - or at least the partial peace - depended on. If he left, the house would more or less fall into chaos. Sam and John would probably already be at each other's throats before Dean even closed the door. He feared something terrible might happen, that maybe there'd be a huge fight and Sam would leave and never talk to John again. And he couldn't have that. They were his only family, they were all he got.
John came down the stairs and patted him on the shoulder, "Are you okay, Dean?"
His son nodded absent-mindly. John rewarded him with a smile, and Dean grabbed his bag and went upstairs to his room. He locked the door, sat down on the bed and pulled out his admission letter from Harvard. He stared at it for a while though deep inside him he knew he'd made his decision the moment he'd heard Sam yell the house down.
Dean sighed, and with a loud whoosh ripped the letter apart and threw it in the dustbin.
He'd been a fool to think he could leave, just like that.
He'd been a fool to think that life was holding more for him than this.
-end-
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