Three cheers for AU's? My summary kinda sucks but I've never been particularly good at those.
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"So, where do we begin?" Rachel, his interviewer, asks as she pulls an expensive looking laptop out of her bag and adjusts her skirt. She looks uncomfortable in her clothes, clearly not her usual choice of attire, and is young enough to be Dean's daughter, but she maintains enough of a professional air that leads him to believe she's been in the business awhile.
"I believe that's for you to decide." Dean chuckles, though more at their juxtaposition; the young career woman and the aged rocker, sitting across from one another. At least he remembered to shave that morning.
"We'll start with introductions then." Rachel says crisply and she perches her laptop on her knees. "Dean Winchester, the frontman and founder of Supernatural, one of the most renowned rock and roll bands that this world has ever seen. Some have even compared you to the likes of Lynyrd Skynyrd and The Rolling Stones."
Dean bites back another laugh at the way she says "Rock and Roll", it's unnatural on her tongue, not a word she uses often, not a genre she's too keen on. "I appreciate the sentiment but we can't hold a candle to them. Those guys are the stuff of legends, we're just five guys having a good time. That's what we've always been about."
"I wouldn't say always.." Dean rolls his eyes at her cynical tone.
"Shit happens...One of my more famous mottos I'm sure."
"So it's been said. The fans want to know why this 'shit' happens though. How it comes about. They want to know your highs and lows, your favorite moments and your biggest regrets."
"I can sum all that up with two words, one name, but if you have the time I'd like to tell you the whole story."
"That's what I'm here for." Rachel leans forward in her seat, her fingers poised above her keyboard. "I want you to tel me everything."
Dean takes a deep breath and starts to talk.
August 8th, 1981
"Writing a new song?"
Dean turns his attention from the hotel stationary in front of him to the girl sitting cross legged on his hotel bed; she's clad in only a Led Zeppelin sweatshirt and a pair of his boxers. For some reason she looks different than the girl he remembers bringing back to the room, he could've sworn her eyes had been green, not brown.
"Something like that." He says staring down at the words scribbled on the page. That's all they are right now, words. There's no flow to them, no meaning, they just stand there on the paper and make his head hurt.
He could really use another drink.
Taking his eyes off his failed work once more, he looks back over to the girl and finds her reading from a copy of the Bible that she must've dug up from one of the bedside drawers. Every now and again the corners of her mouth flit upwards into a smirk and Dean wishes he knew what passages she found so hilarious. If only he could remember her name...
"You've dropped your standards a bit."
"Pardon?" Her eyes brows knit together in confusion.
"Your sweater - it's signed, which means you got to be up close and personal with Zeppelin at some point or another." He gestures towards it.
"Maybe my friend got it signed for me."
"Maybe, but I doubt it. Those signatures are personalized, I think you were the one rubbing shoulders with the band."
"What does it matter to you anyway?"
"Well, you go from hanging with Zep to banging me, you're climbing back down the social ladder. Girls like you go where the fame is, not where the burnouts like me are." Dena avoids outright calling her a groupie, but the accusation is there all the same.
"You think I slept with you because I want to get famous?" She scoffs, "I'm not like those other girls, Dean, I'm not in some sort of competition to sleep with as many bands as I can. I'm in it for the music, I spend my life on the road, and as it so happens I have more than one set of needs to be fulfilled."
"Why do that though? Why waste your life on the road?" Her name is Ruby, he remembers with a jolt, Ruby like the stone on the necklace she wears.
"How old do you think I am?" She asks and Dean guesses 22, he guesses 23 and she laughs. "I'm 29, only a year away from 30. Every year my parents ask me the same things, 'Why aren't you married yet?' and 'Where's your children? Your big house? Your career?' How am I supposed to explain to them that my life is all right here? I could never be some housewife or secretary, I love the freedom of the open road. Concerts are my escape, my little bit of paradise, and letting all that go would destroy me. I don't waste my life on the road, I live my life on it. There's nowhere in this world I'd rather be than travelling to the next stadium in my car with the windows rolled down and the radio turned way up."
Ruby leans forward and her hair falls over her left shoulder, shielding half her face. ,"Now doesn't that sound familiar?"
"She sent me a letter a few years after that. She had a husband, a kid on the way, a big house with a pool out back and co-owned her own bakery. She said she was happy but felt as though something was missing; a void only a car, a radio and a long stretch of road could fill. But all that was behind her, there was no going back." Dean finishes this story and Rachel fixes him with a curious look.
"What does this have to do with anything?"
"You'll see, it'll all come together in the end." He takes a sip of water from the bottle on the table.
"That's not the beginning of your story though, I want to know how the band first started out, why the five of you, so different from one another, decided to create it."
"The band came to be because all five of us fit the mold. We weren't so different; we all came from dysfunctional homes, we all sucked at school, and we all shared that same stupid dream of being at the top of the world. We were five dumb teenagers and all we knew is that we wanted to be in a rock and roll band."
Rachel's finger taps the index key several times. "Let's start there then."
March 1, 1968
Dad's gonna be home soon.
He's gonna walk straight through the front door and the first thing he'll see is that report card with all those shiny black F's on it. Dean knows it's no use trying to hide it from him, he'll find out eventually. Every single one of those Fs is going to be punched into his skin until he looks like the failure his grades say he is.
"It's been a hard day's night, and I've been workin' like a dog!"
Dean reaches over and turns up the volume on the old record player. That'll piss dad off too, but at this point it doesn't really matter. He hums along with the song, he knows them all, he's even surprised the record will still play. It's been a continuous source of background noise since he got it almost four years ago. That had been the one good thing his dad had ever done for him, buying that vinyl. It had been their one good day together.
The knob on his bedroom door turns slowly and Dean tenses up, expecting the worst, but it's only Sammy, his younger brother; he crosses the room and sits on Dean's bed. He's just as afraid of dad as Dean is.
"Where'd you get that?" Dean points at his brothers face where a large, purple bruise is starting to form under his right eye.
"I walked into a door...S'nothing." This is clearly a lie, he won't even meet his gaze as he says it.
"Bullshit! Those kids have been picking on you again!"
"I told you it's nothing! They're just a bit rough, that's all. They're just playing.."
"You're supposed to tell me when this happens so I can go deal with it! I don't want my baby brother getting hurt all the time!"
"You don't need to get into any more trouble either, Dean! Dad's already gonna flip when he sees your grades.." As if on cue, there's a distant click from the lock on the front door and the sound of footsteps passing through the entryway and retreating into the kitchen. Both boys pale instantly.
"Sammy, go to your room."
"Dean.."
"Just do it! I don't want dad getting mad at you as well! Get out of here." Sam is gone within seconds and Dean is left with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach as the footsteps in the kitchen change direction and head towards his room. Defiantly, he turns the volume up on his recorder player all the way.
"Dean!" The door to his room is thrown open and slams against the wall next to it, denting it so severely that even years later Dean can pinpoint the exact spot it hit, even after the wall has been repainted. His father is yelling something else at him but can hardly be heard over the music.
"Can't hear you!" Dean screams back, scratching his throat raw with the effort.
"Turn that fucking thing off!" His dad roars and the next thing Dean knows is it's suddenly dead silent in the room and his record is lying in a hundred pieces on the floor. He stares at it, not quite believing what has just happened.
"Can't you do anything right? If you don't shape up and start acting like a mature adult then you're gonna end up a useless drop out living on the streets because he couldn't be bothered to pay attention in school. Is that want you want, Dean? To be the scum of the earth for the rest of your life." His dad waves his school report in his face.
"I don't care, I quit! I'm done with school, I hate it."
"No one's asking you to like it, Dean, you just have to suck it up and deal with it because that's what you're supposed to do. If your mother was here right now she would be so disappointed in you." Dean winces at the mention of his mother.
"If mom was here she wouldn't care what I did as long as I was happy! I'm never going back there again!" He's too old to be crying but the room starts to blur slightly around the edges and his voice is getting weaker.
"Then what are you gonna do, Dean? If you're not gonna go back to school, what in God's name are you going to do with your life?" His dad asks in a deadly quiet voice.
Dean looks down at the shattered remains of his record and then back up to the crumbled up report in his dad's hands and everything clicks into place. He has never been more sure about something than what he's about to say.
"I'm gonna be in a band."