Chapter 2

And Then Another Storm

"Well, this doesn't sound ominous at all," Dean muttered, taking a seat opposite his father. "My future?"

John cleared his throat, the hint of a smile that had pushed at his lips now gone and replaced by a hard line. "You're going to Stanford."

It was said in the same voice he usually used for delegating tasks on a hunt and Dean almost said 'yes, sir' before he caught himself.

"Excuse me?" he said instead.

"You will accompany your brother to Palo Alto."

"With how weird you guys are acting, I'm assuming you don't mean just to drive Sammy there in September. You want me to stay in town and watch out for him? Dad, that makes no sense. He's going to college, not to war and I'm a hunter, not a nanny. He'll be fine." Of course, saying that immediately made Dean worry he wouldn't be but he continued anyway. "And I can't believe Sam's happy about this. I thought he wanted to be all grown up, no babysitters. What am I gonna do there anyway? Credit card scams don't work half as well when you're staying in the same damn place."

His father was looking impatient. "You're not getting this. If one of my sons is going to college, so is the other one. Of course I also damn well want you to watch out for your brother. You'll be watching him from inside the campus." He pushed a large envelope towards Dean. It was already opened.

Dean frowned, took out the contents and got stuck reading the first two sentences over and over. He looked up at his father. "What the hell is this?"

"Come on, Dean, I didn't raise an idiot. It's your Stanford acceptance letter."

"Yeah, well, that's really funny because I sure as hell don't remember applying."

"Well, you got accepted anyway."

"Dad, seriously, how did you pull this crap?"

"Faked a few things. Not everything. I guess they liked your essay."

"Wait, are you kidding me? This letter's freakin' real? You applied for me?"

"Faking an offer would have been too difficult."

"You impersonated me, applied to a college and you-you-you opened my mail?"

His father snorted, clearly finding it funny that out of all possible things this was what Dean had decided to focus on but Dean himself was not amused. There was not much privacy when you spent most of your time in a car together with two other people or sharing a room with them but he felt that what little there was had been violated.

"How did they even know where to write?" he asked.

"I gave them Bobby's address. He forwarded it."

"Bobby knows?!"

"Well, he doesn't know you're in yet. Not unless he went through the trouble of opening the envelope and then resealing it very carefully."

"But you opened it and didn't even bother pretending you hadn't. If I ever wanted to apply to college I'd want to read my own goddamn reply, Dad!"

"Don't be a brat. One would think you'd be grateful."

"Grateful? This is a joke!"

John's expression which had been growing darker throughout the conversation was now downright thunderous. "Do I look like I'm joking, boy?"

Dean honestly didn't know what to do with this bizarre parallel dimension he'd suddenly been dropped into. He felt oddly betrayed and humiliated and, completely illogically guilty for a deception he hadn't even participated in.

"I'm not going," he said finally.

"What do you mean you're not going?"

"This is insane! What about hunting? What about saving people? And you don't think once I get there they'll realise I'm not exactly college material?"

"Then I suggest you hit the library a lot."

"You've finally cracked."

John's fist slammed on the table. "You talk to me like that again and you'll be missing your first semester for medical reasons, am I clear, Dean? When I do something for you I expect gratitude and when I tell you to do something you goddamn do it!"

And there went John Winchester storming out the door and Dean could only look after him slack-jawed and wonder how he was at fault in this situation.

"You reason with him!" John growled to Sam in passing and it was only then that Dean realised his little brother had been standing at the entrance for a while with a pack of beer.

"Dad, wait, come on…" A heavy sigh and Sam turned to Dean with a half-smile. "Well, that went well." He sounded mildly concerned but also mildly amused. Dean stared at him as he put the beer down on the table and took the seat their father had just vacated. "I was kinda hoping he'd deliver it a bit better but then again – it's Dad."

"You've both gone mad," Dean managed and then narrowed his eyes. "Unless you're not you."

Sam let out an incredulous laugh. "Dean, quit it. What do you think we are, shapeshifters? If a shifter was going to impersonate Dad I doubt what he'd do with his time would be trying to get you into college."

"Then I must be really fucking drunk and Dad will kill me tomorrow morning for getting so plastered."

"Right. Sure. Can we assume that this is reality for five minutes?"

"I'm not sure. Can we?"

"Dean, look, I get it. It was a shocker to me as well, believe me. But Dad has finally done something right so, for the love of God, don't discourage him! I know why you're reacting like someone's telling you to jump off a cliff. You have no idea how to deal with him doing something like this and he doesn't know how to act in this situation either and he reverts back to being a drill sergeant. But I think for once he's just trying to put us first."

Dean looked down at the acceptance letter again. "Okay, one, I don't believe this is real. Two, I didn't ask for it."

"Well, maybe you didn't have to. I don't think you've ever allowed yourself to even consider the possibility. If you think about it…"

"I can't think about it, Sam! I'm not leaving Dad and going off to chase tail in a fancy school for however long it takes them to throw me out. Because, you know, chasing tail is the only thing I'm qualified to do in a place like that."

"Bullshit. Just because you pretend you don't have a brain doesn't mean it's not there. I want you to come."

Dean dropped his head back and let it bang on the backrest of his chair.

"Why?"

"For a number of reasons."

"Name three."

"Fine. Because you and Dad have dragged me into the stuff that you enjoy for the entirety of my life and now I want to do the same to you. Because I think this could be good for you and you deserve it. And because… I'd feel weird without you around, man."

"Sammy, you're such a girl."

"It's Sam and you're a jerk." He pulled something out of his pocket and threw it across the table at Dean. It turned out to be a Stanford brochure. "Just look at it. At least entertain the idea."

Dean huffed but unravelled the brochure. It was what he'd expected – kids laughing at the camera for no reason and looking with inspired expressions at some douchebag in front of a white board.

"Hell, no. And how do you two propose we even pay for this worst-idea-ever? What, fake me is so awesome he got a full ride, too?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "No. No offence but you'd lose it pretty quickly even if Dad had tried to get you that. Apparently, Mom and Dad started funds for us to go to college before Mom died. Obviously, Dad's spent a good portion of the money over the years but he said he'd kept it as emergency cash when things got really dire so there's enough left of the two funds combined to last you a while if you don't overspend."

"I'm not spending your money!"

"Dean's, it's not my money, it's the family money and I don't need it."

"Fine, then the rest of us might need it for more important things than me kicking my heels in California."

"You have the wrong idea if you think you'll be kicking your heels. Look… Mom would have wanted this."

"You don't know that."

"I do."

"How?"

"Because any mother would!"

"Sam, I don't want to."

"You don't know what you want! He's been telling you you're not allowed to want anything like this your whole life!"

"Oh, so he's been dictating my life until now. And now he's dictating my life with the help of my little brother."

"No! Why are you being so…"

Dean could clearly see that Sam was trying hard to hold on to his composure. His brother usually flared up like a firework during a confrontation – not unlike their Dad - and he wondered when he was going to see the second walk-out of the day. To the youngest Winchester's credit, he wasn't giving up yet.

"Look," Sam said in his best let's-be-reasonable tone, "if you really don't want to go nobody can make you but if there is even a tiny part of you that wants it then you may as well give it a shot because it's also what I want and what Dad wants so… Why don't we reply to say you accept and then you can still think about it. If in September you still haven't changed your mind you won't show up and that will be that."

There was a long pause.

"Fine, whatever," Dean said. He was suddenly feeling too tired and confused to argue, especially faced with his baby brother's open, hopeful expression. It was so welcome after months of 'leave me alone, Dean' that he didn't have the heart to ruin it. "Anything to get you off my ass."

Sam beamed and opened them each a can of beer. Dean wished fervently it was something stronger.

Author's Note: Sorry for the delay posting this but work is crazy. Let me know if you're reading and what you think, just keep in mind that this story doesn't exactly take itself very seriously. That said, I can't wait to be done with setup and get into the really fun stuff but Dean just plain refused to go down without a fight. :D