My Guardian Angel - Chapter 3

Dean could hear John's footsteps pass overhead, to-and-fro, over and over as his father prepared to leave. "Dean! Would you get up here?" John called down the stairs out of habit, but he didn't expect Dean to answer. The boy had five minutes to respond or make an appearance, and then John would leave without him.

Pushing off his desk with both hands, Dean went rolling back with ease in his chair across the unfinished basement floor. Dean leaned over to check his calender - January 22. It was the weekend before his 18th birthday. Dean shook his head, it wasn't going to be that easy to get him out of the house, but in four short days John would probably kick him out anyay. Dean turned back to his comupter screen where the Anarchist's Cookbook was open to a particularly interesting entry on pop rocks-like explosives.

Starting up on antypsychotics at the age of twelve tends to mess with a person's head. The low dosage they administered did absolutely nothing to slow or deter the frequency or intensity of the undesired behaviour. A medium dosage was then administered, with the same results. After a year of altering dosage sizes Dean was started on a stronger antipsychotic medication being tested on the market. As far as John and Mary could tell, the new medication helped considerably.

Antipsychotic medicines were designed to treat schizophrenia, and some of the side effects on non schizophrenics include the appearance of the negative symptoms of schizophrenia, such as apathy, lethargy, and anti-social behaviours. Essentially, the pleasure centers in the brain are shut down, leaving the individual with no motivation and the inability to derive pleasure from any given activity.

Dean double checked the last directions when mixing in the bleach -messing up now would be catastrophic. The challenge of building effective munitions was one of Dean's recent hobbies, as well as mythical and supernatural lore, and cars. The basement had become his underground dungeon, so to speak. He had several car parts laying around, some were broken beyond repair, others he was in the process of adjusting to use out in the garage. There were movie and band posters hanging on the walls, and several easels set up with half finished paintings of demons and angels. There was a steel cabinet with a lock on it, where Dean stored several firearms -both legal and illegal to possess.

"In two days, everything is going to change," Dean spoke assuringly. "When I'm eighteen I won't have to listen to Mom and Dad anymore, I can do what I want. And what I want is to be able to feel something again. To feel you again, wherever you are." Pulling his black t-shirt off, Dean looked at the permanent handprint on his shoulder. For a year his companion had tried to fight off the medication, had tried to continue to get to Dean. When antipsych meds shut down the dopamine producing regions of Dean's brain, there was no pleasure to give him, and the presence had vanished. Dean hadn't heard the voice in almost four years.

"Dean! Last call! Are youg going to miss your own birthday dinner? Get up here!" For good measure, John added: "Before I come down there!"

Dean hated it when anyone came into his room. This was his area, and his alone. All they did was judge; they didn't care about him, what he was thinking, how he'd turn out. Just that he was weird, that he was different. But that could all be in his head, he was an apathetic and detached individual after all. Not by choice, not his choice, anyway. But there was no way they could justify caring about him when their own needs of hiding his 'disability' came first. What kind of parents put their kid on a drug that would knowingly kill creativity? His imagination was dead, gone away like any feeling of satisfaction of pleasure. Living in a world which required you to be unique and give a damn about other people was difficult when there was no reason to care.

Dean locked his computer terminal and pulled his t-shirt back on. At least Sam would be at dinner. Sam was the only one who really talked to Dean, but he kept a fair distance most of the time. Dean wasn't entirely sure if that was because Sam wanted to stay away, or because his dad kept him away. Dean would always follow Sam to his school to keep watch over him, and was subsequently always late for his first class -no one bothered him about it.

Dean trotted up the basement stairs. He was about to open the door when John swung it open and came nose to nose with his son.

"Jesus! Could you at least tell me that you're coming?"

"I'm here. That should mean that I'm coming. Where are we going? Where's Sam?" Dean's ability to create and partake of small talk reduced considerably under the medication, it came with the package of being anti-social and apathetic. It wasn't impossible, it just required effort, and very few things motivated Dean to put in the effort.

"That'll change soon," Dean thought to himself. He'd been planning to discontinue medication once he was able for a long time now. In his spare time (of which he had plenty) Dean had watched more than his fair share of movies. The ways in which people reacted to one another didn't make sense to him at first. Ever since he was twelve his behaviours and the ways in which he interacted with others had changed. Dean had come to realize that he didn't work the same way as other people, especially not emotionally. His medication was to blame, the doctors who put a twelve year old boy on heavy medication were to blame, and his parents who had allowed it, even encouraged it.

"Did you even hear me?" John sounded impatient, and Dean concluded that he had spaced out and missed something. "I said Sam's at a friend's house for a sleepover. He won't be home until Sunday, probably in the evening. It's just you, your mother, and I. Now get your shoes on."