BREATHE CHAPTER 4
"Dean." The voice was as gentle as the single-knuckled wrap that heralded it, but the man in question still startled at the sound. "You alright?"
"Just a sec." He flushed the toilet, buying himself time to wipe the evidence of his weakness from his face before moving to the door.
He took a deep breath, then opened it.
His father stood, looking uncertain.
Dean felt his throat tighten.
"I got ice," the elder Winchester offered, raising the long plastic bag in his fist. "Thought you might wanna soak."
Dean cleared his throat. "Yeah. I already got the water running."
John looked past his son and nodded. "Good. I'll just dump this in there before it gets too full."
"I can do it," and Dean reached for the bag.
John turned his shoulders, moving the gift out of his son's reach. "You...pretty sure your...your ribs are busted. Or at least bruised. Just let me do it." Guilt roughened his voice. He watched Dean drop his eyes and lick his lips while shrinking away as much as the claustrophobia-inducing space would allow, and inwardly cursed himself.
He slid past the silent young man, tested the water temperature, turned the hot water tap off, emptied the contents of the bag into the tub. He checked to make certain that there was a clean, dry towel nearby, that the soap was unwrapped and ready, that there was shampoo in easy reach if Dean wanted it.
When he ran out of excuses for avoiding his son, he took a deep breath and stood.
Dean was in exactly the same position he'd been in when John sidled past him.
The father in him wondered how this son of his, the one who'd been disciplined multiple times for his inability to keep still on long car rides, could be so entirely motionless now.
John opened his mouth, wanting to say something about that, share a memory he had of Dean driving his father crazy by turning on his knees in the passenger seat to toss M-n-Ms at his younger and easily irritated brother…
The mirror over the sink reflected the crimson-striped back of his son's shirt, and the words stuck in John's throat.
"Just-" his throat felt raw. He moved his tongue, working up some saliva, and swallowed.
It seemed to resonate in that small space.
"Leave the door unlocked, okay, Kiddo? And holler if you need anything. You want a beer or somethin'? Too early for more of the Tylenol with codeine, but I could get you something else…."
His voice trailed off.
Dean shook his head, eyes averted. "I'm good." He paused. "Thanks."
John nodded. "Good. Fifteen minutes, alright? More than that and I gotta check on ya. Fair warning."
He thought that might bring a smile-it had in the past-but Dean simply gave a solemn nod. "Yessir."
John sidled past his son to go pour himself a drink.
Knowing his father was listening, Dean bit back a groan as he lowered himself into the cold water. There was no way he wanted to put pressure on any part of the back of his body, but without a snorkel, lying on his stomach wasn't an option.
He grimaced as the ice water flooded over his groin. "Fuckin' hate cold," he muttered, but he knew it would help, so he settled in, face twitching in pain as he eased his hips to the bottom of the tub, then leaned back to gingerly press his shoulder blades to the slanted back. He closed his eyes-one eye, really, as the other was obscured by swelling-and concentrated on the way the frigid temperature felt on his loins.
It distracted him from everything that hurt.
The old trick worked, and the part of his brain that was screaming alarms at him about all of the sensations it was getting that were meant to alert him that damage was being done, that he needed to run, or fight, to fix this: all of that faded into the background.
Which left the majority of his consciousness free to obsess about other things.
Bobby had said out loud the things Dean had felt: it wasn't fair that he had to look out for Sammy all the time, he deserved a life of his own, his dad was wrong for expecting so much, wrong for….
Even silently, he couldn't put it into words. A cloud of images and sensations roiled in their place, everything that happened from Dean's admission of guilt to passing out on the floor contained therein.
He rolled his lower lip under his teeth.
The problem was that Dean was pretty sure Bobby was wrong. The stuff Dean had thought, that Bobby had said, that was all just selfish and...whiny. Dean was a Winchester, and Winchesters were hunters, and family was everything, and that's the way it was. Yeah, his dad treated him like Dean was a soldier, but that's because what they did was dangerous and heroic, just like a soldier, and the only way to survive was to be hard, to be strong, physically but also mentally, and you didn't get that way without...Well, you didn't get that way by being coddled, babied.
And Bobby was wrong about another thing, because Dean was proud of who he was, as a hunter, at least. He knew he was good at. Better than any other hunter his own age that he knew about, better than most of the ones older than him. His dad had taught him well, plus he never shied from a hunt, no matter how nasty the monster, so despite being barely old enough to buy his own alcohol, he had a lot of experience with killing evil things.
Dean loved hunting. He loved being a hero.
And he loved Sammy.
He shifted in the numbing liquid, wincing.
Okay, maybe sometimes he was jealous. "Resentful" was probably a better word. Because it really was unfair, the difference in how they were treated. Dean was already hunting by the time he was nine, but Sammy didn't even know monsters existed until he was eight, and didn't learn how to shoot a pistol for another year after that.
Yet Dean didn't want this life for Sammy, and the older they got, the stronger that feeling became, until the resentment lost its power. Protecting Sam had come to mean so much more than just keeping him safe from monsters. It was shielding him from anything that would hurt him, turn him rough and cold like Dean and John and Bobby.
"He's who he's s'posed to be," Dean uttered.
"You need something?" John called through the door, and Dean realized he'd spoken out loud.
"No. Just got a Metallica song in my head. Sorry."
"You want some music?"
"Nah, 's alright. Thanks, though."
"You feeling light-headed or anything?"
"No. I'm good."
"Alright."
Dean listened to the sound of his father moving away from the door and tried to pick up the thread of his last thought.
He didn't have any options. That was the thing. Dean was who he was supposed to be, because...well, life made it so he had to be this way. His present, his future, that was all dictated to him by the events in his past, things that happened that he and his dad and his mom and his little brother had no control over. Maybe when he was three or four he'd been like Sam, innocent and round-cheeked and soft, playing at being a cop or a fire-fighter or...whatever. And maybe he'd would've ended up different, a guy with a blue collar job, a mechanic maybe, feeling the satisfaction of working with his hands, coming home at night to a sweet-smelling woman and a cold beer, being the kind of guy that other guys liked to hang around, a guy who laughed a lot and made other people laugh too, who loved to play with his kids and teach them things like how to shoot a bow or change a tire, not because they needed to fight monsters or be independent way too young, but because it was just so good to be with them, and see things through their eyes….
A hot tear contrasted sharply with the chilled skin on his face, and he wiped it away.
It reminded him that his eye was a fucking mess, and he reached for the wash cloth carefully balanced on the edge of the tub, cupping it in his hand, filling it with ice, then pressing it to a blackened orbit.
So, he couldn't have all that. It may have been the guy that he was supposed to be once, but it wasn't the guy that life let him be.
Sam, though...if he could protect Sam enough, Sam could have that. He could be who he was meant to be, the smart guy with some kind of white collar job that he'd had to go to college for a million years to get, with a whole frickin' alphabet after his name, and a glamorous wife that was so high society it made Dean nervous to be around her, and a huge mansion of a home with weird artwork on the walls that cost more than Dean could make in an entire night of hustling pool, and a membership at a...a golf course, or something like that.
Sam could have all of that, deserved to have all of that, but only if Dean did his job right.
He had to look out for Sammy, because at least one of them should get to choose his life, not have it dictated to him.
So his dad was right. And maybe Dean didn't agree with how he did it, but John had done a good job of making Dean into the person he needed to be, and Dean knew he couldn't get there on his own, that he needed to be forced, and reminded, and punished. And Bobby was wrong about one more thing, because when it came to John Winchester, not criticizing was the same as giving praise, and Dean got that a lot.
Dean knew he wasn't better than John. He still made mistakes, still...but he knew he was good, damned good, and he knew who he had to thank for that.
He'd always known, and that's why he didn't fight back when John struck him, and why he stripped when John ordered him to, even though he knew what was coming.
Because life had forced this on John Winchester, too, and they were both doing the best they could.
