Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural. If I did, it would be very boring because I'd have them retire and get normal jobs.
I wrote this piece, a sequel to the last chapter, Not Perfect, for stepanzas2, who wanted to see how John reacted to Dean's injury. I'm always a little leery of writing John, but I appreciate the fine beta skills of Fanpire101, who is helping me overcome my fear of Papa Winchester. Thanks, Fanpire101! Any remaining errors are mine.
My thanks as well to sabidoche, Juvdelink25, and stepanzas2, for your comments on the previous chapter.
Sam woke to the sound of snoring. In the ray of light peeking around the curtains, he could just make out his hulk of a father, curled on his side, fully dressed except for his boots. A fifth of Jack lay by his right hand. A bad night, Sam surmised, wondering if the wendigo had eluded him after he'd returned to the hunt.
He rolled over to study his brother, but Dean wasn't there. Sam padded over to the bathroom and pushed open the door. "De'?"
His brother looked up, and Sam saw his green eyes widen in the mirror. His brother's blind right eye appeared more bloodshot than normal, and a livid reddish-purple bruise ran down part of his right cheekbone. As Sam took in the small sponge in his brother's right hand and the tiny bottle of tan liquid in the other, a mix of emotions crossed Dean's face.
"What're you doing?"
Dean returned to applying makeup to the bruise. "What does it look like?" he growled softly, as if erasing half of his face was a reasonable idea. Stopping once again, he turned to regard Sam. "You need to get ready for school."
Sam tipped his head and dropped his shoulders. "Dean." His brother's jaw twitched in response, and Sam could feel the worry leaping into his features. Bitch-face, his brother called it. Well, too bad. "You can't go to school looking like that. Your face is really swollen. Maybe you should just stay home -"
Dean's sliced a hand through the air, ending with his fingers to his lips. "Don't wake Dad!" he hissed.
Sam folded his arms. "Dad needs to know about this, Dean. He's gonna find out anyway."
"No, he's not. And you -" Dean thrust a finger in Sam's direction and snapped at him. "Damn well better keep your mouth shut."
Dean might have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for gym. His second to last period of the day began with warm-ups, moved into sprinting, and ended with a quick game of basketball. Dean's team was down by two points when the end of class bell rang.
Wiping the sweat from his brow with the back of his wrist, Dean moved toward the locker room, feeling slightly dizzy. Maybe playing basketball the day after bashing my face in wasn't such a great idea. I need some water.
"Good game, Richards. Nice shot, Fowler." The coach nodded in Dean's direction. "Need to step it up there, Winchester." An odd look crossed the older man's face. "Dean, come with me." His eyes bored into his student. "Now."
Dean stared at the blotch of makeup on his wrist and swallowed hard. "Yessir." Shit!
The coach clamped a hand on Dean's shoulder and maneuvered him away from the basketball court. Dean could feel himself trembling under the man's iron grip.
Pull it together, Winchester, he chided himself. You're better than this.
But he honestly didn't feel well. The hard lines of the school blurred and swayed, wavy edges of bricks and glass and wood, and Dean had to concentrate just to keep himself vertical.
Expecting to find himself in the coach's office for a dressing down, Dean startled when he realized that he was in the nurse's office, sitting on a cot. His coach was talking to the nurse, and apparently had been for some time.
"I'm going to call his parents," the coach said, and he exited the room before Dean even had time to protest.
The nurse held a thermometer to Dean's ear with one hand as she took his pulse with the other. "How're you feeling? You gave Coach Reynolds there quite a scare. He thought you were going to pass out." She set aside the thermometer and strapped a blood pressure cuff to his arm.
Dean swallowed back the bile rising in his throat. "'m fine," he mumbled. Blowing out a slow breath, he tried to focus on not throwing up. "Could I have some water?"
Once she'd read his blood pressure, the nurse reached over into the mini fridge and handed him a bottle.
"Thanks." He took a tentative sip.
"That's quite a bruise you've got there," she said, studying his face. "You want to tell me about it?" Her voice, carefully neutral, rang every alarm bell in Dean's mind. Stay out of trouble, stay off the school's radar, you hear me, boy?
Dean sipped the water slowly and tried not to wince as she prodded his cheekbone. "I ran into a lamp post," he admitted. The nurse made a non-committal hum. "I'm blind in my right eye," he continued, rambling as his nerves got the best of him. "No one hit me, if that's what you're thinking."
"What I'm wondering," she said candidly, staring him in the eyes, "is why you felt the need to cover this up." She dabbed at his face with a damp paper towel, wiping away the rest of the makeup.
Dean looked away.
"Is someone hurting you at home? You can talk to me, Dean. I can help."
Dean thought of wendigos, shapeshifters, and werewolves, and shook his head. "No, ma'am," he said, trying desperately to think of the right way not to make this situation any worse. "I ran into the lamp post because I didn't see it. I was embarrassed. Because of my disability." Dean choked over the last word, his face flushing a flaming red.
Coach Reynolds poked his head back in. "Boy's father will be here soon." He studied Dean. "Next time you're hurt, son, you let me know, all right? No sense in trying to hide it." He walked over and placed a fatherly hand on Dean's shoulder, squeezing gently. "If you ever need anything, Winchester, you can talk to me."
Dean nodded. The nurse, sensing the young man's discomfort, eased him down so his head rested on the cot. Exhausted and spent, Dean curled up on his left side and began to drift in and out of sleep. The school nurse covered him in a blanket.
It wasn't long before he recognized the low rumble of his father's voice in the adjoining office. If he concentrated hard, he could just make out the words.
"... didn't know anything about it. We went bird hunting yesterday. Must have happened then, but he never said anything. I went into work last night. Dean's momma's passed and I work late hours to support him and his brother. I didn't see them leave for school this morning."
Dean, fully awake now, pondered if his father would remain so calm once they left the school grounds. He seriously doubted it.
His dad walked into the nurse's office with the vice principal. "Son, how're you feeling?"
Dean wondered when he'd get to the real questions. Son, how did you screw up so badly? What in the hell were you thinking?
He sat up slowly, blinked his eyes, and tried to focus on his father. "Just a headache," he mumbled.
The nurse regarded John with a scrutinizing eye, and Dean pictured her opening up a case against his father with Child Protective Services. "I haven't given him any pain medication, since we have no medical authorizations on file. But with your consent -"
John nodded, cutting her off, and the nurse handed Dean his half-drunk water bottle and two Tylenol.
The vice-principal shook John's hand. "We appreciate you coming down here so quickly, Mr. Winchester. I'm sure Dean is in good hands."
The school nurse frowned, and Dean felt his stomach clench. John caught his eye, indicated the school nurse with a tip of his head, and raised his eyebrows before lowering them.
Look what you did.
John waited until they had pulled out of the high school parking lot. Dean was surprised that he lasted that long.
"Care to explain yourself, Dean?" The words were clipped and tight.
Dean stared at his hands. "'m sorry, sir."
John shook his head, barely containing the fury. "Do you have any idea how close that was? What if your school hadn't been able to reach me? That nurse has child welfare on speed dial. Do you want to be separated from Sammy?"
Dean looked up, eyes wide. "No, Dad, of course -"
"Dean, I trust you to keep your brother safe when I'm away. What you did was reckless and inexcusable," John thundered.
"Dad, I -" Dean's face reddened as he struggled for composure.
"Damn it, Dean! What in the hell were you thinking? Where is your head? Why can't you ever do what you're told?" His father slammed a fist on the steering wheel.
"I did!" Dean cried, eyes bright. "I hid the injury the way you taught me to, so that no one at school would notice."
John's nostrils flared. "Look how well that turned out." He shook his head and frowned. "I never once told you to hide an injury from me, Dean James." The words, low and cold, felt like a slap.
Hearing his middle name, Dean swallowed hard. "I didn't tell you about hitting my head because I knew I screwed up! I knew what you'd say. That I'm not fit to be a hunter." A tear slid down his cheek; he quickly batted it away.
John sighed. "Son, we've talked about this. You've got a serious disadvantage as a hunter. Hunting's hard enough with two eyes." He pulled the Impala into the parking space in front of their motel room and turned to look at his son. "But if you want to keep trying, I'm willing to teach you. You're going to have to work twice as hard. Give up your free time. Drop out of school. Are you willing to make the sacrifice?"
Dean nodded. "Yes, sir."
Sam Winchester paced in the schoolyard, waiting for his big brother to pick him up. It wasn't like him to be late. He remembered Dean's swollen cheekbone from this morning and hoped nothing bad had happened. His gut told him otherwise.
Finally, he heard the Impala's rumbling engine. Dean sat in the passenger seat looking spent, makeup gone, holding a pack of ice against a vivid purple bruise.
Sam frowned at him. "De'?"
Leaning over the steering wheel, his father replied, "Clear out your locker, Sam. We're leaving town and we won't be back."
Sam nodded, opened the back door, and threw his backpack in before sitting down. "I've got everything I need right here."
"Good," his father said, driving away from the school and pulling into traffic. "I'm going to take you boys a few towns over, get you settled in. Been hearing reports of some spectral activity around there anyway."
Sam studied the interplay between his father and Dean, but he couldn't quite sort out the subtext. Dean drooped toward the door, as if he was too weary to hold up his head. Dad seemed, well, not exactly angry. Determined maybe. Sam took it as a hopeful sign.
John brought the car to an abrupt halt in front of a gas station with an attached convenience store. "I'm gonna fuel up, check the tires. You boys grab some dinner." He handed Dean a twenty.
Sam waited until his father had exited the car to make the face. "I'm sick of gas station sandwiches," he whined. "And why do I have to change schools again? What did you do?"
He regretted the way he'd phrased the last question the minute Dean turned around and he saw his brother's eyes. Haunted. Guilt-ridden. "Sorry, Sammy," his brother whispered before slipping out of the car.
Well, this sucks. The only thing worse than Dean being mad at him was watching Dean wallow in guilt over something he had no control over. Sam tagged after his brother and tugged on his sleeve. "You okay?"
Something flitted across Dean's eyes then, sad and resigned, disappearing so fast that Sam almost missed it. He watched his big brother pull on the mask with effort, wishing hard that Dean believed him that he didn't expect his big brother to be perfect.
Dean thrust his shoulders back and tried to grin. It came out small and forced. "Dad's agreed to train me harder. It's gonna be great, Sammy. I get to drop out of school."
Sam swallowed over the lump in his throat. His father was driving a wedge between the brothers and Sam had no idea how to set things back to normal. Dean wanted to finish high school; Sam knew he did. Finish high school and open his own garage. They'd talked about it and it was one of the rare occasions when he'd seen his brother truly happy. So why did he agree to this?
"You're an idiot," Sam spat in frustration.
"Don't be such a little bitch. School is for nerds and geeks, Sammy." Dean tousled his little brother's long hair. "That's why you fit right in."
"Jerk." Sam pulled away and studied his brother. "You sure you're okay?" He placed a tentative hand on Dean's arm. A woman pushed past them into the store and gave them a curious look. Sam glared at her.
Dean closed his eyes briefly at the tender touch and nodded. "I threw up before," he admitted. "I almost passed out at school. Dad had to come because they saw the bruise and thought I was being abused."
Sam nodded. "That's why we have to leave?"
"And that's why I'm dropping out." Dean looked at Sam. "I want to hunt with Dad but I'm uncoordinated and bruise a lot." He gave Sam a weak smile.
"Dean, don't be stupid! Why can't you wait until you graduate -" At his brother's shake of the head, Sam sighed. "At least promise me you'll get your GED."
Dean shrugged, the mask firmly in place now. "If it matters that much to you," he said, with a forced casual air.
"It does," Sam said solemnly. "You matter to me, Dean."
His brother's green eyes broke wide open and Sam had to blink against the rush of love and affection his brother held for him. What came out of Dean's mouth, however, was, "You are such a girl, Samantha." I love you, Sammy.
"Stupid jerk." I love you, too, Dean.