He wakes up just before midday feeling like crap.
After Castiel's little speech, he drank an inadvisable quantity of whiskey and passed out on the sofa which, yeah, isn't seeming like the best idea now that he's hungover. He feels like someone stuck a knife in his left eye and he's pretty sure he didn't fetch himself the blanket, which means Sammy must have done… so Sam's no doubt gonna bust his ass when he gets home later.
He makes a grab for his phone, thinking maybe Cas has text to apologise… but no, instead he's got nothing but a message from Ellen reminding him he has tonight off (which is probably for the best, cause he's not sure he could deal with serving up alcohol in the foreseeable future) and a text from Sam informing him he's staying at his friend's house tonight and will be back on Saturday morning.
He can't exactly stop Sam. He did whatever the hell he liked when he was sixteen and, anyway, he's not gonna be one of those tight assed parents (no matter how much Ellen mocks him for his worrying).
He calls Ellen to apologise. She tells him that he's got his work cut out with getting Jo to forgive him, because she is evidentially really pissed. The last time Jo was mad at him, she was fifteen and John Winchester had just got her Dad arrested and then they didn't speak for five years, even at the funeral… so, he's not really sure how to diffuse a pissed of Jo. Sam's usually better at the sort of thing. He's pretty sure Sam's not gonna help him out, though.
He calls Jo. She yells at him down the phone and says he owes her all his tips (or 'flirt money' as she calls it) for the next week, which he can live with.
He tries to call Sam whilst he's still on his lunch, but he doesn't pick up.
He gives up and turns on the television, except that even Dr Sexy isn't making him feel better (he reminds him of Cas for some indeterminate reason that he doesn't really want to think about) so after watching an embarrassing number of episodes back to back and still feeling shitty, he forces himself off the sofa and into the shower.
At about the time Sam would be finishing school, Dean goes out and buys a week's supply of rabbit food and a couple of DVDs. He calls Sam three more times and gets no answer before he gives up. If Sam doesn't want to talk to him, he's not going to talk to him, and that's that.
It's not surprising. From Sam's point of view, Dean shot him down about working, had a cosy get together with Gordon, got home and got drunk. If Sam had done the same, he'd be suitably pissed.
He gets pizza for dinner and, by that point, the hangover has receded enough to make way for the shitty, dead feeling at the bottom of his gut.
Sam's staying at his freaking friend's house and all Dean wants to do is drive solidly for eight hours in one direction before turning round and heading straight back. Sure, the moment when he had to turn around would suck, but the hours of just driving before then would be awesome; a whole night spent in his baby with Metallica turned up loud.
Except it'd probably be too reminiscent of those times Sam ran away and Dean had to desperately skip between states trying to find him, or else Dean will start thinking too much about the crash. Besides, he's not sure he could afford to squander all the money on gas without due justification.
Dean rings Ellen to ask if he can work tonight. He says that Sam's at a friend's house and doesn't want to talk to him, so there's not point him not working.
She tells him to get a damn life and enjoy himself for a change.
Dean rings Bobby.
"What the hell you want me to do, boy?" Bobby demands, "or you just phoning to whine."
He is, when he thinks about it, so he hangs up fairly quickly and decides just to suck it up. He can't just drive in case something happens and Sam needs him to pick him up and he can't work at Ellen's and he can't face the Roadhouse (he doesn't think that's what Ellen meant when she told him to get a life)…
But, there's plenty of other bars in Lawrence.
It's the kind of logic that makes Sam go all disapproving, but Sam's at his friend's house and Dean may or may not have a crippling fear of aloneness. Not always, but he doesn't associate anything good with being alone… it either meant that Dad was missing, or Sam was missing, and he was always trying to round them up again and reunite them. If he was alone, something was usually wrong. Sam was different. Sam liked being alone, which Dean tries (and fails) not to interpretation as a failure on his behalf.
When Dean orders his first drink, he's thinking about how he's always the one trying to keep everyone together whilst everyone else is trying to get as far away from him as possible. It's a brutal thought that burns almost as much as the first double.
OOO
The only reason he was at the bank that damn day was become they'd ran out of money.
Sure, you looked at it from the right angle Dean had been supporting them since he could bullshit way into a job, but that was always with a time limit. Dean just had to keep them afloat until they skipped town, usually with a whole host of unpaid bills and pissed off employees. It had been a relief when their Dad finally pissed off someone dangerous enough that it warranted a move, because it meant they had a clean slate and he could stop sending Sammy to the door to deal with the motel owner claiming the credit card had bounced.
Now they'd been in Kansas for nearly four months, so Dean was arguing with a bloke in the bank.
"I understand," Dean said, "but you're not hearing me. I can pay, but I can't pay right now. I've got three jobs, for Christ's sake, but I need the credit card –"
"– I'm sorry, Mr Winchester, but –"
Son of a bitch.
"I've got a brother," Dean said, digging into his jacket pocket to pull out this picture of Sammy, because his puppy eyes could win anyone over (and had been instrumental in Dean securing legal guardianship, and getting Sam into a decent school even though no one could find records of the last year of his education, which wasn't all that surprising), "and we've been living in a motel. I'm trying to get us a flat, see – "
And then there was gunfire.
Dean turned around, base instinct making him take a step backwards, and suddenly everyone was panicking.
"This is not a robbery!" The guy yelled. "Everybody on the floor, now!"
The guy – short, long hair, kind of chunky – looked half mad, gun perilously swinging round to face the members of the public, eye wild.
000
"Work or love?" The barmaid asks, pouring him a second double, "it's definitely something."
"Family," Dean says, through a grimace. She raises an eyebrow at him like she's surprised. He's too young to have a family of his own, but probably too old to be drinking consecutive double scotches over an argument with his parents. "My little brother," Dean continues, staring down his drink, "he's gonna leave for college."
He's pissed at himself for even getting strung up about this. Sammy should go to college and Dean's always known he'd bugger off as soon as possible, because that's just how Sam is. That hasn't changed just because Dad's dead… Sam still wants to run away and get away from the lot of them, and Dean can hardly blame him. It's not like he's really worth sticking around for. And it's even more stupid that this train of thought has been spurred on just because Sam is staying at a friend's house.
"You dangerously co-dependent or something?"
"Or something," Dean says, feeling the familiar burn of the liquid in his throat as it goes down. "Our parents… well, they're gone. It's just us."
The barmaid pours him another scotch.
He was herded into the middle of the room with everyone else in the bank, and he'd gotten onto his knees like he was instructed, but there was something about the whole thing that was off. Not the fact that he'd somehow wound up in the middle of a bank robbery, because there was all kinds of things wrong with that, but the guy didn't seem to have a damn clue what to do next.
And that scared him.
He recognised the raw terror in the guy's eyes; that desperation. He'd been dragged into his Dad's messes since he was seven or eight, so he knew something about what kind of people were dangerous and what kind of people aren't. Most people who robbed banks were just greedy, but not particularly inclined to hurt anyone… but this guy was desperate, and panicking, and pointing a gun at a bunch of damn civilians faces.
"Hey, hey," Dean said, hands held up. The guy whirled around, gun pointing at his damn face, but at least then it wasn't pointed at anyone else. "Hey, buddy why don't you calm down." He moved slightly, shuffling away from the others. The guy with the gun moved the gun on reflex, holding it up.
"This is… not a robbery!"
"Okay," Dean said, "okay, okay… man, let's just talk about this a sec."
"Get down, I'll shoot you!"
"Nobody's shooting anyone," Dean said, "So, it's not a robbery. Okay. I believe you. What's going on?"
"I need… I need to find something."
"Okay," Dean said, "okay. Where are you gonna start?"
There was a bunch of people looking at him like he was crazy, but he stretched out a little more into a proper standing position and the guy didn't shoot him. So, he was stood in the middle of a bank with a guy pointing a gun at his face, but he seemed to have taken a breather and calm down slightly.
As long as the guy was calm, no one should die.
No one's gonna die.
"No one's getting in or out,"
"I hear you," Dean said, slowly, "okay. Take me… take me as your hostage, okay?"
"Pat him down," The guy told one of the others, and suddenly the dick who'd been refusing to give him a credit card earlier was up on his feet and checking him for weapons. Credit-Card dick gave him a 'what-the-hell-are-you-doing' look, and Dean isn't really sure how he'd answer that even if he could.
"Okay," the guy said, slowly, "but everyone else in the vault! Everyone in the vault!"
And that was when the power went out.
000
He's drunk.
He hates Kansas and holding down proper jobs for extended periods of time and dragging his ass to college. He hates that Sammy's always mad at him, and Sam can repackage it any way he likes, but the fact is Sam is still hurting over the fact that Dean put their Dad first. Sam was vulnerable, upset and a kid and Dean dragged him through years of that because he wanted them to stick together as a family.
Cas is right.
And he knows that's the reason why he let contact with Bobby and Ellen drop. It was easy to convince himself that was giving Ellen and Jo space after what happened to Jo's Dad, but he was out of prison in a couple of months and dead within another (lung cancer) and they stopped by for two hours to come to the funeral before he was putting Sam in back of the car and driving for two days (John Winchester didn't come). He was absolutely terrified that half an hour of conversation with Ellen and she'd insist that they stay, because Sam was a little more withdrawn and Dean was a little too skinny.
That's on him.
000
Somehow, volunteering to be a hostage had morphed into trying to help Ron not fuck himself over royally.
It was pretty likely that the guy had gotten himself a fair amount of time inside, but providing he didn't shoot anyone everything was going to be okay. Besides, after spending the last few hours with the bloke, he'd come to the conclusion that Ron was a complete fruit loop; he was looking for the mandroids, for fuck's sake.
When he got out of this, he'd tell Sam all about these supposed Mandroids and they'd laugh about it. Sam would tell him off for getting involved, but he'd be secretly kind of pleased… cause to Sammy he'd always been a hero, even when he wasn't
He was gonna sure no one got hurt.
When the whole thing was done, Ron was gonna go with the police. He was probably going to be classified as batshit crazy and they'd help him.
No one was gonna get hurt.
And if Ron was pointing a gun at him in the meantime, at least that meant the gun wasn't pointing at anyone else.
000
It's at least six kinds of stupid, but he absolutely feels like doing something stupid right now. And yeah, he's a couple of hundred up from hustling pool (when you take out the drink money), which means he should stop before he pisses someone off big time... but he has exactly zero motivation to do so.
It's difficult to tell whether he wants to punch someone in the face, or whether he wants someone to punch him in the face, but either way a fight sounds absolutely freaking fantastic.
Why is he that much of a failure that everyone he loves is always trying to freaking leave him? He spent years trying to persuade Dad that maybe he might be worth a little more than his poxy quest for revenge and drinking himself into oblivion, but his Dad just kept leaving. He spent his whole life trying to please the man and he always turned out as such a disappointment. He did everything for Sammy, always, because that was his job… but he still fucked up and Sam spent two years trying to run away, only managing it for a few weeks – maybe a month – at a time, before Dean managed to track him down.
"You got a problem?" The man who won't pay him says, pressing his knuckles into his palm with a grimace.
"Yeah," Dean returns, "you owe me some money."
"Do I?"
"Yeah," Dean says, "though if you need me to explain the rules of pool, man, you just let me know –"
" – well that sounds like the kind of conversation we should have outside,"
"Well, I could do with some fresh air," Dean says, winking at the barmaid on the way out, fists clenching all ready. Except, somewhere after the fourth double scotch he lost his usual instincts, so whilst he's aiming for another smart-ass comment, the other guy is already drawing back his fists.
000
He fucked up.
He said the wrong thing at the wrong time and Ron panicked and shoots. There was some security guy that got in the way, and he was bleeding out on the floor with a bullet in his chest and everyone was panicking.
Ron was sweating and losing it and waving his gun around. He won't listen to Dean anymore. Besides, now he was fucked because that was a chest wound and there was too much blood for it not to be fatal. Dean could tell, straight up, that that guy was gonna die in the next few minutes and it was his fault because if anyone was gonna get shot it should have been him. He should have jumped the bullet or –
Ron stepped out towards the guy on the floor. Dean was half way through telling him to stop, for God's sake but, again, he fucked up, because he can hear the gunshot.
Police Sniper. Chest wound.
000
The guy's fist connects with his face again.
The article in the paper said that Ronald Resnick was a dangerous, delusional man. The article says that Dean stepping in saved people's lives. The article said Dean was brave and acted selfishly out of a feeling of duty.
The article in the paper is full of jack.
000
He's fighting back, now, and he probably would have won (at least, he could have)… except the guy gets him in his bad shoulder – the one Dean messed up badly in the car crash – and the pain blossoms out, blinding him for a moment.
He's stumbling backwards
000
The thing was, he didn't do it because he wanted to be a hero. The bitter truth that Sammy kept trying to get him to talk about was that heroics barely came into it at all. It was just the fact that Dean is so goddamn worthless that he's gotta prove himself by saving every damn person he can. And if it got him killed, then at least he went down doing something important.
If someone was gonna get shot, then it should have be him. And if someone was gonna bleed out on that bank floor, it shouldn't have been the security guard and it shouldn't have been Ronald Resnick.
It should have been him.
000
The guy who wouldn't pay him is really laying into him and Dean can't move his arm. He's pretty sure It's dislocated again, because the hot nurse at the hospital said that could happen, but it doesn't really matter right now.
The guy's fist slams into his jaw… and then the waitress he was flirting with before is suddenly out front, saying she's called the police and an ambulance, and Dean can't really move but he really wants a cigarette.
"They ambulance will be here in a minute, Dean," The girl says and the hilarious part about it is she's pissed at him too and, maybe, if this had been a slightly different night and he hadn't been feeling so self-destructive, he might have got laid instead.
He's half way through thinking of some viable way he can still flirt, even when he's spitting blood, when he passes out.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, so now I'm going away to China for like two weeks. So... sorry about the cliff hanger-esque ending? Thanks for reading :)