Author's Note: So as the people who have reviewed have heard, I'm sorry for torturing Dean. Not really. I was trying to recreate how Sam and Dean must have felt when Sam went to college on the show. I like to take the show literally and Sam said on the show that Dean was always there for him even when no one else was so I'm assuming they parted on good terms. So Sam not contacting Dean as well as John for four years was pretty insensitive…

Plus in the last story I already created a history where Sam is oblivious to Dean's suffering and Dean tries to keep his pain secret from Sam.

Dean spent the drive back to his own dorm, thinking. He wasn't upset, he wasn't. What was there to be upset about?

He certainly wasn't upset that Sam had wanted a quickie. He was a guy, he loved quickies. He had enjoyed quick sex with Sam lots of times when they both just needed to get off.

But last night it just…wasn't what Dean had wanted.

And he certainly couldn't be upset that Sam was busy. It wasn't Sam's fault that he was super smart and had lots of work and probably everyone wanted to study with him…

But the truth was that Dean was upset. He had wanted to spend time with Sam, to feel connected to his boyfriend again. He certainly hadn't wanted to be driving back to his own dorm less than 24 hours later.

But of course he couldn't tell Sam that he was upset. Sam didn't want a whiny bitch for a boyfriend. Sam fell in love with a confident, popular football star and Dean had to continue to be that guy no matter how miserable he really was. It was bad enough that Sam had seen him at the hospital, that Sam had seen him before, after his dad had…It was a miracle that Sam still wanted anything to do with him and Dean wouldn't do anything to push the other boy away.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

There were few other students about early on a Saturday morning, so it was surprising that Sam bumped right into a friend as he walked to the library. Jess was his best friend since high school and they had gone to Duke together.

"Hey, what're you doing up?" Sam asked. Jess wasn't exactly known as a morning person.

"Ughh," she groaned. "I've got a paper due Monday."

Her eyes narrowed in concentration as she looked him over and Sam suddenly felt like he should have taken a shower after last night. He just hadn't had time, wanting to spend every extra second in the bed with Dean. But Jess seemed to know exactly what he had been up to.

"Hey, isn't your ridiculously hot boyfriend coming into town this weekend?"

Sam blushed. Dean had definitely been ridiculously hot last night…he coughed. "Yeah, he was here last night."

"So where is he? And why, or how, are you up so early?" Jess continued.

"Oh, I had a lot of work to get done today, so he went ahead back to school."

Sam knew that Jess wasn't going to like that answer and he scratched the back of his neck in consternation waiting for her to speak.

"You sent him away?!"

"No, he was the one who suggested that he leave," Sam tried.

"You couldn't take one day off?"

"Well I could, but…"

"Sam."

It was the disappointment in Jess's voice that made Sam shut up. "He drove all the way up here only to turn around because you were busy. If you want it to work with Dean, you have to try."

"But he didn't say anything…"

"Just because Dean's not with his dad any more, doesn't mean that everything's honky-dory for him. He's fragile."

Sam laughed humorlessly, Jess's words hitting their mark. "Don't tell him that."

"I'm serious, Sam. He loves you and if you love him, you need to show him."

Sam nodded, showing that he understood what she was saying. They parted with a hug, Jess smiling to soften the blow of her words. Sam kept his head down as he continued walking to meet his lab partner. He had already felt a little guilty this morning, sensing Dean's disappointment.

He didn't mean to neglect his boyfriend, and it wasn't that he didn't want to spend time with Dean…School was just so new and exciting. Sam guessed that he had gotten a little carried away.

He just felt like Dean would always be there for him. It was only now that Sam realized how arrogant that sounded, how manipulative of Dean's loyalty. And Sam should definitely have known that Dean wouldn't necessarily tell him if the other teen were upset. Dean had been quieter lately, subdued somehow.

Yeah, Sam had a lot to make up for this weekend.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

It was a long weekend for Dean which turned into a long week. Dean had taken out some of his frustrations in exercising, going on a long run on some secluded trails he had found in the Appalachian mountains a short drive away. The trails were just the type that his father would have made him run.

Dean had spoken to Sam on the phone twice. Sam seemed fine, not at all bothered by Dean's sudden exit, yabbering on about schoolwork as much as ever. Sam asked about his classes, but Dean didn't have a whole lot to say. He was taking the normal, boring freshman classes: Intro Chem, Writing Seminar, History of the Roman Empire…Nothing to get excited about. Or at least nothing that excited him.

Dean sighed as he made his way back to his dorm after morning practice. He had one afternoon class before the weekend and then all he wanted to do was sleep, and possibly never wake up.

He opened the door to his room, not bothering with the key; he never locked it, but was frozen at the sight that awaited him inside. John was sitting solemnly on his bed, reading his history text.

"Dad?"

Dean's choked voice revealed the suppressed nature of his jumbled feelings towards his long absent father: pain, confusion, hope, fear. He had lived in fear of John for as long as he could remember, but Dean feared more his father's reprimands, his father's disappointment more than John's backhand.

Eventually his happiness to see his father won out and Dean stepped forward into the room. He was happy to see his father, happy that his father was alright and cared enough to come find Dean.

John slowly stood as Dean came near, looking awkward and out of place. Dean's face showed apprehension, emotions running after each other across his son's features, and John had never before felt like he had intruded on his son's life

"How did you get in here?" Dean asked. He was fairly certain Bobby would have told him if John had called asking about Dean's whereabouts.

"Pretty easily actually, since I am your father."

Dean nodded, dropping his eyes to the floor. John had never been much of a father and that fact hung in the air between them.

"So, you finished the rehab program?"

John's pinched, pained face told Dean the answer. The fact that John dropped out of rehab was not surprising, but that John seemed ashamed by the fact was.

"So why did you come here?"

"I came to see you."

Dean didn't have a clue what to say to that. Since he was four years old, he had wanted nothing but this man's, his father's attention. For his father, Dean had made sure that he had been faster, stronger, better than all of the other boys. He had trained when other little boys were still playing with their G.I. Joe's. He had endured beatings and being berated, all for the slim possibility that John would have one nice thing to say, that his father would be proud of him, that Dean could feel loved even for a minute.

John had disappeared while Dean had been in the hospital and now here he was, acting like nothing was wrong and suddenly Dean was angry. He was angry that his father would show up now when everything seemed to be falling apart, as if John were saying 'I told you so'.

"Are you kidding?! What do you care about your useless and pathetic son?!"

John seemed rightfully surprised. Dean had never talked back to him, certainly never shouted at him and John couldn't contain his own temper from rising to the challenge. He had spent too many years taking out his anger and pain on his son to suddenly be able to walk away.

"Don't you talk to me like that! I'm your father. Without me, you wouldn't even have made it into college."

"How do you figure?"

"You think you got in here on your brains? You were an uncoordinated and lazy little boy that I made into an athlete!"

"You almost killed me!"

The backhand across his face shouldn't have surprised Dean but it did. It had been a while since he had been hit. And the blow was hard, just like Dean remembered, pain blossoming across his cheek.

Dean stared at the ground, refusing to look up into John's face and see the anger and disgust he had seen so many times before.

The truth hurt them both. It was the first time that Dean himself had acknowledged what John had done to him.

But nothing compared to the surprise that Dean felt when John drew him into a tight hug, both still breathing hard with emotion.

"I didn't mean to," John whispered. Even as he said the words, the elder man knew that it didn't matter whether he had meant to. He had hit his son, he had beaten Dean repeatedly and half to death.

He had spent a month in rehab coming to terms with that fact, until the guilt drove him back to the bottle. From there it was a cycle of trying to get sober and falling back off the wagon. And then he decided he needed to see his son.

He remembered how happy, how excited he had been when Dean was born, how perfect he had thought the infant was. John couldn't begin to imagine what Mary would think of what he had turned into.

"When your mother died, I couldn't…I couldn't cope. You were so small and you needed me and I couldn't be there for you."

John inhaled a shaky breath, loosening his grip on the teen so that he was no longer crushing Dean.

"Maybe I wanted to push you away. You're so like your mother, you know. And then when you wanted to play sports, I thought, this I could do. I knew sports, I could make you the best…

But by then I was so lost in the bottle, so full of grief and anger. I took it out on you and I used sports as an excuse."

And he had only been in the room with Dean for five minutes and John had already hit the boy again. At this point he didn't know how to deal with his emotions any other way.

Sometimes he was so angry at Mary, as ridiculous as that sounded. He was angry at her for leaving him, leaving this precious little boy. Sometimes he struck out at Dean because he was a part of her and sometimes he was angry at Dean for being a reminder of the perfect life that John once had. But most of the time the boy was just convenient.

John allowed Dean to step back, feeling surprisingly disappointed at the loss of contact.

"It's ok, Dad."

John's smile was more of a grimace. "You used to say the same thing to me when you were a kid, you know, and it wasn't any more true then than it is now."

Dean was silent again and John nodded mostly to himself as he strode past his son towards the door.

"I'm gonna be around for a few days…I'll come back by." John said it as more of a question and Dean answered with a teenager's typical "Yeah, sure."