Sorry for the delay! I recently got a new job, full-time, and haven't had much free time. This chapter took a lot of work to get it into posting shape; many thanks to my beta for all her comments and support.

These Crimes of Illusion

Chapter 1.4

Having friends in law enforcement can be a double-edged sword. Most of the time John Winchester keeps his distance from anyone connected to the law, opting to play his cards close to his chest, nervous to reveal himself to those who could end his search. Then there are times he digs their phone numbers out of the pockets of his jacket of the back of his journal, un-crinkles the paper, and gives them a call.

He's already on the road, breaking the speed limit and blowing lights, before he finishes dialing the number scrawled on the back of an old Wal-Mart receipt. Without any information, John trusts his intuition to guide him in the right direction; he turns north and runs the engine hot enough to feel the gears shift in the automatic transmission.

Three rings, then a groggy, overworked voice answers. "Detective Lewis."

"Ben, it's John." Impatient, John blows through a stop sign and ignores the honks of protest from other drivers. "I need a trace, ASAP."

"Yeah, yeah, give me a second," Ben Lewis replies in that lazy Southern accent of his, words rolling around his mouth like molasses. "Okay. Number?"

"Last call made to this cell."

John can hear typing on the other end. "You okay? You sound a bit stressed."

"It's an emergency. Dean's stranded, needs a pick-up." Stranded and hurt and talking about fae and missing time. He pictures all sorts of things while he drives, waiting for the computer to spit out a number and location. Gruesome, horrible images that are only modified versions of those he's dreamed up for years, ever since that first hunt when he placed a gun in his son's small hand.

"Oh, man. Yeah. It's coming up now." A pause while Ben reads the screen. "354 Benton Ave. Looks like a gas station."

"Thanks, Ben."

"Hope everything works out."

John hangs up without a good-bye -- he said good-bye to too many good men while in the Marines, when bombs exploded overhead and bullets flew from out of the jungle. Good-bye was so final, an ending to a film without a sequel, and he hasn't been able to bring himself to say it since returning to his home soil.

He tries to remember if he said anything when Dean declared a need for air earlier that evening and went for a walk.

The gas station's brightly lit on the left side of Benton Avenue, a main road cutting through the state marking the eastern border of the city they've called home for the last week or so. Time weaves in and out of existence for John, though there's no magical influence in his case.

The world slows as he pulls into the parking lot, and it takes a moment for him to roll over to the phone booth. He can't see much, just the blue and white stripes decorating the booth to advertise the phone company. As he nears, John makes out a shoulder, an arm, and he hopes the red comes from nearby brake lights and not Dean.

John quickens his pace to a jog and pushes open the plastic door. "Hell, Dean!"

It hits Dean's bare feet; he mumbles and shifts, eyes blinking quickly. The sound of someone entering causes Dean to scuttle backwards, feet kicking out blindly in a feeble attempt to protect himself. "Dean," John repeats, crouching on the ground next to his son, reaching out to touch his face. It's hot to the touch under his trembling hand, alarmingly so.

"Dad?" Dean mumbles. Frightened, unfocused eyes stare back at John, ice blue and brighter than he believes genetics can produce; Dean's words come back to him -- she fucking blinded me.

"Yeah, Ace, it's me."

Dean just sighs. Takes a moment to finally relax, tears forming in the edges of those foreign eyes streaking down dirt and blood covered cheeks, twin rivers cleaning his skin to show just how pale he is underneath.

"Took you long enough," he comments.

"Sorry about that," John replies. He's gathering Dean into his arms, flinching each time his fingers brush across another gash or cut or bruise. He notes the deepness of each, how some are shallow and superficial while others are deep and infected, all horrible because they're on his son. Dean's skin is rough and hot and doesn't resemble that soft, pure, innocent skin he had when first born.

Smooth has given away to rough and scarred; broken. John's careful with Dean's right arm, his head, pulling him together and feeling he's small again, small and perfect and his first, still fitting in his arms like first time.

Dean coughs. "It must be bad," he says.

"Why do you say that?"

"You're hugging me, dude." Dean's left hand comes up to touch John's forehead. "Sure you don't have a fever?"

John laughs. Laughs until he's crying a bit. The radio in the Impala plays; he doesn't remember turning it on, but the song has a slow pace with a few guitar riffs. It reminds him they can't spend forever sitting here.

He hasn't carried his son in over twenty years. It all comes back to him as he walks towards the car.

Sweat drips down John's neck and back, his shirt sticking to him as he pushes through the motel room's red door. He's gone up against monsters and apparitions twice as strong as him, if not stronger, yet finds carrying his unconscious eldest son taps all of his endurance and then some. Dean slumbers blissfully after enduring two minutes in the Impala's passenger seat, finally succumbing to exhaustion and injury as John sped towards the motel. John maneuvers through the doorway, twisting sideways to avoid knocking Dean's feet into the doorframe, and slams the door closed with a booted foot.

God, was it possible for someone to be so pale?

He's seen Dean injured before; their line of work made it almost impossible to avoid scratches and close calls. But that was different, those were instances John could control, injuries he could treat and wave off. His sons were resilient, able to bounce back quickly, and damnit if he hadn't come to rely on that.

This, however, this was different.

John winces for his son as he gently puts Dean on the closest bed atop rumpled covers. Dean's head lolls to the right, short puffs of breath playing with the sheet, the only motion evident throughout his battered frame. John flicks on the light but doesn't look, not yet. He remembers the phone call clearly; every word etched into his mind like a memorized monologue performed hundreds of times.

That fae bitch.

John Winchester was a studious man, his collection of texts rivaling most libraries'. But his main asset is his practical knowledge, born from years of tracking and hunting creatures not of this world. Fae were creatures he preferred not to encounter -- their trickery wholly unpredictable -- but that was not to say he hadn't met one or two.

Seelie fae, that is. Those who live in the light, celebrating life, unlike the Unseelie hiding in the shadows, waiting to pounce on whatever poor mortal happens by.

The temptation to look over Dean is too great, and while digging through his pack for a piece of cold iron, he glances over at the bed. Dean's never been a patient person, and adulthood hasn't helped him in that regard; he rarely stays still unless on the hunt or seriously contemplating. Seeing him so still twists at John until he realizes why; after so many days and months and years on the road, Dean tosses and turns in his sleep, disturbed even when he's supposed to forget the world.

Holding a dagger of iron in his hands, John pauses at the end of the bed to watch Dean sleep -- he can't think unconscious, because the repercussions of that are too great -- just stands there until the stains on the sheets jump-start his body. He shoves the knife into the doorjamb, makes sure it's secure, and grabs the first-aid kit from where he placed it next to his pack.

Smelling salts jump into his hand, and John feels -- knows -- he needs to turn off that part of himself that screams father and find an emotional vacuum to work in. Tears sit in his eyes; why hadn't he known? What had it been like to sit there for days, hoping someone was coming, but never knowing for sure?

Rationally, he knows blaming himself isn't logical. He does so anyway.

So the father mask stays on, if not crooked a bit. He places the kit on the nightstand beside the bed, takes a deep breath, and snaps the salts under Dean's nose.

The reaction's immediate. Dean's head swivels straight, eyes flying open, mouth wide open with silent words or screams, John can't -- and doesn't want to -- figure which. John allows his baby a moment to adjust. God, are those his eyes? Then gets to work, hands steady as he reaches to the side and grabs antibacterial wipes.

"I'm sorry, son," he says, starting with the wounds he can see. "But you've got a concussion and I can't have you falling asleep for too long."

Dean's mouth flaps open and closed a few times before he can answer. "Yeah. Good idea."

Agreeing with his father presses harder on John's heart; after all this, Dean manages to keep his head and practically agree to torment through healing.

"You got some water or something?" Dean asks. There's a water bottle on the floor next to John's bed -- wandering through the jungles of Vietnam, some days with nothing to drink but swamp water treated with chlorine tablets -- has taught him the liquid's a commodity not to be wasted.

Plus, he finds his mouth is dry when woken up by nightmares.

John leans over and grabs it. "Think you can sit up for a moment?"

"Hell," Dean says, "for clean water, I'll do a flip."

"Oh?"

Dean's scooting up on the bed under his own power, but falters after a few seconds. Pauses, and tries again. John considers reaching out to help him, but doesn't know how to anymore. Instead, he watches Dean's eyes, or what's replaced the hazel he's used to seeing there, and how they move around whenever something makes a sound -- outside, inside, next to him. His ears are his eyes.

"Yeah," comes Dean's response, a softer whisper, almost inaudible. He pants a bit, coughs once, and wipes his good hand across his forehead. John pulls some ibuprofen from the pack and places them firmly in Dean's hand.

They won't do much, but they're all he has to offer.

"Take these. You're burning up."

"I noticed."

He taught his sons to be alert and analytical, and while Sam visibly excelled in that area, taking to books and surroundings like a fly to paper, Dean's skills from noticing details and acting on them through some sort of personal prioritizing.

"What else?" asks John. Dean gulps down the water a bit too quickly, and John takes the bottle back from him. "Not too much. Give your stomach some time to catch up. Did they feed you?"

A slow, controlled breath escapes Dean's lips, his thirst outweighing his stomach's discomfort. John uses the pause to clean more of the wounds on Dean's chest, wincing in time with Dean when the cloth runs over the deeper ones. They need antibiotics, and a glance in the kit reveals two pathetic pills rolling around in an old prescription bottle.

Dean's chest heaves under John's care. "Yeah. Said it was from up here."

"You wouldn't have been able to leave if it weren't." Stay to procedure, find out all the information you can. Don't think about the scars these marks are going to leave and the small, curved suture needle you'll have to pull out because several are too deep. "Tell me what happened."

He cleans a few more cuts, all those he can see on Dean's chest and legs and arms and God, what the hell had happened to his son? John's threading the needle before he realizes Dean hasn't answered him, and looks up. Ice blue eyes roll around, struggling to focus with eyelids dropping. Dean snaps them back up, they fall; he struggles to stay awake.

"Dean," John says more sternly, using the voice reserved for hunts and punishments. "Tell me what happened."

When Dean doesn't make a move in response to the needle entering his skin, John's worry increases. Even dazed, the body has reflexive responses to pain, to a pin-prick or a stubbed toe. But Dean, he doesn't move, doesn't even make any indication, verbal or otherwise, that he's felt a thing.

In and out with even, rhythmic motions usually used to patch up bullet wounds or machete cuts.

"I was," -- Dean pauses before he can get started to clear his throat, and John allows him a little more water -- "was taking a walk, saw a woman -- "

"I see."

"Hey," Dean replies, taking the break his father's offered. "She walked by me."

"Walked by?" John asks. "You didn't engage her in a bar, or say anything?"

"No. I saw her."

"Elaborate."

Dean hesitates. "Next thing I knew, I was in a cave and the bitch was dancing with me."

John finishes with the deepest cut, and moves onto the next. It's not like Dean to hold something back, and he knows his son's doing just that -- hesitating, leaving out the detail that got him into this mess.

Part of him hurts with the implication he can't be trusted.

"How long?"

"Four, maybe five days," comes the reply. John's heart falls -- five days hoping for a rescue that would never come. If there ever was a way to fail his son, this is it.

That explains the hollow cheeks and eyes, the dark circles; all signs of extended lack of sleep, malnutrition and, from the way Dean drinks the water, dehydration.

Extended bruising stretches across his chest, wrapping around his sides; deep purple in some places. John suspects bruised or cracked ribs; labored breathing supports that theory, but there's nothing to be done for ribs in any condition. The bruises fade into bright red blotching on his stomach, the marks of some sort of burn. John notes chaffed wrists. The broken arm. Scratches across the left side of his face, lines of red against deep blue and purple.

And that's just what he can see.

Damnit, why did he pull back to see the full picture? Focus on the details, go from one to the next. He's broken his own rule.

His next question would have been for Dean to outline what exactly was done to him, but John doesn't have the heart to ask anymore; he can see, in startling blue, purple, and red exactly what happened, and even if he doesn't know the details, his imagination's more than willing to fill them in.

"God, Dean, I'm sorry," he whispers, the apology escaping without his permission, echoing in silence.

Dean's eyes somehow find John's face. "Don't worry about it." The needle dips a bit too deep as Dean coughs. Deep, wet coughs. John corrects the direction and finishes.

"I should have known. There have been reports of fae in this area; I never thought we'd encounter one."

"Yeah, well," -- Dean pauses, takes a deep, rattling breath, and appears nervous -- "you didn't know I'm a freak."

John stops mid-motion, brown eyes widening against stagnant tears. Their lives pulled them from the mainstream -- their distance from normality could be measured by the location of Sam, his youngest acting as some sort of barometer -- cast them in unfavorable light, but they were human. The monsters, those true outcasts of society, were the freaks, the abnormalities.

Not them. Never them.

It takes great difficulty to keep his face a straight mask, so he returns to the task at hand, moving faster. Blood and puss well up when he pinches the bright red skin together, mixing together to form a new shade of pink, and damn if he wants that to continue.

"What are you talking about?" he asks.

"You think she just picked me up on random?" Dean retorts. His voice is growing stronger, and John can feel his body vibrating with shivers under his touch. "C'mon, dad. You know it doesn't happen like that."

His own words come back to him. There are no coincidences.

His fingers brush against Dean's side as he moves through a stitch. "The fever's not going down," John states.

"No."

"God damnit, Dean. What the hell did they want?"

"She," Dean says quietly. "I could see her."

John just lets out a frustrated breath and ties off the string. "Turn over," he orders. "The sooner we finish, the sooner you can get some rest."

He helps Dean onto his stomach, one of those resting tears in his eyes threatening to leak down his face when Dean yelps and whimpers through the movement, small mewling cries coming between strained huffs of breath. One look at Dean's back, and John attributes Dean's steel reserve as the reason he hasn't been crying bloody murder the entire time John's been questioning him.

Once smooth skin is now a crisscross of cuts and tears, dried blood mixing in with deep purple, blending so well John can't tell where one ends and the other begins. Every ending is something else's beginning. Dean's back is one huge bruise, the kind that leak blood into that thin layer of skin just under the top-most layer for several days instead of fading after the first 48 hours. He's afraid to even touch it, let alone clean it and sew up the nasty gashes running horizontally across it.

He needs the conversation as distraction just as much as Dean at this point. "Explain."

"Damnit, Dad, I could see through her Glamour," Dean yells, voice rising the moment John prods a swollen and infected cut. "Jesus fucking Christ, that hurts."

"Your back's pretty marked up, Ace."

"Happens when," -- another prod, and Dean's breath catches in his throat -- "when they slam you against the wall. A lot."

"She was stronger than you?"

"Yeah. All I had was some fucking nuts and rotten water."

That explains the fever, and the pliability of his skin. It's grey where there aren't bruises, stretching when it should snap back into place.

"When you say you could see through her Glamour -- "

"I mean I could see through it. How is that difficult? She looked pretty at first, but hell, she was a dog underneath."

"And now?"

"Nothing. Once I got out, I couldn't see a thing."

John nods, taking on the attitude of a disconnected surgeon. "Blind to anything but Glamour."

"How's that for punishment?"

"You probably frightened them. Humans aren't supposed to be able to see it unless they've been given the ability as a gift."

"So that's why they went and did all this." Dean scoffs. "Wanting me dead and all."

"If they want you dead, they won't just give up."

"I killed her fucking executioner."

John lets out the breath he didn't know he was holding. Hearing this gives comfort, just a bit, but enough to drain some of the tension he's holding in his shoulders. Pride swells within him; even captured and hurt, Dean managed wonderfully on his own against an unknown foe.

"Hell," Dean says. "I feel like squished grape."

Red skin is okay, if splotchy and caused by the sun. But purple and blue were never meant to be colors readily worn on the human body, no matter the circumstances. John takes his son's comments as a good sign; he's awake and lucid and while he still flinches less than John would like, he takes what he can get at this point.

"You hate grapes."

"So? Doesn't mean I can't feel like one." There's a pause. "And I don't hate them. Sam does."

Moments like these remind John he's missed so much of his sons' childhood. He doesn't know what his children like or dislike, are allergic to, find delicious, or, hell -- eat on a regular basis. Dean eats whatever John puts in front of him with little complaint -- he left that to his picky younger brother, handing him the food he'd tolerate from his own plate to keep an argument over 'you eat what you're given' from starting.

And while most children grew out of this phase after a few years, Sam remained stuck in it until his metabolism and height caught up to him.

"She was clever, I'll give her that," Dean sighs, breaking into John's thoughts of his absent son. "It was like she knew what I was thinking before I did."

"She probably did, Dean," John reminds him. "Some fae have psychic abilities."

"Yeah, I figured that when she read my mind like an open fucking book. Man, that sucks."

"It's a bit invasive, isn't it?"

Dean laughs, his frame shuttering more than it's been for the last ten minutes. "Remind me to get a tin hat next time I go out."

"Aluminum would probably work better."

"Yeah, well, I'd look like a dork."

Dean's quips keep John from looking too closely at the wounds he's cleaning and mending, from seeing the big picture again because if he does, he might not be able to hold everything back. The pair takes solace in their light conversation as John finishes up and bandages up his handiwork. Dean says he feels like a marshmallow, now, all puffy and unable to move much, and reassures his father both him and Sam enjoy marshmallows.

The fever has yet to break, but the bandages are new and wouldn't react well to water, so John tucks Dean under two layers of thick comforters, remembering the way his mother would use warmth to break a fever. Dean doesn't complain a bit, just lets his father tuck him in and kiss him on the forehead. He's asleep before John straightens out, and doesn't hear his father lock the bathroom door behind him.

John runs the shower, but opts to wash his hands in the sink instead. Pink and red swirl down the drain, stark against the white porcelain and silver fixture in the middle, though some gets caught in the rim near the drain and John scrubs at it with his fingertips.

When did this turn from something they could handle to something else? Or had it always been this way, his eyes so clouded by revenge he couldn't see the pain he was causing his family?

Or does this failure feel so painful because he's been consumed by something else entirely? Something else that took his attention from Dean long enough for his boy to get taken by a fae and tortured?

Could he be trusted to watch Dean's back? Or would his obsession be the end of both of them?

John binds Dean's right arm while he sleeps. He figures anything else he needs to check can be done while his son slumbers, though not peacefully as John would have liked. He sits on the empty area of the bed, reading through computer print-offs and old newspapers, large and daunting because Dean looks so small lying on the left-hand side, blankets pilled upon him and pulled up to his chin.

They've become his life, as of late, instead of the hunt and his family, what's left of it. Sam's departure cut almost as deep as Mary's death, leaving a light pink scar beside the open sore that is Mary's absence from his life. Curling paper from days long gone, yellowed newsprint and black type that blurs in front of him from hours of reading. John lives in the past, not the present, and defiantly not the future.

He's reading through the report of an apartment fire in El Paso, Texas that claimed four lives, one a six month old girl, when Dean whimpers in his sleep. He tries to turn onto his side, winces in his sleep, and wakes, lazily opening an eye, then the other.

"Dad?" he calls out. John doesn't look up from his papers until he remembers those blind eyes. He puts the newspaper down on top of one of the neat stacks near the unused pillow next to him.

John puts a hand on Dean's arm. "Yeah, I'm here. How are you feeling?"

"Thirsty."

There's no joke there, no quip to distract himself or anyone else from how he's truly feeling.

He gives Dean some more water, allowing him to gulp down more than before, watching his adam's apple bobble up and down. It's the only part not marred in some way, the skin clean and peach like the crayon Dean used to color in the members of his broken family. The picture of Dean when he left hours ago doesn't match up with John's memory; dark stubble has filled in Dean's jaw and neck, something he only allows to happen when the time to shave can't be spared.

Dean is greedy, and water sputters from his mouth when his stomach can't take anymore. It leaks down the sides of his face but that doesn't stop him from drinking more.

"Take it easy," John coaxes, lifting the bottle from Dean's lips. Water dribbles out a bit from the downward angle he pulls it up from, splashing over Dean's nose. Instead of commenting on his father's clumsiness, Dean simply smiles and closes his eyes as the water runs with the rest in large drips to the white sheets under him.

"Sorry," Dean apologizes, blinking his eyes open again. The simple motion of open or closed is the only thing that separates asleep from awake, and he's afraid he'll wake up and find this all was a dream, that his father isn't speaking softly and tending to him in a way Dean hasn't felt since he was six years old. Except now his voice is deep and gruff, scratchy like an old record spinning and skipping under the needle of a turntable.

John twists the cap on the water bottle -- Dean can hear the click of plastic against plastic, the swivel as the cap feeds through the grooves. His hearing's improved since that night outside the bar, categorizing the sounds he knows from those he's heard for years yet never paid any attention. Outside, nocturnal birds chirp or move through the trees; he can't tell the difference between the breeze and perhaps a storm brewing, and wonders if, in time, he will.

Maybe he'll turn into the Daredevil from those comics he read as a child, discarded volumes left in motel waiting rooms and roadside diners. A blind man who moved just as well as one who could see, using sound as sonar bouncing off the world around him.

Or maybe not. Perhaps he'll just become another one of those men you see walking down the street, pole extended in front of them, swiveling back and forth in the same motion you use to keep a mixed drink from separating and going sour. Unseen as they walk by, the world wanting nothing to do with the damaged members upon its surface.

"Do you think you could handle more than water?" his father is asking. Dean pulls himself from his thoughts -- there are no visual cues, nothing to tell him there's more than what's in his head -- and turns in the direction of his father's voice.

His neck pops, air released from sore joints by movement. The left side of his face doesn't feel swollen like the right; he works out the kinks in his jaw before settling again.

"Maybe."

"I'm not cleaning anything up, Dean. You'd better be sure."

How can you be sure when your stomach's aching for food, yet hurts from the bit of water settling inside? Dean tightens his expression and nods sharply. "Sure."

"Will you be okay by yourself?"

"What?"

His father doesn't repeat the question, never repeats the question. Dean's reaction isn't one of mis-hearing his father's question -- he can't believe his father, of all people, just asked that; somewhere deep inside, Dean feels something break Estrella would never have been able to reach.

Dean takes a deep breath. He feels his father shift on the bed next to him, the mattress re-expanding as John stands. His feet shuffle on the floor, rubbing against thin, industrial carpet.

John starts to explain. "I'm going to -- "

"Dude, I'm fine," Dean manages. God, does his father think he'll break or something? Has he really done it, gone to that point where he's useless and babied? "Seriously." And then he does something stupid, something that his brother would have teased him relentlessly over for the next couple of days had he been there.

He tries to get up.

Under him, the sheets are soaked; the fever has yet to break, and after pushing himself up from the pillow, he feels that familiar rush that loops around his brain and makes it feel like his head's a balloon floating up to the ceiling. He can't see his father's reaction, or the bed under him, so he works off what he can feel. Pushes up with his left hand, scoots back.

"What the hell are you doing?"

John's voice booms in his ear; the rush of blood to Dean's head blocked out his hearing for a moment. There's a hand settling on his shoulder, pushing him down, but damnit if he's going to let it.

"I'm getting up."

"Dean, you need to rest -- "

"And you need to stop treating me like a fucking invalid."

But the heat he intended to have behind those words are lost in a fit of coughing, more hacks that bring up the blood he's been ignoring, those splotches he knows are bright red herrings. Copper fills his nostrils -- that's the only way he knows it isn't just saliva coming up with each shutter of his diaphragm.

"Fine," he father says, hand retreating from Dean's shoulder. "Get up."

Feet brush back on the carpet, breath he didn't realize he could hear growing fainter. His dad's giving him an opening, giving him space to get off the bed and stand on his own feet. If he could escape and slay a fae -- and that was before stitches and bandages and small white pills, he can stand up. He's recovered from worse, bounces back quickly from cuts, bruises, and broken bones without recovery time. Without a hovering parent full of soft tones and gentle hands.

And worry.

That's the worst, Dean reflects as he scoots farther up on the bed, back painfully sliding up the headboard. Worry only distracts, subtracts attention from the task at hand, a shifting focus can cause mistakes.

He's worked all his life to absolve his dad of concern over his sons, taking care of his little brother so his dad wouldn't have to; hiding his own injuries and misery so no one would fret over him when they should be doing something else. To Dean, finding his mother's killer and keeping the remains of his family together and stable came before himself; he's more an ideal than a solid construct, preserving that around him instead of what lay inside.

Pain licks his sides and sets his back aflame, cracked or broken ribs crying out for him to stop this charade. Mind over matter, Dean reminds himself, and slowly swings one leg over the side of the bed, then the other. Breath that came so easily after hours of sleep now comes in short gasps, lungs finding it difficult to expand when his ribs are so sore. He takes a break, letting his head thunk against the headboard, shoulder resting just beneath it.

"I hope this is amusing you," Dean grunts in-between breaths. He can't see his dad, so his voice will have to be his sonar. His comment bounces off John and comes back as a scoff.

"If by you acting like a dumbshit, then yes, this is."

He can almost picture John standing across from him, arms crossed, expression empty as he leans a bit more on one leg than the other. A calculating teacher, Dean and Sam had theorized their father had long ago created some sort of grading rubric like those used by English teachers, and stood by, giving them scores out of five for each item on the list.

Dean rests for another moment, then uses his shoulder to push off the headboard and sways -- back and forth, a drunken sailor or capsizing boat. Steadies himself with a hand to his head, then drops it to the bed and in one heave, launches himself to his feet.

For a second, he's steady. Stands straight up and smirks, even though his left hand is still on the bed for balance. He hopes his dad's looking at him with awe, or at least approval, because his head's about to split and he's finding it harder and harder to breathe.

And harder. Dean tries to suck in some air, but finds it doesn't do him any good. Each inhale sends sparks of pain throughout his body, and avoiding pain is taking precedent over breathing. He tries shallower gasps, each expansion of his lungs pressing against his ribs and aching back; he can't get his lungs full enough, and starts gasping.

"Proud of yourself?" John asks. Dean can't answer, and imagines he looks like a fish, mouth gaping open, cheeks sucking in with each breath.

It reminds him of choking on nothing back in the hands of Estrella, that feeling of something smothering him. The lack of control then caused panic, now, Dean just feels frustrated, angry. This was supposed to show his father he could handle it, could laugh through the pain and misery playing as a black and white movie inside his head without ill-effect.

Now, he simply feels like a failure.

There must be something in his stature that changes, because his dad's hands are resting around his chest, gently coaxing him to sit back down and stop being a fucking idiot. Breath still isn't coming, and if Dean could see, he's pretty sure the world would be blending together by now, because he's swimming without water.

Under the water, feet churning up waves, trying to reach the other side.

But he never gets there. Just keeps swimming, kicking his feet, trying so hard to keep himself from taking a deep breath; he can't reach the surface, can't reach his father's waiting arms, just can't.