Dean had spent the better part of the last hour driving around the small town they had moved to a few months previously. He had been lying when he told his father that he had better things to do than baby-sit his brother. The fact was that he had nothing else to do.
He had no friends to hang out with. He never made any friends when they moved to a new town; he didn't see the point. They were just going to leave in a few months anyway. He didn't think it was worthwhile to bother to get to know people when he was just going to leave and never come back again.
Not like Sam. Every new town they lived in, even for a few months, Sam would find some kid to be his friend. It was like he was constantly striving to be normal. Like their family could ever be normal.
'Yep. We can be a normal family. Mom burned to death pinned to a ceiling and our father hunts evil things for a living - Things most people believe exist only in horror movies. Not a problem. We'll just put down roots and advertise in the phone book that we'll solve all your demon problems. Yeah – we can do normal. No problem.'
The closest Dean ever got to normal was going to school. Not that he really cared about school; he just went because his Dad said it would make his Mom happy if he finished high school. So he did it for Mom. But he went and that was all. He worked just hard enough to get by. And he never joined in. He showed up at school just in time to make it to class and he left as soon as the bell rang.
Of course he wasn't so clued out that he avoided all contact with other people. Girls were good. He could always find time to talk to girls and, sometimes, he even took a girl out on a date. While they had been living in this two-horse town, he had gone out with 4 girls. First he had taken Nancy Torchak out – twice. Okay, maybe he shouldn't count her because the only reason he had asked her out was because she was going steady with Robin Leavey, the high school's star quarterback. She wasn't even really his type. He thought she was a little spacey but he never minded showing some jock that he could steal his girl if he really wanted. So he asked her out and she said yes and then he had asked her out once more – just for fun and to piss off Robin.
But as pissed off as Robin had been that Dean had taken his girlfriend out, nothing had ever come of it. That was due to the fact that Robin was in Dean's phys.ed. class and before Dean has asked Nancy out, the class had been practicing wrestling. Dean and Robin had been paired together the very first day and Dean let Robin know that he could pin him without blinking an eye. So there had never been any problem with Robin.
No, the problem could have been Nancy. Dean thought maybe she was getting a little to cozy, so after their second date, he had asked her best friend out. That stopped her. She had gone crying all the way back to Robin. Which was fine with Dean because he hadn't been looking for a steady girlfriend anyway. He'd just been looking for a little female companionship away from his family.
But now he was trying to stay away from his family and he didn't have anywhere to go. He couldn't keep driving around all night. The Impala was such a pig on gas – he'd used almost ¼ of a tank in the past hour. He'd driven past the high school three times and even went to the library wondering whether Darlene might be there. He hadn't bothered to go in because he knew that she would just ask him about the scene at Sammy's school and that was the last thing Dean wanted to think about.
The ringing of his cell phone brought Dean out of his reverie and without thinking he picked it up and answered "Yeah?"
"Hey, Dean. It's me," came Sam's voice on the other end of the phone. "Dad said to call you to pick me up."
"Pick you up? I thought you wanted me to leave you alone?"
"Come on, Dean. You know Dad doesn't like me to walk home by myself. Jake's family is having supper shortly and I have homework to do. Just come and get me, will ya?"
"Oh…so now you want your jerk of a big brother to come and get you? I'm not so bad when you need something but the rest of the time I should just get lost, eh?" Dean couldn't help the sarcasm from spilling from his voice.
"Whatever. I'll be waiting outside – or should I call Dad and tell him you won't pick me up?" taunted Sam into the phone.
"Bastard," replied Dean before he hung up and swung the car around to head to Jake's.