where do you think you're going (dean winchester)

1996 (part 1)

fandom: supernatural

tw: self harm, child abuse, mild language 

set: 1996

category: gen

summary: when john discovers that dean has been cutting himself, his reaction is everything dean was afraid of. 

word count: 2,902

    It had been just another day, just another hunt. But Dean had been forced to drive the Impala a little hard in the process, and when they’d walked out of their current dingy, extended-stay hotel the next morning, they’d been greeted by a puddle under the beloved car.

    Apparently, in the action of the day before, something had hit somewhere on the transmission hard enough to cause a leak. It had the potential to be as simple as a punctured pan or as complex as a cracked torque pump, but whatever it was, it was Dean’s fault and John was not happy.

    He’d sent Sam to school but kept the older son home to ‘fix what he’d broke’. That was fine with Dean… he’d rather spend his day under a car anyway. John had gone to one of the nearby bars and he’d taken the opportunity to swipe a beer from the stash in the hotel room to keep him company while he worked.

    It didn’t take him long to discover a small pile of problems on the underside of the Impala. He wasn’t sure what he’d run over the day before, but whatever it was had been enough to puncture the transmission pan and crack a fluid line. In addition, either their frequent run-ins with fire had finally been too much (if that was the case, Dean could relate to the poor car), or the last time John installed a new gasket he’d failed to align it properly, because it too was sporting a small crack.

    Those weren’t complicated replacements, and they weren’t overly expensive parts either. However, that didn’t mean they had the money on hand. Besides, John was angry enough about the leak without him asking for money to repair it.

    So, since they were in no short supply in this part of town, Dean went to a different bar than the one his father had yet to return from, hustled some poker and then a game of pool, and walked out with more than enough for the parts he needed. 

    He’d spent what he had to, stashed the rest for the next time they needed it, and was back under the car, about to get to work on the replacements, when his father made a reappearance. 

    Luckily, Dean had already gotten rid of his empty beer bottle. He never knew how his father was going to react to him drinking. Sometimes, it was John who gave the alcohol to him, either in celebration when a hunt went well, or as a pain killer when one didn’t. However, other times, he completely lost it at the sight of a bottle in his older son’s hand. Started yelling about how he wasn’t going to be the father of a drunk.

    John seemed to be in good spirits when he came swaggering up the walk and over to where Dean’s long legs were sticking out from underneath the car. 

    “Ya know,” he commented as he dropped to kneel next to his son, “Maybe it isn’t so bad you’re such a terrible driver. It’s been too long since I took a day off.”

    Dean didn’t reply directly, keeping his focus on removing the old parts as he said, “Apparently I punctured the pan and cracked a fluid line yesterday. Dunno how long the gasket’s been bad, though.”

    “I replaced the gasket just a few months ago.”

    Dean wondered how drunk he’d been when he did it, to misalign it as it was now clear he had.