Family Ties -- Supernatural

- prologue -

He just had to do it. It was simple. He just had to open his mouth and say the words. But something was stuck. It was like his mouth was sealed closed with cement and he could only get so much air in through his nostrils. He could feel the panic clawing its way up his throat, trying to escape, but he wouldn’t let it. He doubled down on his defences, squeezing his fingers around the baseball in his palm. Sammy had given it to him for his last birthday. It was already tattered and had lost its pristine white colour, the red thread was starting to come undone and Dean could feel it coming looser and looser beneath his nails every time he picked at it. He felt the weight of it within his hand before throwing it against the wall opposite him. It bounced against it and came soaring back to him, he caught it and threw it again. 

He just had to do it. It was simple. He couldn’t feel his back anymore from where it had been prodded with the sharp edge of the motel bed frame. It had been digging into him for the last hour as he slowly breathed through his nose and tried to work up the courage to finally speak. The sound of the ball bouncing vibrated in his ear drums over and over again as it hit the wall each time. He could hear the rustle of papers from the other side of the room where his father was sitting in the kitchenette, researching their latest hunt. HIs chest constricted as he thought of the look on his father’s face once he told him. *Oh, God,* he thought, *this is gonna be awful.* He just had to suck it up. He just had to do it.

He just had to do it. It was simp–

“Dean! Would you quit it?!” His dad yelled, banging his book against the table. Dean caught the ball and placed it on the floor. He looked up at the clock that had been incessantly ticking from above his bed. 12 o’clock. Sammy wouldn’t be home for hours yet. This was his chance, maybe his only one. Suddenly, his lips became unsealed and a rush of air came into his lungs. He swallowed, taking in another gulp of air and rose from his place on the floor. 

“Dad, I- uh- I need to talk to you.” Dean said, scratching the back of his neck nervously. John didn’t even glance up from his book as he let out a chuckle.

“What? Did you get a girl pregnant, or something?” After a couple of seconds with no response from Dean, John finally looked up into his son's face. There were bags under his eyes that came along with the hunting life, but they were more prominent than they had been a couple of weeks ago. His jaw was tense and he didn’t look up from the floor once to look his father in the eye as he rubbed the back of his neck so aggressively that he was probably going to bruise. Dean could see his dad’s face fall from the corner of his eye and he could barely stop himself from wincing. “Shit, Dean!” John bolted up from his chair and began to pace up and down the length of the motel room. He didn’t speak for a while and Dean waited patiently for his dad to register it. He waited for the screaming, the yelling, the anger but it never came. That only scared Dean more, because it meant that, for the first time in his life, he had truly let his father down. Eventually, John stopped pacing and he stopped in front of Dean’s bed, where the latter had slumped down minutes before. “What’s her name?”

“Christine.” Dean answered, still not looking John in the eye.

“How old is this ‘Christine’?” He said, in a mocking tone, as if Dean was making this all up. In a way, Dean wished he was, he wished this was all some grand mistake and that none of it was happening so that he didn’t have to see the look on his dad’s face. On the other hand, he was filled with rage at the idea of him making something this big and important up, as if he hadn’t been working himself up for days to finally blurt it out.