Chapter 7

Dean spends the week in a daze. He fucks up at work, barely speaks a word to Sam when he's home.

He allows himself Friday, just one night, to go out and get blind drunk.

He avoids the place he thinks of as 'Ethan's bar', walks out to the biker place at the edge of town, drinks until there's no cash left in his pocket, and starts a bar fight.

He limps home, bruised and bleeding, collapses on the couch as soon as he gets in the door.

Sam shakes him awake in the morning.

"What the hell happened to you?" Sam says. "You look like hell, Dean."

"Ugh." Dean sits up, and his head spins, and there's something crusted at the corner of his lips, and it hurts when he touches it. Dried blood flakes away on his fingertips. "Bar fight," he slurs. "Painkillers?"

Sam hands him a couple pills from their dwindling supply of the good stuff, and a glass of water. "How'd you get in a bar fight? I assumed you were with—"

Dean cuts him off, doesn't even want to hear the name, because it all rises up in his chest, pain, heartbreak, and he can't breathe. "Bar fight, Sammy. Leave it the fuck alone." He takes the pills, drinks the whole glass, then pushes Sam out of the way as he rises to his feet and heads for his own bedroom. He's gonna sleep, because otherwise he'll think too much.

It's either that or keep drinking.

---

He sleeps most of the day, and when he doesn't sleep, he lies awake, sun glowing through the closed curtains, tries to block his thoughts, but he can't.

Stops trying, because he deserves this. How many times has he told a girl he'd call after a weekend of pretty words, how many times has he talked his way past a girl's defenses to get into her panties, and then skipped town?

He can't even blame Ethan for it, because Dean's got what was coming to him.

---

Dean scours the morning paper while he bolts hot coffee. Finds a marker pen in the cup above the sink, draws a circle around the weirdest thing he can find, then tears out the page, folds it carefully and tucks it into the pocket of his overalls.

"Hey Dean."

Dean looks up. Throws back the dregs of his coffee, burns his throat. "I'm done. What've you got?"

"Weird guy," Jimmy says. "Asks if I had a kid called Dean working for me, then when I told him yeah, says he wants a full service, and wants you to do it."

"Me?" He's barely touched a car since he started working for Jimmy, spends most of his time sweeping floors and checking inventory. Jimmy's a nice guy, but business is slow. It doesn't give Dean much of a chance to prove that he knows what he's doing.

Jimmy shrugs. "Told him you had no training, didn't seem to care." He grins. "Swears he won't sue if you fuck up his car."

Dean gets up, rinses his coffee cup, and sets it on the counter to drain. "What's his name?"

Jimmy shrugs again. "Left cash."

"Tall dude? Dark hair, blue eyes?"

"I don't know what color his goddamn eyes are, Dean."

Dean turns around. "I don't want it. The guy's an asshole. I don't know what the hell he's up to, but I don't need any fucking favors from him."

Jimmy narrows his eyes. "Don't shoot yourself in the foot, kid. Don't wanna do it for him? Do it for me. Show me what you got."

Dean grinds his teeth and fingers the folded sheet of newspaper in his pocket. There's a part of him that wants to walk out now, lose himself in a fight. But Sammy's counting on him, trusting him to be there, to provide. He needs a release, something to take his anger out on, but not at Sam's expense. "Fine," he says. "But I don't want anything to do with him, okay? When I'm done, you call him after I'm gone, get him to pick up when I'm not around."

"Deal." Jimmy turns away.

When he's alone again, Dean pulls the paper out of his pocket, looks it over. It's a werewolf, he's sure of it. He's never hunted one on his own, Dad was always there with him, but he can do it. He's got to. He's going to kill it, and he's going to remember what he's good at.

---

It's a fucking Toyota. He should feel smug, go figure an asshole should have a crap car, but instead, Dean just feels insulted. They never talked about cars, but the cocksucker—Dean almost chokes on that thought—must have heard the Impala pull up outside, both times Dean went there.

Insulted, and kind of pissed off, because Toyota or not, it's practically brand new, almost certainly still under warranty, which is probably why the service when there's nothing wrong with it. Dean stares down at the pristine engine and only just resists the urge to take a crow bar to it.

"He left a tip," Jimmy says. "Big goddamn tip, Dean."

"I don't want his money."

"Enough to get you that part you need."

Dean swears.

"You been asking for overtime I can't give you, and you won't take it? What he do to you, anyway? Screw your girlfriend?"

He broke Dean's heart. "Something like that, yeah." Made him feel dirty and used.

"Take his money. He must feel guilty. Take it, kid."

"It's not guilt," Dean says, reaching for tools. "It's leave-me-the-fuck-alone money."

Jimmy laughs. "It's money. Take it."

---

Dean lies to Sam again about where he's going at night. Before, he concocted a fake hunt to cover up a date, now, it's the other way around.

He doesn't actually say 'date'. Doesn't mention Ethan at all. Sam assumes, though, with a kind of happy smile on his face that makes Dean feel sick inside. He should have told Sam by now, but he's a fool, more of a fool because he's done it dozens of times himself (though he'll swear on his father's non-existent grave that he was never so cruel), and he can't bear to say it out loud yet.

He smuggles a handgun out to the Impala, loaded up with silver bullets.

---

It occurs to him as he's dodging the werewolf's savage maw that if he dies, Sam will never know for sure why he didn't come home. At least with Dad, they knew he was on a hunt, a hunt dangerous enough that he left them both behind. The possibility was always there, and as the weeks passed with no contact, it just became more and more likely that hunting had finally killed him.

It wasn't a surprise. Heartbreaking, yeah, but surprise, definitely not.

If Dean dies tonight, he just won't come home. Sam's expecting him home tonight, or maybe in the morning. Sam will never know what happened to him. He'll figure eventually that Dean was hunting, but he won't know where to look, won't be able to find his remains, give him a proper hunter's funeral.

Just like they couldn't with Dad. Dad didn't tell them where he'd be going, knowing Dean would follow him if he was gone too long. And now Dean's flat on his back, barely holding the werewolf off.

His heart still hurts, a deep, dull ache that's there all the time now. He barely even knew the guy, not really, but what Ethan did cut him deep, perhaps deeper than Dad not coming home, and he feels like it's because he wasn't good enough.

Maybe he's not good enough to hold off this werewolf, either. It snaps at his throat, strings of saliva splattering over his skin, teeth grazing his jugular. One more like that and Dean's gone.

Then Sam will be alone. He'll end up in foster care, because the Winchesters barely exist on paper, and Bobby Singer is no relation, isn't named as a guardian anywhere.

With a roar and a last burst of effort, Dean throws the werewolf off him. He scrambles sideways, grabs the gun from where it fell to the ground, and he fires as the werewolf leaps at him again.

It falls back on top of him, but it's still. It's dead. Dean lies there beneath it, hot blood soaking into his clothes, until he catches his breath.

---

Dean's not lucky enough that Sam's in bed when he gets home. It's 1am, and Sam's still sitting at the kitchen table, books spread out in front of him. Dean tries to sneak into the bathroom, but the front door bangs.

"Dean?" Sam's chair scrapes across the linoleum, and his footsteps ring on the floor. "How'd it go, Dean?"

Dean gives up, slumps against the wall as Sam rounds the corner into the hall. He knows what he must look like.

Sam's eyes go wide. "What happened?"

Dean doesn't even have the energy to lie. "Werewolf," he says.

Sam comes at him, reaching out to touch his cheek. "You're scratched, Dean."

Dean shakes his head. The cuts on his face still sting. "Branch caught me in the woods. I'm fine, Sammy."

Sam breathes a sigh of relief, takes a step back and leans against the wall opposite. "Werewolf crashed your date?"

Dean turns his head away, stares at the ugly hallway carpet. "There was no date, Sammy. I lied to you."

"Again. What's going on, Dean?"

"Hunting was part of the deal, Sam. I found a job close by, and I needed to get something out of my system." He looks up, tries to swallow past the lump in his throat. "I won't be seeing him again. It was a mistake."

All the color drains out of Sam's face, and he straightens up. "What happened?"

Dean shrugs, and his mouth twists as he tries to fight the cold lodged in his heart. "He told me to get lost." His voice breaks on a sob. He swallows it back, takes a few deep breaths to gain control. Then he straightens up, lifts his chin. "I'm okay," he says. "I'm fine, Sammy. I'm good."

Sam's eyes study his face. "I'm sorry, Dean."

"I'm fine."

Sam's eyes flick down over Dean's body. "If you're hunting, Dean, I need to know, okay? What if you don't come back?"

Something tightens in Dean's chest, makes it hard to breathe.