You Say It's Your Birthday
by Minx
January 24, 2002
He should be more enthused than this, Dean thinks. It’s Friday night, he’s in a bar getting wasted on someone else’s money, and there are hot chicks aplenty surrounding him, several of them even giving him that encouraging head tilt and come hither smile to let him know that he could, if he was so inclined, be the lucky man to take them home tonight.
It’s his birthday, for crying out loud; he’s twenty-three. He should be jazzed and ready to par-tay, not be moping around feeling like the kid at the end of that Old Yeller movie! Sitting on his barstool, hunched over his fifth shot of Jack, Dean takes mental stock of what he has to be thankful for, trying to shed light on why, today of all days, he’s feeling like the loneliest, most depressed shmuck in the universe.
It’s been a good day, all in all. He’d smoked the revenant he’d spent the past two days tracking down on his own, the creature now salted and burned; mission accomplished for once, without any bruises or cuts to tend to afterwards. His dad would be proud. Dean’s taken a few solo hunts prior to this one, but never this far away before. The others had been simple jobs within a few hours drive from wherever he and his dad had been staying.
Maybe that’s what’s wrong, Dean speculates, as he snatches the shot glass full of whisky up from the bar and knocks it back cleanly. Maybe he’s just feeling a little underappreciated at the moment. There’s no one here he can really share his accomplishment with who would understand and not assume he’s is either drunk off his ass or some sort of deranged mental case.
Dean slams the glass, upside down, back onto the counter, grunting at the warm burn of the alcohol as it makes its way into his belly. That’s probably it, Dean decides. Where’s the fun in ganking a reanimated corpse when you can’t even gloat about it to anyone afterwards?
“Can I buy you a drink?”
Dean lifts his head, eyes slowly travelling over to his right to spy the built, redheaded co‑ed now standing next to his stool. He offers her a hazy smile, the alcohol in his system making her form a little blurry, but no less enticing.
She gestures at the empty shot glass sitting on the bar in front of Dean. “You want another?” she asks, grin tilting up the corners of her ripe, glossed lips.
Dean’s about to tell her he’d love another shot, as long as she comes along with it, when he notices her eyes. Really notices her eyes. That stops him dead in his tracks. He suddenly knows now what’s got him so blue tonight, and it has nothing to do with the hunt or his father.
“You okay?” the redhead asks, sounding slightly concerned.
Dean doesn’t answer. He just stares into her eyes. Her wide, greenish-hazel cat’s eyes. Sam’s eyes. Fuck. Dean misses Sam.
This is his first birthday without his little brother around to help him celebrate it. It’s been almost six months since Sam left for Stanford, and it hits Dean hard, his chest suddenly clenching tight as if there’s a giant vice squeezing it. Six months since he’s seen or heard from his brother. Six long, lonely months since the day Dad and Sam had fought, and Sam had grabbed up his stuff and walked out the door without so much as a glance backward.
Dean realizes his companion is still waiting patiently for an answer, and he clears his throat, trying to tamp down the surge of emotions threatening to overcome him.
“Um, yeah, I’m good,” Dean finally thinks to say to the girl. He gives her a weak smile, definitely not one of his best, and turns back to the bar. “Thanks, but I, uh kinda want to be alone tonight.”
The redhead, surprisingly, doesn’t take his brush off too badly. She shrugs, as if to say it’s more his loss than hers, and sidles off to find a more likely prospect.
Dean is left staring at the water rings marking the wood counter under his nose, trying to pull himself together so he doesn’t break down like some pansy ass in front of a bunch of drunken strangers. Drink, drank, drunk. The idea of being drunk really appeals to Dean at this very moment. He flags down the bartender, slapping a twenty onto the counter and pointing at his shot glass.
“Keep ‘em coming,” he says.
oooOOOoooOOOoooOOOoooOOOooo
Noise and light all jumble together in a confusing kaleidoscope of sensory overload. Dean stumbles towards the door of the crowded bar, wondering how it got so late, so fast.
He tries in vain not to bump into anything or anyone along the way, but that’s proving to be quite impossible. Because, Dean is drunk. No, that’s not right. He’s more than that; he’s shitfaced. Totally foo-barred. Thirteen shots in all. He’d tried to do twenty-three, one for each year of his life, but after the ninth one, his stomach had begun to protest and by the thirteenth, it was all Dean could do not to vomit onto his own shoes.
The place is wall-to-wall bodies and Dean smacks head-on into a petite brunette, both of them somewhat startled by the collision. Dean looks down and lets out a guffaw when he notices that her short stature brings her pretty face almost in line with his groin. If he weren’t so damn fucked up, that might prove an interesting experiment. Instead, he grins down at the girl, slurring an apology, and patting her on the head as if she’s a lost cocker spaniel. He moves onward, one hand stretched out towards the exit, acting as both rudder and compass for his currently inoperative navigation skills.
The crisp winter air hits Dean full force, instantly frosting his nose and cheeks, sobering him up a little. But only a little. Thirteen shots of top-shelf Tennessee whiskey aren’t going to be vanquished by just a stiff breeze and a little snow. Dean reaches to flip the collar of his leather jacket up against the chill. He frowns as he fumbles a bit, unable to get his fingers to cooperate and grasp the edges of the collar right. He yanks hard in frustration, the collar finally popping up and then grunts in satisfaction.
He has to pee. Dean looks around, head swiveling drunkenly, searching for the restroom. It takes him a full minute to realize he’s not inside anymore, and he snorts, bending over slightly and slapping his knee as if it’s the most hilarious thing ever. He shrugs. What the fuck; it’s not as if he hasn’t taken a leak in the great outdoors before. He trudges deeper into the darkened parking lot, listing past rusted out pickups and brightly painted muscle cars, looking for a secluded spot to drain his lizard.
Dean stops beside a light grey BMW convertible, all shiny and pretentious, taking up two entire parking spaces as if it’s too good to rub fenders with the other cars around it. He smiles and staggers up to it, unzipping. Giving a quick glance over his shoulder, not that he’s really able to discern much in his inebriated state, Dean whips out his dick and proceeds to pee all over the passenger door of the Beemer, taking way more satisfaction in the deed than he probably should.
Finished, he tucks himself back into his jeans and zips up, almost losing his balance and toppling over in the process. He swears under his breath. Stupid, fucking Dack Janiels! He blinks, frowning. No, wait. It’s Jack Daniels. Yeah, that’s it. Whatever, he drunkenly thinks. Time to go find someplace to sleep this off.
The thought depresses him. Yeah, happy fucking birthday to me, he muses. Spending my big day drunk and alone in some no-name corner of Iowa. Sammy should be here. They should be getting drunk together, Sam with his fake ID that Dean made for him and Dean teasing his brother about still being baby-faced enough to get carded, even at a hick watering hole like this one.
It begins to snow harder. Dean lifts his face up to the night sky, blinking rapidly as the flakes shower his face and eyelids. Little crystalline tears from heaven. Wow, he thinks. Where the hell did that come from? Little crystalline tears? Jesus, did somebody put something in his drink? He shakes the thought off and with a determined stagger, he sets off to find the Impala.
Dean really wishes he remembered where he’d parked the damn car. He knows what it looks like, but for some reason, every car he stumbles by seems to look like every other car in the parking lot to him. What the fuck? Does everyone drive neutral-colored, late model sedans or what? He stops, puts a hand out to lean against the tailgate of a Ford F‑150 and frowns. He did drive here, didn’t he? His brain takes several moments to slosh that little question around before arriving at an answer.
Reaching into his jeans pocket, no small feat at this point, Dean fishes out his keys. Yup, he drove. He stares at the keys clutched in his hand as if they will somehow magically tell him where the Impala is parked, but they don’t. So with a frustrated sigh, Dean blearily wanders on, until he spots the familiar shape of his beloved Chevy.
“Ha, I knew I drove!” he slurs proudly.
Tottering over to the door, Dean tries unsuccessfully to get the key in the lock. For some reason, it doesn’t seem to fit. He burps up the sharp taste of acid and whiskey, making a face. This is just not his night. Trying once again, Dean shoves the key into the lock, and it slides partway in and then stops. He jiggles it, getting pissed. Goddamn key! Swearing, Dean attempts to yank the key back out to retry it, but the key won’t budge; it’s stuck in the lock.
“Well, fuck!” Dean barks angrily. He’s cold, tired, drunk and he’s pretty sure he’s going to need to throw up sometime soon. “C’mon, you little bastard, open up!” he growls.
“Dean.”
The voice comes from directly behind him and Dean jumps a foot, whipping around so fast, he loses what little balance he has and ends up splayed halfway down the car’s side, one hand grasping at the door handle in stunned surprise.
Looking up, Dean sees his father standing there. He blinks, frowning and reaches up his free hand to scrub at his bloodshot eyes in disbelief. His other hand is still hanging onto the handle of the car like it’s a lifeline.
“Dad?”
His father bends down to help him up, a look somewhere between worried and pissed on his face.
“Dad?” Dean repeats, spouting a fume of alcohol-laced breath directly into his father’s face. “What are you doing here?”
“I drove up here to buy you a drink for your birthday, but it looks like you’ve already helped yourself,” John tells him. “Son, what the hell are you doing?”
Dean finds his dad’s words funny instead of insulting. He snickers, leaning into his father to keep his balance. “You’re funny, Dad,” he manages, grinning drunkenly, his tongue tripping over the n’s.
“How much have you had to drink?” John inquires.
Dean ponders the question. He knows he should know the answer. In fact, he knew it only a few minutes ago, so why is it eluding him just now?
“Dean? How much?”
Dean’s stomach takes that moment to make its presence known. Eyes wide, he shoves away from his father, doing a half-turn just in time to bend over and spew all over the side of the car.
“Jesus,” John mutters in disgust.
“Fuck!” Dean chokes, eyeing the liquid mess oozing down the dark paint of the door panel. “Aw, man! I just hurled all over my baby!”
Dean feels his father gently lifting him back up again, a steady arm around his shoulder. Dean lets most of his weight sag against that arm.
He’s pissed and upset. He just desecrated his beautiful car in the most unnatural way. The only thing worse he could have done would have been to drop trou and take a dump right there on her hood. God, what kind of sick, immoral person was he?
“Dad, I – I barfed. On the Impala!” Dean whines. He senses tears welling up in his eyes. Actual goddamn tears. “Fuck, man, I ruined my car!”
“That’s not your car, son,” John says.
“What?” Dean lifts his intoxicated head up to stare at his father in wonderment.
“That isn’t your car,” John repeats. He jabs a thumb at the vehicle in question. “It isn’t even an Impala, Dean. It’s a two-door, navy blue Caprice.” John points across the row, opposite from where they stand. “Your car’s over there.”
Dean carefully follows his Dad’s finger, surprised as hell to see his black four-door parked on the other side of the lane from where he’s standing.
“Really?” he asks.
“Yeah, really,” John says.
Dean licks his lips, grimacing when he gets a tongue full of dried vomit, and stares hard at the so-called Caprice in front of him. He swings his head over to frown at his father.
“Well, whose car is this, then?” he asks, confused.
Dean is slightly put out when instead of answering his question, his father grabs him by the arm and starts dragging him in the opposite direction away from both cars.
“Hey! Where we going?” Dean demands. He brightens suddenly. “You gonna buy me a birthday drink?”
His father glares at him. “The last thing you need is another drink, Dean. I’m taking you back to your motel, if you can even remember which one it is, and you’re going to sleep this off.”
“Aw, c’mon, just one more drink? Sammy would have bought me a drink,” Dean pouts.
That doesn’t seem to sit too well with his dad for some reason, Dean notices. Oh, right. Maybe it was the mention of Sam. Yeah, that might be why his dad is looking so angry right now.
“I’m not going to buy you a drink,” John tells his son as he hauls him towards his truck. “But what I will promise you, son, is a nice birthday spanking once you sober up.”
Dean’s too tipsy to fully comprehend the implications of what his father has just said. He smiles politely and nods. “’Kay, that sounds good,” he woozily says.
He lets his dad shove him into the passenger seat of his Sierra Grande, and sighs happily as his head plops back against the cushioned headrest.
By the time John gets behind the wheel, Dean is out cold, jaw dropped open with a thin line of drool hanging from his mouth.
oooOOOoooOOOoooOOOoooOOOooo
Dean stares at his father, then stares down at the ginormous wooden spoon in his father’s hand, as his dad taps it impatiently against his pants leg. The spoon has a big frowny face drawn on it. Dean can relate to that.
It’s been three days since his birthday binge, and they are now sequestered at Bobby’s place in Sioux Falls, a blizzard on the way, ensuring that they’ll be there for at least a few more days, if not an entire week. Blizzards in North Dakota can be unpredictable.
Even after three days, Dean still feels like his mouth is full of cotton. He’s guzzled down jugs of water to no effect. At least the blinding hangover is gone. Yeah, that was not fun. Especially having to retrieve the Impala from the bar’s parking lot the next morning and then follow his father all the way here, to Bobby’s, while his head was pounding harder than a Metallica drum solo.
“You ready?”
His dad is looking at Dean in that expectant way that makes Dean want to cringe.
“You know, I really don’t remember agreeing to getting my ass beat, Dad,” Dean comments.
His father just smiles at him. Dean doesn’t like it when his dad smiles like that. It never means anything good. Ever.
“I highly doubt you remember much of anything from that night, Dean,” his dad offers. “Like how you were planning to drive while drunk off your ass. And, I’m pretty sure you don’t remember taking a piss on the hood of a fifty-thousand dollar sports car either, much less vomiting up a liquor cabinet’s worth of alcohol all over some poor bastard’s classic ’73 Caprice.”
Hmmm. Dean bites his lip. He hates to think he actually did such embarrassing things. Because really, he’d shit a brick if someone did either of those to the Impala. However, Dean trusts his father not to lie just for the hell of it, and well, he also knows himself all too well. Recognizes with a grim sense of pride what he’s capable of, especially under the influence of a gut full of Jack cocksucking Daniels.
“I’m sorry?” Dean proposes.
Wow, that didn’t come out quite as sincere as he’d hoped. Dean sees that his father doesn’t think so either.
John points at Dean with the spoon.
“Over the table, smart ass. Jeans and underwear down,” he orders. “You’re getting twenty-three. One for each and every year you’ve been on this planet.”
Dean sort of wishes this had only been his tenth birthday instead. Or maybe even his fifth. Yeah, his fifth. Dad would never hit a five-year-old with a wooden spoon.
“NOW, Dean.”
Sighing, Dean trudges over to the table, unbuttoning and unzipping as he goes, because there’s no escaping this, not really. No possible explanation or excuse he can come up with to put a decent spin on what had happened. Seriously, how does one even begin to justify spraying one’s bodily fluids all over another’s most prized possession? You just can’t.
Dean shoves his pants and boxers down his legs and leans over Bobby’s battered kitchen table, silently vowing to take his meals on the coffee table in the study from now on. Because once you have your junk squashed up against someone’s table? Yeah, you never really want to eat food off that same surface ever again.
“This okay?” Dean inquires, planting his feet apart and bracing himself heavily on his forearms.
His dad doesn’t answer, which Dean thinks is sort of rude. He’s trying to cooperate here, so a little kind direction or positive encouragement would be nice. Dean’s about to make a remark to that effect when he catches the telltale whoosh of the spoon sailing through the air followed by the resultant crack as the wooden implement connects solidly with his right butt cheek.
Dean immediately forgets all about offering up his assessment on his father in favor of letting out a sharp gasp of shocked pain instead. SWEET SMOKIN’ JESUS, that motherfucker HURT!
“That’s one,” his dad says cheerily.
Yes, Dean, thinks irritably. He is well aware that that was “ONE”. “One” is currently burning a hole in his ass, so it’s not as if he’s mistakenly going to overlook it! Jesus fucking Christ, does his Dad seriously think-
CRACK!
“Two.”
Dean bites down on his tongue to keep from crying out, his eyes tearing up from the unbearable sting erupting across the crease of his ass. He can’t help tensing up a bit from that one.
CRACK!
“Three,” his dad announces calmly, as if he’s calling out bingo numbers.
Okay, this is going to take all freaking day, not to mention it really fucking hurts when his father waits in between swats. Couldn’t he just speed-
WHACK! WHACK! WHACK!
“That makes six.”
Okay, in retrospect, maybe speeding up isn’t such a good idea, Dean concludes.
WHACK! WHACK! WHACK!
“Up to nine.”
Fuckohgodhelpmeitburns!! No, definitely not a good idea at all!
It takes a moment for Dean to realize he’s got his fingernails embedded pretty deep into the table he’s bending over. Mainly because he’s had his eyes clenched tightly shut for the past several minutes, trying to wish this all away. He stares down at the half-moon divots his nails have made in the soft, scarred wood of the table and absently wonders what kind of indentations Bobby’s crappy spanking spoon is currently putting in his ass.
Dean takes a ragged breath, lets it out and eases up on his death grip, just as his dad lays down another vicious smack across his scorched rear end.
CRACK!
“That’s an even ten, son.”
What kind of sadistic ass-hat invented spanking in the first place? Dean numbly wonders. Who was the very first douchebag, back in the day, that looked down at someone else’s butt and said ‘hey, that might be a good place to smack ruthlessly with a very hard object, over and over and over again.’ Because, honestly? Dean wants to find a spell in one of Bobby’s books to take him back to that specific point in time, just so he can shoot that motherfucker in the face. Ruthlessly. Over and over and over again.
He can’t stop the low grunt of pain that escapes his mouth now with each blazing swat that lands on his ass. It’s become an automatic response, like blinking or breathing. ‘Whack’ goes the spoon and ‘OW’ goes Dean.
“Okay, you have seven left,” Dean hears his dad say. “Let’s finish this up.”
Finish this up? What does that mean? Dean breaks out in a cold sweat, a very unmanly whine rising up from his throat. His father isn’t really going to –
Seven sharp cracks reign down in a non-stop salvo over Dean’s naked, crimson ass. Seven excruciating, fierce swats progressing from just above his tenderized sit spots down to the tops of his aching thighs. They lift Dean halfway off the table onto his toes, his back arching.
Dean thinks he just whimpered “mommy” out loud, but he isn’t for sure and he damn well isn’t going to ask his dad about it.
No, he’s just going to lay here a minute, now that it’s over. Maybe wipe away the snot ball hanging from nose. Collect his mind. Remember how to breathe. Maybe even offer up a small prayer that he’ll one day be able to sit down again. Simple stuff really. Or at least it would be if the raging inferno once known as his tush wasn’t screaming at him in abject distress, his nerve endings down there sending out agitated SOS signals to his brain.
Dean feels a gentle hand on his back, rubbing in circles. As much as he doesn’t want to, he relaxes into the touch. It sort of pisses him off though. He should be mad or at least, offended that his dad, the guy who just whaled the crap out of him, can so easily switch from disciplinarian into nursemaid. But fuck it, his ass hurts likes hell and the back rub is soothing.
“You okay, kiddo?” his dad asks.
How is he really supposed to answer that one? Honesty makes Dean look like a pathetic pussy. Lying gives the impression that he’s not man enough to admit his father bested him. And sarcasm, while being Dean’s favored form of response to anything he can’t or won’t admit, will, in all likelihood, bring the return of the spoon for a repeat session. Dean opts for silence.
“Dean? C’mon son, get up.”
Sighing, Dean slowly pushes himself up off the tabletop with shaky arms. He doesn’t bother asking if he can pull his pants up; he just dips down and carefully drags them up. His teeth sink painfully into his bottom lip as the fabric scrapes over his ass. He makes a mental note to dig out his softest, roomiest pair of sweatpants once they’re done here.
“I hope you’ve learned something here, Dean,” John says.
Oh, he’s learned something all right. It’s time to salt and burn that ugly ass spoon once and for all.
“I’m sorry I almost got behind the wheel of my car in that condition,” Dean says aloud. “And yeah, so not cool what I did to those cars. I totally wasn’t thinking.”
Of course it’s never easy to think objectively when your brain’s been pickled in 80 proof Tennessee sour mash.
Dean is sorry, but he’s not. He’s twenty-three years old, a grown man, and yet he finds it hard not to feel sorry for himself at least a little bit. Sammy should’ve been there. Should be here right now.
He gives an apologetic shrug to his dad. “I guess I had other things on my mind, you know?”
He doesn’t clarify, but then he doesn’t have to. His father nails it right on the head, as usual.
“You think your brother’d be proud of what you did?”
Dean’s left with that little knife twisted in his heart as his father gives him one last, disconsolate look and then turns to walk away, stopping at the doorway to hang the spoon back up on its hook on the wall before exiting the kitchen, leaving Dean alone with his hurting rear end and his even more wounded heart.
THE END
He should be more enthused than this, Dean thinks. It’s Friday night, he’s in a bar getting wasted on someone else’s money, and there are hot chicks aplenty surrounding him, several of them even giving him that encouraging head tilt and come hither smile to let him know that he could, if he was so inclined, be the lucky man to take them home tonight.
It’s his birthday, for crying out loud; he’s twenty-three. He should be jazzed and ready to par-tay, not be moping around feeling like the kid at the end of that Old Yeller movie! Sitting on his barstool, hunched over his fifth shot of Jack, Dean takes mental stock of what he has to be thankful for, trying to shed light on why, today of all days, he’s feeling like the loneliest, most depressed shmuck in the universe.
It’s been a good day, all in all. He’d smoked the revenant he’d spent the past two days tracking down on his own, the creature now salted and burned; mission accomplished for once, without any bruises or cuts to tend to afterwards. His dad would be proud. Dean’s taken a few solo hunts prior to this one, but never this far away before. The others had been simple jobs within a few hours drive from wherever he and his dad had been staying.
Maybe that’s what’s wrong, Dean speculates, as he snatches the shot glass full of whisky up from the bar and knocks it back cleanly. Maybe he’s just feeling a little underappreciated at the moment. There’s no one here he can really share his accomplishment with who would understand and not assume he’s is either drunk off his ass or some sort of deranged mental case.
Dean slams the glass, upside down, back onto the counter, grunting at the warm burn of the alcohol as it makes its way into his belly. That’s probably it, Dean decides. Where’s the fun in ganking a reanimated corpse when you can’t even gloat about it to anyone afterwards?
“Can I buy you a drink?”
Dean lifts his head, eyes slowly travelling over to his right to spy the built, redheaded co‑ed now standing next to his stool. He offers her a hazy smile, the alcohol in his system making her form a little blurry, but no less enticing.
She gestures at the empty shot glass sitting on the bar in front of Dean. “You want another?” she asks, grin tilting up the corners of her ripe, glossed lips.
Dean’s about to tell her he’d love another shot, as long as she comes along with it, when he notices her eyes. Really notices her eyes. That stops him dead in his tracks. He suddenly knows now what’s got him so blue tonight, and it has nothing to do with the hunt or his father.
“You okay?” the redhead asks, sounding slightly concerned.
Dean doesn’t answer. He just stares into her eyes. Her wide, greenish-hazel cat’s eyes. Sam’s eyes. Fuck. Dean misses Sam.
This is his first birthday without his little brother around to help him celebrate it. It’s been almost six months since Sam left for Stanford, and it hits Dean hard, his chest suddenly clenching tight as if there’s a giant vice squeezing it. Six months since he’s seen or heard from his brother. Six long, lonely months since the day Dad and Sam had fought, and Sam had grabbed up his stuff and walked out the door without so much as a glance backward.
Dean realizes his companion is still waiting patiently for an answer, and he clears his throat, trying to tamp down the surge of emotions threatening to overcome him.
“Um, yeah, I’m good,” Dean finally thinks to say to the girl. He gives her a weak smile, definitely not one of his best, and turns back to the bar. “Thanks, but I, uh kinda want to be alone tonight.”
The redhead, surprisingly, doesn’t take his brush off too badly. She shrugs, as if to say it’s more his loss than hers, and sidles off to find a more likely prospect.
Dean is left staring at the water rings marking the wood counter under his nose, trying to pull himself together so he doesn’t break down like some pansy ass in front of a bunch of drunken strangers. Drink, drank, drunk. The idea of being drunk really appeals to Dean at this very moment. He flags down the bartender, slapping a twenty onto the counter and pointing at his shot glass.
“Keep ‘em coming,” he says.
oooOOOoooOOOoooOOOoooOOOooo
Noise and light all jumble together in a confusing kaleidoscope of sensory overload. Dean stumbles towards the door of the crowded bar, wondering how it got so late, so fast.
He tries in vain not to bump into anything or anyone along the way, but that’s proving to be quite impossible. Because, Dean is drunk. No, that’s not right. He’s more than that; he’s shitfaced. Totally foo-barred. Thirteen shots in all. He’d tried to do twenty-three, one for each year of his life, but after the ninth one, his stomach had begun to protest and by the thirteenth, it was all Dean could do not to vomit onto his own shoes.
The place is wall-to-wall bodies and Dean smacks head-on into a petite brunette, both of them somewhat startled by the collision. Dean looks down and lets out a guffaw when he notices that her short stature brings her pretty face almost in line with his groin. If he weren’t so damn fucked up, that might prove an interesting experiment. Instead, he grins down at the girl, slurring an apology, and patting her on the head as if she’s a lost cocker spaniel. He moves onward, one hand stretched out towards the exit, acting as both rudder and compass for his currently inoperative navigation skills.
The crisp winter air hits Dean full force, instantly frosting his nose and cheeks, sobering him up a little. But only a little. Thirteen shots of top-shelf Tennessee whiskey aren’t going to be vanquished by just a stiff breeze and a little snow. Dean reaches to flip the collar of his leather jacket up against the chill. He frowns as he fumbles a bit, unable to get his fingers to cooperate and grasp the edges of the collar right. He yanks hard in frustration, the collar finally popping up and then grunts in satisfaction.
He has to pee. Dean looks around, head swiveling drunkenly, searching for the restroom. It takes him a full minute to realize he’s not inside anymore, and he snorts, bending over slightly and slapping his knee as if it’s the most hilarious thing ever. He shrugs. What the fuck; it’s not as if he hasn’t taken a leak in the great outdoors before. He trudges deeper into the darkened parking lot, listing past rusted out pickups and brightly painted muscle cars, looking for a secluded spot to drain his lizard.
Dean stops beside a light grey BMW convertible, all shiny and pretentious, taking up two entire parking spaces as if it’s too good to rub fenders with the other cars around it. He smiles and staggers up to it, unzipping. Giving a quick glance over his shoulder, not that he’s really able to discern much in his inebriated state, Dean whips out his dick and proceeds to pee all over the passenger door of the Beemer, taking way more satisfaction in the deed than he probably should.
Finished, he tucks himself back into his jeans and zips up, almost losing his balance and toppling over in the process. He swears under his breath. Stupid, fucking Dack Janiels! He blinks, frowning. No, wait. It’s Jack Daniels. Yeah, that’s it. Whatever, he drunkenly thinks. Time to go find someplace to sleep this off.
The thought depresses him. Yeah, happy fucking birthday to me, he muses. Spending my big day drunk and alone in some no-name corner of Iowa. Sammy should be here. They should be getting drunk together, Sam with his fake ID that Dean made for him and Dean teasing his brother about still being baby-faced enough to get carded, even at a hick watering hole like this one.
It begins to snow harder. Dean lifts his face up to the night sky, blinking rapidly as the flakes shower his face and eyelids. Little crystalline tears from heaven. Wow, he thinks. Where the hell did that come from? Little crystalline tears? Jesus, did somebody put something in his drink? He shakes the thought off and with a determined stagger, he sets off to find the Impala.
Dean really wishes he remembered where he’d parked the damn car. He knows what it looks like, but for some reason, every car he stumbles by seems to look like every other car in the parking lot to him. What the fuck? Does everyone drive neutral-colored, late model sedans or what? He stops, puts a hand out to lean against the tailgate of a Ford F‑150 and frowns. He did drive here, didn’t he? His brain takes several moments to slosh that little question around before arriving at an answer.
Reaching into his jeans pocket, no small feat at this point, Dean fishes out his keys. Yup, he drove. He stares at the keys clutched in his hand as if they will somehow magically tell him where the Impala is parked, but they don’t. So with a frustrated sigh, Dean blearily wanders on, until he spots the familiar shape of his beloved Chevy.
“Ha, I knew I drove!” he slurs proudly.
Tottering over to the door, Dean tries unsuccessfully to get the key in the lock. For some reason, it doesn’t seem to fit. He burps up the sharp taste of acid and whiskey, making a face. This is just not his night. Trying once again, Dean shoves the key into the lock, and it slides partway in and then stops. He jiggles it, getting pissed. Goddamn key! Swearing, Dean attempts to yank the key back out to retry it, but the key won’t budge; it’s stuck in the lock.
“Well, fuck!” Dean barks angrily. He’s cold, tired, drunk and he’s pretty sure he’s going to need to throw up sometime soon. “C’mon, you little bastard, open up!” he growls.
“Dean.”
The voice comes from directly behind him and Dean jumps a foot, whipping around so fast, he loses what little balance he has and ends up splayed halfway down the car’s side, one hand grasping at the door handle in stunned surprise.
Looking up, Dean sees his father standing there. He blinks, frowning and reaches up his free hand to scrub at his bloodshot eyes in disbelief. His other hand is still hanging onto the handle of the car like it’s a lifeline.
“Dad?”
His father bends down to help him up, a look somewhere between worried and pissed on his face.
“Dad?” Dean repeats, spouting a fume of alcohol-laced breath directly into his father’s face. “What are you doing here?”
“I drove up here to buy you a drink for your birthday, but it looks like you’ve already helped yourself,” John tells him. “Son, what the hell are you doing?”
Dean finds his dad’s words funny instead of insulting. He snickers, leaning into his father to keep his balance. “You’re funny, Dad,” he manages, grinning drunkenly, his tongue tripping over the n’s.
“How much have you had to drink?” John inquires.
Dean ponders the question. He knows he should know the answer. In fact, he knew it only a few minutes ago, so why is it eluding him just now?
“Dean? How much?”
Dean’s stomach takes that moment to make its presence known. Eyes wide, he shoves away from his father, doing a half-turn just in time to bend over and spew all over the side of the car.
“Jesus,” John mutters in disgust.
“Fuck!” Dean chokes, eyeing the liquid mess oozing down the dark paint of the door panel. “Aw, man! I just hurled all over my baby!”
Dean feels his father gently lifting him back up again, a steady arm around his shoulder. Dean lets most of his weight sag against that arm.
He’s pissed and upset. He just desecrated his beautiful car in the most unnatural way. The only thing worse he could have done would have been to drop trou and take a dump right there on her hood. God, what kind of sick, immoral person was he?
“Dad, I – I barfed. On the Impala!” Dean whines. He senses tears welling up in his eyes. Actual goddamn tears. “Fuck, man, I ruined my car!”
“That’s not your car, son,” John says.
“What?” Dean lifts his intoxicated head up to stare at his father in wonderment.
“That isn’t your car,” John repeats. He jabs a thumb at the vehicle in question. “It isn’t even an Impala, Dean. It’s a two-door, navy blue Caprice.” John points across the row, opposite from where they stand. “Your car’s over there.”
Dean carefully follows his Dad’s finger, surprised as hell to see his black four-door parked on the other side of the lane from where he’s standing.
“Really?” he asks.
“Yeah, really,” John says.
Dean licks his lips, grimacing when he gets a tongue full of dried vomit, and stares hard at the so-called Caprice in front of him. He swings his head over to frown at his father.
“Well, whose car is this, then?” he asks, confused.
Dean is slightly put out when instead of answering his question, his father grabs him by the arm and starts dragging him in the opposite direction away from both cars.
“Hey! Where we going?” Dean demands. He brightens suddenly. “You gonna buy me a birthday drink?”
His father glares at him. “The last thing you need is another drink, Dean. I’m taking you back to your motel, if you can even remember which one it is, and you’re going to sleep this off.”
“Aw, c’mon, just one more drink? Sammy would have bought me a drink,” Dean pouts.
That doesn’t seem to sit too well with his dad for some reason, Dean notices. Oh, right. Maybe it was the mention of Sam. Yeah, that might be why his dad is looking so angry right now.
“I’m not going to buy you a drink,” John tells his son as he hauls him towards his truck. “But what I will promise you, son, is a nice birthday spanking once you sober up.”
Dean’s too tipsy to fully comprehend the implications of what his father has just said. He smiles politely and nods. “’Kay, that sounds good,” he woozily says.
He lets his dad shove him into the passenger seat of his Sierra Grande, and sighs happily as his head plops back against the cushioned headrest.
By the time John gets behind the wheel, Dean is out cold, jaw dropped open with a thin line of drool hanging from his mouth.
oooOOOoooOOOoooOOOoooOOOooo
Dean stares at his father, then stares down at the ginormous wooden spoon in his father’s hand, as his dad taps it impatiently against his pants leg. The spoon has a big frowny face drawn on it. Dean can relate to that.
It’s been three days since his birthday binge, and they are now sequestered at Bobby’s place in Sioux Falls, a blizzard on the way, ensuring that they’ll be there for at least a few more days, if not an entire week. Blizzards in North Dakota can be unpredictable.
Even after three days, Dean still feels like his mouth is full of cotton. He’s guzzled down jugs of water to no effect. At least the blinding hangover is gone. Yeah, that was not fun. Especially having to retrieve the Impala from the bar’s parking lot the next morning and then follow his father all the way here, to Bobby’s, while his head was pounding harder than a Metallica drum solo.
“You ready?”
His dad is looking at Dean in that expectant way that makes Dean want to cringe.
“You know, I really don’t remember agreeing to getting my ass beat, Dad,” Dean comments.
His father just smiles at him. Dean doesn’t like it when his dad smiles like that. It never means anything good. Ever.
“I highly doubt you remember much of anything from that night, Dean,” his dad offers. “Like how you were planning to drive while drunk off your ass. And, I’m pretty sure you don’t remember taking a piss on the hood of a fifty-thousand dollar sports car either, much less vomiting up a liquor cabinet’s worth of alcohol all over some poor bastard’s classic ’73 Caprice.”
Hmmm. Dean bites his lip. He hates to think he actually did such embarrassing things. Because really, he’d shit a brick if someone did either of those to the Impala. However, Dean trusts his father not to lie just for the hell of it, and well, he also knows himself all too well. Recognizes with a grim sense of pride what he’s capable of, especially under the influence of a gut full of Jack cocksucking Daniels.
“I’m sorry?” Dean proposes.
Wow, that didn’t come out quite as sincere as he’d hoped. Dean sees that his father doesn’t think so either.
John points at Dean with the spoon.
“Over the table, smart ass. Jeans and underwear down,” he orders. “You’re getting twenty-three. One for each and every year you’ve been on this planet.”
Dean sort of wishes this had only been his tenth birthday instead. Or maybe even his fifth. Yeah, his fifth. Dad would never hit a five-year-old with a wooden spoon.
“NOW, Dean.”
Sighing, Dean trudges over to the table, unbuttoning and unzipping as he goes, because there’s no escaping this, not really. No possible explanation or excuse he can come up with to put a decent spin on what had happened. Seriously, how does one even begin to justify spraying one’s bodily fluids all over another’s most prized possession? You just can’t.
Dean shoves his pants and boxers down his legs and leans over Bobby’s battered kitchen table, silently vowing to take his meals on the coffee table in the study from now on. Because once you have your junk squashed up against someone’s table? Yeah, you never really want to eat food off that same surface ever again.
“This okay?” Dean inquires, planting his feet apart and bracing himself heavily on his forearms.
His dad doesn’t answer, which Dean thinks is sort of rude. He’s trying to cooperate here, so a little kind direction or positive encouragement would be nice. Dean’s about to make a remark to that effect when he catches the telltale whoosh of the spoon sailing through the air followed by the resultant crack as the wooden implement connects solidly with his right butt cheek.
Dean immediately forgets all about offering up his assessment on his father in favor of letting out a sharp gasp of shocked pain instead. SWEET SMOKIN’ JESUS, that motherfucker HURT!
“That’s one,” his dad says cheerily.
Yes, Dean, thinks irritably. He is well aware that that was “ONE”. “One” is currently burning a hole in his ass, so it’s not as if he’s mistakenly going to overlook it! Jesus fucking Christ, does his Dad seriously think-
CRACK!
“Two.”
Dean bites down on his tongue to keep from crying out, his eyes tearing up from the unbearable sting erupting across the crease of his ass. He can’t help tensing up a bit from that one.
CRACK!
“Three,” his dad announces calmly, as if he’s calling out bingo numbers.
Okay, this is going to take all freaking day, not to mention it really fucking hurts when his father waits in between swats. Couldn’t he just speed-
WHACK! WHACK! WHACK!
“That makes six.”
Okay, in retrospect, maybe speeding up isn’t such a good idea, Dean concludes.
WHACK! WHACK! WHACK!
“Up to nine.”
Fuckohgodhelpmeitburns!! No, definitely not a good idea at all!
It takes a moment for Dean to realize he’s got his fingernails embedded pretty deep into the table he’s bending over. Mainly because he’s had his eyes clenched tightly shut for the past several minutes, trying to wish this all away. He stares down at the half-moon divots his nails have made in the soft, scarred wood of the table and absently wonders what kind of indentations Bobby’s crappy spanking spoon is currently putting in his ass.
Dean takes a ragged breath, lets it out and eases up on his death grip, just as his dad lays down another vicious smack across his scorched rear end.
CRACK!
“That’s an even ten, son.”
What kind of sadistic ass-hat invented spanking in the first place? Dean numbly wonders. Who was the very first douchebag, back in the day, that looked down at someone else’s butt and said ‘hey, that might be a good place to smack ruthlessly with a very hard object, over and over and over again.’ Because, honestly? Dean wants to find a spell in one of Bobby’s books to take him back to that specific point in time, just so he can shoot that motherfucker in the face. Ruthlessly. Over and over and over again.
He can’t stop the low grunt of pain that escapes his mouth now with each blazing swat that lands on his ass. It’s become an automatic response, like blinking or breathing. ‘Whack’ goes the spoon and ‘OW’ goes Dean.
“Okay, you have seven left,” Dean hears his dad say. “Let’s finish this up.”
Finish this up? What does that mean? Dean breaks out in a cold sweat, a very unmanly whine rising up from his throat. His father isn’t really going to –
Seven sharp cracks reign down in a non-stop salvo over Dean’s naked, crimson ass. Seven excruciating, fierce swats progressing from just above his tenderized sit spots down to the tops of his aching thighs. They lift Dean halfway off the table onto his toes, his back arching.
Dean thinks he just whimpered “mommy” out loud, but he isn’t for sure and he damn well isn’t going to ask his dad about it.
No, he’s just going to lay here a minute, now that it’s over. Maybe wipe away the snot ball hanging from nose. Collect his mind. Remember how to breathe. Maybe even offer up a small prayer that he’ll one day be able to sit down again. Simple stuff really. Or at least it would be if the raging inferno once known as his tush wasn’t screaming at him in abject distress, his nerve endings down there sending out agitated SOS signals to his brain.
Dean feels a gentle hand on his back, rubbing in circles. As much as he doesn’t want to, he relaxes into the touch. It sort of pisses him off though. He should be mad or at least, offended that his dad, the guy who just whaled the crap out of him, can so easily switch from disciplinarian into nursemaid. But fuck it, his ass hurts likes hell and the back rub is soothing.
“You okay, kiddo?” his dad asks.
How is he really supposed to answer that one? Honesty makes Dean look like a pathetic pussy. Lying gives the impression that he’s not man enough to admit his father bested him. And sarcasm, while being Dean’s favored form of response to anything he can’t or won’t admit, will, in all likelihood, bring the return of the spoon for a repeat session. Dean opts for silence.
“Dean? C’mon son, get up.”
Sighing, Dean slowly pushes himself up off the tabletop with shaky arms. He doesn’t bother asking if he can pull his pants up; he just dips down and carefully drags them up. His teeth sink painfully into his bottom lip as the fabric scrapes over his ass. He makes a mental note to dig out his softest, roomiest pair of sweatpants once they’re done here.
“I hope you’ve learned something here, Dean,” John says.
Oh, he’s learned something all right. It’s time to salt and burn that ugly ass spoon once and for all.
“I’m sorry I almost got behind the wheel of my car in that condition,” Dean says aloud. “And yeah, so not cool what I did to those cars. I totally wasn’t thinking.”
Of course it’s never easy to think objectively when your brain’s been pickled in 80 proof Tennessee sour mash.
Dean is sorry, but he’s not. He’s twenty-three years old, a grown man, and yet he finds it hard not to feel sorry for himself at least a little bit. Sammy should’ve been there. Should be here right now.
He gives an apologetic shrug to his dad. “I guess I had other things on my mind, you know?”
He doesn’t clarify, but then he doesn’t have to. His father nails it right on the head, as usual.
“You think your brother’d be proud of what you did?”
Dean’s left with that little knife twisted in his heart as his father gives him one last, disconsolate look and then turns to walk away, stopping at the doorway to hang the spoon back up on its hook on the wall before exiting the kitchen, leaving Dean alone with his hurting rear end and his even more wounded heart.
THE END