January 2008
The day after Dean’s eighteenth birthday, John shows up in Sioux Falls after nine months without so much as a phone call and Dean rips him a new asshole. It’s like someone ripped out all of the teenager’s filters and threw the floodgates wide, and Bobby sends Sam inside, has to physically restrain Cas from intervening, because the verbal pissing match taking place between rows of rust-baked Oldsmobiles under the cold South Dakota sky has been a long time coming. John Winchester is not a bad father; he’s just not a father, and Dean’s letting loose every permutation and combination of curses he knows to articulate that point.
“Dean wants to hide in those brilliant blue eyes for the rest of his life because Cas will never leave him, never hurt him, never tell him that he’s not good enough or smart enough or enough.”
Crying. And not just Tumblr ‘crying’, but actual tears down my face, ugly snot-nosed sobbing. Anyone who’s ever had an absent parent knows exactly why. Jesus.
