Sparkle

|12| No Talking

"The sea does not like to be restrained."

~Rick Riordan

The Lightning Thief

Dean didn't see himself as a rule-abider, but he did have a rule he stuck by.

Dean didn't like to hang out with the same group of friends more than twice a week. He liked them well enough to talk and laugh with them, but he felt uncomfortable being around people for an extended period of time. Dean knew that the more time you spent with someone, the more likely you were to know them for their quirks and their flaws and everything that made them beautifully human. So he wanted to spare himself from that as much as possible.

Sometimes it felt like everything he did was an act. He would train himself to look at people a certain way depending on what was appropriate: steady and slow blinks for conversation, narrow and smiling eyes for jokes, and glinting bedroom eyes for seduction. He knew a certain look for every occasion. He wanted people to like him enough but distanced himself to show that he wasn't readily available to everyone's want and need. He hated himself for thinking that way. He hated having to think at all. Deep down, he just wanted to laugh for the sake of humor or cry because he felt sad.

To feel everything on an authentic level and to express every emotion as it came was a luxury he couldn't afford. He hated feeling emotional pain. He hated how he felt it in his bones, his nerves, his blood. He hated how it could easily influence the way people thought of him or if people would dare to assume he was weak. Because as disappointing as it was, raw emotions made people vulnerable and vulnerability invited danger. For Dean, it was better to avoid feeling at all.

It was for this reason that Dean was drawn to cars. Every mechanical part of a car could be explained through words and diagrams. Each part functioned in a system that would ultimately make a car run. Cars were simple and uniform. Cars weren't complicated like people. At least when a car exploded, it was due to an error or malfunction. But when people exploded, it seemed to come from nowhere, a dangerous buildup of invisible thoughts and emotions. People scared him, but he also needed them for comfort, companionship, and amusement. It was a human trait he couldn't get rid of.

Dean was undeniably human who needed the same needs and wants which he feared in other people. For him, living meant a constant battle between self-loathing and temporary bouts of happiness. It felt like being tugged back and forth by the ends of two extremes. The confusion nauseated him, but he succeeded in ignoring the feeling most of the time.

A collective sound of snickering cut him from his reverie.

"Hey Dean..." It was Alejandro who sat to his left. He was captain of the varsity soccer team and was recently granted early admission into U of H on a sports scholarship. He and Dean also kissed once, but that was a story to be told at another time. "Who did you screw over this time?"

Dean tried to think back. He remembered two weeks ago, he knocked out a guy at the gas station for attempting to rob him with a BB gun. Other than that, life was quite mundane and repetitive.

He shrugged. "You tell me."

"There's a girl heading your way and she seems...angry?"

His other friends withheld another round of snickers.

"This should be good."

They sat back as Minnie approached their table. Dean's heart lurched forward upon seeing her. His lips fought a smile, contrasting the stone cold look Minnie gave him. She took a seat in front of him and clasped her hands on the table. Dean had never seen her so business-like in her approach, and it immediately set the alarm that something was wrong.