I'm broken (Destiel)

Grown men don't cry

"You alright, Dean?" Sammy asked him.

If Dean had a dime for every time he heard that phrase, he could pay all the monsters to behave. 

"Yeah, don't worry about it Sammy," he replied.

He never told the truth. Matter of fact, Dean wasn't okay. It was just something he said to avoid talking about how defeated he was and how much he wished he could go to sleep and never wake up. But Dean remembered the first and last time he cried in from of John all too well. Dean was only 10 years old and he had woken up from a nightmare about ghosts. He sobbed loudly and so hard that it sounded like he was choking on his own tears. 

"Dean!" He heard his father growl at him in the dark motel room, only lit by a small window in the kitchenette.

"Y-yes Dad?" His words slurred as his throat tightened and his tears became hot.

"What are you sniffling about son?" John has got up off of his bed causing a loud creak to resonate in the room. His heavy footsteps only presented a new threat to dean has John made his way to dean's bed.

"Ghosts," Dean whimpered softy, hiding his face in his hands, his shirt now damp with tears. John roughly pulled dean's hands from his face and forced dean to look into his predatory eyes. 

"Ghosts?" He almost scoffed, "I've seen worse. You're a grown man, who are you to cry about ghosts? You know what I was doig at your age? Supporting my mother because my father had gone off to god knows where to do god knows what!" John seemed furious at the meer idea of Dean crying over a dream about ghosts.

Dean's heart beat feverishly causing dean to tremble. "B-b-b-but sir," he was careful to address John properly to keep him from growing even more angry, "I've never seen a ghost"

John turned away for a bit, causing Dean to think that his father was calming down, but he was wrong. 

John gripped dean's jaw and held is face to look up at him. In a low growl he whispered, "I don't care how old you are. No son of mine is going to cry like a bitch. If you're scared of ghosts, walk out that door right now because what I'll do to you is worse than any monster ever could. You think just cuz you're a kid you've got an excuse? Man up and put your sissy feelings aside. Men don't cry and certainly no child of mine is a wuss!" 

John released dean's jaw and made his way back to his bed. Even after that, Dean's jaw throbbed in pain from how tight John held it. Dean's blood ran cold and his entire gut hurt as if he'd been hit with the weight of Johns words square in the abdomen.

Dean turned to curl up in his bed again and vowed to never shed another tear again even though his eyes felt as if they'd be forced out by the pressure his tears made behind them.

Dean heard a faint voice that seemed miles away as his thoughts swelled in his head 

"Dean. Dean!" Sam yelled from the other side of the impala. 

"Hmm? Yeah of course," dean unlocked the car and they stooped to sit on the nostalgic leather bench they'd known for their entire lives. 

"Are you sure there's nothing you want to talk about dude?"Sam nudged. 

He knew dean would never open up. For some reason he never could, but he at least wanted Dean to know he was there for him. Dean always carried sam. If sam needed a shoulder Dean was there, If sam needed advice, Dean was there. In all that time, sam had never been old enough to return the favor. While Dean was a teen with more emotional baggage than he could account for, sam was too busy figuring out puberty to notice the destructive coping mechanisms dean was developing. John never cared to teach dean more than how to survive. Dean was the foundation of a building with no ground to sit on top of. His destructive habits of isolation, avoidance, and alcoholism were to hardened for him to shake now, so all sam could do was at least lend a listening ear 

"God Sammy, you're such a mom. I'll be fine, now can we please get going? I smell like dead Vamp."

As dean put the key in the ignition and the familiar hum of the impala roared to life, he felt his mind settle. If there was ever one constant in his life, it was the open road and the sound of his Baby cruising the long interstate.