chapter 1 of am i making you feel sick? | an ongoing dean winchester character study (focused primarily on his relationship with food) and rewrite of season 5 by theseventhcrow55 | read on ao3
SUMMARY: Throughout the years, Dean had dabbled in his fair share of overindulgences—women, food, alcohol. Violence, even. When he needed something to do with his hands, he’d always known he could simply find any and all of these things at whatever local bar was nearby his and Sam's motel room.
And besides, the weight of a beer bottle against his palm doesn't really feel all that different from that of a gun’s grip, especially when the first time both of them had been placed into his hands had been by his father.
And he figures that the food thing came from his mother, maybe. Some of his earliest memories had been sitting at the counter in the kitchen while she cooked, thinking to himself that he'd eat whatever she put in front of him as long as they could be there, together, forever.
Or maybe he was always going to end up like this, and it wasn't his parents’ fault at all that he was fucked up.
No point in wondering. He'd never know.
PREVIEW (CHAPTER 1):
Dean’s familiar with hunger.
Of course, he’s just as familiar with the musty smell of motel rooms in the middle of a midwestern state, the glowing flicker of signs above open dive bars, and even the occasional muffled sounds of mice scratching at paint peeling in chips near the baseboards. These things have followed him across every state line. He doesn’t have much else to take with him, besides a duffel with a quick change of clothes packed near the top (for easy access) and the gun he tucks underneath his pillow every night.
So he’s not sure why it’s the hunger that seems the most prevalent. It just does, and that was a fact he’d accepted long ago as he’d held his breath alongside the handle of the pot, scraping the last bits of Kraft mac-and-cheese from the bottom into Sammy’s bowl, the crispy brown parts that had coagulated and stuck to the metal. He’d plodded all the way back over to the sink and filled the empty pot with lukewarm water before allowing himself to release the air in his lungs—he’d learned that the shriveled feeling in his stomach usually worsened at the aroma of food, so now he tried his best to avoid it, especially when he knew he probably wasn’t getting much (if any).
His dad wasn’t with them. As usual. They’d checked into a creaky motel in a random town in Columbus so John could handle a threat he’d had reason to believe was a Shapeshifter—or so Dean thought he remembered his dad saying. It was all a little bit muddled, courtesy of the cloud that had draped itself over his brain, dragging through each day like he was moving through the world underwater.
But anyway.
Sammy had finally, finally gone to sleep, after close to two hours since he’d eaten dinner (if the poor excuse for a meal could even be called that, but his brother hadn’t seemed to mind all that much). Two hours of a gnawing hunger climbing up Dean’s sternum, claws hooked behind his ribs and growling like a living creature. He simultaneously felt as though he was about to crawl out of his skin, and that all his limbs had been filled with sand. He could feel it shift through the marrow, trickling down like an hourglass as he stood. Moved across the room. Cracked open the door to his and Sammy’s room—making sure to turn the handle all the way so the tongue didn’t get stuck in the frame, which would surely wake his brother up with the noise—and peered through the slit. Watched Sammy’s chest rise and fall for a few heartbeats, if only to reassure himself that the kid was safe. Was living.
Look after your little brother, boy.
He’d already checked the locks on the windows, closed the blinds, and drawn the curtains. He stepped back, turning the handle all the way as he dragged door to frame, then eased the tongue back into its place with an almost inaudible click.
Last night, when they’d stopped to refill the Impala’s tank, and while Sammy had been inside using the restroom, Dean had been rooting around between the seats—not expecting anything, really, just looking for something to do with his hands—and, to his surprise, there had been something to grip. He’d pulled the flattened papery wad out: a few old, crumpled bills, some of the edges slightly torn, but without a doubt still spendable. He’d gaped at the dollars between his fingers for a moment, registering, then glanced briefly out the window to make sure his father hadn’t seen as he stuffed the money into the front pocket of his jeans.
When they’d arrived at the motel, Dean had locked himself in the bathroom, flicked the switch that would turn on the fan so he wouldn’t be bothered for at least a ten minutes, and counted his spoils a few times over: thirty-seven dollars. He couldn’t believe his luck—it was the highest consecutive amount of money he’d possessed at a time in years.
So after Sammy had fallen asleep, Dean had tugged the bills from his pocket, clutching them tight in his palm—he felt like he’d lose the money, if he didn’t make sure he kept a tight grip on it—and locked the motel door behind him on his way out.
He didn’t need to walk far—there was another gas station just across the street. The door jingled halfheartedly as he pushed it open, fluorescent lights buzzing just loud enough to bug him.
First stop was bread and peanut butter, for Sammy. Reliable because it was quick and easy and wouldn’t expire for a while, and it was typically filling enough to mellow the temper of a displeased stomach, however briefly.
He picked up another few boxes of Kraft mac-and-cheese (they were on sale), a thing of Froot Loops cereal, and a bag of Doritos for the two of them, too. As a treat.
Now that the essentials had been taken care of, he could get a few things for himself. He couldn’t remember the last time he bought something specially for him.
After pacing the aisles for a while, ducking back and forth to check prices and options, indecisiveness chewing at his lip and wearing down the soles of his shoes, he ended up selecting a can of Coke, a large bag of some offbrand variety of chip, a few Hershey’s chocolate bars, and a blue raspberry flavored slushie. Meal of champions.
The man at the counter—a sweaty, mustached man with a symbol on his hat that Dean couldn’t place until he recognized it as the gas station’s logo—barely even looked up at Dean as he scanned the items’ barcodes and read off the final total, tone monotonous.
Across the counter, Dean handed twelve dollars—one ten-dollar bill, two one-dollar bills—to the cashier, and received eighty-five cents in change, the register drawer rattling as it was slammed back shut. Dean pocketed the coins and the remaining twenty five dollars, proud of himself for managing to be frugal enough to have so much money left. The gas station door jingled again on his way out, and the night fell jarringly silent once the hum of the lights was abruptly cut off behind him.
He really did mean to make it back to the motel before he ate, but he was so goddamn hungry that he felt he’d be willing to chew off his own hand if it'd just alleviate the ache in his stomach. Dean trudged to the edge of the parking lot and dropped onto the curb, rooting around in one of the plastic white bags the store had provided him with.
And sure, maybe he tore open the first Hershey bar with a little more force than necessary. Sue him.
As he chewed through the candy quickly and swallowed even quicker, barely tasting it, the vague notion that maybe he should slow down before he made himself sick floated briefly to the top of his mind, but seemed to hit some barrier, blocking it off before it could become an actual thought.
With his right hand, he reached for the next Hershey bar. With his left, he brought the straw of the slushie to his lips, sucking the cold drink in.
When he finished the Hershey's, the bag of chips was next. It wasn't even a question, rather an order of events, ripped into and ground between teeth mechanically, like part of a machine.
Before he knew it, he’d made his way through the entirety of his groceries, besides the food he’d bought for Sammy. He felt the newly empty space in his mouth like a puzzle missing a piece, but the rest of the groceries were firmly off limits, so he wiped his hands on his jeans and stood. A few crumbs tumbled from his lap onto the concrete.
His hands felt empty, too, like they were tools that didn't really belong to him, rather than an extension of his own body. He slid them through the handles of the remaining grocery bags anyway, tossed his trash in a nearby garbage can, and started the trek back to the hotel.
The next morning, he'd woken feeling swollen. That was the only way to describe it. Every feature on his face felt puffy—his jowls, his eyelids, his cheeks, his lips. But the black hole in his stomach that usually collapsed him inward on mornings like these was still mollified, and he hadn't shivered under the thin motel sheets as he’d slept last night, so really, he could handle a little bloating. In the grand scheme of things, it wasn't that big of a deal.
And he still had breakfast left over for Sammy. So everything was fine, honestly.
—————
So Dean’s familiar with hunger.
And he's still familiar with motels. Bars. Mice scratching at baseboards. He's known these things well for the last twenty-seven years of his life, ever since Mary died.
But John’s gone, and with him went hunger. Dean knows it, still, all too well, but at least he doesn't have to feel it anymore. He's got a choice in that now.
Throughout the years, Dean had dabbled in his fair share of overindulgences—women, food, alcohol. Violence, even. When he needed something to do with his hands, he’d always known he could simply find any and all of these things at whatever local bar was nearby his and Sam's motel room.
And besides, the weight of a beer bottle against his palm didn't really feel all that different from that of a gun’s grip, especially when the first time either of them had been placed into his hands had been by his father.
And he figures that the food thing came from his mother, maybe. Some of his earliest memories had been sitting at the counter in the kitchen while she cooked, thinking to himself that he'd eat whatever she put in front of him as long as they could be there, together, forever.
Or maybe he was always going to end up like this, and it wasn't his parents’ fault at all that he was fucked up.
No point in wondering. He'd never know.