Supernatural One-Shots

Daddy!Dean: Breaking up

Dean Winchester is out working on his car when his daughter Mary comes home heartbroken after a breakup, and he struggles to find the words to help.

Everything's perfect. Today is no different. Dean Winchester is working on his car inside the garage at his home in Lawrence, Kansas. Outside, the sun is shining brightly from the blue sky, and it's still summer temperature even though it's September. The trees all around the house, the town, the state, are painted in beautiful shades of red, orange and yellow and the fresh summery breeze cools Dean down there he stands in his white shirt that he didn't bother taking off after work, his sleeves rolled up over his sun-tanned arms from the amazing summer they had.

All of this, the quiet autumn afternoon, or, as Dean delicately puts it, the late summer's day, is just the calm before the storm he's going to have to deal with today. He doesn't know about anything that's happened all day since he's been standing here, early home from his job, working with the second most important thing in his life.
Because the most important thing in his life, is his daughter Mary, who was named after Dean's beloved, dearly departed mother.
Dean and Mary are alone in this world; they only have each other. John Winchester died several years ago. When little Mary was only six years old she witnessed, on a hike up the mountains with her dad and her granddad, the Winchester family patriarch falling into a river and being taken by the stream. Dean had jumped in, much to Mary's fright, but he was too late.
Sam lives in California, in a beautiful house with his wife Jessica and their son, Henry.
They don't have anyone else, since Dean's beloved husband, Castiel, passed away a year ago, when Mary was fourteen and Dean was thirty-four and, according to himself, way too young to be raising a teenager on his own. But Castiel had always believed in him - and Dean also gave himself a pat on the back every morning when he got up early to make breakfast, if it would be pancakes or scrambled eggs, and Mary would come downstairs when he called for her, dressed in baggy pajama pants and hair pointing to all directions from a good night's sleep, and they would have a lovely little family breakfast together and every day she would help him wash the dishes and she would kiss his cheek and run upstairs to tidy up and get ready for the day.
Mary also has a boyfriend. This scrawny, tall, polite kid that Dean can't help but to hate, because he knows the guy is gonna break his little girl's heart someday. Still, it's not worse than her winding up hating Dean, because he wants to tell her that he doesn't like that she has a boyfriend at this age, not when she's as vulnerable as she is, even crying over books and TV-shows. Kids these days, he thinks to himself with a smile as he wipes away some oil from his forehead. He loves his daughter more than life itself, but sometimes he just struggles to understand what's going on in her head.
Dean hears the big, yellow school bus down the road, driving up towards their house on the top of the hill, the best house in the neighborhood according to him, and he recalls that Mary told him this morning that she'd bring her boyfriend around today, and he hasn't started on dinner yet, he hasn't even planned what they're going to have. He mostly has a little chat with Mary about what both of them want for dinner and when they come to an agreement, he makes enough for both of them so there won't be any leftovers. Mary doesn't eat much, not much at all, and he doesn't either.
Not since he lost Cas.

The bus stops down the road and he hears footsteps approaching their little old farm over the sound of the bus. One pair of footsteps only, and he starts wondering when he hears that one pair of footsteps walk quickly across the yard on the way to the little house. Dean gets up, lightly brushing the sticky oil on his hands off on the black deputy pants he wears to work. He walks over to the door on the side of the garage, watching his daughter walk over to the house, not stopping by the garage as she usually does, to greet her dad in the polite manner he raised her. No, something's up.
"Hey, I thought you were bringing your boyfriend home today," he half shouts on his way out of the garage and she stops, but she doesn't turn around. She doesn't turn towards him, but he can see her legs shaking visibly, her back, her hands wiping something away from her face, and he's been standing there, wiping his hands clean of oil on an old washing cloth, but now he throws it away.
"Mary?" he asks, starting to walk up towards her. When she hears him coming closer, she starts walking again, quickly, the rest of the way up to the house, up the stairs and opening the front door. Dean is right behind.
"Mary, hey," he says softly as he treads inside the hallway, closing the door behind him. It's like she doesn't hear him as she walks on over to the staircase Dean built years ago, that's gonna bring her up to the hall and to her bedroom.
"Mary! Mary, honey, what's wrong?" he calls while he kicks off his shoes, racing through the hallway and following after her up the stairs. She never acts up like this. Something must have happened between their nice breakfast this morning and walking off the bus at home.
Even from the stairs he can hear her crying when she slams shut her bedroom door. Dean's gotta give it to himself; not installing a lock on Mary's bedroom door was a brilliant idea because something like this eventually would have happened and she would lock herself in her room for hours, letting him worry his ass off while hearing her suffer on the other side of the door. And all he wishes for right in this moment is for her to just be a child again and just crying about a bruise she got when falling off her bike, and he can do something about it, patch her up with a band-aid or kiss the bruise and wipe the tears away, telling her and knowing for certain that it's gonna be okay.
But this is something different and possibly far worse. He can hear it in the way she's crying so hard she's probably struggling to get air between the sobs; she's heartbroken. Dean just wants to open the door and rush into the room to pick her up into his arms and try to make her laugh, or at least stop her heart-wrenching pain, but he doesn't feel like violating her privacy if she really wants to be on her own for a while. He just has to check first.
"Hey, kiddo," he says calmly, his heart breaking as he hears her sobbing in there, and by the sound of it, she's trying to muffle the noises with her pillow but it's useless, he can hear it anyway. "Baby, please tell me what's wrong," he says, knocking on the door again, trying to get her attention.
"Go away, dad," she shouts, her voice breaks, her sobs go even more deep, it feels like someone takes a blunt knife to Dean's heart and tries to cut it open.
"No, I'm not gonna go away until you tell me what's going on. Please, baby, just talk to me. I'm right out here for you. I'm not leaving you alone while you're like this." He makes his voice softer than usual, but that's because he feels his heart slowly break for his daughter whom he hears is in so much pain.
He hears muffled footsteps on the floor, the sound of someone walking towards him in the other room. He takes down the hand he's been holding to the door and looks down at his fifteen year old daughter. Her face is bloated already, it seems like she's been crying for a while.
Her eyes were marked with mascara and a smooth cat-eye liner when she said bye this morning, now they're grimed, red, black drops running down her cheeks. Dean's eyes widen before he frowns, and then he just ends up feeling bad. She looks so upset, and he puts a hand to her cheek.
"Mary, sweetheart," he whispers, he tries to wipe away the black streaks running down her face with his thumb but they only come back again, wetting her cheeks even more. He doesn't care about the makeup that's going to ruin his white shirt; his kid is always more important than his work, especially in this moment. Pulling her into his arms, he lets her bury her face in the crook of his neck, she isn't taller than that yet, letting her feel his strong arms around her, letting her smell the scent of her dad being there; the smell of oil and his Chevy Impala and that old deputy uniform he uses for pretty much anything when he's on call.
He softly shushes at her and lets her sob into his chest for a few minutes until her legs start trembling, and he helps her back into her bedroom, sitting her down on the side of the bed, and he sits down right beside her, putting an arm around her shoulders and pulling her closer again.
"Now, please talk to me," he says softly. "What's wrong? Did something happen at school?"
She temporarily manages to stifle the crying, but he can tell that she's struggling to hold it in. Dean knows this must be serious; his strong daughter is almost reacting worse than when Cas died a year ago.
"It's Tommy," she says and draws a shaky, deep breath. Dean puts his thumb to her cheek again, trying to wipe away the makeup-covered tears on her face. Then he starts rubbing her back when she can't get another word out. "What did Tommy do?" he asks. "Did he... did he hurt you?"
The thought of that immediately makes him see red, but even though how much it hurts seeing his daughter like this, and however much he doesn't like her boyfriend, he can't see before him that scrawny kid pulling any shady crap on his daughter. The thought of that makes him want to barf and then go get the shotgun he keeps in a locked cupboard downstairs, hunting Tommy down.
"Tommy broke up with me," she whispers shakily and tears up again and Dean is ready to catch her. He puts his arms around her, holding her as tightly as he can without breaking her. He leans his chin on her head.
"Shh," he whispers softly into her hair. "It's alright, okay? You'll be alright. Shh. I swear, you're gonna be better off without him."
Tommy and Mary were together for almost a year. He knows the feeling of loving someone so widely and so deeply, that beauty of one's first love, and he definitely knows the feeling of a broken heart. His heart broke last year when Cas drew his last breath, and the weeks after where Mary started acting out in her grief and telling Dean she hated him whenever she was upset about anything at all. That had been the worst time of his life, but he had managed.
But that was his broken heart. This time, it's his daughter's and he can't help but feel like it's his fault she's feeling like this now. He should have told her earlier that he didn't want her dating guys at that kind of age. He doesn't know if she would have listened but he could at least have taken a step and tried, to save her feelings when this inevitably would happen.
"Mary," he whispers when he finally feels her chest raise slower and slower and she comes back to more or less normal. They've been sitting there for about fifteen minutes, him thinking about what he could have done to avert this and her thinking about all the things she can do that are going to lead to a certain death, because honestly, all she wants in this moment is to die. After her now deceased father died, Tommy was all that she had to cling to, aside from her dad.
"Mary, baby, Tommy is a jackass. He doesn't know how good he had it. You, darling, need someone better. Until then, I'm gonna be here for you all the time. No, scratch that-" he says, smiling down to her, wiping her tears away with his thumb again, looking her in the eyes,
"-I'm gonna be here for you anyway, forever. And I'm not saying I'm gonna love you any less if you find another jackass - but please pick wisely this time. I'm gonna help you find a good guy."
She smiles, or, gives it a try at least. Dean finds it reassuring when the corners of her lips curl up a little, but then they fall down again, leaving her face looking even more depressed.
"It doesn't matter, dad, I don't think I'm ever gonna have a boyfriend again."
"Oh, no, but you are going to have boyfriends. I mean, have you looked in the mirror? You're the most beautiful girl in the world, and you gotta know that's true when you hear it from me - because daddy's always right."
She scoffs but smiles up at him again, leaning her head on his shoulder, and he puts an arm around her shoulder again.
"You okay, Mary?" he whispers softly.
She doesn't answer with words, just the shake of her head is all that she reveals, she's probably exhausted. But Dean won't take her silence for an answer. He just can't leave it at that.
"What do you say we take out the Impala and go get some Ben&Jerry's? I may be a middle-aged man but I know ice cream is what they recommend for broken girl's hearts." He smiles and rubs her back. "What do you say to that, hm?" he asks again when she stays silent.
"Only if we listen to Bon Jovi all the way," he hears her whisper shakily and she looks up at him, smiling, if Dean didn't know better, brightly, even though a veil of tears have started glassing her eyes again.
"Bon Jovi and Ben&Jerry's. How about we just go to a pizza place as well since we're already on that theme?" he suggests.
"This is why you're the best dad," she says quietly and throws herself into his arms. Dean can't help but to feel proud of himself as he averts another disaster smoothly. This is the first time he's had to do something like this, but it seems he made it alright. 
At least for a while. There's always an obstacle around any corner.