Archive of Our Own

Title: Voices Within
Category: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-series
Characters: Dean, John, and Sam
Rating: Teen
Summary/Prompt: Gen, teenage Dean develops schizophrenia.
Word count: 1500+
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters, but if Kripke wants to give them to me I will happily take them.

The first time John starts wondering what is going on with Dean is a couple months after Dean turns 16; they are staying in a rental house in Ohio, and when John gets back from a hunt Dean swears the house is haunted, while Sam swears that this is a sign that Dean has finally lost it. It wasn't the homecoming John had been hoping for; instead of sleeping, he heads to the library and county clerk's office to see if he missed anything when he researched the place before they moved in. He doesn't find anything new about the house that would explain what Dean has said was happening. However, when the principal's secretary calls him the next day to schedule a meeting, he finds out that Dean has been getting in trouble at school. After the meeting, John yells at Dean about the fact that Dean knows he has to behave so DFACS doesn't investigate them. Dean gives him some story about the teachers being out to get him and can't he just dropout anyway. After John has cooled down some, he starts thinking that the whole thing with the house may just be Dean trying to get John to stay home for a while. Dean doesn't usually act this way, in fact it's something John would have expected from Sam a few years ago, before Sam decided that he didn't need John around. John decides to find a job nearby, so he can replenish their cash supply and keep an eye on Dean at the same time.

John thinks everything is back to normal until a few weeks later, when he gets a call from Dean's school while he's at work asking him why Dean has stopped attending and John is the one who loses it. When he gets home, he heads straight for the room that Dean and Sam share. As soon as he enters, both boys look up at him.

"Sam out!" He says without even looking at Sam. He's focused solely on Dean, who now seems to be looking anywhere but at John.

"I thought I made myself clear when I told you not to cause anymore problems and that you were going to stay in school, so why is it that I received a phone call from your school saying that you hadn't been showing up?" John asked as he towered over Dean.

"There are demons there and I'm not good at school anyway, so I figured it was better to just stay home." Dean said.

John was so surprised by Dean's answer that he was left speechless for a minute. Did Dean honestly think John was dumb enough to accept that answer? Granted John did fall for the haunted house story a few weeks ago, but he would definitely know if there were demons at his son's school.

"Dean, I've had enough of your lying. You are not going to drop out of school and that's final, so while your brother and I have supper you can stay up here and catch up on all the schoolwork you haven't been doing." John says before storming out of the room.

"Sam, I'm going to go get something for supper stay out of your room while I'm gone. Dean's doing his schoolwork and I don't want you distracting him." John said as he walked past Sam who had been sitting on the stairs.

The next morning they head to Pastor Jim's. On the way Sam is complaining about leaving his school and friends, Dean's mumbling something under his breath, and John has a headache from clenching his jaw so tight to keep from cussing at both of his sons. John's wondering how he's going to survive the teen years because he always thought Dean was going to be the easy one, and he knows that if Sam's this difficult now that it's only going to get worse when he becomes a teenager.

Pastor Jim is the one that suspects something other than typical teenage behavior. After they search for a supernatural explanation for Dean's behavior, without any luck, he suggests that John take Dean to the doctor to see if there's something physical that could be causing it. The doctor doesn't find anything physically wrong, but he does suggest that Dean get a psychological evaluation, which John refuses. However, a few weeks later when Dean's behavior seems to be getting even worse John decides that at this point he'll try anything and agrees to let Dean be evaluated. He gets an answer as to what is causing Dean's behavior, but it's not one he would have ever thought of, the doctor informs John that Dean has Schizophrenia and needs to start taking medication for it immediately. He explains that the best way to start treatment would be for Dean to be hospitalized so they can better monitor how he's reacting to the medications. John refuses to have Dean hospitalized, but he does agree to have Dean start the medication and to bring Dean in regularly to be evaluated until the meds start to work.

They stay at Pastor Jim's until fall since by then the doctors have Dean's medication figured out and John is tired of staying in one place.

By the following summer John has decided that Dean's stable enough to leave him alone with Sam, so John can take care of a few jobs, however, what was supposed to be a week at the maximum turns into several weeks when he is sidetracked with following a lead he finds about what happened to Mary. Dean had been taking his meds regularly and seemed to be almost back to his old self, and John calls every few days to talk to one of the boys. The scene John walks into when he returns home proves that he made an awful mistake. Sam is tied up in a chair, while Dean is holding a knife and speaking Latin, which some part of John's brain recognizes as the words for an exorcism.

"Dean, what's going on?"

Dean turns to John. "Dad, I'm glad you're back. Mom says that Sammy's evil, and I didn't want to have to kill him, so I'm trying to get the evil part out, but nothing is working."

John doesn't know how to respond to that, but he does know that he has to get Sam out of there before Dean hurts him more than he already has. John starts to untie Sam, but soon realizes that he's going to have to do something about Dean first.

"Dad, what are you doing? He's evil you're supposed to help me, not him. I should have thought of the fact that he could have turned you. I'm sorry dad, but Mom says that I have to make sure Sammy doesn't get away." Dean says before coming at John with the knife.

Dean manages to get John in the arm with the knife before John gets it away from him; even once John gets the knife away from Dean, Dean continues to fight John. John finally decides that the best way to handle Dean without causing any real damage to him is to choke him out. After he lays Dean on the floor he goes back to untying Sam, by the time Sam is untied John is starting to feel where Dean got him with the knife. He's starting to see black spots, but knows he can't blackout incase Dean comes to and tries to hurt Sam again.

"Sam, call 911." John says as he sits on the floor a few feet away from where Dean is laying. He's always told the boys not to involve the authorities, but if it keeps Dean from being able to hurt Sam, he'll take his chances. It's a decision that haunts him for a long time.

The authorities want to send Dean to a mental hospital at least until he's twenty-one, or longer if he doesn't become stable. John can fight Dean being sent there, and definitely lose custody of Sam and possibly still not keep Dean out of the mental hospital, or he can choose not to fight Dean being sent away and keep custody of Sam, in the end it's not much of a choice.

John decides to settle down there to be close to Dean. He finds a job in a garage and goes to visit Dean once a week. John asks Sam if he wants to go with John to see Dean, but he always says he's too busy with schoolwork, and John can't really say much since most of the time he's not even sure Dean's aware that John's there. Sam does go to see Dean before he leaves for college, by then he's taller than Dean and knows that even if Dean tried to hurt him Sam would be able to keep Dean from doing anything.

Sam doesn't see Dean again, until Dean shows up in Sam's apartment at Stanford several years later.