Since both his T-shirt and jacket seemed to have evaporated, Dean was forced to close the buttons of his flannel and walk around jacket-less. Cas had had no idea what he was talking about, claiming that when he entered the bathroom, there hadn't been any clothes on the floor to begin with. Dean believed him without questioning it. He couldn't even imagine what a terrible liar Cas would be, always so blunt and direct in his answers.

Luckily, whoever took his clothes had left his bag behind. It was hardly a comfort though. Dean was pissed. Real pissed. He loved that leather jacket and he was gonna make sure the asshole that took it would be regretting his decision for the rest of his life.

After Dean had reassured him he was fine multiple times, Cas let him be and went to rejoin his siblings. Dean returned to his friends.

"Took you long enough," Jo commented. "Hey, where's your jacket?"

"Shut up," Dean grumbled and left for his class, a worried-looking Charlie in his footsteps.

"You okay?" she asked him carefully.

He clenched his jaw. "No." Then they got to their classroom and he realized something. "Crap..."

"What is it?" Charlie asked, sounding even more worried now.

Dean ran a hand through his hair. "I never actually got out my textbooks."

"It's okay," she said with a little smile and put a comforting hand on his shoulder. "You can borrow mine."

If he hadn't known Charlie was an amazing friend already, he sure would now. "You sure?"

"Yeah." She shrugged. "Don't worry about it, I'll study it at home."

He gave her a grateful smile. "Thanks, Charles."

They went in and picked out their usual seats. Dean let out a sigh, glad this day could finally return to normal.

He was wrong of course.

During his first break, Dean got run over by some dude he didn't even know who was speeding down the hallways on a skateboard? Then in his next class, all of his stuff mysteriously rolled off his table and when he had to crouch underneath to get everything, one of the legs gave in and the entire piece of furniture landed on top of his head. It wasn't very heavy and apart from a lump he was fine, but that didn't mean he wasn't getting a lot more pissed with every second. Hoping comfort food would help him feel at least a tiny bit better, he ate one of the small sausages he'd brought from home as a snack but ended up nearly choking on it. He quickly put them away again after that. Since he still smelt like a chemistry lab, every time he scratched his head, pink chunks would be stuck underneath his nails and he had an hour of anyway, Dean decided for the first time in his life to actually use the gym showers for a change. Maybe it was that same inexperience with them, maybe they were just remarkably slippy, fact was that he slipped in them at least three times and came out with even more bruises. At lunch, his tacos tasted funny and with the bad luck he was having today, he wasn't gonna risk it. When in his next class he got out his phone to text Cas to distract him, the thing actually sent a shock through his arm that made him drop/threw it out of instinct and left him with a broken phone. And then at last there was the dog. Oh, that dog. Dean didn't even wanna talk about the dog.

He had survived all of that. He'd been humiliated, hurt, locked up, stolen from and possibly almost poisoned, but even though this was probably the worst day of his life, he'd live. But then school was over and he got to the parking lot.

"MOTHERFUCKING SON OF A BITCH!"

Somebody had cut the tires of the Impala. Somebody had cut the tires of his baby. Steam was basically coming out of his ears as he stared at the most valuable object in his life in shock. He quickly walked around her to see if she'd suffered any other harm but apart from the tires she seemed fine. But that didn't change the fact that he was gonna cold-bloodedly murder whoever had done this. Messing with him was one thing but messing with his car...

He didn't even notice Sam had joined him until his brother mumbled, "Holy shit..."

"Call Bobby," Dean told him through clenched teeth. "Tell him to bring the tow gear."

Sam was smart enough to know this wasn't the time to talk and just did as he was told. When he was done, the both of them just stood there waiting for Bobby in silence.

Just as Dean thought this day couldn't possibly get any worse, the school principle came out. Apparently, he'd been able to hear Dean curse as far as his office.

"Mr. Winchester, watch your language please. We don't talk like that at this school. One hour of detention."

"What?!" Dean gasped but the principle was already leaving. So he just turned to his little brother with a look that just about screamed, What the fuck just happened? Probably a good thing he didn't say that out loud.

Suddenly a frown appeared on Sam's face. "Hey, where's your jacket?"

At that point Dean decided he just wanted to sleep and not wake up for an entire week.

After about half an hour, Bobby finally got there with his truck. He didn't question the situation, Dean's face told him enough for now. They loaded up the Impala together and drove home without saying a word.

It was only when Bobby parked in front of their house that he spoke. "You want me to take her back with me?"

Dean slowly nodded, not even bothering to look up. He didn't feel like facing the two pairs of worried eyes he could feel were on him. "Yeah sure," he mumbled. "I'll come over to work on her this weekend."

"Alright," Bobby nodded. "You two gonna be okay?"

Sam smiled at him through the rearview mirror. "We'll manage. Thanks, Bobby."

"No problem, kid. You boys take care of each other, and you let me know if you need anything, got it?" the man said.

"Will do," Dean answered and he even managed to force a little smile. Then his little brother and him got out of the car and waited for Bobby to disappear out of sight, taking the Impala with him.

"Dean..." Sam finally started but before he could say another word, his brother beat him to it.

"I don't wanna talk about it." And with that he turned around and walked up to the porch.

Of course that wasn't gonna stop Sam though. He quickly caught up with his brother and went to stand next to him as Dean unlocked the door. "Well, too bad. What the hell happened to you today, Dean?"

And didn't that turn out just to be the question that would finally make Dean snap. "What happened to me? What didn't happen to me?! I have been paint-bombed, my jacket is stolen, the realm has taken every possible shot at hurting me, I'm pretty sure I almost died, twice, and SOMEBODY ASSAULTED MY CAR! That's what happened to me today!"

As soon as he noticed the hurt expression in Sammy's eyes, he regretted his outburst already. "I'm sorry, I didn't meant to-"

"It's okay," his little brother interrupted him. "Sorry I pushed."

Dean let out a sigh and finally opened the door. As they walked in, he said, "It's not your fault, alright? It's just, this day... Man, I don't even know where to start."

Sam raised an eyebrow at him and huffed. "How about the most obvious question?" he said, gesturing in his direction. "What happened to your jacket?"

"Stolen," he grumbled, tossing his backpack to the ground.

A frown appeared on his brother's face. "By who?"

"You think if I knew that, it would still be gone?"

Even Sam had to admit that to be true and just gave a small nod, allowing his brother to drop the subject if he wanted to.

Surprising even himself, Dean found that he didn't want to, and after a couple of seconds said, "You ever had a day when the entire universe seems to be out to get to you?"

He'd been expecting a lot of replies. Sam bursting out in laughter wasn't one of them though.

"You forget I had the Trickster on my ass for an entire week?"

As soon as he'd spoken the words, he abruptly fell silent and Dean knew exactly what he was thinking. They exchanged a look of surprise, both realizing it at the exact same time.

"No way," Dean said, and his little brother shook his head in disbelief.

"You pissed off the Shurleys, right? Maybe Michael or one of the others sent him after you? Or he decided to take revenge for Michael himself?"

"Maybe..." he wondered aloud. But it didn't make any sense. Why now, it had been weeks since he and Michael fought. And he didn't even know who this Trickster was. He'd never been able to figure out which one of the Shurley kids had been playing his brother.

But Sam did. And he was getting hella pissed that that stupid Trickster was now taking it out on Dean. His brother didn't deserve the pile of shit he'd had to get through today, especially not because of some asshole like Michael. And this was only one day. The guy had ghosted Sam for a week, who was to say he wouldn't do the same to Dean? He'd only stopped because of Jessica... Lucifer had assured him the Trickster had nothing to do with that and Sam believed him - he had to, otherwise he'd lose his mind - but there was no way in hell he was gonna let it get that far again. This drama with the Trickster was coming to an end.

And it was going to end tomorrow.

~~~

Look how regularly I'm updating! :) Wondering how long it'll last? Me too 😅 Anyway, thank you all for reading, guys. There are officially over 1k comments on this and I know half of them are probably mine but still, I'm immensely grateful to every single one of you. Plus, this story's most impressive ranking atm is #Michael, which also the tag with the most stories in it, so I'm taking that as a huge complement and it's all because of you, so thank you all so much! X