Chapter Text
It was ten minutes to eight when the Impala finally pulled up outside Dean’s home.
Home. What a ridiculously inappropriate word to describe the shithole Dean and his family had been living in for the past six months. This wasn’t a home; this was a prison. Dean’s real home was nothing more than a ruin, now.
When the flames had finally died down, Mary had been barely more than a sprinkle of ashes in the wind, and their once beautiful house now completely decimated by the fire. They could have rebuilt it, if they had really wanted to, but no one could bear the thought of living in a house that inhabited the ghost of Mary Winchester. If they had stayed where they were, the memory of that fateful night would have teared their souls apart, and left them nothing more than cold and empty shells of guilt—haunted by familiar faces and forsaken dreams.
However, moving to the rickety old house on the side of town, with the rusted swing set and dead plants, hadn’t done much good in helping Dean and his family escape their torment and move on with their lives. John had begun numbing his pain with alcohol, and, when that wasn’t enough, taking that pain out on Dean. Many of the bruises had faded, but Dean still felt them. It didn’t matter that they were gone—the imprints of black and blue and purple had been stained on his soul forever.
Sometimes Dean liked the pain, though. It reminded him that he was alive, and was paying for the murder of his mother with his own blood.
As Dean got out of the car, he saw the front door open, and John, whiskey bottle in hand, stumbled outside to meet him. He looked angry.
“The fuck you been, boy?” John shouted, although there was no one to hear him except for Dean. On the drive home it had begun to rain—now it was pouring. His jeans clung to his skin and water poured down his face in desperate seeps, like tears. Though Dean had already vowed on the way back never to cry again.
“Out,” came Dean’s response. His voice was sullen; almost bored sounding—as if the sight of his father’s scowl did not bother him, when in fact, John terrified him when he got drunk at home, and tonight was no exception.
“You promised me you were gonna’ be back for seven to look after your brother!” scolded his father, waving his bottle in frustration and spilling some on to the ground.
Dean wanted to look away, but he vowed not to be stared down by John’s drunken glare. He would not look away. Ever. He was going to stand his ground until the day John finally lost it and cracked a bottle over his head. It wouldn’t be the freedom Dean had been planning for, but it was a freedom nonetheless; one where her could be with his mother again.
“I lost track of time,” he told his father. “But, I’m here now. You go out. Want me to call you a cab?”
“Why the fuck would I need a cab?” questioned John, accusingly.
“You can’t honestly expect to be able to drive like that.”
“Like what?”
John was worse than usual. As he pointed a craw-like finger at Dean, and brought himself closer, so their faces were almost touching, Dean could smell the alcohol on John’s breath. It made him feel ill.
“Where’s Sam?” asked Dean, changing the subject, although he was speaking through gritted teeth.
“In his crib,” came John’s condescending reply. “You think I’m incapable of putting a kid to bed?”
“I didn’t say that,” replied Dean. Their faces were still eerily close.
“You think I’m a bad father, boy?”
“I don’t know,” said Dean, “would you consider getting blind drunk while an infant relies on you to be kept alive count as being a bad father?”
It was a bold move on Dean’s part, talking back to his father like that when John was already in such a state. He had done it before, and the scars he’d acquired over the past months had acted as a reminder of all the reasons why it was a bad idea.
Dean was sure that John was going to hit him, but his father’s hands remained by his sides.
“At least I never killed nobody,” was all John said—but it was enough.
Dean felt his fists clenching, and his self-control begin to waver. This was it, he thought, he was going to fucking lose it.
And then, his thoughts were distracted by the sound of a distant car engine. Looking over his father’s shoulder, he recognised the approaching vehicle.
Getting out of the car was John’s old friend and drinking partner, Caleb. He waved at Dean, although his eyes were knitted together in concern. It was common knowledge that since Mary’s death the relationship between John and Dean Winchester had been less than peachy.
John turned around.
“Evenin’ there, Caleb,” he said.
“Evening,” nodded Caleb. “Everything okay?”
“Just swell, thanks for asking. You ready to go?”
Caleb nodded, though the worried look on his face did not waver. John gave Dean one final look of disgust before turning around and walking towards his friend’s car.
“Bye, Dean,” called Caleb, “I’ll make sure your pop comes back in one piece.”
Dean smiled through gritted teeth. “Don’t try too hard,” he said under his breath.
As the car drove away, Dean ran into the house to escape the rain.
Dean stomped upstairs and slammed his bedroom door shut, not even bothering to kick off his muddy boots to lay on the bed. He wiped his tired eyes and sighed slowly.
He had almost done it—hurt his father in a way that there was no coming back from. Could he have killed John if it had really come down to it? Could he have played God and decided the fate of another person? Then he realised—he had already done that six months ago. A murderer was still a murderer, whether he killed one person or a thousand.
Dean thought about Sam.
This was his routine now. Babysitting his brother almost four times a week while his dad drowned his sorrows at the local bar. Sam had been a good baby until Mary’s death. Now he cried all the time.
Dean thought about Lisa. He hadn’t spoken to her in weeks. In fact, he barely spoke to any of his friends anymore. Dean had been cutting class an awful lot these past few months. His school had tried to get in touch with John, to tell him that if Dean skipped any more classes, he was going to be kicked out for good. John was always too boozed up to give a shit, though, and Dean liked it that way. School, friends, Lisa… they didn’t matter to him anymore. They could not fill the hole in his heart, and the emptiness in his soul. Dean could not feel anything anymore, nothing except for anger, and hate.
Listlessly, Dean brought a hand to his bedside table. He was looking for the amulet he had had since he was little.
The amulet was nothing special, just a cheap, bronze-coloured thing that resembled a head with bull-like horns. It had been the only possession of Dean’s to have survived the fire. He would never admit it, but the amulet was a great comfort to him when John’s drinking got too much to bear.
Rummaging through the belongings that resided on the table, Dean could not feel the amulet under his grasp. Opening his eyes, Dean peered over—to find that it wasn’t there.
The amulet was always there. Unless it was around his neck, Dean would, without fail, place it on his bedside table where it would wait patiently to be worn again.
Then Dean remembered. Sam liked the amulet too.
“That little…” Dean rasped under his breath, getting up off his bed and storming out of his room.
Opening the door of Sam’s nursery, a shadow of the nursery they had had in their old house, Dean saw his brother clutching on to the amulet with an almost fierce protectiveness, sleeping soundly in his cot.
“Goddammit, Sam!” Dean said, walking over to him and grabbing the amulet from Sammy’s grasp. “What have I told you about stealing my stuff?”
At once, Sam awoke, and began to bawl.
“Shut up,” snapped Dean, placing the amulet around his neck; absent-mindedly fingering the bronze head and relishing the coldness it left against his fingertips.
Sam had stood up, and was now shaking at the bars of the crib.
“Shut up, would you?”
The rain had gotten worse, and was now thrashing violently against the nursery window. A flash of lightening lit up the room, and Sam’s wailings prevailed.
“God,” whispered Dean, closing his eyes amidst the chaos. “Somebody take me away from this place.”
His thoughts were interrupted by a deafening strike of thunder. Sam recoiled and sobbed for the attention of his older brother.
“What the hell do you want, huh?” glared Dean. “One of Mom’s stories?”
Sam looked up at Dean, and whimpered.
“Okay,” the older boy said, sitting on the edge of the spare bed. “If that’ll shut you up.”
“Once upon a time…” he began, and although the words were sincere, his voice was addled with resentment and malice. “…there lived two brothers.”
Dean stood up from the bed and walked slowly towards the dirtied mirror that hung from the far wall.
“The first brother: brave, righteous and good… with chiselled, handsome features and a talent with the ladies, although he would never admit it,” smirked Dean, looking at himself admirably in the mirror, “was often left to care for his younger brother; a brother that was sly, damned and evil.” With that, he looked at Sam through the mirror, and glared at him through cold, unforgiving eyes.
Dean turned, and began walking back towards the crib.
“The first brother loved his younger one dearly, but was treated so harshly by him and his father, that he was practically a slave.”
Sam began to cry again, but Dean ignored it.
“The King of the Demons had watched the two brothers closely for many years, and amidst his ruling, and killing, and fucking, he had grown to pity the first brother, and had given him certain powers.”
Dean smirked as his brother whined from behind the cot, clutching on to the bars with his chubby hands, and snivelling with discomfort and fear.
“So one night,” continued Dean, “when the second brother had been particularly cruel to him, he called on the demons for help.”
Underneath the earth, or perhaps above it, or on its side, two demons held their heads against a wall, giggling together madly as they listened to a boy fulfil a prophecy that had been written so many eons ago, people had almost thought it would never happen.
“Shut your hole!” the first demon barked, grabbing the other by its matted hair. “Listen!”
“‘Say your right words,'” the demons said,” mimicked Dean callously, “‘and we’ll take your brother to the castle, and you will be free!' But the boy knew that the Demon King would keep his brother in his castle forever and ever and ever, and turn him into a demon. And so the Righteous Prince suffered in silence, until one day, when he was tired from a day of beatings from his father, and was hurt by the harsh orders of his younger brother, that he could no longer stand it…”
Sam was shaking wildly at the crib bars, and crying so loudly that he almost drowned out the sound of the pouring rain that was stabbing relentlessly against the windowpane. Dare he admit it, but Dean was actually enjoying himself. Mary had only told him that story once, long ago, when the thunder was just as fierce, and the rain just as wild, and her eyes seemed wide and unfocused, as if somebody else was speaking through her.
Dean sighed. Maybe he had had enough fun for one night. He’d succeeded in terrorising a baby during a thunderstorm, and perhaps now it was time to stop before he scarred his baby brother for life—although the thought was tempting.
“Alright, alright…” he said, picking Sam up from the crib and rocking him awkwardly from side-to-side. He had watched Mary do this many times before the fire, and it had always soothed his brother’s tears.
After two minutes, Sam’s cries were as loud and relentless as when he had first started.
“God, quiet it down, would you?” Dean said through his brother’s wails. “You want me to say the words? I will, you know. Don’t think I’m bluffing.”
The two demons gasped, their black eyes widening as they whined excitedly through rotted teeth and blackened tongues.
Dean stared down at his brother, and spoke quietly.
“I wish… I wish…”
The second demon squealed, clapping its hands together and cackling manically. The first demon shook it harshly by the shoulders, and dug its dirtied fingernails into the second’s moulded skin.
“Shut up, shut up! He’s going to say the words… listen.”
“I wish…” said Dean a third time, and Sam struggled in his arms, desperate for release, crying so wildly that his face was stained with tears, snot and spit. Dean was repulsed.
“Oh, God, I can’t stand it!”
“Demon King!” Dean said, holding Sam high above him, as if in sacrifice. “I demand my freedom! Wherever you may be, take this fucking child to your world, and keep him there forever!”
The two demons looked at each other.
“What?!” they said in unison.
“The bloody ‘ell was that?” screeched the first demon. “Did that stupid whore not tell him the story right or summin’?”
Sam bashed his little fists against Dean’s, and he sighed in exasperation, lowering his baby brother from the sky.
“I wish I did know how to make the demons take you away…” sighed Dean. “You’re such a pain in my ass.”
The second demon screamed in frustration.
“‘I wish the demons would come and take you away!’”
It looked at its elder in bewilderment.
“The prophecy never told us the Righteous Prince was a bleedin’ half-wit!”
“Shh, my love,” came the first demon’s reply, stroking the second’s rotted face with an odd sense of gentleness. “Give him time.”
Dean stared down at his brother’s wailing form as he placed him back in the crib. He knew that he should feel something, but he didn’t.
As he left Sam in the cot and walked out of the room, he stopped at the light switch and turned around.
“I thought I loved you, but now I know that you’re the reason why Mom is dead, and why John hates me. This is your fault.”
He turned off the light so his brother was left to weep in total blackness, save for the random sparks of lightening that illuminated the room.
“You wanna’ know what happens at the end of my story?” asked Dean in the darkness. “I wish the demons would come and take you away, and they do.”
With that, Dean stormed out of the room—only to be met with silence.
Sam had stopped crying.