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When Dean was but a couple of years old, he grabbed his six-month-old brother tight and ran out of a house where there was a sick sick man. His dad said it was a demon, an inhumane and monstrous thing, and the police agreed.
Growing up through the endless chain of motel rooms, Dean could hold onto nothing but his too-young, too-small brother, though his dad often called him away.
“Dean, get your sorry ass over here and take off my damn boots.” A gruff voice called from the recliner stuck forever in front of the TV. Somehow, every time Dad happened to be home, he was stuck in front of the television. A seven-year-old Dean quickly put down his babbling brother and swiftly took off his father’s boots, almost gagging at the smell and the still leftover blood that the shoes were caked in, dirtying his pale, uncalloused fingers.
Crawling back over to Sam, refusing to even enter his father’s line of sight, tears build up in his eyes, and though Sam awkwardly tries to pat his shoulders, it does nothing to ease Dean’s beating heart.
Clink. And John Winchester has set yet another empty beer bottle on the table next to the recliner. Dean’s shaking hands attempted to fill, but not stuff Sam’s mouth with Kraft Mac and Cheese. Dean didn’t even notice that blood had stained the spoon’s handle, smearing a dirty red that contrasted with the white of the plastic utensil.
“All gone!” Dean said cheerily as he showed Sam the empty plastic container, stained with yellow but noticeably empty of any actual noodles. Sam clapped, babbling noises empty of meaning. Dean picked up Sam and cradled him as they walked towards the bathroom.
Filling the water, and checking, rechecking, checking once more, to make sure the water was a comfortable temperature before attempting to give Sam a bath.
“Are these ever going to be clean again?” Dean asked the toddler, who was splashing water all over the floor, while staring at the mess of yellow colored clothing on the floor. “They used to be white as clouds…”
It wasn’t long after Sam was dressed in soft pajamas, a pattern of stars and space ships featured, while sleeping quietly in a laundry basket full of clean clothes, that Dean was shoved into the passenger seat of his father’s Impala. Only the tips of Dean’s shoes reached the flooring of the Impala.
“This is your first hunting mission, Dean. Listen well and don’t stray too far.” His father's gruff voice called from what, to Dean, felt like miles above.
They soon pulled into the driveway of a nice-looking two-story home.
Dean remembered, faintly, his approach to the storm, still wrapped in the calm of it all, even as he knocked on the home’s door, none of it felt real enough, yet, to be engrained into his young mind. A young man peered through the door’s window before giving the young boy enough cause to open the door this late at night.
The door opener partly before John reached from the window’s blind spot to the door handle and yanked it open, Dean jumped away as John rushed into the house. Heavy boots hit the wood flooring as the young man backed away, his footwear being only black cat slippers.
“Mary! Call the police-!” The man shouted before John slammed the front door on Dean, and suddenly the young boy had no clue what was happening behind the almost 2” thick door. Dean looked towards the window, two shadows moved under the door, until they merged into one big one, before eventually part of it fell, and only one lone shadow remained. Unfortunately, not long after, a smaller shadow appeared. Dean looked at the floor, lamenting the forming tear in the top right of the shoe on his right foot. He messed with it using his cramped big toe, but stopped when the door opened once more.
Hands on shoulders, practically dragging him into the house. Dean’s steps were slower than the man would’ve liked, but the distance was too short for him to complain. It was only a couple of steps before he stood stiff over the couple’s body. Curled into each other, the woman’s hands on her partner, and her large belly. The woman had beautiful short blonde hair, the man looked like he had a black mop on his head. The couple didn’t have many moments of solace in each other's arms before John Winchester gripped the woman by her arm and dragged her closer towards him and forcing her to lie on her back.
“Dean, you’re going to…” John started, but Dean listened to him no more intently than he did the flies in the motel. John gripped a jagged knife with blood running down the handle. He yanked Dean’s arm, forcing open the boy’s wrist and placing the knife in the boy’s hand. Gripping the knife with his small hand, John forced Dean to his knees, moving the knife closer and closer towards the woman before backing away.
Dean, using all his body weight to stab the woman close to the main part of the extension of her stomach, wondered why he was doing this. Why his bloodied hands were only getting bloodier. Then, he remembered that monsters do exist.
The truth of this hunting trip was the fact that these two people were a couple of werewolves, and the woman had stolen a baby from its crib and eaten it. That’s why it was in its stomach, why there was such a big extension, and why he needed to save it. That’s why it wasn’t horrible when Dean started the extraction of the victim, it was justified, a good and noble act, even.
It hurts, massively, ripping open her stomach, and coming across the little thing. Dean stabbed the blade into the woman’s thigh before grabbing the baby. He cradled it in his arms, it was smaller than Dean had ever remembered Sam being, before turning to his father. He couldn’t turn all the way, the sick werewolf had forcefully connected the victim to its former resting place. It tugged, a connecting cord tugged on the too-small baby.
Before Dean could tug even harder back, John snatched the baby away from Dean, shoving the young boy away. Dean landed on his back, the black cat slippers of the woman stabbing his mid-back. As the young boy started to get up, the foot under his back was dragged away, heaving the boy onto the floor once more.
It took a couple of seconds before Dean decided to look towards the baby and his father, and when he did, he noticed a familiar sight.
John Winchester was lying with the woman on the floor, his hands entangled with hers as they both clutched the baby. The victim was still attached to its captor. Dean couldn’t help but feel bad for the poor young baby, forcefully taken from its parents and into the hands of an impure, inhumane monster.
Staring at his unmoving father, Dean took his cue, he started walking around the house, dragging a large chair, going around, and taking down fire alarms. It took him close to half an hour, after all, he didn’t have the proper tools and was forced onto his tippy-toes.
Dean walked back onto the first floor to see his father dousing it, lightly, in gasoline, taking careful steps to the front door, he avoided walking into a puddle of it, thankfully, he was able to make it to the car undirtied of the liquid.
John Winchester opened the front door with a box of matches in hand. He stepped out onto the porch, keeping the door open with his foot, before turning around and throwing a match into the house and walking away. Eventually, making it into the car and moving out of the driveway.
In the dead of night, no one had noticed the love and care contained in those walls defaced and erased in mere hours, the fire burning away memories as pictures, corpses, and matching slippers, ceased to be.
Dean scrubbed at his hands for hours that night, before eventually moving on to Sam’s dirtied clothes. As that little boy scrubbed and scrubbed at stains that felt like they won’t ever come out, he wondered how a deep red could ever leave such a pale and uncalloused thing.
The next day is always somehow worse than the actual night of hunting. Dean lies awake in his bed, and not even Sam’s cries of night terrors can force the young boy to get up right away. The young boy’s eyes drift lazily over the ceiling, tracing patterns into the white popcorn texture.
Eventually, the noise starts to awaken even the dead to the world man on the recliner, and Dean rushed to get Sam and calm him down. Tears stream down the toddler's eyes, the screams from that fiery night haunt this somehow even smaller boy still. He remembers naught but blood on his lips and screams echoing in his ears.
Dean, a small, scared child, cradles the even smaller, somehow more scared child in his arms. What should’ve been a picture of hope, wonder, joy, is marred with blood stains still, even if they’re no longer visible, to the young boys, their skin still feels like it burns in every place the despicable red has buried its way into their bodies.
“Are you old enough to speak yet? Why aren’t you?” Dean asks Sam as he holds the younger boy’s hand. Sam simply stared up at Dean, smiling with tears still falling from his cheek. Small hands grip the side of Dean’s face, smacking, pulling, pushing, until Dean resembles a Halloween mask.
Regardless of it all, today was the day the boys would be dropped off at Bobby’s. Dean, not one to wait for directions, started packing up his and Sammy’s items. Despite only having one suitcase for the two of them, it was still pitifully empty.
In the back seat of the Impala, Sam sat on Dean’s lap, napping. John Winchester refused to use the radio, so hours of quiet awaited them. Sam’s head was tucked into Dean’s chest, Dean’s arms wrapped around the toddler in an almost suffocating embrace.
Sam was far larger than the partially digested victim of those werewolves was, and that little victim will never even get the chance of catching up. Forever a small, tiny thing, turned to even smaller ashes. As Dean remembered the silent screams of the child, his arms snaked even tighter around the toddler in his arms.
Dean’s eyes slowly closed before he rushed to open them. This continued multiple times, each time it felt like Dean’s eyes grew heavier, the length of his eyes being closed extending, until eventually, his eyes cemented themselves shut.