Chapter Text
Dennis stood beside the altar; the sound of the gunshot echoed off the white walls of the parish, the bullet perfectly striking the priest's chest, causing him to fall stiffly to the floor. The silence that followed was deafening, and apart from Whitaker's gasping breath, the only other sound was the gasping of the almost dead man a few meters in front of him. The priest's body lay sprawled in a pool of blood that mingled with the red of the carpets, his limbs twitching slightly as he struggled toward inevitable death. Dennis didn't know how many minutes he stared at the unconscious man, but he made sure to memorize every gasping breath the priest took before losing his life completely.
Father David was a good man, at least that's what his father always said. "David is a divine man, with a guaranteed passage to heaven..." Dennis, on the other hand, had just put a bullet in the chest of a man of God; his soul was already destined for hell, but among all evils, he wouldn't be forced to spend eternity in the same place as David.
Whitaker felt tears streaming down his face; it wasn't a pity, he didn't have the slightest regret for what he had done. His tears were for the children who, before him, hadn't been so lucky to escape.
A loud bang on the front door brings the boy back to reality; two men in suits rush into the room, Dennis cocking his gun, ready to shoot. Both strangers stand motionless, raising their arms in surrender.
"What the hell happened here?!" The blond boy yelled, looking at Whitaker, who was alternating the gun's aim between the two strangers.
"Dean, calm down..." the taller man said, stepping in front of the blond. "Hi... I'm Sam, what's your name?" the dark-haired man asked calmly. Dennis allowed himself a chuckle at the scene; there was a body between them, and the man was trying to be gentle? Or was he afraid he would shoot?
"Dennis.."
"Nice to meet you, Dennis. We want to help you. Can you tell us what happened?" Sam's arms were above his head, showing complete surrender, as if he wanted the boy to know he was in control of the situation.
"He brought me here..." Dennis says, his voice trembling. "He said things..."
"What kind of things?" Dean asked, looking at the dead man's body as if he feared he might rise. Whitaker swallowed hard.
"He asked me if I was afraid of death... and he ran his hand over my shoulders..."
"Oh... what else did he say?" Sam's voice was calm.
Dennis didn't know if he could trust them, but fuck it, nobody in town would believe him anyway.
"He said I was pure, that no filthy sinner should take that from me... only a worthy man of God like him deserved mine..." The sobs returned, Dennis felt like a crying child again. He was old enough to understand what those words meant, but saying them aloud was a much greater shock of reality. "Deserving of my purity.”
The two brothers looked at each other.
"Is there anything else you'd like to tell us?" Sam asks. Dennis nods in agreement.
“He said that God was good but not the best, that he had ‘creatures’ who would make good use of my devotion. He hugged me saying strange words… I didn’t recognize them, they seemed to be in another language.” Whitaker stammered and cried.
"Dennis, calm down... he's gone." Sam began to get nervous when he saw the panic on the boy's face, and the boy's hands trembling near the trigger.
"I... I have nowhere to go!" Reality hits Whitaker hard in the face. "My parents will never believe me..." He begins to sob.
"Dennis calm” Sam approaches, carefully placing his hand on the boy's shoulder, dodging the revolver.
Dennis begins to choke on his own sobs and slides the gun to the ground, letting himself fall into the other's arms.
Sam gives him a light hug. Whitaker allows himself to cry, tremble, and sob in the arms of a complete stranger.
^
"He fell asleep... or passed out," Sam whispers so as not to wake the boy.
"He just killed a man, and this stuff gets tiring." Dean says with a mocking laugh.
"Does he know?" The dark-haired man asks as he adjusts the teenager in his arms.
"What priest was a pagan, son of a bitch who maintained his powers by abusing virgins?" the blond man asked mockingly. "I doubt it..."
"What are we going to do with him?" Sam asks.
Dean shrugs. "We'll take it to the parents..."
"He said his parents wouldn't believe him. You saw how extremely religious the people in this town are; everything here seems like a very distasteful Christian cult... they'll probably blame the boy until he can't take it anymore... and you know what a traumatized child can do when they grow up." Dean sighed heavily. "You're right... let's wait for him to wake up and then decide what to do."
"He's got good aim..." Sam says casually with a smile. "He hit the wizard right in the chest from the other side of the church."
Dean understood what his brother was implying, but ignored it. "Eh... for his age, that's impressive." Dean sighed wearily; there was something about that boy that reminded him of himself, perhaps the fact that at such a young age he had already held a gun to someone's chest...
Sam places the boy's body on one of the long church pews.
"Let's put an end to this damned pedophile..." Dean says, dragging the priest's dead body outside.
The brothers dug a grave behind the church where, following a pre-recorded routine, they cut the throats and burned the bones with salt.
"How many children do you think were killed before Dennis?" Sam asks, standing beside his brother, watching the body engulfed in flames.
"I don't even want to think about it... people who do this to children deserve worse than hell," Dean says disgustedly.
They both hear footsteps and turn around.
Whitaker paced, half-dazed, revolver in hand, eyes drooping with sleep. "Oh," a groan escaped his lips as he saw the flames.
"Put that down, kid," Dean says, pointing to the gun. "The son of a bitch is burning in hell..." Winchester says with disgust.
"Do you think so? Dad says priests are men of God, and that men of God go to heaven." The reflection of the flames shone in his blue eyes, filled with suppressed tears.
"Does he look like a man of God to you?" Dennis sat in front of the makeshift tomb, admiring the view. "I don't know... God has never been very good to me... so maybe?" the boy said, shrugging. Sam sighed, sitting down next to the younger boy.
"Huh? What makes you think that?" the dark-haired man asks.
"I don't think so, I'm sure of it. God doesn't like me... Dad always said that..." The boy's lips formed a straight line.
"I also think God doesn't like me very much..." Sam says, looking at the boy who had his eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
Dean crouches down beside the two, joining the conversation. "Dennis, why does your father say that God doesn't like you?" the blond asks carefully. Whitaker crosses his legs, resting his head on his arms, bringing his face close to the flames, feeling the heat in his eyes. "God doesn't like sinners like..."eu"...Dennis shifted uncomfortably."
"I think we're all sinners, right?" Dean tries to lighten the mood with a chuckle. "Maybe sin is what sets us apart."
The boy's lips trembled as if he were trying to hold back tears.
"Maybe... but it's not very good to be different," he said, giving a painful laugh. "You think so? I'm different and I like it," Sam said, glancing at the boy's face, which seemed to be trying to hide between his knees. "You are?" The boy's eyes shone with curiosity.
"Yes... well, I'm a man with long hair and I'm not married, I don't have children, isn't that against church norms?" Dennis nods. "Uh... but those are small sins compared to mine..." The boy says sadly. "If it helps, we've killed too." Whitaker's wide eyes suggest that Dean's answer didn't help much.
Sam quickly intervenes, preventing the boy from getting scared. "Dennis, I don't know what you did, I don't know what your sin is, but you don't deserve to blame yourself just because someone said you're wrong..." The boy's lips tremble and a few tears escape.
“God wanted him to win,” Dennis blurted out, bursting into tears again. “What?” Sam frowned. “God was helping him… the doors closed by themselves, the lights turned on when he moved his hands…” The brothers stared at each other.
Dean sighed deeply before speaking. "He did magic?" The blond man made some hand gestures hinting at tricks. "Uh... I wouldn't say magic... maybe a blessing?"
“Dennis, David was a wizard.” Sam says calmly, “Huh?” The boy’s eyes widened. “Dad says magic doesn’t exist, the only true power is God’s.”
“Dennis. He was a priest, but that didn’t mean he was a saint. David didn’t mess with good things, he was a very bad person.” Whitaker bites his lip, throwing his head back. “This sucks! I have nowhere to go. I’m broke and apparently there are ‘witches’ around.” The boy sinks back to his knees, hugging his legs. “I was kicked out of my house… I have nowhere to stay!”
"You can spend the night with us, and tomorrow we'll see what we do." Sam offered, Dean looked at him indignantly with a surprised expression.
"If it's not too much trouble..." the boy says, wiggling his fingers shyly. "It's not..." Sam assures him.
^
Dennis ended up falling asleep in the back seat of the Winchesters' car when they started driving.
"What are we going to do with him?" Sam asks. "Taking him to his parents isn't an option. Foster home?" the blond man suggests.
"You know how traumatic a foster home can be, even more so for a boy who's just been abused." Dean groans, banging his head on the steering wheel. "Damn it! What kind of father does this to a child's head! What the hell must those parents have said to make him blame himself so much?!" The blond man says, frustrated.
"I understand your indignation, Dean. It sucks to know that there are people out there who would rather lose their child than leave the church..." Sam sighs.
"He's got good aim, right?" Dean repeats what his brother said earlier, and the two stare at each other for a minute.
"What do you think?"
"He's a big guy, he's got good aim... what harm could possibly happen...?" Dean says, feigning a question. "A lot of things could happen..." Sam laughs. "Are you sure?"
"We can take care of him until he grows up and then send him to college... the boy deserves a life..."
^
There was a good chance Dean hadn't thought things through properly when they suggested keeping the child. But he saw a lot of himself in the boy, a teenager with such good aim that he'd probably been trained for it. He knows he's probably projecting too much of his own problems onto the boy, but he can't help but feel affection for him.
Sam knew that he would have to be very sure before making a decision if he considered the idea of Dean... but he had felt a fondness for the boy... perhaps it was because of his puppy-dog eyes or the fact that the boy looked so much like him.heSince childhood, Sam had felt abandoned by God, and having to listen to the boy blame himself was like opening a portal to the past.
Perhaps it's selfish of them both to want to adopt the child simply because they see themselves in him. Maybe they both wanted to prove to someone that they could take care of a child even in that awful job, or maybe they wanted to prove to themselves that the mountain of trauma they carried wasn't their fault. Projecting their own traumas onto the boy wasn't the healthiest thing to do, but who could blame them?