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Out of all of the things in the world that Dean Winchester could spend a long time staring at, there were three that stood out from all the rest.
The first thing was the stars.
Sam often argued that they were just pinpricks of light in a dark blanket of sky that couldn’t even really be seen most of the time, but Dean thought of them as so much more than that. To him, they were what people became when they died. Of course, science told him that stars were nothing more than condensed balls of light and gas that polka-dotted space, but he’d been hunting monsters since he was four years old. Logic and science didn’t exactly apply to the world he lived in and in his world, where Wendigos prowled the Northern woods, ghosts haunted abandoned buildings, and werewolves stalked the streets during the full moon, stars weren’t what science said they were.
In Dean’s world, when you die, you become a star. You shine down on the earth. You watch over the ones you love. You take care of the world as best you can from your position in the sky and when your loved ones join you, you become a constellation. The biggest constellations were the biggest gestures of love and though Dean knew that many of the constellations meant the exact opposite, he didn’t care. Death was something that was ever-present in his world. Every time he went on a hunt, chose to step between Sam and whatever monster was threatening him, his life was in danger. And he was used to it and, though death had lost its significance, Dean still liked to think that when he died for good, he would become a star with Sam on his left, his mother and father on his right, and everyone he’d ever loved surrounding him, joining him in making a picture in the sky.
The second was the open road.
Perhaps it was because he’d grown up on the road or perhaps it was because he thought of the impala as his one true home, Dean had always found the road beautiful.
It was the roads that no one used that he enjoyed the most. The ones that passed by farms and rolling hills, abandoned graveyards and small towns, and broken wooden fences with no hope of repair and hundred-year-old churches with peeling paint. Of course, going through the city at times was unavoidable, but Dean did his best to keep away from it. He’d grown up on back roads and in small towns and that was where he tended to stay.
As a child, when it had been his father driving instead of him, Dean would sit up in the front when Sam was sleeping or Sam was angry at him and just watch the road roll under the impala and watch the world pass them by. There wasn’t much he could do in a car. Board games were hazardous and tended to get everywhere, action figures got lost under the seats, the Legos had fallen in the air vent and, to this day, he couldn’t get them out. So, when he wasn’t in the mood for playing with the army men that he would only have to spend hours trying to get out from under the seats later, Dean would stare out the window and watch the trees, the people, the grass, and the sky as the impala cruised through the world.
When he’d been much, much younger, he’d thought that maybe one day, he wouldn’t be able to see the road anymore. They’d kill the thing that killed Mom and settle down and that would be the end of driving through back roads in the impala. That would be the end of sleeping curled around Sam in the backseat as their father drove through the night, the end of picking out clouds during the summer and coming up with stories of who lived on them, the end of carrying around their belongs in boxes and backpacks.
The end of the impala being their home.
It was something Dean had always secretly dreaded. But as he’d gotten older and he’d realized that this wasn’t something that would ever happen. And he was right. Even after they’d killed the yellow-eyed demon, they still were hunting, and, even though this was only because he’d sold his soul to save Sam, something told him that even if he hadn’t had to do that, the hunting life would’ve found them again and they never really would’ve been able to stop and settle down and, though a part of Dean wanted desperately to leave the hunting life, find a girl, have 2.5 kids, another, larger part was glad that he’d never be tied to just one home, because, he knew, if he stopped hunting, he’d have to choose between the home that everyone referred to as his home or the home that had been his home ever since he was four years old.
The third thing, the thing that Dean enjoyed looking at more than anything else, was the same as the thing he couldn’t live without.
Sam.
The first time Dean had laid eyes on Sam was through the nursery window at the hospital only a few hours after he was born. He was in an incubator, his name spelled out in paper letters on the side. His dark hair was already long enough to curl in his eyes and when Dean was able to hold him for the first time the next day when Mary and John brought him home, he opened them, revealing a beautiful hazel that Dean would never forget.
It was this hazel that Dean would see every day for the rest of his life in one way or another. He would see happiness when Dean made his favorite soup. Calm when he held him after a nightmare. Sadness when his girlfriend was murdered. Anger when he agreed with their father instead of him. Jealousy when Dean came home smelling of cheap booze and sex.
It was this hazel that Dean would see the light go out of in an abandoned town, surrounded by nothing except ghosts and desperation.
But it wasn’t just Sam’s eyes that Dean appreciated.
It was every inch of his brother.
He loved Sam’s hair. He teased him about it. He told him he wanted to cut it. But, in all actuality, Dean liked it at the length it was. He enjoyed curling his fingers in it and pretending he’d done it by accident. He liked the way it brushed the back of his neck and how feathery it was on the ends. He loved Sam’s hands. He loved how they were so big and yet, at the same time, so delicate. They were gentle and kind, caring and protective. But they could also be strong and dangerous, damaging and defensive. He loved Sam’s height. This was another thing he wouldn’t admit to his brother. Being the older of the two, he’d felt more than a little bitter when Sam had surpassed him in height, especially when he’d taken every chance to tease him about it. But as time had gone on and the teasing had faded and then stopped, he’d grown to love looking up in to his brother’s eyes instead of down.
But what Dean loved about Sam more than anything else, was his personality, the way he never saw the world in black and white, the way he always had hope, the way he was certain that there could be no more reason to hunt, if he just tried hard enough. Dean knew differently, but he was glad that Sam still had that last shred of innocence that had died within Dean long ago.
Though he knew his brother thought otherwise, to Dean, Sam was what perfection looked like. Of course, he had his faults. He’d done things that neither of them was proud of. He’d let Dean down more than once, but Dean knew he’d done the same to him. And now that all of that was over, now that Lucifer was back in the pit, his powers were no longer used, and Ruby was gone, Dean realized something he hadn’t before: Sam wouldn’t be perfect to him, if he didn’t have his flaws, which made Dean wonder.
Were they flaws if he loved them?
In a world where his senses ruled, Dean’s sight was by far his favorite. If he lost his hearing, he would be alright. He could learn sign language and firing guns wouldn’t be that much of a problem anymore, even if that did mean he’d have to rely on Sam for most things. If he lost his sense of smell, that wouldn’t be that great of a loss either. There weren’t that many smells he enjoyed other than the scent of Sam’s aftershave. If he lost his sense of taste, he’d be upset, but he would get over it. He could eat anything he wanted then and not have to worry about the gross consequences. The one thing Dean didn’t want to lose was his sight. If he could no longer see the stars at midnight, the road in the morning, or Sam’s bright smile, he wasn’t sure he could find a reason to keep on going through this dark world, this dark life any longer.
On to Ch. 1
Out of all of the things in the world that Dean Winchester could spend a long time staring at, there were three that stood out from all the rest.
The first thing was the stars.
Sam often argued that they were just pinpricks of light in a dark blanket of sky that couldn’t even really be seen most of the time, but Dean thought of them as so much more than that. To him, they were what people became when they died. Of course, science told him that stars were nothing more than condensed balls of light and gas that polka-dotted space, but he’d been hunting monsters since he was four years old. Logic and science didn’t exactly apply to the world he lived in and in his world, where Wendigos prowled the Northern woods, ghosts haunted abandoned buildings, and werewolves stalked the streets during the full moon, stars weren’t what science said they were.
In Dean’s world, when you die, you become a star. You shine down on the earth. You watch over the ones you love. You take care of the world as best you can from your position in the sky and when your loved ones join you, you become a constellation. The biggest constellations were the biggest gestures of love and though Dean knew that many of the constellations meant the exact opposite, he didn’t care. Death was something that was ever-present in his world. Every time he went on a hunt, chose to step between Sam and whatever monster was threatening him, his life was in danger. And he was used to it and, though death had lost its significance, Dean still liked to think that when he died for good, he would become a star with Sam on his left, his mother and father on his right, and everyone he’d ever loved surrounding him, joining him in making a picture in the sky.
The second was the open road.
Perhaps it was because he’d grown up on the road or perhaps it was because he thought of the impala as his one true home, Dean had always found the road beautiful.
It was the roads that no one used that he enjoyed the most. The ones that passed by farms and rolling hills, abandoned graveyards and small towns, and broken wooden fences with no hope of repair and hundred-year-old churches with peeling paint. Of course, going through the city at times was unavoidable, but Dean did his best to keep away from it. He’d grown up on back roads and in small towns and that was where he tended to stay.
As a child, when it had been his father driving instead of him, Dean would sit up in the front when Sam was sleeping or Sam was angry at him and just watch the road roll under the impala and watch the world pass them by. There wasn’t much he could do in a car. Board games were hazardous and tended to get everywhere, action figures got lost under the seats, the Legos had fallen in the air vent and, to this day, he couldn’t get them out. So, when he wasn’t in the mood for playing with the army men that he would only have to spend hours trying to get out from under the seats later, Dean would stare out the window and watch the trees, the people, the grass, and the sky as the impala cruised through the world.
When he’d been much, much younger, he’d thought that maybe one day, he wouldn’t be able to see the road anymore. They’d kill the thing that killed Mom and settle down and that would be the end of driving through back roads in the impala. That would be the end of sleeping curled around Sam in the backseat as their father drove through the night, the end of picking out clouds during the summer and coming up with stories of who lived on them, the end of carrying around their belongs in boxes and backpacks.
The end of the impala being their home.
It was something Dean had always secretly dreaded. But as he’d gotten older and he’d realized that this wasn’t something that would ever happen. And he was right. Even after they’d killed the yellow-eyed demon, they still were hunting, and, even though this was only because he’d sold his soul to save Sam, something told him that even if he hadn’t had to do that, the hunting life would’ve found them again and they never really would’ve been able to stop and settle down and, though a part of Dean wanted desperately to leave the hunting life, find a girl, have 2.5 kids, another, larger part was glad that he’d never be tied to just one home, because, he knew, if he stopped hunting, he’d have to choose between the home that everyone referred to as his home or the home that had been his home ever since he was four years old.
The third thing, the thing that Dean enjoyed looking at more than anything else, was the same as the thing he couldn’t live without.
Sam.
The first time Dean had laid eyes on Sam was through the nursery window at the hospital only a few hours after he was born. He was in an incubator, his name spelled out in paper letters on the side. His dark hair was already long enough to curl in his eyes and when Dean was able to hold him for the first time the next day when Mary and John brought him home, he opened them, revealing a beautiful hazel that Dean would never forget.
It was this hazel that Dean would see every day for the rest of his life in one way or another. He would see happiness when Dean made his favorite soup. Calm when he held him after a nightmare. Sadness when his girlfriend was murdered. Anger when he agreed with their father instead of him. Jealousy when Dean came home smelling of cheap booze and sex.
It was this hazel that Dean would see the light go out of in an abandoned town, surrounded by nothing except ghosts and desperation.
But it wasn’t just Sam’s eyes that Dean appreciated.
It was every inch of his brother.
He loved Sam’s hair. He teased him about it. He told him he wanted to cut it. But, in all actuality, Dean liked it at the length it was. He enjoyed curling his fingers in it and pretending he’d done it by accident. He liked the way it brushed the back of his neck and how feathery it was on the ends. He loved Sam’s hands. He loved how they were so big and yet, at the same time, so delicate. They were gentle and kind, caring and protective. But they could also be strong and dangerous, damaging and defensive. He loved Sam’s height. This was another thing he wouldn’t admit to his brother. Being the older of the two, he’d felt more than a little bitter when Sam had surpassed him in height, especially when he’d taken every chance to tease him about it. But as time had gone on and the teasing had faded and then stopped, he’d grown to love looking up in to his brother’s eyes instead of down.
But what Dean loved about Sam more than anything else, was his personality, the way he never saw the world in black and white, the way he always had hope, the way he was certain that there could be no more reason to hunt, if he just tried hard enough. Dean knew differently, but he was glad that Sam still had that last shred of innocence that had died within Dean long ago.
Though he knew his brother thought otherwise, to Dean, Sam was what perfection looked like. Of course, he had his faults. He’d done things that neither of them was proud of. He’d let Dean down more than once, but Dean knew he’d done the same to him. And now that all of that was over, now that Lucifer was back in the pit, his powers were no longer used, and Ruby was gone, Dean realized something he hadn’t before: Sam wouldn’t be perfect to him, if he didn’t have his flaws, which made Dean wonder.
Were they flaws if he loved them?
In a world where his senses ruled, Dean’s sight was by far his favorite. If he lost his hearing, he would be alright. He could learn sign language and firing guns wouldn’t be that much of a problem anymore, even if that did mean he’d have to rely on Sam for most things. If he lost his sense of smell, that wouldn’t be that great of a loss either. There weren’t that many smells he enjoyed other than the scent of Sam’s aftershave. If he lost his sense of taste, he’d be upset, but he would get over it. He could eat anything he wanted then and not have to worry about the gross consequences. The one thing Dean didn’t want to lose was his sight. If he could no longer see the stars at midnight, the road in the morning, or Sam’s bright smile, he wasn’t sure he could find a reason to keep on going through this dark world, this dark life any longer.
On to Ch. 1