But I'm the one you know . . . Part 1
Set in episode 2x01 "In my time of Dying"
Warinings: Character Death, Graphic Torture and Violence, Child Abuse
When John woke up in a hospital, he first couldn't remeber how he got there, but then the demon and the accident came back to his mind.
Where was Sam and that coward Dean?
He tried to stand up, but in the same moment a nurse rushed in.
„You're awake!“, she smilled lovely and went to check the monitors. „I'm going to inform the doctor and your son.“
Why was she only talking about one son?
She came back not even a minute later with a dark skinned man in the late forties. The doctor asked him some questions, then left the room and some moments later Sam was standing in the door frame.
Thank god, it was Sammy and not that other thing.
Sam looked bad, but he didn't seem to have dangerous injuries. The boy just looked, like he hadn't slept for days, probably sitting all the time beside Dean.
„How do you feel?“, Sam voice sounded tired and really sad.
„I'm fine. How long has it been?“
„Two days. Dean still didn't wake up, doctor said it's bad and they started asking questions. We need names.“
John looked around and saw his purse on the nightstand: „Here“ he handed Sam one of the plastic cards over „Give them my insurance.“
Sam looked at the card and raised his eyebrow: „Elroy McGillicuddy?“
„And his two loving sons. So, what else did the doctor say about Dean? “
They couldn't know, not even the demon did.
„Nothing. Look. The doctors won't do anything, then we'll have to, that's all. I don't know, I'll find some hoodoo priest and lay some mojo on him.“
Sam's eyes were begging him for help.
„We'll look for someone, but Sammy, frist we have to talk about something important.“
He should have ended this years ago.
„Take me to Dean.“
Dean was connected to a lot of tubes and machines, but John knew he wouldn't die, the damn thing never did. Before they left, he had taken the small silver blade out of his purse. Sam hadn't seen it.
„Give me his hand.“
Sam's mouth started to built an objection, but then he sighted and followed his Dad's orders. It wasn't comfortable to sit in a wheelchair, but the doctor and Sam hat insisted on it. John took the limb hand carefully in his left one and the made a small cut with the silver blade.
„Dad, what the hell!“
Sam's eyes grew incredibly wide, when he saw the burning flesh.
„No, what happened? Where is Dean? Is that him? Was he bidden? When? What the fuck!!!“ Sam's last words ended in a scream.
John looked at his son and he felt so guilty. He shouldn't have lied, shouldn't have done this.
„Sam, just calm down, I'm so sorry I lied to you, but I just couldn't tell you. You were still so young. You had already lost so much, I just . . . I just couldn't bear the thought.“
His gaze was locked at his son. He could see Sam thinking. This was going to end up really bad. It took Sam some time, but then his gaze stopped traveling from John to Dean and back. It was fixed on John's mouth.
„How long is a long time? Where is my brother? What is that thing in the bed?“
He dropped his head. He had known , this day would come, but it was so hard to tell Sam how much he had failed him. „Dean wasn't . . .Dean hasn't . . . I don't know how to tell you. I lost your brother, when he was 11.“
Sam's eyes widened and John could see, how hard it was for him to control himself.
„ Do you remember the night when Dean hid in the car to go with me on a hunt?“
Sam's face lost all emotions. He opened this mouth a few times, before he dared to speak again.
„You've been injured and Bobby had to pick me up. Took you more then three weeks to get back. What do you want to tell me? Was that the last time I saw my brother alive?“
August 1991
John had parked his car in front of an old house outside of the city.
The house belonged to Christian Manners. People had heard screams two weeks ago and Manners had changed. He acted different and nearly didn't leave the house anymore.
John wasn't sure about the thing's purpose, but he had seen the man's eyes in the supermarket security cam and here was definitely a shapeshifter doing his business. He had watched “Mister Manners” for three days now. The guy only had left the house once to go for supplies. Besides that he hadn't even opened the freaking curtains. Stayed mostly on the first floor though.
The house had a back door which wasn't locked, neither used. Perfect way in for John. Two revolvers full of silver bullets accompanied him, when he sneaked around the house. A silver blade rested in his left hand. He still had to be sure.
Back pressed to the wooden wall he listened carefully while his hand searched for the door knob. There were steps inside the house, but they stayed on the first floor, so John opened silent the door and slit inside.
The kitchen smelled of roast beef and orange juice, some used plates stood in the bowl and a washing machine was running in some other room.
The light had been turned off, but light came from the staircase. He heard the man speaking upstairs. The constant voice rumored like a whisper from above. John took one of the guns in right hand and made his way to the stairs.
He hesitated for a moment, when the first step crackled under his foot, but the voice kept talking in the same position. The hunter scaled step by step the way to the corridor on the first floor, still listening to that constant flow of words.
The sounds came from the second door on the left. Light gleamed through a barely opened door. Four more steps and John stood right beside the wooden frame, holding his breath and listening again.
“. . ., but the other ducks around them looked on and said right out loud, "See here! Must we have this brood too, just as if there weren't enough of us already? And-fie! what an ugly-looking fellow that duckling is! We won't stand for him." One duck charged up and bit his neck.”
Why the hell was that monster reading a fairy tail out loud?
John gathered himself for a second and counted down.
3
"Let him alone," his mother said. "He isn't doing any harm."
2
"Possibly not," said the duck who bit him, "but he's too big and strange, and therefore he needs a good whacking."
1
John stormed into the room to find the man sitting on a stool with a book in his hands in front of a small bed. A boy not older than ten was huddled beneath the covers and looking up with sleepy eyes. The moment they realized his arrival, the man jumped off his seat and let the book fall to the ground.
The boy's eyes grew wide and he pressed himself to the wall behind his bed. John stroke out and cut the man in his forearm. A fizzling sound filled the room for a blink of an eye and was followed by the smell of burned flesh.
The man screamed and threw himself on John. His back hit the hard floor and for a moment the air was pulled out of his lungs. The one second he lay there on the floor, he heard it. There were footsteps on the stairs. How hadn't he notices two additional shapeshifters in the house? How had he gotten so careless?
The man above him grabbed his wrists and started to turn them, so John had to let go of his weapons. He tried to shove the man off him with both hands at it's chest, but it didn't work and the shifter's hand collided hard with his jaw. His face was turned to the door frame now and the sight nearly killed him.
The person standing there wasn't another shifter, it was his 11 year old son. Dean looked at him with big eyes and then shifted his sight to the gun on the floor. Dean didn't make it to the gun, the shifter got hold of him before and threw him against the wooden closet on the opposite wall.
The cheap wood burst under the impact and John's firstborn lay unconscious in a pile of chopped shelves. His whole world only moved in slow motion and nearly stopped, when Dean's back hit the closet.
The sound of Dean's body, when it finally fell on the ground, was enough to snap John out of his trance. Now free of the shifter, he took the knife and slit the monster's throat in one smooth motion and buried the knife in it's chest. Even before the body hit the floor, John was up and on Dean's side.
The boy already started to come back to consciousness. He blinked a few times, before his eyes focused on his Dad. John ran his hand over his oldest's forehead.
“Hey buddy, how are you doing? Think you can sit up for me?” Dean gave a weak nod and John helped him to get vertical again.
How did the kid even get here?
John looked over his boy, but he couldn't see anything bigger than some scratches.
And then out the the sudden, there was a red spot on Dean's chest.
A spot, that grew bigger every second. The shot would rang forever in John's ears, but now he couldn't hear anything else then Dean's surprised sob and his own heart trying to break out of his chest.
His head swung around just to see, that pulling the trigger had been the last move the shifter had ever made. The blank eyes still stared at him, while the body was surrounded by a dark puddle of blood.
He brought his attention back to Dean. His hands were already adding pressure to the wound, but he knew it was too late.
There was so much blood, that probably one of the arteries was ripped. Dean Winchester died that night in his father's arms. It were only three minutes after the shot, that his young heart stopped beating.
John held his son for an hour, crying about his lost, condemning his carelessness, before he recognized the second mourning in the room.
The kid that had been in the bed before, sat crying beside the bloody corpse of the shapeshifter. The book of fairy tales, now stained with clotted blood, pressed to his chest.
Sam clearly didn't like they way this story was turning out. His eyes still rested on his father, but for the first time in his life Dean's presence made him uncomfortable.
Or better this thing's presence. John had stumbled over the last words and sighted now. His eyes moved from that one point at the hospital floor, he kept starring at, to his son's face.
“I wanted to tell you.”
John took for the first time a close look at the boy. He had bronzed skin, dark black hair and dark brown, nearly black eyes. His thin frame was only covered by a white t-shirt and a pair of light blue boxers.
The boy was kneeling in the monster's blood, absently stroking a hand above the stabbed chest. John could see a car patch on his right knee, that was now soaked with blood. He hadn't really thought about it before, but what was this kid? Just another shifter or maybe real Manner's boy? He had to know.
Carefully he lay Dean's lifeless body to the ground and stood up. It where only three steps to the second dead body in the room. The boy hadn't noticed him for the last our, but now when John moved, he nearly jumped backwards until his back was pressed tightly to the wall.
His knees were squeezed to his chest holding the dirty covers of the book in place. John stepped over the corpse and pulled the knife out of the motionless ribcage. He approached the boy cautious, while the kid's eyes began to water even more and his mouth tried to form silent words. He didn't cut the boy, after all it was still a kid.
He got onto his knees and with a light pressure he hold the knife against the boy's lower leg. The moment the blade touched skin, he was rewarded with that unforgettable sound and the foul smell of burning flesh.
The boy sobbed, but he didn't scream. John left the knife rest a few seconds longer in contact with the child's skin than it was necessary. It seemed to smooth the screaming pain in his soul, it seemed to numb his guilt over Dean's death.
He got up and starred at the sobbing mess at his feet. He should just end it with a bullet in it's head. But he didn't instead he carried Dean's body to the Impala and lay him gentle on the backseat, then he entered the house again and grabbed the little monster. He bond his wrists with silver handcuffs and threw him into the passenger seat.
The third time he entered the old house, he carried a canister of gasoline. He poured most of the liquid over the monster's corpse on the first floor and spread the rest over the staircase an the kitchen. A quick match was his last good bye to this haunted place.
It took seven ours to get from south Wisconsin, near Dodgeville, to Lawrence Kansas. The kid was still sobbing and every now and then terrified eyes searched John's face for a hint of his plans. The truth was, John didn't have a plan.
He was screaming inside and numb at the same time, his knuckles had turned white, when he had gripped the wheel of his car, the car Dean had loved so much and still he wasn't able to loosen his grip.
The car finally stopped at the grates of a cemetery, here he had buried his beloved wife years ago. He tumbled out oh the car and fell to his knees. A scream escaped from his throat and tears went down his cheeks, while his whispered words begged Mary for redemption.
And then there was another thought, he had left Sam. He had left the only one he still had alone in some god damned motel in freaking Wisconsin. Did he want his sons to die? How stupid could he be? He left poor 8 year old Sammy alone and scared with no one to protect him.
He had broken all speed limits to get here and in that seven hours he hadn't even thought about his son. Selfish old bastard. He sighted and searched for his cell phone. It took a few moments before Bobby Singer answered the phone.
“Bobby, I screwed up, can you get Sam for me?”
3 days after John woke up
His head felt heavy and his whole body ached.
His throat hurt and even though he knew he was breathing, he felt like he was choking.
There was a voice from somewhere inside his head: You have to wake up, you have to look after Sammy! Sammy, where was Sammy? What happened?
And then there was the memory. Sammy was hurt. There had been a truck and there had been blood.
The memory blew through his brain like a lightning.
The picture of Sam with blood on his face made his eyes snap open.
He wanted to scream, but something blocked his throat. His torso bucked from the bed, when the muscles tried to work against the thing in his mouth. He searched for something familiar to recognize where he was, but all he could see, was a white ceiling.
A high pitched sounded from his left side and then a woman rushed into the room.
“It's OK honey, I'll take tube out, relax.”
Gentle hands caressed his cheek and then the pressure in his throat increased, before it vanished. He coughed and warm liquid spilled over his lips.
“Just breath, it's alright. I'll get your doctor.”
His mind cleared for a moment and it made sense, this was a hospital.
“Sa . . Sa . . Sam . .y?”
It was barely a whisper, but the woman seemed to understand.
“I'll inform your brother and your Dad. They'll be here in some minutes.”
The woman left and he was alone again.
The soft hissing of the machines the only thing, that kept him company. If John Winchester was here, why was he laying in a hospital bed and not on the floor in some cheap random motel? Why would John change his mind? These injuries couldn't kill him, so why wasting the money?
Probably to mislead Sam. That was the only possible explanation.
He already heard the steps of the approaching Doc on the floor, but he allowed himself for a quick moment to enjoy the soft bed and the pain medication. Sure he had been patched up, when he was with Sam, but the last years he had spend alone with John? That man hadn't even wasted a patch on him.
The doctor entered the room, took a quick look at the monitors and checked his vital functions, then he left the room with a short nod to the nurse.
She smiled and left the room a second time, only to come back a moment later with Sam and John. The older Winchester sat in a wheelchair and had scratches over his whole frame, but there were no bigger bandages.
Sam looked better. His eye was still lightly swollen, but beside some scratches, he seemed to be fine.
The disturbing thing was Sam's expression. He had never looked like this at him. There wasn't any joy to see his big brother. Those eyes were filled with hate and disgust.
His gaze traveled from Sam's glowing eyes to John's. The man seemed to be quite confident, a relieved smile was placed at his face.
For a short moment he panicked. What if Sam knew, if John had told him? But John had promised him, he wouldn't tell Sammy, unless he failed, disappointed the old man. He hadn't or? He recognized, that John was possessed. Sure late, but still, he had noticed. He had tried to fight the demon. Hadn't it been enough? He tried to calm himself. Sure thing, Sam was upset because of something else, probably had a fight with John.
He tried to speak, but he wasn't sure, if anything else than a raspy mourn escaped his mouth.
“Sa-aa-am-my-y”
Sam's eyes nearly stabbed him with pure hate.
“Stop acting, I now what you are.”
His eyes grew wide and he gave a pleading look to John.
“I told him, it's over.”
mouth opened, but only silence left his lips. A tear streamed down his face, while he searched for a last hint of love in his brother's face. Sam's face stayed cold. When he couldn't take it anymore, he shifted his sight to the painless white of the ceiling.
“We'll leave tonight, be ready.”
Bobby had yelled at him for fifteen minutes, before he agreed to pick up Sam and take him in for some days. Then the hunter had hung up without another word.
John Winchester was standing beside the cemetery, where he had buried the love of his life, with an old car, a monster in the passenger seat and the lifeless body of his son in the back seat.
He looked up to the sky and searched the firmament for stars, but the night was as dark as his thoughts. His eyes traveled over the field on the other site of the street, the big iron gates of the cemetery and then stopped at his car.
The monster was still there. Dark eyes followed him from the passenger seat.
And then all the grief about his loss turned into anger. His feet carried him to the right door of the Impala, the moment he opened the door, he reached for the kid and pulled it out. He pushed the small body to the floor and let his foot crash with the ribcage. The crack of several rips ripped through the night.
“He was just a kid, he was innocent, eleven years old!!!”
His scream was followed by two more kicks. For a moment he listened to the monster's sobs, then he pulled it up by it's collar.
“What are you crying for, Freak?”
Before the shifter could move his lips, John's free hand collided as a fist with the small jaw. Blood dropped from bruised lips. He led the monster fall to the floor and it curled up to a small ball.
“Think that's gonna help you?”
He kicked again and his boot collided with the small head. The boy whimpered an made himself even smaller.
“Shut the fuck up, you worthless freak!!!!”
Again John let his boot clash with the small body at his feet. The shapeshifter stopped crying, he unfolded himself a bit and turned his swollen face towards John: “Please”.
It was more a whisper, than an actual spoken word. John's answer came fast. This time the kick knocked the shifter out.
John looked around again, he couldn't leave the mutilated body of a child here. He sighted and lifted the blood soaked body from the floor, then he tossed it into the passenger seat again.
There was a lonely forest some miles outside of Lawrence. It took him twenty minutes to get there.
He parked the Impala next to a big glade and four hours later he had gathered the wood, he needed for Dean's funeral.
The pyre was nearly as high as his hip and made of mostly wet wood. It would smoke like hell. He got another canister of gasoline from the trunk and soaked his son's last resting place with it, then he tossed the empty plastic container to the floor and turned to his car.
His boy's lifeless body lay still there unmoved from the moment, when his father had positioned him there. John's vision began to blur and and he felt the wet stream of tears on his cheeks. The forest lay silent. Only the weak murmur of the trees crawled through the night.
The weak sound of a chocking breath reached his ear. Yeah, right, the monster. He still had to go get rid of it.
It would be the best to put a bullet in it's head now.
Carefully he opened the passenger door. One dark brown eye stared at him terrified, the other one too swollen to open. Even though these eyes screamed panic, the body didn't move, probably wasn't even able to at the moment.
For a second John felt sorry for the kid. The boy couldn't be older than ten, still a child and until now he probably hadn't even hurt somebody. John's compassion faded as quickly as it came.
One day his thing would kill. How could he even know wether it was real child?
Could be some grown shifter wearing some random child's skin.
He felt the anger flowing through his veins again, but then his gaze fell to Dean. He had to tell Sam. Tell how he had failed. That he wasn't even able to protect his kids. He hadn't been able to protect Mary and he let Dean die.
He would probably get Sam killed in some years, too.
He would have to go to this innocent eight year old and tell him, that the brother he loved bled to death in Daddy's arms, because John was too careless to recognize a child hiding in the back of his car. And while he thought about little Sammy's horrified face, an idea crept into his mind.
What if he didn't have to tell Sammy? What if Sammy could stay with his big brother for some more years?
It were only some more minutes to midnight, when he started to get rid of the machines, needles and tubes, that were still connected to his body.
The heart monitor's connection was still in place, he couldn't risk the nurses to be alarmed.
He sat up and the pain of several broken bones and bruises shot through his body. John and Sam would be here in some minutes.
A shiver ran over his spine. Sam knew. There were no more reasons to keep him alive. The bullet John kept for him would now finally find it's way into his head.
Maybe Sam would do it. Spit his disgust into his face and leave his burning body on the side of some nameless highway.
Would Sam look back? Would he think that after all the time with him hadn't been so bad? Would he remember all the fun they had when they were younger? The things they went through? Or would he erase every memory of his big brother, the freaking shifter? Only looking back to the real Dean?
It wasn't fair. He was Dean. For years he done everything for this family. This was his face, he had made it, it was his, no one else's. He was the Dean Sam knew. The one he spent the whole last year with. The one he gave the amulet to at their first Christmas. He had bought all the fireworks on the 4th of July, when Sam was thirteen. He had given Sam his first beer, when Sam was sixteen and just had to break up with his girlfriend, because they were moving again. He had shown Sam how to drive in one of the old wrecks at Bobby's, while John was burning a corpse in Conneticut. He had taken Sam to a bar with faked IDs on his 18th birthday, when John wasn't around again. He sat in the audience at Sam's graduation, while John was screwing some monster in Missouri. But it didn't matter, because he wasn't the real Dean, not for Sam and never for John.
The older Winchester had used him to cover his failure. It was all he had been, a cover. Maybe Sam would give him some last words, before he pulled the trigger.
He could tell him that he was sorry and that he loved him, before his little brother ended it.
He wouldn't hope for life, he wasn't stupid, but maybe some last words to Sam. Tell him, that he would always love him, Dean or not.
His elbows rested on his knees and he held his face between his hands, tears between his fingers.
His face.
It had taken years to design it. Thinking about how Dean would have looked, when he grew up. Adding some features he liked, some of John's, some of Sam's. This was his face, no one else's. And when they put him down, he would die with his face.
There were steps in the hallway, steps too silent for a nurse. He cleaned his tears and swung his legs from the bed. The door opened and Sam's silhouette filled the door frame.
“Put that on.”
The younger Winchester tossed a jeans and a shirt towards him and closed the door again.
Face emotionless, avoiding eye contact with the thing sitting on the bed.
He turned around and shut down the heart monitor, taking the sensors off his chest. His broken rips rebelled, but it was something he was used to. Though it made dressing quite difficult. He sighted in relief when he finished pulling the shirt over his head. His feet were still bare and he would have liked some boxer's, but complaining wasn't an option.
He opened the door and looked right in his brother's face. For a second, there was love and happiness in his little brother's eyes, but then it was spilled with black poisoned hate again.
Sam turned around and followed his father, who was already aproaching the corner at the end of the floor. Dean let his head hang down and followed the two men out of the building to a rent car in front of the main entrance.
He limped on the right side due to a fracture of his hip. His left arm was plastered and bandages tried to support several broken ribs. He had worse, but it made walking hard. There were other things, that hurt more. Sam hadn't looked at him, since he had left his room. Not even wen he nearly fell, because his left leg just wouldn't carry his weight.
He felt like a kid again. He had tried to make John like him when he was younger. Listened carefully to everything he said and trained hard, so his “Dad” would be proud of him. He had been a fool. He was thirteen and so hungry for some kind of recognition, that he had tried not to notice the mean words and hated looks whenever Sam wasn't around. He started to dress like John, listen to the same music, until one afternoon when Sam wasn't home John's fists had explained to him insistently that his “father” didn't appreciate it.
He had lowered his efforts, but he kept the music and the styling he had developed. He liked it and it was a satisfaction, because he knew, it still pissed John off. It had hurt to know that he would never be something else than a monster in John's eyes, but there had still been Sammy.
Now there was nothing. Sammy had turned from him and he was alone now.
John Winchester opened the back door of the blue Toyota and indicated him to get in. John and Sam got in at the front, but silence remained.
They were two hours on the road, when Dean couldn't hold his eyes open anymore. It wouldn't matter. They would probably wake him up, before they put that bullet in his head.
Sam sat in the passenger seat of the rented car, his fingers clenched to his jeans, so no one could see they were shaking.
The silence seemed to press him down, squashing him into the seat.
It wasn't real. It had all been false. The only thing he had always been able to rely on, was a lie.
Some days ago he had been sitting by his brother's bed in a silent hospital room, praying for Dean's life.
Now Dean was dead.
He hadn't died in that small white painted room, he had died years ago and Sam hadn't known.
It killed him to see his brother like that, connected to several tubes and machines. The doctors hadn't told him directly, but he knew by the sound of their voices, that they didn't think Dean would ever wake up again.
But these people didn't knew him, Dean was a fighter, had always been. He would wake up, he would walk out of this building with a smile on his face and a joke on his lips. His brain went through the same promises again and again, but there was this little voice in the back of his mind, that told him, that maybe Dean wasn't as strong as he thought.
The broken body of his brother didn't look like it would stand up anytime soon. He had listen to the doctor's words about several fractures and internal bleeding, about bruises and cuts, telling him that it was a wonder his brother was still alive, but didn't want to hear it. Didn't want to hear that it was a miracle, that Dean's heart was still beating. He didn't want to hear, any of that. He wanted them to say, that his big brother would be fine.
He sat at Dean's side for three days, holding his brother's hand and begging to every power that be to save him and then the nurse came in and told him that his father had woken up.
He had visited John two or three times, spoken to the doctors, but most of the time, he had been at Dean's side. He didn't want to leave his brother's side, but he needed to see his Dad.
When John's story ended, Sam couldn't look into his father's eyes.
He rammed his fist into the nearest wall and then left the building without another word.
Tears streamed down his face.
He felt betrayed and alone.
His feet just kept walking to get away from the painful truth that lay in room 3751 on the third floor of the Avera McKennan Memorial Hospital. It started to rain, but he barely felt the water soaking through his clothes.
He was numb to everything around him. The sounds were far away, whispers from a different world, but nothing seemed to reach him. Time stood still, nothing really moved, but still everything was in motion. It all made sense now.
Why Dean had always been the good little soldier, why he didn't question John's decisions. Why Dean had never even wasted a thought to another life.
It was afternoon, but due to the bad weather the streets were empty and Sam was alone. It was exactly what he wanted right now. He tried to think back, if Dean had ever said anything, if he had ever seen something. How couldn't he have noticed Deans eyes for all this time?
Shapeshifter's eyes flash at cameras, why hadn't he never seen it? Why hadn't he never noticed the changing?
Dean must have touched silver in all those years. He couldn't remember. There were so much more important memories of Dean.
How his brother had patched him up after his first hunt. How Dean sat with him on the floor of their motel room, when he was sixteen and had just broken up with Rachel. Dean's face, when he gave him the amulet on Christmas.
Deans's lips, when Sam had been seventeen, totally wasted and had kissed his own brother. His brother's face had been full of desire, at least he had thought that, but then Dean had turned away and they had never talked about it.
It had happened again, while they were on the road in the last year. Dean had turned away again and Sam had felt like the biggest freak in the world. It made sense.
Apart from all the other things, that made Sammy's little fantasy impossible: that Dean was straight and had been/was/had pretended to be his big brother. Why should a monster want someone he was forced to live with?
Sam's little crush at Dean had always been ridiculous, but now it felt even more like a cruel cosmic joke. Dean had probably hated him for all those years. He was the reason his father had “trained” this thing.
He wanted to hope that he was wrong, that maybe Dean would feel at least still a little sympathy for him, but he knew better. There was no way that this monster would feel anything than hate for him.
At first he had listened to his Dad's plan to get rid of the shifter as soon as possible, he just didn't care, but than there had still been this little spark of doubt in his mind or maybe it had been hope. Somewhere deep inside something screamed, that maybe after all Dean still cared for him. That he could ask him, if anything had been real, but he wouldn't listen to his naive heart. No he just wanted the shifter alive, because he was after all still a damn good hunter and he could help them kill Yellow Eyes.
John hadn't been happy about his son's plans. After four hours of fighting they decided to go to Bobby, as soon as the shifter woke up and they would decide there what to do. When Dean's eyes finally opened, Sam couldn't control himself.
He told the thing to stop acting, he couldn't bear the pleading voice, that called him to his brother's side. It was too much. How could that thing lie so cold into his face? And there was the anger again, made of betrayal and lies, flowing through his veins and blinding him with hate.
He didn't even want to look at that face anymore, the fake visage of family and safety. He threw the clothes he had brought, listened to John's barked order and left the room without another look back. He thought there had been tears on the shifter's face, but he wasn't sure, even if they were. They weren't for him, maybe it was relieve knowing, that he didn't have to pretend anymore, maybe it thought they would get rid of him a s soon as possible like John had planed.
His heart told him, that it was because he thought he had lost Sam, but his mind silenced these naive whispers. He wouldn't be so dumb. When the thing came out of the hospital room, he had forgotten for a moment.
He had only seen his brother. Vivid again, walking out of the hospital like he had dreamed it, but this wasn't his brother. This was just some random monster his Dad had trained.
This thing felt nothing for him, had been forced to make him believe that it cared.
All these memories, they weren't true. This freak had lied to him.
But still he had to control him self not to run to Dean's side, when they walked along the white corridors and he heard his brother's struggling. The steps were uneven, he limped on the left side. He heard the pained moans and the unsteady breathing, but he wouldn't turn around.
He tried to block out the sound, when Dean nearly fell to the floor, when his leg collapsed under his weight. This was the thought he had to get rid of. This wasn't Dean. This thing didn't care about him, didn't love him in any way.
The only person he hated more for the betrayal then the limping monster behind him, was his Dad.
Not because he had lied to him about the shifter, not because he had let him alone so many years with a monster, not because he had thought Sam would be too weak to hear the truth, no John Winchester did something much worse.
He had seen Sam's beloved brother dying, held him in his arms while he bled to death and then he had burned him in some nameless forest, letting the ashes be blown away in the wind like some random dead animal he had found on the street.
He hadn't bothered to let anything in the world to remember Dean.
No tombstone with his name besides his mother's grave, no funeral to share one last time the short history of Deans's young life with the world.
He had just replaced Dean, like an old dog, who had died, he had just bought a new one and given him the same name.
It may hadn't really been John's fault that Dean had died, but John had destroyed every memory of Dean's death, every proof of his pain and his fear, when he died in his father's arms.
John had just turned away and went on with life, like nothing ever happened. He had screamed at his Dad, called him a coward, a monster, but John hadn't joined the fight.
He had listened to Sam, listened carefully to all the hateful words that kept coming out of his mouth and then he agreed with Sam.
John Winchester, who had always fought back, had just accepted all these insults. He had told Sam, that after all he had still done it for him, but that he would understand, that Sam needed time to accept that. He would just hope that Sam would understand it one day, he didn't ask for forgiveness just that Sam wouldn't turn his back at him forever.
Now Sam sat in the front of the Toyota his Dad had rented and listen to the breathing behind him.
Dean - the thing - the shapeshifter was sleeping. His head resting against the window, his arms clenched around him. He was still wearing a lot of bandages and patches to cover his cuts, but they would heal fast.
The doctors hadn't known how the internal bleeding had stopped, how the skull fracture had disappeared over night, but Sam knew. Dean, this thing wasn't human.
John had told him, that it normally controlled the healing, so nobody would notice, that he kept the scars, so nobody would get suspicious.
Sam tried to see just the monster there on the backseat, but somehow it was still Dean, the Dean he knew at least.
Next Part
Warinings: Character Death, Graphic Torture and Violence, Child Abuse
When John woke up in a hospital, he first couldn't remeber how he got there, but then the demon and the accident came back to his mind.
Where was Sam and that coward Dean?
He tried to stand up, but in the same moment a nurse rushed in.
„You're awake!“, she smilled lovely and went to check the monitors. „I'm going to inform the doctor and your son.“
Why was she only talking about one son?
She came back not even a minute later with a dark skinned man in the late forties. The doctor asked him some questions, then left the room and some moments later Sam was standing in the door frame.
Thank god, it was Sammy and not that other thing.
Sam looked bad, but he didn't seem to have dangerous injuries. The boy just looked, like he hadn't slept for days, probably sitting all the time beside Dean.
„How do you feel?“, Sam voice sounded tired and really sad.
„I'm fine. How long has it been?“
„Two days. Dean still didn't wake up, doctor said it's bad and they started asking questions. We need names.“
John looked around and saw his purse on the nightstand: „Here“ he handed Sam one of the plastic cards over „Give them my insurance.“
Sam looked at the card and raised his eyebrow: „Elroy McGillicuddy?“
„And his two loving sons. So, what else did the doctor say about Dean? “
They couldn't know, not even the demon did.
„Nothing. Look. The doctors won't do anything, then we'll have to, that's all. I don't know, I'll find some hoodoo priest and lay some mojo on him.“
Sam's eyes were begging him for help.
„We'll look for someone, but Sammy, frist we have to talk about something important.“
He should have ended this years ago.
„Take me to Dean.“
Dean was connected to a lot of tubes and machines, but John knew he wouldn't die, the damn thing never did. Before they left, he had taken the small silver blade out of his purse. Sam hadn't seen it.
„Give me his hand.“
Sam's mouth started to built an objection, but then he sighted and followed his Dad's orders. It wasn't comfortable to sit in a wheelchair, but the doctor and Sam hat insisted on it. John took the limb hand carefully in his left one and the made a small cut with the silver blade.
„Dad, what the hell!“
Sam's eyes grew incredibly wide, when he saw the burning flesh.
„No, what happened? Where is Dean? Is that him? Was he bidden? When? What the fuck!!!“ Sam's last words ended in a scream.
John looked at his son and he felt so guilty. He shouldn't have lied, shouldn't have done this.
„Sam, just calm down, I'm so sorry I lied to you, but I just couldn't tell you. You were still so young. You had already lost so much, I just . . . I just couldn't bear the thought.“
His gaze was locked at his son. He could see Sam thinking. This was going to end up really bad. It took Sam some time, but then his gaze stopped traveling from John to Dean and back. It was fixed on John's mouth.
„How long is a long time? Where is my brother? What is that thing in the bed?“
He dropped his head. He had known , this day would come, but it was so hard to tell Sam how much he had failed him. „Dean wasn't . . .Dean hasn't . . . I don't know how to tell you. I lost your brother, when he was 11.“
Sam's eyes widened and John could see, how hard it was for him to control himself.
„ Do you remember the night when Dean hid in the car to go with me on a hunt?“
Sam's face lost all emotions. He opened this mouth a few times, before he dared to speak again.
„You've been injured and Bobby had to pick me up. Took you more then three weeks to get back. What do you want to tell me? Was that the last time I saw my brother alive?“
August 1991
John had parked his car in front of an old house outside of the city.
The house belonged to Christian Manners. People had heard screams two weeks ago and Manners had changed. He acted different and nearly didn't leave the house anymore.
John wasn't sure about the thing's purpose, but he had seen the man's eyes in the supermarket security cam and here was definitely a shapeshifter doing his business. He had watched “Mister Manners” for three days now. The guy only had left the house once to go for supplies. Besides that he hadn't even opened the freaking curtains. Stayed mostly on the first floor though.
The house had a back door which wasn't locked, neither used. Perfect way in for John. Two revolvers full of silver bullets accompanied him, when he sneaked around the house. A silver blade rested in his left hand. He still had to be sure.
Back pressed to the wooden wall he listened carefully while his hand searched for the door knob. There were steps inside the house, but they stayed on the first floor, so John opened silent the door and slit inside.
The kitchen smelled of roast beef and orange juice, some used plates stood in the bowl and a washing machine was running in some other room.
The light had been turned off, but light came from the staircase. He heard the man speaking upstairs. The constant voice rumored like a whisper from above. John took one of the guns in right hand and made his way to the stairs.
He hesitated for a moment, when the first step crackled under his foot, but the voice kept talking in the same position. The hunter scaled step by step the way to the corridor on the first floor, still listening to that constant flow of words.
The sounds came from the second door on the left. Light gleamed through a barely opened door. Four more steps and John stood right beside the wooden frame, holding his breath and listening again.
“. . ., but the other ducks around them looked on and said right out loud, "See here! Must we have this brood too, just as if there weren't enough of us already? And-fie! what an ugly-looking fellow that duckling is! We won't stand for him." One duck charged up and bit his neck.”
Why the hell was that monster reading a fairy tail out loud?
John gathered himself for a second and counted down.
3
"Let him alone," his mother said. "He isn't doing any harm."
2
"Possibly not," said the duck who bit him, "but he's too big and strange, and therefore he needs a good whacking."
1
John stormed into the room to find the man sitting on a stool with a book in his hands in front of a small bed. A boy not older than ten was huddled beneath the covers and looking up with sleepy eyes. The moment they realized his arrival, the man jumped off his seat and let the book fall to the ground.
The boy's eyes grew wide and he pressed himself to the wall behind his bed. John stroke out and cut the man in his forearm. A fizzling sound filled the room for a blink of an eye and was followed by the smell of burned flesh.
The man screamed and threw himself on John. His back hit the hard floor and for a moment the air was pulled out of his lungs. The one second he lay there on the floor, he heard it. There were footsteps on the stairs. How hadn't he notices two additional shapeshifters in the house? How had he gotten so careless?
The man above him grabbed his wrists and started to turn them, so John had to let go of his weapons. He tried to shove the man off him with both hands at it's chest, but it didn't work and the shifter's hand collided hard with his jaw. His face was turned to the door frame now and the sight nearly killed him.
The person standing there wasn't another shifter, it was his 11 year old son. Dean looked at him with big eyes and then shifted his sight to the gun on the floor. Dean didn't make it to the gun, the shifter got hold of him before and threw him against the wooden closet on the opposite wall.
The cheap wood burst under the impact and John's firstborn lay unconscious in a pile of chopped shelves. His whole world only moved in slow motion and nearly stopped, when Dean's back hit the closet.
The sound of Dean's body, when it finally fell on the ground, was enough to snap John out of his trance. Now free of the shifter, he took the knife and slit the monster's throat in one smooth motion and buried the knife in it's chest. Even before the body hit the floor, John was up and on Dean's side.
The boy already started to come back to consciousness. He blinked a few times, before his eyes focused on his Dad. John ran his hand over his oldest's forehead.
“Hey buddy, how are you doing? Think you can sit up for me?” Dean gave a weak nod and John helped him to get vertical again.
How did the kid even get here?
John looked over his boy, but he couldn't see anything bigger than some scratches.
And then out the the sudden, there was a red spot on Dean's chest.
A spot, that grew bigger every second. The shot would rang forever in John's ears, but now he couldn't hear anything else then Dean's surprised sob and his own heart trying to break out of his chest.
His head swung around just to see, that pulling the trigger had been the last move the shifter had ever made. The blank eyes still stared at him, while the body was surrounded by a dark puddle of blood.
He brought his attention back to Dean. His hands were already adding pressure to the wound, but he knew it was too late.
There was so much blood, that probably one of the arteries was ripped. Dean Winchester died that night in his father's arms. It were only three minutes after the shot, that his young heart stopped beating.
John held his son for an hour, crying about his lost, condemning his carelessness, before he recognized the second mourning in the room.
The kid that had been in the bed before, sat crying beside the bloody corpse of the shapeshifter. The book of fairy tales, now stained with clotted blood, pressed to his chest.
Sam clearly didn't like they way this story was turning out. His eyes still rested on his father, but for the first time in his life Dean's presence made him uncomfortable.
Or better this thing's presence. John had stumbled over the last words and sighted now. His eyes moved from that one point at the hospital floor, he kept starring at, to his son's face.
“I wanted to tell you.”
John took for the first time a close look at the boy. He had bronzed skin, dark black hair and dark brown, nearly black eyes. His thin frame was only covered by a white t-shirt and a pair of light blue boxers.
The boy was kneeling in the monster's blood, absently stroking a hand above the stabbed chest. John could see a car patch on his right knee, that was now soaked with blood. He hadn't really thought about it before, but what was this kid? Just another shifter or maybe real Manner's boy? He had to know.
Carefully he lay Dean's lifeless body to the ground and stood up. It where only three steps to the second dead body in the room. The boy hadn't noticed him for the last our, but now when John moved, he nearly jumped backwards until his back was pressed tightly to the wall.
His knees were squeezed to his chest holding the dirty covers of the book in place. John stepped over the corpse and pulled the knife out of the motionless ribcage. He approached the boy cautious, while the kid's eyes began to water even more and his mouth tried to form silent words. He didn't cut the boy, after all it was still a kid.
He got onto his knees and with a light pressure he hold the knife against the boy's lower leg. The moment the blade touched skin, he was rewarded with that unforgettable sound and the foul smell of burning flesh.
The boy sobbed, but he didn't scream. John left the knife rest a few seconds longer in contact with the child's skin than it was necessary. It seemed to smooth the screaming pain in his soul, it seemed to numb his guilt over Dean's death.
He got up and starred at the sobbing mess at his feet. He should just end it with a bullet in it's head. But he didn't instead he carried Dean's body to the Impala and lay him gentle on the backseat, then he entered the house again and grabbed the little monster. He bond his wrists with silver handcuffs and threw him into the passenger seat.
The third time he entered the old house, he carried a canister of gasoline. He poured most of the liquid over the monster's corpse on the first floor and spread the rest over the staircase an the kitchen. A quick match was his last good bye to this haunted place.
It took seven ours to get from south Wisconsin, near Dodgeville, to Lawrence Kansas. The kid was still sobbing and every now and then terrified eyes searched John's face for a hint of his plans. The truth was, John didn't have a plan.
He was screaming inside and numb at the same time, his knuckles had turned white, when he had gripped the wheel of his car, the car Dean had loved so much and still he wasn't able to loosen his grip.
The car finally stopped at the grates of a cemetery, here he had buried his beloved wife years ago. He tumbled out oh the car and fell to his knees. A scream escaped from his throat and tears went down his cheeks, while his whispered words begged Mary for redemption.
And then there was another thought, he had left Sam. He had left the only one he still had alone in some god damned motel in freaking Wisconsin. Did he want his sons to die? How stupid could he be? He left poor 8 year old Sammy alone and scared with no one to protect him.
He had broken all speed limits to get here and in that seven hours he hadn't even thought about his son. Selfish old bastard. He sighted and searched for his cell phone. It took a few moments before Bobby Singer answered the phone.
“Bobby, I screwed up, can you get Sam for me?”
3 days after John woke up
His head felt heavy and his whole body ached.
His throat hurt and even though he knew he was breathing, he felt like he was choking.
There was a voice from somewhere inside his head: You have to wake up, you have to look after Sammy! Sammy, where was Sammy? What happened?
And then there was the memory. Sammy was hurt. There had been a truck and there had been blood.
The memory blew through his brain like a lightning.
The picture of Sam with blood on his face made his eyes snap open.
He wanted to scream, but something blocked his throat. His torso bucked from the bed, when the muscles tried to work against the thing in his mouth. He searched for something familiar to recognize where he was, but all he could see, was a white ceiling.
A high pitched sounded from his left side and then a woman rushed into the room.
“It's OK honey, I'll take tube out, relax.”
Gentle hands caressed his cheek and then the pressure in his throat increased, before it vanished. He coughed and warm liquid spilled over his lips.
“Just breath, it's alright. I'll get your doctor.”
His mind cleared for a moment and it made sense, this was a hospital.
“Sa . . Sa . . Sam . .y?”
It was barely a whisper, but the woman seemed to understand.
“I'll inform your brother and your Dad. They'll be here in some minutes.”
The woman left and he was alone again.
The soft hissing of the machines the only thing, that kept him company. If John Winchester was here, why was he laying in a hospital bed and not on the floor in some cheap random motel? Why would John change his mind? These injuries couldn't kill him, so why wasting the money?
Probably to mislead Sam. That was the only possible explanation.
He already heard the steps of the approaching Doc on the floor, but he allowed himself for a quick moment to enjoy the soft bed and the pain medication. Sure he had been patched up, when he was with Sam, but the last years he had spend alone with John? That man hadn't even wasted a patch on him.
The doctor entered the room, took a quick look at the monitors and checked his vital functions, then he left the room with a short nod to the nurse.
She smiled and left the room a second time, only to come back a moment later with Sam and John. The older Winchester sat in a wheelchair and had scratches over his whole frame, but there were no bigger bandages.
Sam looked better. His eye was still lightly swollen, but beside some scratches, he seemed to be fine.
The disturbing thing was Sam's expression. He had never looked like this at him. There wasn't any joy to see his big brother. Those eyes were filled with hate and disgust.
His gaze traveled from Sam's glowing eyes to John's. The man seemed to be quite confident, a relieved smile was placed at his face.
For a short moment he panicked. What if Sam knew, if John had told him? But John had promised him, he wouldn't tell Sammy, unless he failed, disappointed the old man. He hadn't or? He recognized, that John was possessed. Sure late, but still, he had noticed. He had tried to fight the demon. Hadn't it been enough? He tried to calm himself. Sure thing, Sam was upset because of something else, probably had a fight with John.
He tried to speak, but he wasn't sure, if anything else than a raspy mourn escaped his mouth.
“Sa-aa-am-my-y”
Sam's eyes nearly stabbed him with pure hate.
“Stop acting, I now what you are.”
His eyes grew wide and he gave a pleading look to John.
“I told him, it's over.”
mouth opened, but only silence left his lips. A tear streamed down his face, while he searched for a last hint of love in his brother's face. Sam's face stayed cold. When he couldn't take it anymore, he shifted his sight to the painless white of the ceiling.
“We'll leave tonight, be ready.”
Bobby had yelled at him for fifteen minutes, before he agreed to pick up Sam and take him in for some days. Then the hunter had hung up without another word.
John Winchester was standing beside the cemetery, where he had buried the love of his life, with an old car, a monster in the passenger seat and the lifeless body of his son in the back seat.
He looked up to the sky and searched the firmament for stars, but the night was as dark as his thoughts. His eyes traveled over the field on the other site of the street, the big iron gates of the cemetery and then stopped at his car.
The monster was still there. Dark eyes followed him from the passenger seat.
And then all the grief about his loss turned into anger. His feet carried him to the right door of the Impala, the moment he opened the door, he reached for the kid and pulled it out. He pushed the small body to the floor and let his foot crash with the ribcage. The crack of several rips ripped through the night.
“He was just a kid, he was innocent, eleven years old!!!”
His scream was followed by two more kicks. For a moment he listened to the monster's sobs, then he pulled it up by it's collar.
“What are you crying for, Freak?”
Before the shifter could move his lips, John's free hand collided as a fist with the small jaw. Blood dropped from bruised lips. He led the monster fall to the floor and it curled up to a small ball.
“Think that's gonna help you?”
He kicked again and his boot collided with the small head. The boy whimpered an made himself even smaller.
“Shut the fuck up, you worthless freak!!!!”
Again John let his boot clash with the small body at his feet. The shapeshifter stopped crying, he unfolded himself a bit and turned his swollen face towards John: “Please”.
It was more a whisper, than an actual spoken word. John's answer came fast. This time the kick knocked the shifter out.
John looked around again, he couldn't leave the mutilated body of a child here. He sighted and lifted the blood soaked body from the floor, then he tossed it into the passenger seat again.
There was a lonely forest some miles outside of Lawrence. It took him twenty minutes to get there.
He parked the Impala next to a big glade and four hours later he had gathered the wood, he needed for Dean's funeral.
The pyre was nearly as high as his hip and made of mostly wet wood. It would smoke like hell. He got another canister of gasoline from the trunk and soaked his son's last resting place with it, then he tossed the empty plastic container to the floor and turned to his car.
His boy's lifeless body lay still there unmoved from the moment, when his father had positioned him there. John's vision began to blur and and he felt the wet stream of tears on his cheeks. The forest lay silent. Only the weak murmur of the trees crawled through the night.
The weak sound of a chocking breath reached his ear. Yeah, right, the monster. He still had to go get rid of it.
It would be the best to put a bullet in it's head now.
Carefully he opened the passenger door. One dark brown eye stared at him terrified, the other one too swollen to open. Even though these eyes screamed panic, the body didn't move, probably wasn't even able to at the moment.
For a second John felt sorry for the kid. The boy couldn't be older than ten, still a child and until now he probably hadn't even hurt somebody. John's compassion faded as quickly as it came.
One day his thing would kill. How could he even know wether it was real child?
Could be some grown shifter wearing some random child's skin.
He felt the anger flowing through his veins again, but then his gaze fell to Dean. He had to tell Sam. Tell how he had failed. That he wasn't even able to protect his kids. He hadn't been able to protect Mary and he let Dean die.
He would probably get Sam killed in some years, too.
He would have to go to this innocent eight year old and tell him, that the brother he loved bled to death in Daddy's arms, because John was too careless to recognize a child hiding in the back of his car. And while he thought about little Sammy's horrified face, an idea crept into his mind.
What if he didn't have to tell Sammy? What if Sammy could stay with his big brother for some more years?
It were only some more minutes to midnight, when he started to get rid of the machines, needles and tubes, that were still connected to his body.
The heart monitor's connection was still in place, he couldn't risk the nurses to be alarmed.
He sat up and the pain of several broken bones and bruises shot through his body. John and Sam would be here in some minutes.
A shiver ran over his spine. Sam knew. There were no more reasons to keep him alive. The bullet John kept for him would now finally find it's way into his head.
Maybe Sam would do it. Spit his disgust into his face and leave his burning body on the side of some nameless highway.
Would Sam look back? Would he think that after all the time with him hadn't been so bad? Would he remember all the fun they had when they were younger? The things they went through? Or would he erase every memory of his big brother, the freaking shifter? Only looking back to the real Dean?
It wasn't fair. He was Dean. For years he done everything for this family. This was his face, he had made it, it was his, no one else's. He was the Dean Sam knew. The one he spent the whole last year with. The one he gave the amulet to at their first Christmas. He had bought all the fireworks on the 4th of July, when Sam was thirteen. He had given Sam his first beer, when Sam was sixteen and just had to break up with his girlfriend, because they were moving again. He had shown Sam how to drive in one of the old wrecks at Bobby's, while John was burning a corpse in Conneticut. He had taken Sam to a bar with faked IDs on his 18th birthday, when John wasn't around again. He sat in the audience at Sam's graduation, while John was screwing some monster in Missouri. But it didn't matter, because he wasn't the real Dean, not for Sam and never for John.
The older Winchester had used him to cover his failure. It was all he had been, a cover. Maybe Sam would give him some last words, before he pulled the trigger.
He could tell him that he was sorry and that he loved him, before his little brother ended it.
He wouldn't hope for life, he wasn't stupid, but maybe some last words to Sam. Tell him, that he would always love him, Dean or not.
His elbows rested on his knees and he held his face between his hands, tears between his fingers.
His face.
It had taken years to design it. Thinking about how Dean would have looked, when he grew up. Adding some features he liked, some of John's, some of Sam's. This was his face, no one else's. And when they put him down, he would die with his face.
There were steps in the hallway, steps too silent for a nurse. He cleaned his tears and swung his legs from the bed. The door opened and Sam's silhouette filled the door frame.
“Put that on.”
The younger Winchester tossed a jeans and a shirt towards him and closed the door again.
Face emotionless, avoiding eye contact with the thing sitting on the bed.
He turned around and shut down the heart monitor, taking the sensors off his chest. His broken rips rebelled, but it was something he was used to. Though it made dressing quite difficult. He sighted in relief when he finished pulling the shirt over his head. His feet were still bare and he would have liked some boxer's, but complaining wasn't an option.
He opened the door and looked right in his brother's face. For a second, there was love and happiness in his little brother's eyes, but then it was spilled with black poisoned hate again.
Sam turned around and followed his father, who was already aproaching the corner at the end of the floor. Dean let his head hang down and followed the two men out of the building to a rent car in front of the main entrance.
He limped on the right side due to a fracture of his hip. His left arm was plastered and bandages tried to support several broken ribs. He had worse, but it made walking hard. There were other things, that hurt more. Sam hadn't looked at him, since he had left his room. Not even wen he nearly fell, because his left leg just wouldn't carry his weight.
He felt like a kid again. He had tried to make John like him when he was younger. Listened carefully to everything he said and trained hard, so his “Dad” would be proud of him. He had been a fool. He was thirteen and so hungry for some kind of recognition, that he had tried not to notice the mean words and hated looks whenever Sam wasn't around. He started to dress like John, listen to the same music, until one afternoon when Sam wasn't home John's fists had explained to him insistently that his “father” didn't appreciate it.
He had lowered his efforts, but he kept the music and the styling he had developed. He liked it and it was a satisfaction, because he knew, it still pissed John off. It had hurt to know that he would never be something else than a monster in John's eyes, but there had still been Sammy.
Now there was nothing. Sammy had turned from him and he was alone now.
John Winchester opened the back door of the blue Toyota and indicated him to get in. John and Sam got in at the front, but silence remained.
They were two hours on the road, when Dean couldn't hold his eyes open anymore. It wouldn't matter. They would probably wake him up, before they put that bullet in his head.
Sam sat in the passenger seat of the rented car, his fingers clenched to his jeans, so no one could see they were shaking.
The silence seemed to press him down, squashing him into the seat.
It wasn't real. It had all been false. The only thing he had always been able to rely on, was a lie.
Some days ago he had been sitting by his brother's bed in a silent hospital room, praying for Dean's life.
Now Dean was dead.
He hadn't died in that small white painted room, he had died years ago and Sam hadn't known.
It killed him to see his brother like that, connected to several tubes and machines. The doctors hadn't told him directly, but he knew by the sound of their voices, that they didn't think Dean would ever wake up again.
But these people didn't knew him, Dean was a fighter, had always been. He would wake up, he would walk out of this building with a smile on his face and a joke on his lips. His brain went through the same promises again and again, but there was this little voice in the back of his mind, that told him, that maybe Dean wasn't as strong as he thought.
The broken body of his brother didn't look like it would stand up anytime soon. He had listen to the doctor's words about several fractures and internal bleeding, about bruises and cuts, telling him that it was a wonder his brother was still alive, but didn't want to hear it. Didn't want to hear that it was a miracle, that Dean's heart was still beating. He didn't want to hear, any of that. He wanted them to say, that his big brother would be fine.
He sat at Dean's side for three days, holding his brother's hand and begging to every power that be to save him and then the nurse came in and told him that his father had woken up.
He had visited John two or three times, spoken to the doctors, but most of the time, he had been at Dean's side. He didn't want to leave his brother's side, but he needed to see his Dad.
When John's story ended, Sam couldn't look into his father's eyes.
He rammed his fist into the nearest wall and then left the building without another word.
Tears streamed down his face.
He felt betrayed and alone.
His feet just kept walking to get away from the painful truth that lay in room 3751 on the third floor of the Avera McKennan Memorial Hospital. It started to rain, but he barely felt the water soaking through his clothes.
He was numb to everything around him. The sounds were far away, whispers from a different world, but nothing seemed to reach him. Time stood still, nothing really moved, but still everything was in motion. It all made sense now.
Why Dean had always been the good little soldier, why he didn't question John's decisions. Why Dean had never even wasted a thought to another life.
It was afternoon, but due to the bad weather the streets were empty and Sam was alone. It was exactly what he wanted right now. He tried to think back, if Dean had ever said anything, if he had ever seen something. How couldn't he have noticed Deans eyes for all this time?
Shapeshifter's eyes flash at cameras, why hadn't he never seen it? Why hadn't he never noticed the changing?
Dean must have touched silver in all those years. He couldn't remember. There were so much more important memories of Dean.
How his brother had patched him up after his first hunt. How Dean sat with him on the floor of their motel room, when he was sixteen and had just broken up with Rachel. Dean's face, when he gave him the amulet on Christmas.
Deans's lips, when Sam had been seventeen, totally wasted and had kissed his own brother. His brother's face had been full of desire, at least he had thought that, but then Dean had turned away and they had never talked about it.
It had happened again, while they were on the road in the last year. Dean had turned away again and Sam had felt like the biggest freak in the world. It made sense.
Apart from all the other things, that made Sammy's little fantasy impossible: that Dean was straight and had been/was/had pretended to be his big brother. Why should a monster want someone he was forced to live with?
Sam's little crush at Dean had always been ridiculous, but now it felt even more like a cruel cosmic joke. Dean had probably hated him for all those years. He was the reason his father had “trained” this thing.
He wanted to hope that he was wrong, that maybe Dean would feel at least still a little sympathy for him, but he knew better. There was no way that this monster would feel anything than hate for him.
At first he had listened to his Dad's plan to get rid of the shifter as soon as possible, he just didn't care, but than there had still been this little spark of doubt in his mind or maybe it had been hope. Somewhere deep inside something screamed, that maybe after all Dean still cared for him. That he could ask him, if anything had been real, but he wouldn't listen to his naive heart. No he just wanted the shifter alive, because he was after all still a damn good hunter and he could help them kill Yellow Eyes.
John hadn't been happy about his son's plans. After four hours of fighting they decided to go to Bobby, as soon as the shifter woke up and they would decide there what to do. When Dean's eyes finally opened, Sam couldn't control himself.
He told the thing to stop acting, he couldn't bear the pleading voice, that called him to his brother's side. It was too much. How could that thing lie so cold into his face? And there was the anger again, made of betrayal and lies, flowing through his veins and blinding him with hate.
He didn't even want to look at that face anymore, the fake visage of family and safety. He threw the clothes he had brought, listened to John's barked order and left the room without another look back. He thought there had been tears on the shifter's face, but he wasn't sure, even if they were. They weren't for him, maybe it was relieve knowing, that he didn't have to pretend anymore, maybe it thought they would get rid of him a s soon as possible like John had planed.
His heart told him, that it was because he thought he had lost Sam, but his mind silenced these naive whispers. He wouldn't be so dumb. When the thing came out of the hospital room, he had forgotten for a moment.
He had only seen his brother. Vivid again, walking out of the hospital like he had dreamed it, but this wasn't his brother. This was just some random monster his Dad had trained.
This thing felt nothing for him, had been forced to make him believe that it cared.
All these memories, they weren't true. This freak had lied to him.
But still he had to control him self not to run to Dean's side, when they walked along the white corridors and he heard his brother's struggling. The steps were uneven, he limped on the left side. He heard the pained moans and the unsteady breathing, but he wouldn't turn around.
He tried to block out the sound, when Dean nearly fell to the floor, when his leg collapsed under his weight. This was the thought he had to get rid of. This wasn't Dean. This thing didn't care about him, didn't love him in any way.
The only person he hated more for the betrayal then the limping monster behind him, was his Dad.
Not because he had lied to him about the shifter, not because he had let him alone so many years with a monster, not because he had thought Sam would be too weak to hear the truth, no John Winchester did something much worse.
He had seen Sam's beloved brother dying, held him in his arms while he bled to death and then he had burned him in some nameless forest, letting the ashes be blown away in the wind like some random dead animal he had found on the street.
He hadn't bothered to let anything in the world to remember Dean.
No tombstone with his name besides his mother's grave, no funeral to share one last time the short history of Deans's young life with the world.
He had just replaced Dean, like an old dog, who had died, he had just bought a new one and given him the same name.
It may hadn't really been John's fault that Dean had died, but John had destroyed every memory of Dean's death, every proof of his pain and his fear, when he died in his father's arms.
John had just turned away and went on with life, like nothing ever happened. He had screamed at his Dad, called him a coward, a monster, but John hadn't joined the fight.
He had listened to Sam, listened carefully to all the hateful words that kept coming out of his mouth and then he agreed with Sam.
John Winchester, who had always fought back, had just accepted all these insults. He had told Sam, that after all he had still done it for him, but that he would understand, that Sam needed time to accept that. He would just hope that Sam would understand it one day, he didn't ask for forgiveness just that Sam wouldn't turn his back at him forever.
Now Sam sat in the front of the Toyota his Dad had rented and listen to the breathing behind him.
Dean - the thing - the shapeshifter was sleeping. His head resting against the window, his arms clenched around him. He was still wearing a lot of bandages and patches to cover his cuts, but they would heal fast.
The doctors hadn't known how the internal bleeding had stopped, how the skull fracture had disappeared over night, but Sam knew. Dean, this thing wasn't human.
John had told him, that it normally controlled the healing, so nobody would notice, that he kept the scars, so nobody would get suspicious.
Sam tried to see just the monster there on the backseat, but somehow it was still Dean, the Dean he knew at least.
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