Chapter Text
When Dean just turned 4, his little brother Sam is born.
6 months later, he watches his mom die in a fire and their life is completely flipped on its head. He can't talk for a little while after, and during his silence John starts hunting, obsessed with getting revenge on the demon who killed Mary.
Dean, as an older brother, was always going to look out for Sam and take care of his younger brother, but now it was his job; keep Sammy safe.
John holds Sam when he's sober, usually right before he decides he needs a drink. Because Sam is the last thing John has left of Mary. And he loved his wife, and he loves his son. When John can't look after Sam, Dean does it. By 5, Dean is acting like Sam's older brother and mother.
But Dean is still 5. He latches onto his father because that is all he has left. He loves Sam, his Sammy, but he needs his father.
But when John looks at Dean, he sees Mary and he gets sad and angry and he resorts to what's comfortable for him: being a marine. It's easier to treat him as a soldier, but Dean doesn't understand. He keeps trying to be a son, a mother.
John's drunk when he says it, offhandedly, but Dean never forgets: he's more like his wife.
And in John's fuddled mind he was trying to say you're like Mary, you remind me of your mother. Sam is my son, but you're Mary's. But he talks like Dean's a replacement because he's drunk.
Dean never went to kindergarten because he was supposed to go the year Sam turned 1. Instead Dean gets enrolled into 1st grade the year he turns 6. But Sam is still a baby, only 2, and Dean finds he cares more about that than school. His attendance reflected that. He never bothers to make friends at any point in his school career. The only people in his life that matter are Dad – Dad's friends – and Sammy. It isn't until Sam starts Pre-K at 4 and Dean is in 2nd grade that he realizes he needs to focus more if he eventually wants to be able to help Sam with his homework–even taking the time to go back to the things he missed. Like the right order of the months and how many days in each.
When Sam is 2 or 3 and Dean 6 or 7, Dean shoots a gun for the first time. He's an attentive child, always good at repeating behavior. He'd pretend to wash dishes next to his mom when they still had a normal life. So when his father lines up the bottles on the fence and tells him what to do with an example, Dean bulls-eyed every one of them. And John smiles at him and finally Dean gets it. Dad becomes synonymous with Sir.
And soldiers are the pinnacle of masculine. And if John is scared of the possibility that his son can look anymore like Mary, that isn't what he tells Dean. It starts by impressing that expressing emotions was for sissies because that's what John does and turns into saying growing his hair out was girly. So Dean eradicates any type of femininity in himself. He made an off hand comment about earrings once, and Dean is pretty sure John has never been set off so bad from something so little as then. But when Sam says he likes pink or wants to grow his hair out like a surfer they saw on TV, Dean can't get himself to tell him no.
Dean keeps Sam close, but far away enough to be someone. He can't even tell why he does it, maybe something internalized from Mary raising him those first years. Dean knows Sam's going to be a hunter one day, but in the back of his mind he sees Sam anywhere else.
As early as 3 Sam is trying to replicate his brother, as little brothers do, but Dean redirects him because he's too young, too little. Because he is his older brother and his mother and his father and it's his job. Whenever Dean picks up a gun, he makes Sam focus on books instead. John lets Dean start drinking beer – with him – at 8, but Dean always tells Sam soda is better.
John himself wasn't above rough housing if necessary. This was a violent life he justified, it was his job as a parent to prepare. And Dean, as good as he was, couldn't completely avoid it. But there was only one truly recognized punishment. His weakness almost disgustingly easy to exploit. John would order Dean away, however that ended up being.
Dean was once outside in the soaking rain for 15 minutes one fall with nothing but a hoodie to protect him. It's a good thing Dean doesn't get sick. Doesn't believe in pain. In another life, Dean could have been incredibly straight edged. No booze, no drugs to "live life on easy mode." But, this isn't another life. And Dean – and his father – do what they have to do.
They spend their life on the road, going from city to city. They've visited all the 49 states they could drive to before Dean was even an adult. They flew only once, before Sam was born, and Dean had proceeded to throw up and cry for most of the flight–an incident unrelated to his adult fear.
Anyways, Dean tries to give Sam as much of a sense of normalcy as he can because Sammy is still too young to know about monsters. John gives Dean more and more responsibilities with every year. He's not sure if he likes hunting or if it's just the only thing he's ever done. But he's good at it because it's all he knows, and it's all he knows because he's good at it. So he helps his Dad as much as he can and he can tell John likes it, so maybe he does it more. But Dean never forgets his primary job: take care of Sammy.
Dean helps Sam with his homework and takes him anywhere he wants to go. He encourages Sam to make friends and have experiences. He's at his beck and call, even more than John but nobody acknowledges that–if Dean is something that is owned, then John is only renting from Sam.
Sammy likes museums, so they manage their way into the closest one at every city they stay at. Dean wraps his hoodies and flannels into stuffed animals for when Sam gets lonely, and he lets his little brother have full meals even if he has to cut his in half when he realizes they're running out of food and money without John around. Dean starts making his own money as young as 14 when he can. When he can't, he does what he can.
When he's 9 and Sam's 5, his younger brother breaks his arm jumping off the roof of a shed. Sammy's on the handle bars of Dean's bike that the neighbor gave him a little after they first moved there. He's going as fast as he can to get to the ER, but every car that passes him makes him feel too slow.
At 10, Dean knows how to drive.
Their first monster as a family is technically a shtriga that targets Sam, 6, though they don't know it yet. John would hate to bury a son, so he keeps the lie going for longer even if Sam is the same age Dean was.
Two years later, Sam is 8 when he officially learns about the paranormal because he reads John's journal. It scares him, and scares him even more when Dean, 12, confirms it. Suddenly the gun Dean kept strapped to his belt felt different. It scares Sam so much that he wants to run away.
But he doesn't.
John comes home and gives Sam a hug and suddenly the youngest Winchester is a hunter. Sam doesn't think much of his father. He loves him of course, but – despite knowing he provides for them where Dean can't always and such – he's the smallest part of Sam's life save for his mother. And he thinks that might just be how father's are supposed to be. So for a while, Sam doesn't mind hunting too much. The only thing that changes is he spends more time with John and how could that be a bad thing?
Sam grows more independent from there on, with the guiding hand of his older brother. He stops needing as much help with homework, which takes precedence over hunting. Because he was smart and good at it and John hadn't been ready to introduce him into the life yet anyways. Still, Sam hasn't grown out of wanting to make people proud so he does his best.
Sam's about 2 years older than Dean was when he shoots a gun for the first time, but he never stops calling John Dad. Sam's around 9 and he gets a .45 to not fear monsters in the closet, but it disappears a little after he shows Dean.
The summer of that same year, while Dean is still 12, Uncle Bobby becomes simply Bobby.
John left them at Bobby's place while he went on a hunting trip for the last time without any of them knowing it. A week, he had said. A month later and he didn't show, didn't call either. Bobby assumed the worse and told them as much.
Dean took it worse than Sam did. It's the only time any of them can think of Dean in that light: a kid, angry and screaming and disobeying. It's the worst and only argument Dean ever had with Bobby. Sam had stayed quiet the entire time. He was smart, knew what was happening, but didn't say a word. Internalizing it instead.
He knew he was supposed to be sad, it was his dad they were talking about, but there was no gravity other than the fact that anyone being dead was bad. Family worse. But he couldn't stop thinking at least it was just John.
Dean left, decided he was going to go find his dad himself because he refused to believe John was gone. 10 hours later he and John are at Bobby's doorstep. And then Bobby, with a shotgun in hand, told John to never come back. Chased them out and everything.
Sam locked that memory away for a bit. He just learned about the paranormal which was heavy enough without the added stress of the possibility that it'd kill his father – and if Dad could die, then Dean could too and Dean couldn't die – so he ignored that second part.
Dean doubled-down on his devotion to his father. It's not that he thinks John hung the moon, he just thinks his dad keeps it there. An invisible string only Dean seemed to be able to see. And John, seeing his 12 year old like this, decided maybe Dean was around ready for graduating to solo hunting.
The other most pivotal moment in Sam's childhood, that he remembers, happened at 12. Three things happened at once: 1) Dean disappeared on a hunt for two months 2) Sam was alone, truly alone, for the first time in his life without his older brother around and 3) he became disillusioned with the hunter lifestyle and his dad's parenting.
It started with Dean not coming back. And Dean always came back. And John just told Sam that Dean was lost on a hunt and dropped it. Sam felt abandoned. And he got so angry. Angry at hunting for taking away his brother and his normal life and being, he realized, the only thing his father seemed to care about. He was especially angry at John for, well, everything. If something was wrong in his life, it was Dad's fault because everything Bobby said those four years ago was right. It wasn't the hunting that took Dean away from him, it was Dad.
And it was only 2 months but it was enough. By 14 Sam wanted out.
Dean, on the other hand, was 16 when he got arrested and went away to a boy's home for 2 months. He saw his arrest as failure, in no small part due to the fact his father told him to rot in jail. And Dean knew he deserved the punishment.
But, Sonny didn't make it feel like the punishment it was supposed to be. And Dean doesn't suffer like he should. He makes friends, does good in school, even makes wrestling, and he feels guilty. And he wants the other shoe to drop, but when it does it's different than he expected. Sonny brings in question Dean's loyalty. And Dean has never once questioned that.
Dean can't remember the last time he complained about something. He learned to live with little, and Dean needs very little. He's surrounded by lines he can't cross, stuck living in a box that he only fits in standing. Truth is, he doesn't like hunting. The first time he realized that was also the first time it went in direct conflict with taking care of Sam. But his father had expectations.
Robin, who was a little older than him, said she gets it. And he likes Robin and she's pretty and there's nothing wrong with her, he thinks, as if there should be.
It's the first time he's ever kissed or rather been kissed by a girl, seriously and consciously that is, and he realizes, suddenly, that it's something a man is supposed to do. He's never given it all too much thought before, too busy with hunting and Sam, but he's not stupid. He was 13 when he read his Dad's playboy magazine and connected dots like there wasn't that initial disconnect between how he was feeling and how he should be feeling. His confusion now subsides the minute he realizes that this is what kids do and want at 16. He is 16. And maybe he doesn't feel 16, but he can play the part that he knows he's supposed to be. He knows all the right things to say, and, maybe, he even believes himself. He'll never admit he's using a persona.
But when John comes to get him, and he's given a choice he knows what it'll be. He sees Sam, his Sammy, alone in that Impala and he knows.
Dean doesn't like hunting, but neither does his father. And Dean likes the same music his dad likes simply because John liked it–shared with Mary but that was neither here nor there. And Dean likes cars and wouldn't mind being a mechanic, but when he thinks harder he realizes he's saying that because John likes cars and used to be a mechanic.
Demons or not, he would have always taken care of Sammy. And, he knows now, demons or not, he would have always followed his father.
Two months ago, Dean messed up. He needed to come back better than ever. For his father, and especially for Sammy, who was only 12. John, just like he wanted – as if he knew and Dean's not convinced he didn't – got a better soldier out of it. And it was only 2 months but it was enough. Things are never the same. Dean is 16, he loves a good fire, and he's a hunter.
Dean ends up dropping out of high school before he can graduate and decides to get a GED instead. He would tell Sam to stay in school, but that wasn't necessary with his younger brother.
Sam is different, Dean notices. Like he's aged incredibly fast in two months and, for a moment, that's terrifying. It's not Sammy anymore, it's Sam–but he can still call him Sammy. He asks a lot more questions and has a lot more opinions–about the family business, about Dad, about Dean.
Dean is different, Sam notices. He's worried Dean was replaced, or maybe John did something to him. Because Dean stands ramrod straight, face neutral. He never excuses himself from the table when all three of them eat together, and only speaks when spoken to. Dean does everything himself; he treats his own wounds and cleans up himself. He was scarily good at washing blood out of clothes without leaving a stain. Dean cracked his skull open and temporarily turned his hair reddish once waiting for Dad to dismiss him. But John doesn't ask when Dean is hurt because he doesn't want to know. After one hunt, nobody even knew Dean's ankle was messed up until Sam heard him cursing under his breath once he was alone, limping when he thought no one would notice. No words were ever spoken of it.
One time, when John was with them, he tells Dean to wait at the table before forgetting about him because he's half drunk. For an hour Dean sits there, unmoving and eyes straight forward. Sam pulls his homework up next to him by the first 15 minutes, answering a question then looking up towards his brother. He hasn't needed help on homework for years now, but he wants to ask. He hates when Dean is like this, at attention, because with their father around, Dean doesn't see Sam. Because Dad took Dean away from him. When John sees them there – Dean there – he yells at him for not moving. Berates him like no tomorrow and Dean takes it.
Sam was young when he caught on that if he used the word order with his brother, Dean couldn't say no. Something would click in his brain that wouldn't let him. He'd do whatever you wanted. Sam stopped using it once he realized it wasn't this fun trick to getting what he wanted. He'd rather get a no than seeing the way Dean's demeanor changed with the sentence "that's an order." And he doesn't like when Dean tells him "yes sir" like Sam was their father. He's not their father.
Sam wishes his brother showed emotion. He hates that Dean has orders. He starts liking when John disappears for long times because, eventually, Dean relaxes – if only slightly – and he gets a semblance of his brother back. His brother has always been a shadow of a person. A mystery to even himself, like everything he was and could have been burned away with Mary in that fire and Sam is left with watching the charred pieces try to form something that John kicks around from time to time. He panicked on his 13th birthday when Sam realized he had no idea who his older brother is. He doesn't even know his birthday. The only gift he's ever given Dean was an amulet on Christmas. He never takes it off.
They're lighting fireworks and destroying nature and Sam wants them both to go back to a time before monsters were their lives.
But John always comes back.
He's their father, he cares. John takes a vested interest in his son's sexuality, muttering that he can't believe he has to tell this kid to do everything. Dean's attractive. Very. Always use that. Soldiers spend time with all the women they can as much as they can John explains. It keeps you sane. You do whatever you can that keeps you sane. He lights a cigarette. Dean loves the smell of smoke.
John will take them out to a diner one day and it's a test to see how Dean flirts with the waitress. Because he cares. Sam looks the other way. When he's 15 he'll have his first kiss so instead he spends the time thinking how he's going to find "the one" when he can barely last two months at any given city. Because he can't stand the idea of Dean one day deciding he likes a girl enough to leave Sam alone again.
Sam has never really had someone who was his. John had Dean and Dean had Sam, but Sam… Sam had no one. He's the little brother, just barely Winchester enough for Dad to include him. And sure, he hated it now, but he can't deny that for a while it made him feel part of whatever was going on between Dean and John. Less of an outsider. He was always an outsider in school no matter what, so why'd he have to be one at home too? That's why he read Dad's journal. He gets what they mean when they say careful what you wish for now.
John gets Dean drunk to "loosen up" and sets him free at a bar. Tells him their place will be empty to bring a girl into. The next morning John would look down at him in what Dean knows is disappointment. And John doesn't say it out loud, but Dean knows his father wants him to do it again, and again. And he'll do it.
In highschool, 14 year old Sam meets Mr. Wyatt who decides he was interesting enough to need advice. Mr. Wyatt tells him it's okay to not want to be what his family wants him to be, but it's not like Dean has never told him that before. It's just John doesn't let Dean say much of anything anymore–especially not of his own opinion. He used to tell Sam he could be anything he wanted to be before John caught wind of discussion and shut it down. But he does retreat even further in schooling.
On Dean's 18th birthday, he gets the Impala as a gift. It's the only gift his father has ever given him, but that's okay.
Sam asks him if he's leaving now. John answers for Dean. Sam wants to know what it means. John answers for Dean. Sam wants Dean to answer. John answers for Dean.
Late that night, Sam begs Dean for an opinion. To get angry, say something bad. He is 8 again, scared of the supernatural being real and itching to run away. And Sam thinks Dean has already gone away. Maybe not physically, but he wasn't here. And Dean's supposed to always come back.
It's John's turn to change now. Dean isn't a soldier, but a man he decides. Tells him he needs to make his own orders. What type of a man needs someone else to tell him what to do all the time?
Dean adjusts. Sam can see him flickering, but he can tell it's easier when he's around his older brother. Dean hates to be a burden on his younger brother, but he finds that nothing keeps him saner than Sammy. And maybe Sam doesn't need Dean like Dean needs Sam, but he wants him.
John's not abusive Sam tried explaining at 16 like he and Dean had explained to many people before. But, Sam caveated in his mind. He knew they weren't normal, but there was still a line. He was smart, knew the word neglect and the different types of ways the forms of abuse can manifest. He knows about how hard it is for victims to see things clearly. Still.
John's not physically abusive, but he'll wait a couple seconds longer than he should before saving Dean. He's not abusive, but he doesn't let Dean take pain meds. He's not abusive, but Dean flinches at him sometimes. He's not abusive, but Sam knows who's footsteps are who's. He's not abusive, but Sam pays attention to bad moods. He's not abusive, but Sam learned how to hurt during shouting matches from his father.
At 21, Dean's adopted the personality that he thinks feels comfortable. His face has morphed and settled into the one he'll be wearing for at least the next decade of his life, freckles still splitting the top and bottom of his face. His eyes are still green, but now only to those who can get close enough, otherwise you're met with dark irises wrongly described as brown. He's picked a haircut that suits him, the color darkened over time to a dark blond-light brown. His baby fat is long lost, chiseled away and never coming back. He's made the executive decision to shave his facial hair. He's not getting any taller, his weight doesn't fluctuate dramatically. John calls Dean son. Tells him all the things he wanted to hear, gives him all the things he needed from a father. And they were real, genuine feelings John had just never said, or maybe been able to say, to Dean out loud before. And will never say again. This is the only time, but that's okay.
The closest Dean has ever felt to John is when they're drinking in some bar. It's like a reward years in the making, earning his father's love slowly. Like every year he got older, he was allowed to come a little closer to John. It's probably what happens in the army. Watching a man go from stranger to someone who matters. Sammy doesn't get it, but it's okay because Dean does. Loving your son, who they actually are when they form a personality and have opinions, is something every parent has to learn to do–a choice they have to make. Dean had to.
Sam graduates high school at 18. Dean is 22, the youngest proud parent in the crowd.
At 19 – older now but still not the man he's supposed to grow into – Sam goes to college, but not easily. John and Sam fight. It's not the first time, the two argued throughout his entire time in high school. Sam could be loud for being the "shy brother." But this was the worst. John tells him if he goes he shouldn't come back.
And Sam goes. In part, because he thinks that's what John means. He leaves when John isn't around without a word. Running away has been something eleven years in the making.
John's not abusive, Sam reminds himself when the guilt of leaving Dean – without even saying goodbye – surfaces. And plus, Dean's an adult. He could leave too. Really, isn't the only reason he stayed for Sam? Sam makes law school harder than it has to be for himself because school has always been his favorite distraction.
Dean's 23 when John finds out he failed at the one thing he's supposed to do: look out for Sammy.
Sam ran from John, from the life, but Dean loses Sam too.