There are Angels and there are Humans and there are Demons.

Sometimes they interbreed, and you get a Nephilm or a demon child.

Sometimes, they interbreed and you get a fully human child, and then future generations run the risk of having a full-blood Demon as a child.

And that's how Dean Winchester came to be. Many generations before, a Demon was in the family line, and now Dean has the weight of Demon hood upon him, and his brother Sam has some Demon blood.

But the thing is, Dean isn't a normal Demon, or even the same as the other Demons born into human families that make up five percent of the Demon population. You see, Demons don't have souls. Angels have their grace, humans have souls, but Demons have nothing. Little remorse or care at all.

Dean does. Dean has a soul.

No one know why, or how. But he does. He has remorse and he loves and he cares. You'd think that made him some approximation of human, maybe. Unfortunately, Dean is still a demon, with powers and black eyes.

He used to wish he wasn't, but something happened a little while ago that made him kind of glad.

And that, dear readers, is where Dean's time in this story begins.

Dean didn't even know what he was until he was twelve. He was with some friends, and they ended up having an argument – a silly, petty thing – which turned into a fight. They punched and kicked and the other boy girl nearly broke Dean's nose. He snarled and hit out hard, his eyes went black when he blinked. Everyone screamed, running away as Dean stood there, angry and confused. His eyes were still black when he got home, which didn't exactly go well with his parents. His mother screamed and shielded Sam, as if he was going to hurt his own brother. His father slapped him and tried to exorcise him; which of course didn't work because he wasn't possessed, he just was. And when it didn't work, Dean had been taken in by the higher Demon Alistair, who tried to teach him to torture. Key word: tried. Dean wasn't too great at torturing innocent people, due to his soul. Still, forty years in the Demon's realm (Hell) taught him some things. He could torture. He just didn't want to.

After he left Hell, it had only been four years on Earth, and he returned home.

He tried to get in, but his family had warded against Demons – he was barred from the home he had had since he was born. And that is truly when this tale starts, because when Dean found himself with nowhere to go, he decided he didn't need anyone and holed himself up in an big old house at the edge of town near and abandoned junk yard called 'Singer Salvage' according to the rusty sign outside.

So in the house of the dead old man Dean stayed. In that very house, it turned out, he would meet someone very important.

Very important indeed.