-1For Amara, my generous Sweet-Charity buyer who rocks. My socks.
These are the days of the endless summer,
The first time Sam witnessed Dean crying.
Soft whimpers, nothing more than a small sound in the very dark of the night to pull him from a restless slumber plagues with dreams of indescribable monsters and dangers that lurk in the shadows that surround them. He lays, wordlessly, for moments longer than you could imagine, simply listening, his over-worked mind racing over time to logically solve the source of the song of distressed whimpers.
"Dean?" His voice quakes, his broadening shoulders shivering as he stands in the cold room he's called his own for weeks now. Moving on, moving towns, he was rarely privileged to have a space to call his own, living in such close proximity to his brother and, much less, his father. His protectors, as they referred to themselves on the odd occasion that they would smile, and laugh for a while. His protectors, though he couldn't help but wonder just who was protecting who.
There were very few things in this world that he held on such a high pedestal as he did Dean, and nothing that could quite match his brother's grace and strong will, in Sam's deep brown eyes. He is their family's saviour, even if he does not know it just yet. And there he is, the saviour, his proverbial pedestal crumbled to the ground to leave him with nothing, as it did sometimes behind closed doors. Sammy has never seen this, he never was supposed to.
But tonight, as the tears glisten, unreined in Dean's pain-consumed eyes, he does little to lean away from his younger brother's comfort as Sam kneels beside him, instinctually knowing that his brother needs him - a skill that will, perhaps, be evident over the years, or grow weaker with time spent apart. Sam's hand rests gently and cautiously on Dean's quivering shoulder, the eldest boy's back pressed firmly against the wall, arms overlapping his knees and holding them tightly to his chest.
Dean makes no effort but to shake his head, as if to say, "you shouldn't be seeing this… you should go back to bed," and in return, Sam shakes his in reply, "you need me, and I'm here." He pays no heed to the small damp patch on the shoulder of his shirt where Dean's silent tears have spilled, and relaxes back against the wall, settling in beside his brother.
These are the days, the time is now,
The first time John didn't return on time from a hunt.
John's eyes are old; circled endlessly by rings and lines, scars and scratches that have no words nor explanations behind them. They are tired, as though he has not slept in many years, and glisten as if he were on the verge of tears, as though maybe all of this may sometimes be too much to handle, as if the pain and emotions might overflow at any given moment. Dean, in his few years, has come to recognise that those eyes… they mean the death of evil, and nothing more. They signify that John Winchester has lived through another hunt, and returned to a world with just a little less monstrosity calling it home. His doesn't need any more words to describe the horrors that his father has seen, because he understands.
But to his brother, those eyes mean so many different things. They mean remembering; not that he has many things to forget. They mean pain and sufferance, but mostly they mean blame. Blame for the monster that killed Mary, John lies - but Sam knows, he realises that somewhere, buried deep, is a dose of blame for him, because somehow John sees that without Sam, they'd still have Mary… and maybe, Sam thinks, he'd prefer that to this, too. He'd prefer that to studying Dean's expressionless face as they wait, abandoned in a small hotel room for days, for their father to return… and when he doesn't, Sam knows he'd prefer that other outcome.
Dean knows he shouldn't show that he is worried to Sam, but with his younger brother under his feet, brooding, sulking, and "trying to make up for it", whatever "it" was that Sam was talking about, it wasn't the easiest challenge to hide such emotions as he was feeling. Dad had instructed firmly before he'd left exactly five days ago that if he did not meet his return date of precisely four days later, to call Bobby.
He also knows that calling Bobby is exactly what he should have done, the instant that Dad didn't return… but there was a part of his mind replaying every single hunt his father had ever been on. Without fail, he'd returned on time, at an hour that he knew Sam would be asleep, because he couldn't bear for his youngest son to witness the mess that he came back in. Dean… well, Dean knew he was just a sacrifice - their father had to protect Sammy, did he not? And maybe that meant horrifying Dean a few times, relying on him when it was not his place to be relied upon… but he'd give that up to protect Sam from some of the things he had witnessed.
But John's words… they played on his mind, over and over, until, encouraged by Sam's worried gaze, his shaking hand fell upon the telephone receiver. "Bobby," he whispered, "yeah, it's Dean… Dad's not… Dad's not home," his heart sinks, he can feel it - John's never left him alone with Sammy for any longer than two days… never been late home from a hunt, and Dean knows that maybe… this could mean that he wasn't coming home at all. "And he said to ring you if there was any trouble… and well, he's not here." Again, he adds silently, because John Winchester is never there, and even when he is physically there, he's not there. Dean can see it in his eyes.
There is no past, there's only future,
First time that Sam saw a person as something he had to kill to get what he needed (to save Dean) - The first time Sam considered himself a "monster" - The first time Sam really, really hated "the life".
The gun in his hand quivers, shakes ever so slightly, but enough to alter Sam's aim before he even pulls the trigger. The image of Dean, gagged and bound violently in the corner of the dilapidated warehouse, so much blood covering him that even Sam had doubted at first that it was his brother, has burnt into his mind, never to be completely erased. Dean's pale lips emit an almost silent grunt, neck lolled with lack of life, his face stained red with his own blood, and Sam realised that he may only have two options, and the first one was fading so quickly with his brother's existence.
Between where he stands, and Dean's lifeless, helpless form, stands a guard of motionless children, their own eyes wide with mock fear. They're monsters like he has never seen before, life-suckers, he thinks… but still, somehow, children. Children not much younger than he, maybe nine or ten years young - three or four years his junior. They scream, just as children do, frightened and horrified when uncontrolled bullets pierce their chests, slightly off-aim of their hearts, but enough to bleed them out, nonetheless.
They crumple, broken, and blanketed with their own thin blood in less than seconds as Sam dashes forward, their sticky crimson life-force like glue on the soles of his heavy work boots. His face pales, and suddenly John is there, unbinding Dean's body, shaking him violently as if with hope to wake him from slumber… but Sam knows he'll fail. John bolts past his youngest with no second thought, and straight to the Impala, slams Dean in, and is pulling out of the lot before Sam can muster a voice to remind John that he's been left behind.
And numb, he turns to face the bodies of the children - the children he killed, and suddenly realises that they're nothing but children, their faces young, skin bright, and… yet somehow so pale with death that it makes him ill. Their eyes… empty. He watched the life escape them as if in slow motion in his mind, watched somebody's baby die, ruined lives, and ended them.
And now, without his father or his brother, he's left to clean up the mess that he created… salt and burn. Wordlessly, he wonders should it be him that was killed, if he had such a mind that could do that to others without much hesitation, take five lives just to save two, as he wraps two shivering hands around the first of the children's cold wrists. A hint of recognition flickers in his eyes, and sickness invades his mind and stomach - because he's seen in her eyes the monster he's surely set to become, even at the tender age of fourteen.
His gun's scattered somewhere in the corner of the warehouse, and for the first time in his life, he wonders whether using it to end his own life might be the 'best' good that he's used that gun for…. but then he remembers…. Dean. Because, even if he is a monster, Dean can't see that - he still needs him. And that gun will always be there.