Author's Notes: Just a little one-shot to get me back into fanfiction after a great month of Nanowrimo! Please read and review, I'd love to know what you think. Dedicated to (and betaed by) Halcyon Impulsion - thanks for the motivation of both past and present!
December 3, 1983
The tiny footprints in the snow led to the side of a black sixties-edition Impala, which was blanketed in pristine white snow. The orange glow of street lamps chased away the shadows that loomed nearby, leaving a warm hue amongst the glistening snow.
The child was sniffling in the night, large green eyes unseeing of the street in front of him. He held his hand close to his chest, but whether it was his hand or his chest he was protecting, one couldn't tell. Scruffy blond hair shone in the iridescent street light as crystalline snow clung to the locks; curious flakes that disappeared along with whatever they had learned in their short flight from the heavens.
He huddled close to the car, the only thing besides his brother and his father that he knew anymore. He felt panicked, his young mind struggling to comprehend that which no adult should even see. He was drowning in emotion that he couldn't understand.
"Dean?" A worried voice bellowed from the open door of the hotel room. Shortly after he was at the young boy's side, kneeling beside him to see if he was alright.
"Dean, are you okay?" The man's hazel eyes searched the boy in front of him. He looked down. Small, bare toes were buried in the snow, causing the child to tremble through his sobs. He swallowed, panic threatening to overwhelm him. He did not know how to take care of a kid by himself, let alone a child so broken by the untimely and frightening death of his mother.
The child, of course, didn't respond. His son hadn't spoken a word since his mother's death hardly more than a month before. He barely ate, and he shook in his bed at night with nightmares that he would never speak of. John couldn't imagine what Dean saw when he closed his eyes, because he barely closed his eyes himself anymore.
Unearthly, all-consuming fire. The cries of a baby, and his wife, screaming from the ceiling…
John wasn't sure what all Dean had seen that night, but he hoped to God that it wasn't what his father saw.
He could feel the snow soaking through the knees of his pants, but he didn't care. He wanted to get through to his son. Dean and Sam were all he had left in the world. If Dean didn't get better, he didn't know what he would do.
It was then that John noticed the way Dean was clutching his right hand to his chest. Carefully he gripped the boy's tiny wrist, pulling the hand away so that he could look at it, his eyes watchful of Dean's reaction.
The boy complied, but continued to stare off into the distance, tears dripping down his face without any sign of easing.
The middle finger of Dean's hand was bleeding from a small cut.
John frowned, his heart aching as he looked into his little boy's green eyes. "What happened kiddo?" He questioned softly, not expecting a response.
He got none.
Guiltily, he realized that he hadn't been paying attention to what Dean had been doing inside the hotel room. Sam was being fussy, so John had been changing him, feeding him, burping him, walking him... frantically trying to help the little guy get back to sleep.
Dean continued to cry, and it was then John realized that this was the first show of emotion the child had shown since his mother's death. The realization gripped him, his heart jumping in hope. Maybe his son would be okay after all.
Gently he rubbed at the tears of his son with his thumb, his other hand still gripping Dean's wrist lightly. Finally the four-year-old's eyes focused on his father, dreamily waking from a reverie that only his small mind would know.
John smiled at him. "Hey there bud."
Dean did not respond, but his eyes continued to watch his daddy.
John sighed, feeling the frustration leak back in once more. He looked at the ground, at the freshly fallen white snow that had blanketed the earth. "Dean," he said, his voice soft. "What happens when your tears fall into the snow?"
Dean looked down at his feet, the motion causing more moisture of his face to fall onto the cold, white layer that enveloped his toes. The tears disappeared, as if they had never even been there.
The boy looked back up at his father, confusion dancing in his young eyes. John reached down and scooped up a small handful of snow. He took it, wiping away at the blood that was on Dean's finger, and the four-year-old watched in amazement as the bright red liquid disappeared from his skin.
"See? The snow washes it all away." He pulled Dean in for a hug, trying not to suffocate the boy as he felt the overwhelming need to hold on to him for dear life. After a long moment he pulled himself away, seeing Dean's green eyes glistening up at him.
"It all washes away Dean. I promise you it does. It all washes away and you'll feel better in time." His voice no louder than a whisper, he leaned forward and gave his young son a kiss on the forehead as his own tears threatened to fall unbidden to the earth.
He got up, lifted his boy into his arms, and together they walked back into the hotel room.
December 3, 2008
Soft, trickling flakes fell to the earth at a leisurely pace, making sure that they covered the entire ground. The snow was untouched, fresh and clean as pale, yellow light from the hotel's windows washed over it. The bushes were encrusted with crystalline flakes, glittering with the headlights of passing vehicles.
The young man leaned against the cold metal of the Impala, his toes bare but his mind not comprehending. His feet made large footprints in the snow, but he hardly remembered making them. He held his hand to his chest, trying to ward away the unrelenting ache that throbbed there and only threatened to get worse and worse as the seconds wore on.
Warm tears made their way down his face, falling into the snow and disappearing as if they had never even been there. His breath puffed out irregularly, creating foggy clouds that dissipated almost as fast as they appeared, his lungs struggling to regain normalcy over the emotions that were spilling over without his consent.
His brother was asleep inside, hopefully blissfully unaware of Dean's midnight departure from their motel room.
He hated going to sleep at night. He hated closing his eyes at all, the visages of what should only be a nightmare but what had really been his reality for forty long years threatening to push him to the brink of insanity. But losing his mind would be too generous, too easy.
He closed his eyes at night for Sam. He tried to get some sleep, even though he knew that his baby brother could hear his cries. Sam had seen him tossing and sweating and whimpering the night away. But Sam wanted him to sleep, told him he needed his rest. So Dean did it. He swallowed the fear that, no matter what he did, wouldn't go away, and he closed his eyes and slept.
But ever since he had told Sam about Hell, he couldn't sleep. No matter how exhausted he became, he couldn't make himself fall into grip of unconsciousness, where heaven and hell and everything in between adored taunting him, only to be there still when he opened his eyes.
His brother now knew that he was a monster. He had heard all of the disgusting things that Dean did, things so horrible that he couldn't put them all into words. And Sam hadn't said anything. He didn't run away, no, but Dean was sure of it - his brother had found out what a freak Dean was and Sam hated him for it.
If his baby brother had said something, anything, maybe Dean thought that things would be alright. Dean would have taken any utterance of the disgust that he expected over the void of reaction altogether. Sam didn't know what to say or do about this abomination that was in front of him, and how could he? The very soul that had taken care of him his entire life had turned into something more despicable than a demon.
A year ago, they were fighting against the clock to save Dean's life. Now, although he had been brought back from perdition, his life was still lost. He walked the earth, but his soul remained downstairs, lost in a sea of the horrors he had seen and committed.
He couldn't pretend anymore, not now that Sam knew. He didn't know what possessed him to tell his brother everything, but he hated himself for it. How stupid could he be? Did he actually think that telling Sam would quell the loathing he felt for his very being, that Sam would make it all go away?
Dean choked back a sound that was coming from the back of his throat, struggling to control himself. Dean Winchester didn't cry. He wasn't this weak. He sucked it up, he endured, he took care of his baby brother. But he was not weak.
Apparently a mere four months in Hell proved that he was.
A mere three months.
The young man pressed the back of his hand to his eyes, wiping them to clear his vision. He found himself focusing on the ground, on the way his bare feet disappeared into the crisp snow.
He wasn't exactly sure why, but the soft, shimmering radiance of a northern winter always reminded him of his father. It was something that was so pure and so good, something that he had always pictured his dad as being. The snow always seemed to settle Dean, calming his fears, bringing around a serene calm to the inside as it was presented to him on the outside.
How many times had he called for his father during his time in the pit? Dean didn't realize how much of his life had depended on his father until the man- his unwavering, undeniable hero- was gone. And he missed him. He missed him so much that it hurt.
He missed his dad's low, comforting voice. He missed the ability that John had to make Dean feel like everything was going to be okay, even when perhaps it wasn't. He missed his father's ability to wash it all away.
Dean crouched down, his back still in contact with the Impala, afraid of breaking the only tie that he had left with his father. He dipped his right hand in the snow, watching as it melted down the sides of his hand in cool, slow streams. His left hand remained at his chest in a fist, a subconscious act he committed against the pain he felt there.
Finally the hand dropped, brushing the snow. He grabbed a handful of it, and began to rub his other palm with it, watching the pure white flakes wash over his skin. Unsatisfied, he took another handful, a larger one, and scrubbed his hands together, the cold sensation unable to numb his senses any more. His body was shivering as he continued to wash his hands in the snow, long lost words haunting his mind.
See? The snow washes it all away…
But whoever had said it was wrong.
Dean looked down at his hands, the tears coming full force once more. A soft groan caught at the back of his throat as his eyes blurred, taking him away from what was in front of him and throwing him back to what was inside of him.
The snow couldn't wash away the blood from his hands, the bright red stains that he saw on himself every day.
It wasn't going to get better with time.
It didn't always all wash away.
"Dean?" A worried voice called from the suddenly open door of the motel room.
Dean had heard him, but he didn't respond. The thought of facing his younger brother right now terrified him.
Shortly after, Sam was at his side, crouching beside him in the cold, dark night.
"What happened?" Sam asked, and if Dean had been paying any attention to him at all, he would have seen the look of pure panic on his brother's face.
But Sam had caught him in a moment of reckless, unaltered self-pity, and a fake smile wasn't going to make that just go away. Dean continued to stare at his hands in the snow, unable to fathom where to go from there.
Sam swallowed, trying hard not to let his fear show. His eyes were drawn to his brother's bare feet, the meager tee-shirt he wore, and Dean's obvious lack of awareness of how cold it was. It frightened Sam. In the past few years, he had lost his brother once already, and nearly many times more. Losing him again, to this Hell on Earth that lived on in Dean's mind, would be more than he could bear.
Unsure of what else to do, Sam put his arm around his brother and pulled him closer, silently relieved that Dean did not pull away. He frowned at the amount Dean was shivering, and found himself rubbing his hand along the bare skin of his arm, trying to warm his older brother up.
After a small moment, Sam broke the silence. "Come on Dean," He said quietly. "Let's go inside."
Dean allowed Sam pull him up, and he let the snow from his hands drop to the ground, watching it with dull eyes as it broke apart.
"Dean," Sam began, his voice barely louder than a whisper.
Something in his younger brother's voice caused Dean to look up at him, his green eyes tumultuous with dread. The look took Sam's breath away, and for a moment he didn't say anything.
But then he did.
"It's going to be okay, Dean." Sam told him, biting back his own overwhelming emotions. The words seem to make the trembling of Dean's cold body worsen, but he went on. "I promise, it'll get better."
Then Dean dropped his eyes, allowing Sam to lead him towards the hotel room as his bare feet crunched through the unadulterated snow. He didn't say anything, but Sam had seen him react to the words. He knew Dean had heard him.
And as they stepped back inside, leaving the crisp night air behind them, Dean thought that maybe Sam didn't hate him after all.
That maybe, in the end, Sam could wash it all away.