The way I have written John is simply for the story. I do not think he is like that.

Dean had to escape his home, at the age of eight he knew he had to leave but he couldn't leave his baby brother so he stayed for two more years and when Sam was staying at their grandparents so their dad could drink and do whatever without the youngest boy seeing and he knew the circus was in town; this was the best chance he had he packed his stuff when their dad and left to go to the bar and was gone within the next few hours – he didn't have much with him, just enough to see him through; or at least he hoped it was. He had a small picture of him and Sam asleep on the sofa that their grandfather had given him and he ran.

He knew how cliché it was but he hoped the stories were true; he just wanted to be away from it all. It took him another hour or so to get to the circus grounds and they were finishing packing up so they could leave the next day. He snuck into a trailer and hid.

Dean was found when they stopped for a lunch break by a guy he later found out was called Rufus and taken to the man in charge, he was nervous and shaking and hoped they wouldn't take him back or alert the police, he was happy enough to go stay at whatever town they'd stopped at even he wasn't convinced his father would somehow find him.

"Look boy I know the circus has the age old stereotype but we aint the type of folk who go around an' take kids." The kind looking older man said as he looked over the skinny – too skinny in his mind – kid, "So how about ya tell us ya name and we'll get you back to your folks, I'm sure they're worried about."

Dean shook his head at that, "Please, don't. I'll do anything really. I'll clean the cages. I'll wash anything. Just don't send me back." Before the older man, Bobby he was soon told, could protest he wiggled out of his shirt and showed him the bruises, "Please… I just… I can do a lot of things." He promised.

With a heavy sigh and a shared look at his friend they agreed the boy could stay as long as he made his keep. With that agreed they got the kid back in his shirt and got him some food before setting off again. He got shown the ropes by Rufus and a man named Gordon, who Dean was weary of, and got to work at tending the animals, feeding them and keep them clean and making sure Bobby never regretted letting him stay.

Over the years the got fake papers for Dean in case anyone came snooping and Dean forgot, mostly, of his time as Winchester and grew up happily as a Singer and the son of the circus owner.

- X -

It was eighteen years later before Dean met his brother again, not that either of them realised they were brothers. It wasn't that either of them forgot the other, but it wasn't like they knew what they had grown into. Sam was told about his 'no good leaving brother who deserved whatever shit he got from living on the streets' and Dean only had that picture he took with him all those years ago.

Sam Winchester was starting to hate his friends, sure he knew they were trying to cheer him up after the phone call he had with his dad but hey… no one had a perfect relationship with their parents and sure he loved that they tried but they knew he hated clowns, which only deepened after they got him to watch Stephen King's It; so why they thought a circus was a good place to take him he had no idea. Still the 22 year old went with his friends to the one place he never wanted to go all because he finally came out to his father and things went south very fast.

The next chapter will be their encounter. This is the mere prologue.