CURSED

Sam was convinced their family was cursed. Specifically he himself was cursed: he had lost his mother before having the chance to know her, had lost his girlfriend Jess twenty-two years later in the exact same manner; the relationship he shared with his over-protective controlling father had been full of strain, tension and angry, right up to the day of his death; he had spent a rotten childhood with his brother Dean, moving from place to place, never settling down, never opening up to people, like fugitives on the run; and there was, of course, the death of all the plans and ambitions he had held for himself, killed the same day as Jess when Dean pulled him from a burning building for the second time. He had lost the most important women in his life, he had lost his childhood, his innocence, and he had lost his future. If that didn't qualify as being cursed, he was sure nothing did.

Dean had adamantly denied such statements. Their family wasn't cursed; the lots they had been dealt could have easily fallen to any family in America. It just so happened to have fallen to them – did there need to be a plan or purpose behind that? A curse? No, that sounded to him too much like fate, and he didn't believe in fate. Fate was a bitch who stole any control you had over your own life, who stomped you into the mud no matter how hard you fought against her, no matter what tricks you tried. Life was just what it was; it was determined by patterns and decisions, by how much evil he managed to kill in a day, by how hard he fought. There were actions and consequences. Even the sick sons of bitches he fought – the ghosts, the demons, the vampires (he still couldn't believe vampires actually existed) – were products of some past evil or sin.

Then his father had died. No, that wasn't accurate; John hadn't simply died. He would have recovered from his wounds sustained at the cabin and during the car crash. Dean was the one who was supposed to die. A reaper had come for him, had marked him for death. He should be six feet under right now. It was unnatural, him living on borrowed time, John in the grave where he should be. His father had been foolish, trading his life for Dean's. Foolish, stubborn, pig-headed. Making the end-all and be-all decisions in the Winchester family – the Beginning and the End, the Supreme Authority – though his children were grown adults and perfectly capable of making their own informed decisions. He was, as he had all Dean's life, micro-managing. Controlling his son's lives. A decade ago, a year ago, a few months ago, hell even a couple weeks ago, Dean would have accepted his decisions without complaint, question, or hesitation. He would have followed John's lead to the very ends of the earth.

Now Dean was angry.

John had abandoned him. After twenty-two years of hiding and hunting, of struggling to keep their family together, John had actually left him – with no time or preparation. He had made a choice without consulting his sons, and Dean doubted John had considered the consequences of his act. For the rest of his life – however long that may be – Dean would have to live with the fact that his father was dead because of him. It was his fault he and Sam were fatherless, that they now found themselves in the world without anyone they could rely on. Sam was all Dean had left in the world – and there was no one on whom Dean could rely to help him protect Sam. If he was going to keep Sam safe, he was going to have to do it alone.

Somewhere deep inside, beyond conscious thought, in the place where ideas he would never admit aloud waited, Dean was, despite all his protestations, starting to believe he was cursed. Not his family, not his brother, just him. By cursed, he didn't mean that ridiculous witch-doctor mumbo-jumbo, spells and charms and hoodoo-voodoo, but a more intense, rooted, profound, frightening affliction – a cosmic illness – that Dean could not rid himself of no matter how hard he tried. From the moment he had taken his first breath, Misfortune had taken a particular interest in him, had loved him, had lavished extra attention on him. He had cheated Death too many times not to know that there were far worse things than dying, and someday those things would catch up to him.

Dean was an orphan. Not one of those ridiculous singing orphans whose lives magically work themselves into happy endings before the last musical number. He had lost everyone he cared about. Everyone, but his little brother. At least, not yet. Misfortune had embraced Dean and continued to follow him, like a loyal dog always at his heels. He knew it would not rest until it had taken everything he loved dear.

Twenty-two years ago he had made an awful, selfish, childish wish spoken in fervent angry and jealously. Misfortune – Fate, Karma, whatever the hell the meddlesome bitch was named – had heard him. It had found amusement and pleasure in the wish, and punished him for it ever since.

Dean was four years old when his brother was born. Young perhaps, but he had a remarkably vivid memory of that year of his life. He remembered the excitement and confusion, learning he was going to be a big brother, watching as his mother's belly grew round and wide. The skin stretched tight, her belly button protruding, and, wonder of wonders, a baby growing inside! "But how did the baby get inside, Mommy?" Anticipation drawn out over months, so heavy he could taste it.

Dean remembered his fourth birthday party: Mom and Dad, four blue candles on a fire truck cake. He had received more Tonka trucks for his car collection, and there had been a red helium balloon with a big number 4 printed on it.

He remembered how often he regaled his parents with declarations of what he would do when he started school in the fall, his assertions that he was now a big kid. He knew all his shapes and colors and numbers to ten. He could write his name, and he had a list a mile long of what he would teach his new baby sibling, whether the baby was a boy or girl.

He remembered Sam's birth, how worn his mother looked in the last stages of her pregnancy. He remembered the terror on her face when, three weeks ahead of schedule, the contractions started, standing at the kitchen counter making supper. One minute his mother was chopping vegetables, singing the Winnie the Pooh song, while he enthusiastically added his voice to hers and colored at the table. Then a pained gasp and shocked silence. Her mouth formed a perfect cherry O. There was a puddle on the floor at her feet, water running down her legs and ankles, pooling between her toes. Mary had screamed for John, screamed and screamed, and he had run, fast as he could, to retrieve his father from the back yard where he was mowing.

In the confusion and shuffle, Dean was forgotten. John spirited Mary away to the hospital, and Dean was not allowed to go, though he cried and begged. He did not want to be separated from his anxious mother. Instead he was deposited with a kindly old neighbour who smelled of mothballs and peppermints, and whose idea of entertaining Dean was plunking him in front of the television for hours and feeding him cans of Spaghetti-Os in cartoon shapes.

Two days later, when Dean was finally allowed to go to the hospital to see his mother, he was scared. She was pale and weak, a small figure lying against these enormous bleached pillows that seemed to swallow her. He was scared she would sink into them and disappear altogether. She looked sick, and though Dean was not yet acquainted with Death, he thought she was dying. She had been ill, they informed him, but she was doing better now. The situation had been touch-and-go for a while, but she was strong, a fighter. She would regain her health with only one minor hitch: Mary Winchester would never be able to conceive children again.

Dean crawled into bed beside her, onto the scratchy bleach-redolent sheets. He pressed his tiny hands to her face, willing the force of life running through his own veins to transfer into her and give her strength. She smiled and kissed his tiny fingers. What a good boy he was, what a loving son.

Mary would be well again, just as the doctors promised, but she would never fully recover the vigour she had possessed prior to Sam's birth. The dark circles would never disappear from under her eyes. She would always look exhausted and ragged, despite her immense joy, and Dean knew her change in energy was Sam's fault.

When his father suggested they visit Sam in the neonatal ward, Dean refused. He didn't want to see the culprit that had caused his mother so much pain. Dean felt a deep, dark hatred churning in his stomach – the kind of hatred founded on incommunicable thoughts and perceptions his four-year-old mind could not understand. He knew only that he hated Sam, and could not understand how his mother and father could seem to love the baby so.

When Sam was released from hospital a week later, Dean would not venture near him. He stayed as far away from the baby as possible, angry and jealous that this little minion had invaded his space and stolen the attention of his beautiful mother, his most favorite person in the entire world. Favourite even more than Daddy, whom he practically worshipped. While he played with his Tonka Trucks and watched G.I. Joe, Bugs Bunny, and Scooby Doo, his mother doted on the wailing infant, trying to convince him to eat and to sleep. He cried and cried, and when he didn't cry, he sat in a little seat and slept or pooped, or poop while he slept, and pooped while he cried. Dean didn't understand what the attraction was. Dean could talk and play pretend, count and sing and name the alphabet. He could make his bed and climb stairs and help Daddy work on cars. What could Sam do?

Mommy and Daddy had little time for him, and he hated it.

Late one night, after Daddy had tucked him in because Mommy was feeding Sammy – again – Dean crawled out of bed and gazed out his bedroom window. He could see trillions of glittering stars doting the night sky. Their neighbour had told Dean babies came from the stars, and he wished he could send their baby right back. Throw him up into the sky and have the stars suck him back to whenever they lived.

He had wasted his birthday wish – how proud he had been to blow out all four candles in one breath! - wishing he be Batman. He hadn't been thinking ahead; he should have taken more care, put more planning into his wish. You only got one birthday wish a year!

As he pondered these thoughts, a shooting star crossed the night sky. A streak of light and brilliance, so fast if he had blinked he would have missed it. Mommy had told him you could wish on shooting stars, just like on birthday candles! Dean screwed his eyes up tight, and with all his might, he wished he didn't have a baby brother.

Dean waited a whole week for Sam to disappear. For someone to show up at the door and take Sam away – "Oops, sorry Mr. and Mrs. Winchester, we gave you the wrong baby." He wanted for the stars to descend and take Sam back to live with them again. He waited for something to happen: fairy-snatching babies, a flock of pelicans, holes opening up in the middle of the nursery. Something. Anything!

After the first week, Dean started to lose hope. By Thursday, he was convinced he was going to be stuck with a baby brother forever. He tossed and turned, unable to sleep. He was wide-awake, so he noticed the noises coming from Sam's nursery. Whimpering noises, low and quiet, he could only hear because his room was right next door. He knew that after the whimpering would come the crying, and after the crying the screaming. Sam's wailing would wake up their parents; Daddy would be too tired to work in the morning, so Mommy would have to get up and nurse him until he went back to sleep.

Dean tiptoed into Sam's nursery. The baby lay in a massive crib, so big for such a little body. Dean leaned down and peered inside. Sam wasn't what Dean had expected. He had thought the little invader would be a wrinkly, pale, and hideous – like a bleached raisin left in the sun – with a greedy mouth and piggy nose. Instead Sam was smooth, his skin a flushed, pleasing pink. He had tiny fingers and toes, little rolls of flesh around his knees and elbows. He had a head of fine brown hair, softer than even Dean's favorite blankie. In fact, he was soft all over. He stared up at Dean with big blue eyes that weren't malicious or spiteful, but sad and anxious. Poor little baby in the big, confusing world.

Tears puddled pleadingly in those eyes, the pink bottom lip quivered, and instantly the ball of hatred in Dean's tummy loosened and disappeared. "Ah, Sammy," he said, reaching in his right hand. "Don't cry. It's okay." Little fingers reached up and curled themselves around his big brother's finger.

Dean had small hands; he liked to press them against his father's large ones and measure the differences, knowing someday his palms would grow wide, his fingers long, and he would be a man. Now, holding a tiny hand even smaller than his own, Dean felt a fierce and intense desire to protect Sam, stronger than any emotion he had ever felt, and he realized how shallow, how hollow, his previous anger had been. He scooped the whimpering infant into his arms; Sam was a bit heavier than Dean anticipated, but not too heavy that he couldn't hold him. Dean was very careful, mimicking the way he had seen Mommy and Daddy holding Sam, cradling him against their chests and supporting his head. Dean would never drop Sam. He would stand here and hold him as long as Sam needed him, even if his arms started to ache.

They stared at each other. Dean felt the first stirrings of love, so raw and violent it was hard to believe he could feel this way. He thought he finally understood what it must be like to be a big brother, how Mommy and Daddy could love Sam so much. "I love you, Sammy," he promised, "And I'm never going to let anything happen to you." Maybe Sam couldn't understand words yet, but he seemed instinctively to know his brother's meaning. The tears trailed from his big eyes, but he did not screech or holler. Dean sat down in the wooden rocking chair, and hummed. Sam curled up close to him, safe and loved in his brother's arms, and softly fell asleep.

Dean's relationship with Sam changed. He was protective and loyal, more vehemently so than anyone would have thought possible for such a young child. Mary and John were surprised by the fierceness and expanse of his love – the way he insisted on helping put Sammy to bed every night, the way he rarely let his brother out of his sight. It made the boy seem old for his age, and the Winchesters couldn't help but wonder if such a powerful, relentless love would have difficult consequences for Dean later in life.

Yes, Dean had decided now.

If anyone was cursed, it was him. And it was entirely his own fault. It wasn't that he believed wishing on stars had any kind of power, but he felt subconsciously that he was going to be punished for that hasty wish. He would struggle his entire life to keep his promise, but the Universe would always have the cards stacked against him.

How did Dean know this? It was simple really: whenever they were hunting, whenever a new creature appeared, the monsters almost always went after Sam. From the shtriga when they were children to shape-shifters and ghosts, from witches to vampires to freakin' Bloody Mary, these evil creatures always targeted Sam. It was like an irresistible pull, drawing them towards the one person who meant the most to Dean, the one person he was most terrified of losing. The one person he would do literally anything to protect.

Dean had cheated Death again, and he knew there would be consequences. It was a sick cosmic joke: the Universe keeping him alive just so he could suffer further, giving him hope that maybe he could actually keep Sammy safe, and then showing him over and over again how he failed him in all the little ways, how someday he was going to fail him in the way that mattered most.

Dean Winchester didn't believe in Fate or Destiny or any of that new-agey crap. He believed in what he could see, what he could touch. He believed in choices and action, in cause and effect. Every day he climbed out of bed and he made the decision to keep going, to keep fighting. Every damn choice he made was with Sammy in mind.

The question was: if Dean didn't believe in Fate, then who – or what – was he struggling so hard against? If he didn't believe, as he claimed, in curses and forces outside of a person's control, why was he petrified on each new hunt when a monster, a demon, or even a human attacked Sam? Why, somewhere in his mind, did the very loud fear surface, telling him "This is it." This is the moment he loses Sammy. This is the time when his baby brother will leave him – will be taken from him – and he'll find himself an only child again.

An only child and an orphan. Completely alone.

It was inevitable: the Universe was going to take Sam from him. Dean had mocked It, and it was going to extract its revenge. If it couldn't take Sammy from him while he was alive, then it would kill him off, leaving Sam vulnerable and alone. Dean had cheated It twice already now – and wasn't he the one who always claimed that what was dead should stay dead? One of these days it would finally get him; then the Universe would kill Sam, and...and what? He didn't know. Maybe that was preferable in a way. He didn't want to consider the alternative: a life lived without his brother in it. The years of separation while Sam was at Stanford had been difficult enough; what would he do if his brother died? Disappeared to some metaphysical realm where Dean could not follow him and Sam could never return from. What would Dean do then? How would he live?

All Dean knew was this: he was cursed. He had to be. His life was too screwed up for it to be otherwise.

And, however deeply inside, no matter how much he denied or tried to fight against it, he knew this much was also true: he was going to lose Sam. It was only a matter of time. Sam was going to die – and it would be his fault.

SPN was my first fandom love. I love the Winchester boys, and they have a special place in my heart.
I have taken a six season hiatus from the show (it just started going in directions I didn't like; I missed the earlier seasons), but I'm back now, starting from the beginning and falling in love with Sam & Dean all over again.

IF you would like to read my older fanfiction from my teen (read "baby fandom") years, you can check out my alternate/very first fanfiction account: u/901125/Beautiful-Crying-Angel

Don't forget to leave a review, lovelies! Should I continue this, or leave it as a one-shot?