Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural. : )
Five Things Sam Winchester Will Never Know
I.
In a snow covered town in North Dakota Dean lost his little brother. Distracted by the snowdrifts and Christmas lights, 8 year old Dean thought Sammy was following behind him, drinking in the cheer and excitement of a season their family no longer celebrated. When he turned to find no giggly, shaggy haired little boy, his heart had turned as cold as the air around him. Running along the icy sidewalk, looking in all the stores he had passed his breath came in jagged visible clouds and his heart pounded out of exertion and fear. Stopping by a stark bare tree, tears threatened to fall on his cold, red cheeks. And then, his heart simply stopped. A blue stocking cap stood out against the snow across the busy street in a small park. Dean ran across the street eliciting a few hand gestures and angry words from the townspeople, who's Christmas spirit tended to diminish when a little boy dashed in front of their car on Maine Street. It didn't deter the little boy, who's mind was stuck on repeat sammysammysammysammy. There he was, the most important thing in Dean Winchester's life, lying in the middle of an abandoned park making a snow angel. When Dean told Sam he couldn't find him, Sam simply replied "I knew where I was all the time." And Dean smiled.
II.
On a hot summer day in Oklahoma, John had gotten drunk. He had rambled on and on to the 12 year old Dean about his mission, how he could never rest until that damn demon was burning in Hell. Burning the way Mary had. 8 year old Sam was restless and knocked over a lamp in the cheap motel room in an attempt to play air guitar. John had simply lost it and screamed at the boy until Sam was a whimpering mass on the floor, saying over and over "Daddy, I'm sorry."
Dean could take no more so against his father's angry wishes, he sent his brother outside to play. And that was when it had happened. The unthinkable that Dean had never imagined. His father punched him hard in the left eye. Dean looked up at his father, his eyes shining in fear and unshed tears. And John had cried and held his son to him, his own eyes wet with regret. An hour later when Sam returned sulking into the room guiltily, his father had said again that he was sorry and taken the boys out to dinner, a real dinner, not just a greasy hamburger in a dirty café. Later that night while their father slept Sam asked his brother what had happened to his eye, which now sported a blooming array of blue and purple. Dean told him he had slipped in the bathroom, hitting his head on the edge of the sink. Sam simply nodded and asked if they were too old to hold hands anymore. Dean didn't answer, but took Sam's hand gently in his own as the brothers drifted off to sleep.
III.
The night Sam left for Stanford, Dean went down to a bar, looking for a hustle, a fight or a fuck, he wasn't sure which. What he got was a fight that left him sore and bleeding. It also left another man, a young cocky college boy, not unlike Sam himself, dead in a back alley. Dean beat the life from him with his bare hands. He went home and cried.
IV.
On that night a year ago, Dean had driven away from his brother, not wanting to but knowing it was what Sam wanted. While stopped at a stop sign a block away, a shooting pain crossed his forehead. A bright white flash and he was there. He saw the blood, and Jessica suspended in death on the ceiling and the flames. He could even feel the heat, the burning, the pain. He put the car in reverse and his foot on the gas.
V.
On a rainy day in a small college town, Dean too once shopped for a ring.