A/N: I have to warn you that this will be slightly, or a lot different from what the storyline says happened. John won't give himself up for Dean, but Dean does sacrifice his soul for Sammy.
Value
Protect Sammy.
Follow dad's/Sir's orders.
Keep the family together.
You don't matter a damn to anyone.
Those were the rules Dean Winchester lived by. Knowing those four simple rules was the most important thing in Dean's life. He even wrote them down, and when he was sixteen had it tattooed on his shoulder, in a shorthand that he had created on his own.
Rule Number One, he didn't know anyone that could do it better than him. Dad, if you really thought about it, but Dean went far beyond that. Above and freakin' beyond. Number Two, he could only do to the best of his abilities. He wished he was perfect, because he hated being told off by his dad. Rule Number Three, was inexorably hard seeing how as dad and Sam kept having fights, that would go from horrible to Hellish before he could even blink. The only thing that he could actually do was keep them from coming to blows, and if they did, to make sure that they never hit each other by coming in between them and taking the blow himself.
Rule Number Four. Always in the back of his mind. No need to bring it up.
"Dean," Sam groaned from the motel bed, "I'm hungry."
"Yeah, and?" Dean prompted.
"Shouldn't we be eating dinner?" Sam asked sitting up angrily from the bed.
"I told you to save your lunch, because we didn't have a lot of money left. Dad's money ran out, and I don't get my paycheck till this weekend," Dean answered sparing him a glance from his seat in front of his textbooks at the lone table in the room.
He saw Sam huff loudly as he angrily slammed himself back down on the bed. Minutes later his stomach filled the room with sounds of hunger.
Dean looked down the formulas in his math textbook for a second before slamming down his pencil.
"Okay, let's go," he said grabbing his keys, and his wallet.
Sam got up shuffling to put on his sweater, and his shoes. "Where are we going?"
"Wal-Mart. Ya need some clothes and shoes," Dean commented looking at him. "You're lookin' raggedy."
Sam looked up at Dean his face nonplussed, and bitchy to the max. "Sorry Goodwill doesn't have a much better selection."
Later that night when they had returned Dean was down three hundred dollars from his personal savings that he had for himself, and Sam was as happy as a clam with new shoes, clothes, school supplies, and food.
It was worth it.
"No one's sacrificing themselves just to kill this demon. If we kill it, it'll be the only thing dying. No one else; got it?" Dean interrupted.
Sam looked at him, and his dad let out a slow exhale before looking at him.
"Dean, you don't understand how we feel," Sam began looking slightly pained as if explaining something simple to someone who should have already understood it completely. "For me and dad, it's different. He took mom from you, and that's something major, I know, but he stole the love of our lives. He took my Jess, and dad's Mary. He took no one from you."
"Sam, forget about it," John said slowly in the silence, "let's just go back to work."
"And what about me?" Dean asked dejectedly slipping back into his seat on the cot.
John looked up from his notes. "You can get us somethin' to eat," he suggested digging into his pocket and pulling out his wallet. "Here's my wallet."
Dean declined before his father could pull the worn leather out of his pocket, and grabbed his key leaving.
"I love you, you know that," Lisa smiled kissing his face.
Dean just let the softness of her gray cotton maternity shirt and the firmness of her baby bump rest on his hard abdominals as they lay on the Lay-Z-Boy watching Shark Week.
"I love you more," he grinned kissing her back as his large calloused hands rubbed her back.
He chuckled when she groaned breathlessly into his mouth.
"I love our baby," she whispered. "I love our baby Ben."
"Ben?"
"You don't like it?" she asked looking into his eyes.
"No, I just didn't know you had a name already picked out for him."
"Did you have any ideas?"
"No, I like it."
"Baby Ben Winchester."
He watched as they salted and burned the body of the dead pregnant woman.
Sam, and John stood solemnly staring at the fire burn till it flitted out of gas to burn.
"Dean, let's go," his father demanded walking away from the pit.
Sam just gave him a quick look before following his father.
Dean knelt to the ground and searched through Lisa's and baby Ben's ashes and found the her ring and her locket.
He dusted them off and put the ring onto his left pinky finger so it could be beside his own and clasped the necklace around his neck and tucking it under his shirt.
He slipped into the driver's seat of the Impala and drove towards motel with him turning back when he almost drove past the motel.
He's pretty sure it was by accident even though he could see his dad's truck, and the large sign of the motel a mile away.
"Don't let him do this to you, dad," Dean begged staring into the yellow eyes.
"Oh Dean," the demon smiled, "Daddy sure some not so very nice thoughts about you. In fact," its smile grew wider, "I'm pretty sure I have more positive thoughts, even though you did kill my children, which I will get you for, by the way, and make no mistakes, it will be good, but let's get back on track. I have more positive thoughts about you than he does. I think that you know that Daddy Dearest here actually hates you," it sang into Dean's ear as it moved closer for only him to hear.
He ignored Sam's inquisitive eyes, and looked toward the ground.
"And you know that Sammy over there will always be his favorite. He doesn't follow your dad's orders as well as you do, he talks back, he complains, he has to be protected, and he abandoned the family. He abandoned you, and never took notice of your sacrifices. Doesn't even know about your sacrifices. And yet, he's still daddy's favorite. Unfair, I know. But if you wanted, I could make you a demon. It would allow you to let loose all that pent up frustration and yearning ya got locked up in there, because I can honestly tell you, sonny-boy, you aint gettin' what you want any time soon."
"No," Dean groaned closing his eyes.
A hand was placed on his chest as his father stepped back into his view.
He could see his father. "Sorry Dean."
Yellow eyes.
As he was carved up from the inside and blood was pouring down his clothes he could hear in his mind the repetition of what the demon whispered into his ear.
His father finally broke the demon's hold when the demon had finished with him and his vision began to tunnel and had turned his eyes on Sam.
"Dean just take it," Sam grunted into his ear pushing into him. "Dad said it was okay. Keep everything in the family."
The crossroads demon looked at him skeptically.
"Are you sure you want to do that, Dean? I mean, I know I shouldn't be advising you not to make a deal, but its not really a secret that you're your family's bitch. You sure you don't want to bring back Lisa and baby Ben?"
Sam's life. 1 year.
"Dean, I must say I am sincerely impressed. Despite all the moves you have made in your school career you happen to have been chosen Valedictorian for this graduating class," the principal smiled proudly flanked by his guidance counselor, and his college advisor.
"You'll have till a week before graduation to work on your speech," his guidance counselor interjected from her seat giving him a pale red-lipped smile.
Dean noticed that the only other person in the room more somber than him was his college advisor, but he already knew why.
"Thanks, and I'll get right on that speech," he smiled leaving the office. He was caught in the hallway by his advisor who looked at him with pleading eyes.
"Dean, please, you still have time to choose a school. I know for a fact that if you said yes to any of these schools they would drop someone else, and you would have a worry-free ride through college.
"I can't," Dean mumbled trying to walk away from the man.
"Do you know how many people would kill for your smarts, for your college offers? I mean, Harvard, Stanford, Yale, and Penn State, etc. etc. want you. I had to stop the out of the country one's early, because I had a feeling that there would be no way of getting you out of her."
"Mr. MacDonald, I appreciate your concern, but I'm not going to college. This is the end of the road for me. From now on, it's all about getting my brother to college," Dean answered decisively and walking away quickly head held high, and regret pushed back somewhere else.
Later that same day, Dean emptied himself of all of his reserves putting it into a bank account for his little brother Sam to go to a good college, and not have to worry that much about money. He wanted to help his little brother get out and away from the life he hated so much. He'd look for another chance to leave at another time.
"You made a deal?" his father whispered sitting on the edge of the motel bed. "You sold your soul for Sam's life, and now you have a year left?" his father repeated questioningly.
Dean nodded looking down at the ugly carpeting.
He wasn't that surprised when instead of any hint of worry, or desperation to find a way out of the deal, and to find a way to save both of his sons, all he got was a pat on the shoulder, and a "Good job, Dean."
He watched the older man leave the room.
Receiving the praise from his father hadn't made him feel as good as he thought it would.
"Dean," Alastair called from his "office."
Getting up from his stool and laying his tools down back onto the medical tray Dean looked at the demon strapped down on the metal table.
"Don't worry. I'll be back," he smiled.
He walked through the short dank hall and entered the room where Alastair was doing his own work.
"What do you want?" Dean asked testily closing the door behind him.
"Oh," Alastair began as he turned around in his own stool wearing a blood covered apron with his arms withdrawn elbow-deep from the inside of some poor idiot strapped down to the dirty table. "Is that anyway to talk to someone who is about to make your lifetime?"
Dean arched an eyebrow. "And how are you going to do that?"
Alastair smiled.
"Go back to your room. You'll have two more to deal with."
Dean turned away.
"Dean." He turned back for a moment taking in a deep breath to keep his calm. "You'll owe me."
Back in his room, he suited up for his new specimens. In his lab there was a new one strapped down onto his table. The body was tall with untrimmed brown hair. Kind of like the shaggy dog the last demon he had worked on had possessed in order to hide away from his punishment.
"Hello there," he smiled as he snapped the long pale surgical gloves down as he sat down on the stool, "what's your name?"
"Dean?" a pained moan came from the new unmarked specimen on his table. "Where's dad?"
Dean paused in the rearranging of his now clean tools to look down at the drowsy face staring back up at him.
"I'm sorry," Dean smiled picking up a sharp scalpel that glinted in the dim fluorescent lights hanging overhead, "but do I know you?"