When Dean was thirteen years old, he had his first cigarette.
Rattling around in the desk in Bobby's study one day, when the Winchester boys decided to stop through South Dakota on a haunting case, he found a pack of Marlboro's tucked underneath stacks of ancient parchment scrolls and tax return forms. It threw him off at first. He had never seen Bobby smoke before. His dad did every once in a while, mostly when he drank. But Uncle Bobby had never lit one around him and Sam before. It was like discovering something far more heinous-like finding out he had a body stashed in a freezer rather than a couple of stale cigarettes packed away amongst a bunch of old Latin incantations.
There was a Zippo lighter in the Impala's glove compartment, mostly used for burning the remains of vengeful spirits. Dean figured he should use it for what it was built for, though, at least once. Bobby and his father were out in the scrapyard, while Sam was taking a nap in Bobby's room. So, he snuck around behind the house and lit one up. It took him a few times to get the lighter to keep a flame, but eventually, he held the flickering thing under the long cigarette in his mouth and inhaled.
It burned going into his lungs, like he had swallowed a lit candle whole. He collapsed on the ground, dropping the lighter and the cigarette in the dirt as he coughed and hacked, trying to force the smoke and ash out of his body. Hands and knees in the mud, he puked against the wooden paneled side of the house. Every muscle in his body felt stretched and plucked thin, and his mouth felt gritty with the taste of fire. Slumping into a sitting position, he cursed himself for doing something so idiotic and he swore he would never do it again.
It was only a few moments more, though, before he picked the still breathing cigarette out of the dirt and took another drag.
When Dean was fifteen years old, Sam saw him smoking for the first time.
They were at the fifth school of the year, and it wasn't even March. Michigan winters were brutal and biting, and Dean was supposed to wait for his brother outside the middle school so they could walk back to the motel across town together. The snow wasn't coming down any more, but the temperature was still bitter. The bell hadn't rung quite yet. He figured he could sneak a quick one before Sam came outside.
He had been sneaking cigarettes for two years, from both his father and his brother. His father's wrath was something he feared, yes, and if he ever got caught with one, he probably wouldn't walk away without a couple of bruises. But it was Sam that he was really afraid of. Whenever he had a pack stashed in his pocket, his stomach dropped at the thought of Sam reaching in and finding it. Why he decided to chance sneaking one now, he didn't know. He was just so cold. The thought of the smoke settling in his gut like a furnace was too much to resist with the temperature dropping below zero.
Nestled amongst the dumpsters behind the middle school, he flipped the Zippo lighter to life with one swift motion. When he had that first cigarette, it seemed so difficult to turn the wheel to light that spark. The first few times he had done it, he scraped his fingers raw trying to light it. Now, though, it was nothing but a flick of his thumb. Smoke was curling into his mouth within seconds, burning and alive within his lungs, his veins, his very being. Exhaling into the frigid air, he felt awake. More awake than in any of his classes. More awake than when he was on a vampire hunt with his dad. More awake than when after that hunt, his father was cursing and shouting and hurling things across the room, alcohol on his breath. He was more than just awake. He was alive.
"Dean?"
The squeaking voice shook him out of his reverie, and a few yards away, he saw his shrimp of a brother, standing...just staring. At eleven years old, Sam was barely tall enough to ride a roller coaster, but he had a grocery list of things he had seen more that nokid his age should have. And Dean had just added to that list.
Just as smoothly as he had lit it, Dean flicked the cigarette to the ground and mashed it into the slush-covered concrete. He vowed to himself to never light one again.
When Dean was eighteen years old, he almost broke down and bought a pack.
It was January 24, 1997-Dean's birthday- and they were living in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. His father was out getting information on the Moth Man legend that the area had become famous for. Sam was fourteen now, so Dean would leave him alone more often, though it was never for very long. Who knew what sort of monsters could get their claws on him in that time? Still, he felt he deserved a birthday present, even if his father wasn't going to give him one. So he walked to the gas station down the road from the motel to buy himself some beef jerky.
Behind the counter, the rows of cigarettes beckoned to him louder than any siren he had read about. It had been three years since he had a cigarette, since that day that Sam had found him tucked amongst the garbage. Every so often, he would wake up in the middle of the night with the craving pulling on every nerve in his body. It would skitter across skin, pull on his hair, yank on his taste buds. But he would grip the sheets and stay in bed. The reason he stayed lay sleeping in the bed next to him.
Looking at them all neatly arranged before him like candy in Wonka's factory, though, he had to think, "Why the hell shouldn't I?" He deserved it. All he was allowing himself right now was a pack of beef jerky and a porn mag. A pathetic excuse for a birthday present. Why shouldn't he get something to awaken that feeling again? That feeling of every nerve in your body sparking to life after weeks, months of feeling less than dead. He longed for it. Even if it only made him feel that way for five minutes, it was better than nothing. And it would only cost him a fiver.
Remembering Sam's face-the look of utter shock and disappointment as he saw his rock star big brother succumb to something so dirty-brought him back to reality. He added a pack of gum to his magazine and jerky before he paid and left.
When Dean was twenty-two years old, Sam left.
It was a miserable fight. Louder than any monster ambush he had been a part of. His father's slurring shouts still echoed in his ears hours later, but even more haunting were Sam's retaliations. Gentle, gangly, well-meaning Sam, who couldn't help but pet any dog he came across going down the street, screamed louder than Dean had ever heard. And all Dean could do was stand there, in the middle of the crossfire, trying with all his might not to cover his ears and cower in the corner so he could pretend he was somewhere else.
Hours after Sam had left, Dean sat in the Impala outside the house they were squatting in, while his father slept away the whiskey. There was no way that he could sleep, though. His eyes burned, like he had just spent hours crying, even though he hadn't shed a tear. Again, he felt it. The deadness that seemed to encompass his life. He hadn't felt it for a long time, but now that Sam, the one thing that brought him some form of hope, was gone...he felt like nothing more than a corpse. He reached out with every sense he could muster to see if he could feel anything at all, but it was all numb. His lips, his fingertips. They all just felt like bits of flesh, stapled to his skeleton. They were nothing.
But he knew what could fix that.
Jamming the keys into the car's ignition and cranking Lynyrd Skynyrd to full volume, he powered down the street to the closest liquor store. He paired a bottle of Jack Daniels with a pack of Camels and finished both before the sun came up.
When Dean was twenty-six years old, he found Sam again.
His life had been scotch and sunrises, girls and guns, motors and Marlboros. Waking up at noon, conking out when the birds started chirping in the dark. If there was a heaven, he imagined his would have been him in the Impala and an infinite highway stretched out in front of him. There was the occasional case he would work with his father, but aside from that, the world was an endless buffet of vice. The cigarettes were often after dinner mints to his four courses of whiskey. His little brother crossed his mind all the time, but not for long. The alcohol washed his image from his mind, and the cigarette smoke clouded what couldn't be rubbed away. The vibrant haze was just enough to keep him on his feet and driving onto the next town.
It had been five days since he had heard from his father. He woke up in the back seat of the Impala on a chilly day in October, and he just knew that this wasn't normal. The wrongness of the whole thing penetrated him to his core. His father was gone. And his brother was gone. It was just him. And no amount of alcohol or tobacco could cover that up.
At first, he didn't know where he was driving to. Perhaps he wanted to get a head start on that heaven he had imagined. But soon-perhaps subconsciously or perhaps that just where people end up when they go as far West as they possibly can-he crossed the California borderline. He was going to see his little brother. After four years, he would finally get to see him again. Whether it was just to talk or to ask for help, he couldn't decide. It wasn't until he pulled into Stanford that he thought just showing up with no purpose wouldn't do him any good. He would ask Sam to help him find their dad. A good old-fashioned hunt. Just like it used to be.
Dean asked for some directions and found the apartment complex Sam was staying at. Parking the Impala with sloppiness, he got out of the car. The cigarette was in his mouth before he even had time to think about it, the lighter already lit and ready to bring it to life-bring him to life.
Just before the flame licked the packed end of the cigarette, though, he paused.
And he thought about his little brother. Probably taller than the last time he'd seen him, more confident. More of a man.
Yet, the only damn image in his mind-the one that he couldn't seem to banish-was the scrawny eleven-year-old behind the dumpsters, looking at his big brother like he'd punched him in the gut.
Things were different then. Sam had probably gone on to smoke cigarettes of his own, maybe chasing them with a shot or two. He wasn't the fragile kid from Dean's memory. He had to understand that.
But suddenly, the cigarette dangling from his lips tasted like poison to him.
Letting the flame of his lighter die, Dean took the cigarette out of his mouth, turning it over between his fingers for a moment. Such a small thing, but it gave him so much joy. So much purpose.
He looked up at the apartment building, knowing his little brother was just behind those walls.
Guess I'll need to find some other purpose, then, he thought.
Dropping the cigarette on the ground, he stamped it into sooty pieces, along with the rest of the pack. The Zippo lighter stayed with him, but that served other purposes. Leaving the pack-carton and all-on the ground, he turned on his heel and walked into the building, ready to face his brother after four long years.
He never lit another cigarette again.