Title: Variations on a Theme (or five ways it might have been)
Rating: I'm gonna say a hard PG-13
Words: ~8,000
Spoilers: Basically everything, but in particular for the Winchester-and-the-FBI arc, seasons 4/5, "What is and What Should Never Be."
Warnings: Descriptions of violence and physical child abuse, discussion of suicide, lots of language, mental illness, major character death, gratuitous hurt!Dean with a little bit of hurt!Sam, hardcore Biblical geekery in part four. John does not come off well in this story, which was not my intention (though I'm not great fan of John so I'm not too fussed).
Summary: Maybe the Winchesters fight monsters and prevent the apolcalypse, and maybe they don't. Five places the Winchester boys might have ended up.
Neurotic author's notes: This happened because I was sitting in my religion class thinking about parallel universes. And also about how fun/weird it would be to contemplate the addition of new books to the canonical Bible, because I am a huge nerd.

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1.

Somewhere along the line, Rob started thinking of him as his Mysterious Uncle Dean.

When he was just small, it had been the Secret Uncle Dean, because nobody ever talked about him, and when they did Dad got tense and quiet and sometimes angry, and Mom got fidgety and nervous, and the one time anybody ever mentioned Uncle Dean to Nana (his little sister, Molly, still to young to know better) she'd looked like she was going to cry. Later, when Rob was thirteen and pointlessly callous, he'd thought of him as Dead Uncle Dean, and made a point to pry his father for salacious details—very few of which he was ever actually granted. He'd decided the secrecy had to indicate something awful, wondered what kind of a fuck up Uncle Dean must have been.

Now, though, at nineteen, Rob isn't interest in rebellion, and is concerned mostly with facts. He knows Dean was born in 1979, four years before Dad, and died in 2007, the winter before his mom and dad got married. He knows he was a mechanic, knows he had a cool leather jacket and wore his hair short. He'd had a girlfriend, and Rob had only met her once, a very long time ago, around the time he worked out that there'd ever been an Uncle Dean. He knows that the sleek black 1967 Chevy Impala he is poised to inherit was once Dean's, and before that, his Grandpa John's. He's never met either of them, and he doesn't know if they drove it or just kept it clean and maintained, like Dad does. He knows that Dad doesn't like to talk about Uncle Dean, and Mom has always said to let it be. He knows Dean was an alcoholic, and occasionally a thief, because his Dad told him once, bitterly, and almost out of nowhere. He has also gathered, from almost two decades of unfinished whispers, that Uncle Dean killed himself.

What he doesn't know, that's a much longer list, and an infuriating one. He doesn't know why Dean killed himself, and he doesn't know if he was close to Dad, and he doesn't know if he was tender or angry or a bastard or a lost soul. He doesn't know if he was a half-decent older brother, which seemed especially important, as Rob had always taken his brotherly duty very seriously. Did Dean have Dad's back, the way Rob has Molly's? Did Dad drive Dean crazy, the way Molly does Rob?

He doesn't know, and now he's home for Christmas, at his Nana's house in Kansas, in the home where Dad and Dean grew up, and he's just found out this was the last place Dean ever was before he died.

"What?" he asks, staring at his mother, who is bunched up in an armchair and inspecting her mostly-empty wine glass forlornly. It's two days since Christmas, and late, and Nana and Dad and Molly are all upstairs, asleep, Dad in his childhood bedroom, Molly and Rob's empty cot in Dean's. That's what had prompted Rob to ask his mom about Dean at all.

"I said, this house was the last place Dean was, before he drove off to—to Illinois, to a warehouse. And—you know. In front of Sam—of your dad."

Rob feels a bit like somebody'd just punched him in the stomach. His uncle—his father's brother—had killed himself in front of Dad? Jesus. Jesus.

Mom takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. "Oh, Dean. Quite the lost soul." She finishes her wine and then stares at the empty glass, eyes unfocused.

Rob is breathless. An ache is developing somewhere deep in his chest, a dull, horrible pain. "Mom?" he prompts her, and she looks up, looking tired and a little lost. "What—what do you mean?"

Mom shakes her head, twirls the glass in her hands. "He wasn't okay, honey," she says. "He—especially right up near the end. It was Mary—your Nana's—birthday, you know, and right after your dad asked me to marry him. That weekend. It was that weekend. The stupid, selfish bastard."

Rob is staring now, openly. All this new information is scrambling around in his brain, reshaping the image of the Mysterious Uncle Dean, twisting it. They'd all have been here, gathered in this warm little house in Kansas, this sweet place that to Rob had always meant holidays and warmth and Nana's spoiling. They must have been, because Mom and Dad had lived out in California even then, he's sure of it. He tries to imagine it, this little family, Nana and Mom and Dad, Dean and maybe his girlfriend, celebrating Nana's birthday, Mom showing off an engagement ring, Dad pink and grinning like he was on their anniversaries when he and Mom got dressed up and went out dancing. Dad with that stupid long hair he'd had right up until Molly was born. And Dean, leather-jacket mystery Dean, the alcoholic, dragging Dad to Illinois—Illinois?—and—and—

"He k-killed himself in front of Dad?" asks Rob, softly, and his mother nods, looking up at him again.

"Stabbed himself. In the—in the stomach. Rambling about monsters and, and I guess he thought he was dreaming. Sam didn't really—anyways. Towards the end I guess he thought your Nana was there, too, and Carmen. And—and me." She takes a deep, shuddering breath and becomes suddenly very interested in her empty glass again.

"Carmen?"

"His girlfriend. Sweet girl. God, I haven't seen her in twenty years. The poor thing. I never knew why—well, that's not fair. Dean was. Dean was difficult. But he had a big heart. Your dad forgets that sometimes. Used to forget. I—he loved your dad very much." She looks up then, smiles wetly at Rob. "The way you are with Molly. Dean and your dad, they weren't—they weren't friends like you and Mols are, but he had Dad's back. He—I'm sorry he—" She cuts herself off, biting her lip, and Rob realizes abruptly that his mom is about to cry.

"Mom," he says, and stands from the couch, crosses to his mother, crouches down beside her. Puts a hand on her shoulder. "Mom," he says again, "don't cry, please. It's okay."

His mom lets out a shaky laugh and puts a hand on his head, exceedingly gentle. "You know, Robby, I see him in you. Your dad—it's hard for him, you know, but Dean was always kind to me. He loved your dad and your nana. He was—he was gentle. You kind of look like him, baby." She tucks a piece of his hair behind his ear. She lectures him that it's too long, but he knows she likes it, know it reminds her of Dad when he was younger. "He—in the end, he was—he was over the fence and long gone, you know, and it's sad, but he—I guess he was—he was sorry, I think. He loved your dad, and they weren't always—well. He was sorry. And your dad was sorry. Is sorry." She runs her fingers through his hair one more time, then mutters, "Okay, bedtime," and pulls herself out of the chair and onto her feet. Rob follows suit, and walks with his mother out of the warm living room, up the stairs and to the door of the room she's sharing with Dad. She kisses his cheek and goes inside, and Rob walks past his Nana's door to the room he's sharing with Molly, enters quietly so as not to wake her, climbs onto the cot fully-clothed, lies in the darkness. The room is empty of anything to indicate it has once belonged to a teenager or a child, to Dean, but it was his, once. Uncle Dean, gentle, selfish, crazy, sorry Dean, who was gone without any good reason. And right in front of Dad.

In the morning, neither Rob nor his mother acknowledge their conversation the night before, but as he brushes close to his father pouring coffee, Rob ducks his head against his dad's shoulder, just a moment's closeness. He's not sure why he does it, and the soft, surprised noise Dad makes only turns Rob's ears hot and pink, and he tugs away quickly, leaving Dad with a strange, soft smile on his face.

"Hey, Mols," says Rob, turning to his sister, who is sitting at the table with Mom and Nana, drinking cinnamon-smelling tea. She's a month shy of sixteen, and still not used to coffee.

Molly looks up, her eyebrows raised, mouth quirked, looking so much like she had when she was little and her big brother was her hero, and an aching love for her hits Rob like a wave.

"You still want me to teach you how to drive?" he asks, and she nods eagerly, and Rob nods back. "Okay, Molly," he says, "we can start today."