A/N: Woah, look, another story! Sorry about the rather alarming gap between the first and second oneshot! Hopefully, when I finish Broken Bonds, there won't be such large gaps, although we may never know.
Gotta love Wee!chesters, even though this is largely about John and full of angst. Remember in one episode when Dean said he'd wanted to be a firefighter when he grew up? I decided to write about John cruelly crushing little Dean's dreams, because I was bored. Ah, well. Sorry, Dean.
When John looked as his sons, all he could see in them was Mary. It'd been four years since the day he swore revenge…. four years exactly. Today was November 2nd, 1987, and John was dealing with his emotions in the only way he knew how; by drinking his feelings away.
He couldn't stop everything, though, and there was no point in trying. Hell, even on a normal day, he'd have problems with this, thinking about that day, the scorching heat of the flames in Sam's nursery. That's when he was most dangerous to be around, when he would accidentally strike out against the people around him. But today was different. He'd managed to work himself into a state of calm recollection, and was just going through his mind, remembering. Remembering their happy life before that damn demon ever came to call.
Dean was there, too, both in his memories, and now in person, as he made his way over to John and sat down next to him on the couch.
"Is your brother in bed?" John asked his son, almost reaching out to touch the eight-year-old boy but stopping himself. Just because he was offering didn't need the kid needed it.
"Yes, sir," Dean said, eyes flicking over to the bottle of beer worryingly. If John was more aware of himself, he would have recognized the look as apprehension, that his son was afraid John was going to go into one of his drunk fits and turn on him. But the alcohol had muddied his mind nicely, and all he could do was project his own thoughts on his son.
Are you okay? John wanted to ask. He was too harsh on the boy, and he knew it. Dean was too young to have to deal with what John asked of him, but John couldn't just stop depending on his eldest. He wasn't quite selfless enough to stop needing his help, and even after he took his frustrations out on Dean, he knew that Dean would always be there. Sammy was too young to even dream about this stuff, but belatedly John realized that Sammy was now the same age as Dean had been when Mary died in the fire.
Dean scooted away, slightly, and John reached out to stop him, laying one hand gently on the boy's shoulder. Dean jerked away, looking up at his dad with a calculating expression too old for his young face. "Dad," he said, slightly warningly. But something in his eyes must have convinced Dean he wasn't going to do anything because the little boy relaxed, leaning in to his father's touch just a little bit.
John smiled, and could of sworn Dean did, a little bit. John wished his son would smile more, he thought suddenly. Because the kid had a very nice smile, a smile that brightened his whole face and looked just like Mary's smile. Sammy was more for the tight-lipped, Winchester smile, but Dean looked uncannily like Mary whenever a smile curved his lips.
His eldest also had her face shape. Same mouth, similar nose, same eye shape, in fact everything was pretty much the same except the color of his eyes, which were a captivating shade of green. His hair was fair, too, just like hers had been. Sometimes, this resemblance soothed John's heart and made everything more bearable, but sometimes, it fueled his rage and drove the man to take that rage out on Dean, even though the little boy had done nothing to deserve it.
Dean was a good kid. He followed orders and almost never questioned them, and he took care of Sammy. He was capable of making good decisions, and he was getting the hang of building things and fighting pretty well. John was almost comfortable with leaving the boys alone for longer than a couple of days, now that Dean was getting to be quite a good shot. Sammy didn't even know the truth yet, because neither Dean nor John had thought to burden the youngest with that knowledge yet.
"Are you okay, Dad?" Dean asked, looking up at his father with wide, almost fearful eyes.
"I'm good, kiddo," he said, ruffling Dean's fair hair with his hand. Dean looked down, and scooted closer to his dad.
"Are you going somewhere tomorrow?" They had just booked this hotel room and they had already been on enough hunts for Dean to know what the pattern was. He just had to be sure.
"Yeah, I am," John told him. "I'll be gone before you and Sammy wake up, okay? You think you can handle Sammy alone for a couple days?"
Dean smirked, an expression quite odd on his young face. "I can handle it," he boasted, puffing out his chest a little bit. It only lasted a moment, though, before his proud demeanor vanished. "Does that mean I can't go to school?" he asked, looking up at John again with such hopeful eyes that John was almost compelled to agree.
"Sorry, kiddo. If you go, who will watch Sammy?" Personally, John didn't know why the kid wanted to go to school so much. When he was younger, he'd hated school. He'd always been picked on and bullied, and he couldn't do a thing about it. At Dean's age, he would have loved to be told he couldn't go to school. But that didn't stop Dean from pouting at John with all his eight-year-old glory.
''We could hire another babysitter!" Dean said, still not giving up. "I wanna go to school, Dad."
"Why?" John asked, not bothering to point out that a babysitter didn't know the things they knew and likely wasn't going to be a very good protector of John's youngest.
"I like it," Dean shrugged.
Still, John persisted. "Why do you like it? Didn't you say that the other kids are mean to you?" Dean didn't say it like that, but he'd been complaining about some other kid at school the other day and his arms had been littered with little bruises and scrapes. Dean had insisted that he'd fallen, but John knew better. It wasn't the first time, either. He knew his kid was getting beat up at school, too. He would have to do something about that.
He'd been that cool kid, in his later years of high school. He'd figured out why some kids got picked on and some kids didn't. He figured Dean was an easy target for them because he wasn't very big, and because he seemed different than other eight-year-olds. Older, but they wouldn't sense that. Just different, and that would cause him to be singled out. But if John taught his eldest how to play it right, he could help him. And of course, stop any chance of his son getting an actual education… but after all, wasn't Dean's safety more important than what he wanted?
Dean shrugged again. "I like learning normal things, that aren't about monsters or fighting." Then his son looked at the ground, as if by confessing he wasn't 100% pleased with the hunting life, John would get angry.
"Dean, I understand. But there are some things that have to be done. If you don't learn all this hunting stuff, no one can protect Sammy. And then one of those monsters can get him and you won't ever be able to get him back. Besides, I know the other kids push you around and bully you, and all school does is add more pressure on you. Why do you really want it?" John thought he knew the answer, but he wanted to hear it from his own son's mouth.
Dean's feet kicked at the carpet for a few seconds, before the little boy's head lifted and he stared at John with the most serious face any eight-year-old boy had ever worn before.
"I don't want to be like you, Dad. I wanna save people from regular things, like the fire that killed Mom. I don't want to fight monsters." Dean looked small, young, but at the same time, old beyond his years. I put him through too much, John thought.
"Dean," he started gently. "A demon killed your mom, not a fire." He could still remember the blood staining her nightgown, her shocked terrified expression as she was pinned on the roof, and Sammy's cries as the baby lay in the crib, his own mother's blood dripping onto his head.
"I know," said Dean. "But lots of people die in fires. I wanna save people like that, not by fighting things."
"Every time I go on a hunt," John said, touching his son's shoulder and making sure the kid listened to him. "I save people. Sometimes directly, sometimes just by getting rid of the monster. But I save people, Dean. And sometimes, firemen don't save people. Sometimes they die anyway. But you always save someone when you kill a monster, because when you do, it can't hurt anybody anymore."
Dean looked up, eyes wide and shiny, as if the kid was trying to keep tears in. John was glad to see the kid keeping himself together. Unwanted emotions were never good in his line of work. "Firemen save people," his son said, in a small, defeated voice. "They do."
"We save more people," John told him. He knew that wanting to be a firefighter wasn't a bad thing, but that if Dean continued with this ridiculous fantasy, he could make a mistake. Like thinking there was a way out of this hunter's life. He had to beat the sparks out now, before they grew into a flame that did his son more harm than good. "Besides, Dean. Once you start hunting, you can never stop. The monsters know you, and they come after you and try to get you."
Dean looked up sharply. "They do?" he almost whispered.
"Yeah. And we don't want them getting you unprepared, now, do we, kiddo?"
Dean shook his head emphatically.
"Well then. Stay home, take care of Sammy. If I don't get back in three days, call Pastor Jim, okay?"
His eldest nodded glumly. "Okay, Dad." The little boy pushed himself up off the seat and stretched a little, preparing to walk to his bed on legs that had already started to fall asleep. Dean stumbles slightly, and John used the opportunity to scoop his eldest into his arms and carry him to the bed. Dean didn't object, but he stayed tense in John's arms.
John settled his son down on the bed, pulling the covers back so Dean could crawl under them. When the boy didn't, he realized that his son was too far from a normal eight-year-old for that to be considered normal. But he tried. "Dean, go to sleep," he ordered, using his best I-am-your-commanding-officer voice.
His son got the message, loud and clear, and nodded, tugging the bed covers up to his chest. "Yes, sir," his son replied, settling down on his side. John let his fingers over Dean for one moment before he turned the one lamp in the room off. Blindly, he made his way to the couch, and elected to take a short nap before he left early in the morning.
Dean looks a lot like Mary, John thought as he settled on the couch, his eyes closing. In his mind, he could picture him coming home from work in the auto shop, and his son, then young and carefree, run up to him and give him a hug. He could see Mary look up and smile at him, holding Baby Sammy in her arms.
He heard her voice. "Hi, John," she would greet. He smelled the food she had prepared earlier, saw the plates on the table. He missed his family. He missed his old life so much that it hurt his heart, and because of that, never thought once about the little eight-year-old boy in bed, thinking about the same thing and crying silently. The two of them suffered together, father and son, but neither saw each other. They were alone together, in their own little worlds.
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