This is for Tarane who promoted me as follows;
Can I have a story request?!
You know today I was rewatching the great episode "Bad Boys" again! I was wondering if it's possible that you write a story of Dean revisiting Sonny for the first time after the night he left, and I'd like it to be in the Stanford era!
THANK YOU SO MUCH Tarane! You're one of my most faithful readers and reviewers, which means the world to me! This is for you, thank you!
Chapter 1.
Dean stands in a old gray tile-walled bathroom, his bare feet cold on the floor of the same material. Anyone watching him would wonder what he stares at. What has such a hopeless, sad, gray look on his face? What has the questioning look in his eyes, what question is it that makes him sigh in defeat when he cannot find the answer?
In front of him on the wall hangs a large mirror. Stained with mold and still blurry with steam from Dean's too-hot shower. His face looks back at him.
His face. Dean tells himself, over and over, 'My face.'
All the same Dean doesn't know the man, the face, in the mirror. The mind in this man's head, the heart in this man's chest...what does it beat for? The soul he can feel flickering and occasionally flaming to life in his own being...who is it?
Who am I? He wonders hopefully and stares into the mirror as has been his habit since Sam walked out and left him to fight off the shadows of this haunting life by himself.
The lips of his reflection quirk into a sad excuse for a smile as Dean thinks of the long-haired, fox-eyed boy that had left his side to make himself into something more. Into a man.
So why can't Dean figure out who he is? Why can't Dean make himself too?
Since the younger Winchester brother went to go make a life for himself, Dean's has been a whirlwind of change. Without Sam, John sees no reason to work any harder to keep the family together.
Dean wakes one morning to find him gone. The only trace of John a piece of paper on the bathroom mirror; an assignment for a hunt. No information about where he left to, just what he wants from Dean.
The obedient little soldier. The perfect son.
Abandoned.
Dean knows it doesn't add up. He doesn't think about it. Being alone hurts enough, being alone leaves him vulnerable enough. Dean Winchester is seldom afraid. He gets a high from danger, he likes the slick of the blood of his enemies on his hands. But after the hunt, driving down the highway, eating at some disgusting diner...he is alone.
The quiet midnight hours when no one is around to care for him...when no one is around for Dean to care for...then he is afraid. The tendrils of fear creep around his soul and he wonders, is this how I live? Is this how my life goes by?
He heaves a deep sigh and turns away from the mirror. Question still unanswered, his meaning and purpose still lost in the abyss that is himself, his heart, and his soul.
TV is noise in the background, guns on the bed and by the door reflect the growing distrust he's developing of everyone and everything. The bottle of jack he can toss back in one evening shows his disregard for himself. He's well and truly lost. No longer a son, no longer a brother.
Dean is now lost in the only thing left to identify himself by.
Hunter. Killer. Loner.
The neon lights from tonight's motel shines through the window and lights on his face. He lies awake for most of his nights listening to late night truckers drunkenly stubble past his door to their rooms. Listens to the heavy eighteen wheelers rush past the thin walls on the highway. His fingers play a beat against his sternum, the feeling and sound rushing and slowing his heart beat all night.
When he wakes in the morning he stares in the mirror. The black shadows under the stranger's eyes grow worse, and Dean turns away from the mirror each time uncertain and still lost.
...
The impala, faithful as ever, carries him west. Her rumble fills his cold heart with a little warmth every time he cranks her up. She vibrates under him as she carries him over America's free soil even though his heart feels enslaved to chase after Sam and his dad. His mind always wondering what they're doing, where they are. Do they see each other? Do they talk? Is he the only one alone?
Baby's trunk acquires new weapons. Dean has so many hunts and kills under his belt. He fights against creatures he doesn't even recognize, he kills things no one can explain to him. The high of the hunt leaves him panting with the cold night's air grating and burning his lungs, cough coming out hoarse and choppy. Sounds horrible, and too old and sickly for Dean Winchester.
He learns to study and love something about every face he sees...he is not alone. He may sleep around a little, but the girls he spends a night with are not faceless skanks to him. Each night he remembers the warm touches, wet kisses...eyes that light up when they see him. The closest thing to love he can find out in the wildness of lonely life.
Some nights he gives up on sleep, lets the impala cradle him safe and familiar. Her hum wrapping him with memories of his Mom and nights he and Sammy shivered with cold and fear until they fell asleep while John hunted. He sits staring at Sam's contact, his finger hovering over the 'call' button hesitantly.
Always too scared of being ignored, he jerks his eager finger away and snaps the phone shut...he lives by the hope Sam waits for him to call, tells himself Sammy would pick up in a heart beat. He shakes his head at himself as he pulls out onto the highway, avoids seeing the ghostly familiar face in the rearview mirror.
Stars wink over Baby's hood as the black midnight pavement disappears under her. Dean rolls down the windows and listens to the cricket's all natural lullaby. He lets out a sigh. Content almost. He's made his peace with this, or has he? His fingers hang out the window, playing with the wind, being pushed this way and that. Forced to conform to the stronger force of rushing air.
Being blown along without a say of when and where...like Dean.
He purses his lips as a text message beeps into his phone. John. A hunt a few stars away from the last hunt he had assigned Dean.
The elder Winchester brother chuckles dryly to himself. As if he just sits around waiting for John after each and every hunt. It was sometimes a month in between texts from his father. Screw you dad, he thinks, tossing the cellphone to the back seat.
The night was his time. He did what he wanted, he went where the wind blew...his brand of freedom.
Tall, strong trees and singing crickets in Colorado have him unconsciously heading east towards Virginia and New York. He doesn't know what exactly is calling to him until he feels that ache in his soul to belong somewhere. To belong to someone again. He stares at wrinkled pictures of he and Sam somewhere just inside the border of New York.
Dean ignores the growing ache the farther from California he gets and books a room in a motel. The one place he knows to be like himself most is about as far away from Cali as you can get. Be safe Sammy, he thinks, as he gulps down a cold one and glances over the map and the back roads of New York.
Dean sleeps. He wakes pleasantly surprised, and ignores the couple of angry texts from his dad. He splashes cold water from the bathroom sink over his face, avoids the mirror this morning. Hoping that tonight when he finds another looking glass, he'll find something resembling himself.
The crisp cool air burns in his lungs as he unlocks the impala's door and throws his duffle bag in the back seat. He thinks distantly his chest isn't supposed to burn so bad, his hands aren't supposed to have a little shake. He tosses back a few painkillers he fishes out of the bottom of his first aid kit, also realizes a little numbly that there should be more in there, he hasn't taken that many has he?
New York's green forests rush by him, rolling farm fields stretch out before Dean and his heart feels lighter with every mile. He starts to recognize familiar happy sights long buried in gruesome darker memories. He only allows himself to think once that Sammy should have grown up some place like this.
The air clear and clean, people kind and sincere, neighbors more like family. His heart aches deep at this, the loneliness descends like a fog. He shrugs, used to the crushing weight. When the radio plays a familiar tune he smiles and tries not to think about the times he listened to it with his little brother.
He shakes the melancholy off by turning up the music louder than his thoughts and driving miles faster than the speed limit advised, the wind whipping around him through the windows drowning out anything but him sitting behind Baby's wheel.
He's smiling, swamped with fond memories as he pulls into the dirt road leading up a hill and to big, green oak trees. The distant sound of a tractor running and kids yelling somewhere works like a time machine and suddenly he's sixteen again.
Alone.
He stops the impala, his gaze resting on the large white, farm house. Standing tall and beautiful just like in his memories. The tress casting shadows against it, making the yard cool. He used to know himself here, he used to know what he wanted. Young selfish boy had been able to forget father, brother and lives to save for two months. Dean nearly regrets that he left, but then his thoughts go back to Sammy.
Sam may have left him, but Dean would always be there for him.
Here crickets still sing, here the trees still tower above him. Here his chest still aches, here he's still alone. Sam and John still left him and it that still hurts. And he would still do anything for them. He's still lost, still over-tired, still sick...
Still misses his little brother so bad it's like a punch in the stomach.
He wonders if coming here will help, wonders if he can lose all the pain and find something of himself again. But the more and more he lives this way, the more time passes the more he's realizing, the gaping hole in his heart...missing them...is just a way of life.
tbc...
Thank u for reading! Plz review if u want more!
Author's note; I've always loved the picture of Dean we get in the very first episode. It's the most we ever see Dean as his own man. Even tho the people he loves mostly makes Dean Winchester who he is, seeing who he is when he just has to live with himself is a neat picture. I tried to do him justice.