Title: Here we go again.
Summary: Losing his brother to the trials in closing the Gates of Hell, has taken its toll on Dean Winchester. With nothing left to live for, a certain Prophet-slash-writer thought to be long dead, makes him an offer. Dean opens his eyes to the night he made Sam leave Stanford to find their dad, only this time, instead of waking his brother, Dean drives off into the night by himself. Years later...
Chapter 1
He didn't know if this was some sort of cosmic joke, but for some reason, someone somewhere out there must be finding this all very funny, because for one reason or another, he was here again. Here in the last place he wanted to be, by a dying Sam's bedside.
The first time it happened was such a long time ago. He barely remembered it, having repressed it with the other fucked up things that happened in his life. The difference between now and then though, was that the Sam back then was already dead. Taken by heaven or some shit. While this one was on its way, or worse.
He remembered crying back then, wishing and praying to someone, anyone up there to please, give him at least this. Please give me my little brother back. Back then, a little part of him still believed that there may be a God and maybe, just maybe, he'd be listening to one lost soul calling for his help.
Now there was no tears, no kicking, no yelling, no struggling like fuck. Now, he knew that no matter how much he screamed how unfair it was, how they didn't deserve this, least of all his brother, no one would hear him. So there was no point. And goddamn, he felt tired all over again. A bone-age weariness that has become a permanent ache to him, like the hole in his chest that would never close up.
He feels empty, numb.
He was as powerless back then as he is now. And later, he'd probably end up doing something that would cause more harm than good to this already hell-hole of a world.
All to save his little brother.
All to keep at least one person important to him.
God, how awful of a human being was he? He can't even call himself a hero, no matter how much he tried to convince himself he was doing more good than harm. The heroes in the movies were always putting their asses in the line for the sake of the whole freaking universe. He wished he had at least a quarter of that selflessness in him and maybe then he'd get all that sunset and rainbow happy ending all heroes eventually got.
"You should hear me right now, Sammy." Dean laughed tiredly, rubbing at his eyes. "I'm bitching like a girl here. Even though out of the two us you're the one with the Rapunzel hair."
No response, only the eerie beeping of the heart monitor echoed throughout the room. The hunter paused in his actions, choosing instead to bury his face into his shaking hands.
"God, why do we have to go through this again, Sam?" He said in such a broken voice, that if Sam was awake, he'd be worrying over Dean despite the fact that he was the one on the bed, hooked up to the machines like some eerie puppet. "Why do I have to lose you again? Why can't we be like- Every. Other. Fucking. Normal brothers out there who don't die every other year?"
He slumped onto the bed, grabbed Sam's cold, unresponsive hand in his and his shoulders trembled as he said, "What do I have to do? What more can I give? Is there even anything left to give up?" He almost shouted but instead his voice dropped into a whisper, "Dad's gone, mom's gone, the family we somehow managed to make with Ellen, Jo, and Bobby all burned to ashes and Cas…" He choked. "Cas is nowhere to be found. I only have you left… but even I can't have that."
"What did we do that was so horrible that we deserved this?" The oldest Winchester shouted, eyes burning as he gritted his teeth and gripped Sam's cold hand.
And like an alarm that spelled his doom, the heart monitor on Sam's bedside let out one terrifying-
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEP
Doctors rushed in, nurses pushing his paralyzed body out of the room, shoving him to the floor with brusque apologies. He heard yelling and words and barely discernible instructions before it all became white noise a few minutes (hours? days?) later when a doctor came out and shook his head as though he was just another normal mourning family member that needed to be told the bad news.
And if Dean didn't think that the dusty remains of his heart could possibly break any further…
Well, Fate had always liked to prove him wrong the hard way. Only this time, it was by taking away the one person Dean had given everything up for.
"Dean." He didn't know how long had passed. He didn't know what happened after the doctor said, 'It's too late. He's gone.' to him like it was a fucking mantra he said several times a day. He couldn't remember if he punched the living daylights out of him or crawled to a corner and made himself as small as possible or maybe even both. He didn't even remember having gone back to the bunker, but then again, the unexpected presence of Garth may have had something to do with that.
But he did remember a few things. He remembered worry and words that didn't register. He remembered yelling, it was Kevin who yelled mostly because he was a brave little shit like that, and small bony hands on his shoulder telling him that everything was not okay but it will eventually be.
But no, without Sam it was never going to be okay. The whole world could go tumbling into the sun for all he cared and he wouldn't lift a finger to help, because after all he had done, the fucking world took Sam away from him and decided to keep turning.
Let the world end. God, he could care less.
"You can't mean that." Oh, so he said that out loud, did he? Well, what do you fucking know? "Dean, the whole world can't just stop turning because one person dies."
"Oh yeah?" Dean snapped, facing whoever was talking. "You think Sam's the only one? How about the rest of my family that died, huh? What about my mom who just wanted an out? My dad who became a hunter and dragged us into this shit? And Bobby, Ellen, Jo? What about them? What about losing everyone else I cared about? You don't think that after all I've been through, I deserve to at least think the world should fucking end right now and I wouldn't-"
But Dean stopped yelling. He stopped ranting in blind rage and let his eyes adjust instead to the person he was seeing right in front of him, frowning that familiar bitch frown.
"Sam." He exhaled. His shoulders tensed and he didn't dare reach out. Instead he let out a harsh laugh. "Oh God, fucking finally! I'm dying too, aren't I? Took your time, Death!" He yelled to his other side, which he noticed was the familiar scenery of the Grand Canyon.
Huh, look at that, they were back in the Impala, like the old times.
"You're not dying." Sam shook his head and Dean snapped his eyes back to his brother's
"What?" He sounded scandalized, "Why the hell not? I don't even remember the last time I ate. I should be starving to death somewhere or something. Or at least drinking myself to a heart attack." He argued.
His little brother gave him a sad searching look that reminded him of the Djinn Sam that convinced him to stay in that nearly perfect dream world. Huh, maybe he got hit by a djinn again. Well, he's not complaining. Suck him dry, djinn, go ahead. "Why are you so eager to die, Dean?"
The older of the two scoffed, "Are you kidding me? After all we've been through, you ask that? Gee, I don't know Sammy? I guess, maybe it's because I've had enough? Maybe because you left me behind like Mom, Dad, and Bobby, and there's just no point in fighting for a world that's so determined to make our lives a living hell hole?"
The younger Winchester frowned, "So you'd leave Kevin and Garth behind, is that it?"
Red colored Dean's sight and he turned to his brother, grabbing him by the collar, "Don't you dare turn shit on me like that. Don't you dare accuse me of leaving people behind because from the very start I've always done everything I can to get back to your side! I spent a year in purgatory, running my ass off, thinking of seeing you again. I left Lisa and Ben to go after you! I'm not the one who turned his phone off for a year and royally fucked up Kevin! So don't you bullshit me and push that guilt crap on my plate, because I'm fucking tired of explaining myself to you!"
He expected Sam to bitch face him or punch him or even roll his eyes in annoyance but the younger of the two just looked at his older brother sadly. The fact that his brother wasn't even arguing back made him loosen his hold before eventually letting go. Even raging, which was his automatic get go whenever he got hurt, tired him out.
"I just want you back, Sam." Dean admitted his first goddamn truth in awhile. His voice was soft, eyes drooping tiredly, "And hell, I tried summoning a demon, an angel, and a fuck load of monsters after they said you were dead. But they all told me the same thing, and that was that they can't anymore. Knowing you, you'd have made a deal with a reaper not to be brought back." He laughed brokenly, "You fucking smartass."
Sam said nothing and somehow, to fill the silence Dean kept going.
"You mean the world to me and I'd give up anything and everything to bring you back." The older brother said helplessly, "But if I can't do that, then to hell with it Sammy, I'll follow right after you. You sit your sissy ass there in heaven and wait for me because I'll crawl out of hell if I have to, just to get back to you."
"You don't have to, you know." Sam finally replied, "You can just go on living or quit hunting, find someone, have a family."
"Like you and that Amelia chick?" The hunter laughed harshly, "Sorry, bro, but newsflash- too many demons, angels, and monsters want me dead. Whoever it is I'll have the misfortune of falling in love with would end up dead… or worse." He thought about Lisa and Ben and pursed his lips. "Yeah, the whole apple pie life has been off the plate for a long time. It had never been an option and I was too blind and naive to understand that."
"Dean…"
"What Sammy? You trying to convince me otherwise? Pretend everything is rainbows and unicorns?" Dean huffed out before he rubbed at his eyes, "Well, goddamnit it's not! It's not…" He leaned forward, resting his head on the Impala's wheel. "I'm just tired of everything, Sam."
There was a beat of silence before, "I'm not Sam."
The hunter jumped in his seat and turned, eyes wide. "What?"
"I'm not Sam." Sam- no, the look-alike-whatever-it-was said simply.
"The hell-" His automatic response was to reach into his jacket and take out his gun but of course it wasn't there! Instead he glared at the whatever it was. "Who the fuck are you?"
"Easy." The person held up his hands and his gigantor of a brother began to shrink down to a familiar looking man, with a moustache and writer-crazed eyes, a prophet he thought long dead.
"Hey, Dean." Chuck said sheepishly, clearing his throat, "Long time no see?"
Of course, Dean's automatic response to that would be a sucker punch to the face.
"Ow!" Chuck said as he scrambled back, his back hitting the Impala's door. "Seriously? After Swan Song this is how you greet me?"
"After what?"
"Uh, I was referring to the last book I wrote, you know… Swan Song where you went to Lisa's and tried to live a- Dean!" Chuck choked as he was grabbed by the collar again. "Calm down!"
"I am not calming down!" The oldest Winchester yelled. "What are you? A shifter? A ghoul? A demon? An angel with a sick sense of humor?"
"None of the above!" The write panicked. "I'm Chuck!'
"Prove it!" Dean bit out and Chuck rolled his eyes and snapped his fingers.
Familiar items appeared on his lap and Dean lets go in shock. Chuck holds out a plastic bottle with a rosary inside and drinks it with a frown. "Not a demon." He pursed his lips as he spilled borax on his arm, "Or a Leviathan." He picked up the sharp silver and an angel's knife and gave Dean a face. "Do I have to?"
Dean gives him an 'are-you-crazy-just-do-it-or-I'll-sock-you' look.
Chuck sliced his arm with both, "Not a shifter or an angel." He winced then snapped his finger again. The objects, including his recent injury, vanished. "Whew, how do you guys deal with that? It hurts."
Dean gave him a glare, "I still don't buy it. Snapping your fingers and things suddenly appear like magic? You may not be a shifter or a demon, but angels can do the crap you do. Besides, how am I sure you're telling the truth when clearly you're the one controlling this…" He gestured violently, "…dream or whatever!"
Chuck sighed, "I'd tell you to trust me but after writing a hundred and four books about your life, I know that's too much to ask." He said, "So instead, I'm going to do this." He snapped his fingers again. The view of the Grand Canyon outside vanished. Dean blinked in shock as he found his Impala parked in front of a familiar old house in Lawrence, Kansas.
He blindly reached out for the car door and got out, eyes looking at the familiar lawn and simple two-story house of his childhood. "This is…"
"Lawrence, Kansas… 1983." Chuck had come out of the car, his hand shielding his eyes form the afternoon sun. "Six months after Sam is born." He gave Dean an unreadable look, "Tonight is the night Azazel comes into his nursery and kills your mother. The night your whole life changes."
Dean's grip on the car door tightened and his mouth twists into a pained frown as his eyes darken, "Why are you showing me this memory?"
The writer gave him a look, "The thing is Dean, this isn't a memory." He closed the door and so does, Dean. "This is the actual 1983 Lawrence, Kansas. It might be hard to believe it but we've traveled back to the past."
"Dean!" A familiar voice made the Winchester's heart skip a beat and he looked wide-eyed as he watched a small version of himself running from behind the house to the front lawn. God, he forgot how tacky his haircut was, blond like his mother's and straight. This was his last good memory of their old house. His chest ached. He remembered replaying it again and again in his mind after the fire, just so he wouldn't forget. Instead of fairytales his father stopped telling him and lullabies his mother used to sing when he couldn't go to sleep, this became his comfort for most of the nights as he bit into his pillow and tried not to cry.
He watched as his mom came out, smiling happily, arms outstretched as the child Dean let go of his ball and ran to his mother's arms.
"If what you say is true…" He choked. He could be delusional or dying or something even worse but Chuck's words brought hope into his fucked up life and God, with Sammy gone, what was there left to lose? If he was delusional then he'd ride out this crazy train and try to be happy before the end. "Did you bring me here for a reason?"
The Lord's prophet gave him a sad look, "I know what you're thinking and I'm sorry." He took a deep breathe in, "But you can't change what's about to happen."
"Why the hell not?" Dean yelled but then he lowered his voice, scared that Mary would see him and be scared or worse disappointed at the stranger man leaning by her husband's car. But thankfully, Chuck seemed to have done some mojo which made them invisible.
"If you can change something, you have to be in that four-year-old's body." Chuck explained, "But I'm afraid that no matter what you do, your mother dies today, you lose a home today, and your life is changed today. It's a fixed point and even I can't bend the rules that much."
Dean is barely listening and Chuck sighed as he snapped his fingers once more.
Day turned to night and in place of their simple two-story house is the burned remains of his life. The hunter sucked in a surprise breath and turned to yell at Chuck or maybe beg him to go back to before the fire and at least let him warn them-
-But his words died in his throat when he saw his crestfallen father hugging the six month old version of Sam, with the young Dean leaning beside him, eyes wide and confused. Firemen talked about the destroyed house, citing reasons of how the fire could have happened.
"What do you remember about this night?" Chuck's voice behind him nearly made him jump. But he focused on his younger self asking his dad about his mom and where they were going to live now.
"I remember asking Dad about what happened." Dean gulped, fists trembling, "He didn't answer. How could he when he could barely understand what just happened? He sent me away- look, he's doing that right now." He pointed to his younger self carefully extracting himself from his dad's side, "He wanted me to ask our neighbor if we could stay the night."
His younger self was so small, barely noticeable in the dark. His father had been so deep in his grief that he didn't even notice that his oldest child wasn't wearing any shoes and was just walking down the road barefoot.
"And?"
Dean scrunched his face, "And I think, I remember a man talking to me, warning me or telling me something… I-"
"Tell me Dean, where is that man now?" Chuck asked and sure enough Dean watched and saw that there wasn't any man nearby to talk to his younger self.
"Wha-? But he was-" Dean looked at the prophet, "Who-?"
The scrawny prophet pushed him forward, "If you have anything you want to say to yourself before his life changes, now would be the time."
The hunter blinked before he understood. Ah, so the man from his memory was actually him from the future? Weren't there some sort of rules or time paradox thing going to happen? But instead of voicing this out, he just nodded and walked towards the young Dean Winchester.
"Hey, hey kid." He called out awkwardly to himself. The blonde kid turned to him, eyes curious, not yet distrustful but Dean knew that that would change in a few months, give or take. "Do you have a second?"
"My dad told me to look for Aunt Millie and ask-"
"Yeah, well your dad ain't gonna notice shit." The young Dean wrinkled his nose at the curse word and the hunter couldn't help but let out a rough laugh. "I just wanna talk to you…" Then he added softly, "Please."
He didn't know what his other self saw in his face, but green eyes softened and the kid approached him, looking up, waiting. Dean leaned down so that they could be face-to-face.
"You look tired, mister."
Dean laughed again, "Yeah, yeah… I'm pretty tired."
"Why are you still laughing if you're tired?"
"Because that's how you get through life, kid. When everything turns to shit you laugh like it's not." He said, but the younger him just gave him a sour look for the curse words and he sighed. "Look…"
Dean had imagined before how different his life could be if he could just go back and tell himself things he knew about the future. He imagined giving himself a step-by-step list on what not to do starting with Don't you trust that Ruby chick and don't let her near Sam and ending with don't stand too close to an exploding Dick. He imagined giving his younger self horrific details about the future just to scare himself into doing what needs to be done.
But this younger self was a four-year-old kid who just lost his mom and was on the verge of losing his father. He had a younger brother to take care of and he had a fat load of bullshit in the future and didn't need more nightmares on his plate. Besides, he doubted if the kid would believe him. And how can he? He thinks monsters aren't real. Not yet anyway.
So instead of that planned speech and step-by-step detailed talk he mapped out, Dean said instead, "It's gonna get harder after this. This is the night your life changes and don't you forget that, okay?" He inhaled deeply and uncertainly placed his hands on his other's self's small shoulders. Too small to carry any burden. His eyes burned at the thought of this certain child's future, "Sometimes things will be too much and you just want to break down and scream but I want you to be thankful, alright? You have a Dad and Sammy and in the near future you'll have an Uncle Bobby and loads of other people you'd give everything for."
He looked into the eyes not yet tainted by horror and darkness, "Hold tight to them and don't you let them go. Protect them with all you've got. Always keep them close."
The younger Dean blinked, not understanding, but sensing that this was important, he nodded. "Okay. But mister, are you alright?"
Dean let out a broken laugh, "Yeah, I'll live." He patted his younger self on the cheek, then hesitated. He remembered being hugged by the stranger. It was warm and protective like how his dad used to hug him and it meant a lot to him after that night. So, with a resigned sigh, he leaned forward and enveloped the surprised kid in his arms, saying things he had always wanted to hear in his life, words he carried deep in his heart but never believed in. Still, he needed to hear them. "You're doing great, Dean. You're a brave little kid. Sam and your Dad? They're lucky to have you. Don't you forget that."
Green eyes lit up and Dean's younger self gave him a wide smile when he pulled back, "Thanks!"
"Yeah…"Dean grunted and got up. "That's all, go and find your Aunt Millie." The kid nodded and ran towards a person coming out of their house. "Oi, be careful with your feet, you ain't wearing anything on those!" His younger self just waved and continued running and he shook his head. "Crazy kid."
Chuck chose that moment to step up, a proud smile on his face, "You did good, Dean."
"Yeah, suck it up. Now, are you going to take me back or are you gonna take me to hell and get this done and over with?" The hunter said as he trekked away from the scene.
The prophet frowned, "Why do you always like assuming that you're ending up in hell? Didn't God already promise you a place in heaven or something?" Then he complained to the heavens, "Gah, why did I have to make such an antsy character?"
Dean gave him a look, "Okay, first of all, you didn't make me." He argued, "And second, I don't give a rat's ass about that dick's promises. It's his fault the whole world's in this mess. Left his freaking angels in charge and surprise, surprise! They threw an apocalypse!" He said in disdain. "So, there. Yeah, I'm definitely ending up in hell because I didn't do what those dick angels said."
Chuck winced, looking down. "Eh… well, I'm sure God will make it up to you, one way or another. He'll be a little late but what's important is that he'll get to it. Better late than never right?"
The hunter snorted, "Yeah right. Keep saying that." He said, "So, you gonna tell me what's the point of putting me here?"
The prophet sighed before he cleared his throat and straightened. "Yeah, well Dean, I came to you because I wanted to give you a choice.
"A choice?" Dean raised an eyebrow, "That's something new." Chuck shot him a look.
"Anyway, today may not have been something that could be avoided, but there are a few points in the past that you could change." Chuck said with a small smile, "Let's go?"
And before Dean could reply, the Prophet snapped his fingers and then they were gone.
Author's note: This has been sitting with me for awhile now, so I hope you guys enjoy this. I haven't been to read any spn fanfics here yet on in AOO but I'm telling you now that this story is a hundred percent different. This is for Dean who doesn't have a home.
So yeah, that's it, thanks for reading and drop a review if you can!
