Disclaimer: I own no Supernatural characters, but play with them for my own amusement. There is one O/C here that does belong to me.
Rating: M for language and some adult situation(s)
Spoilers: The whole series and some times before it starts
A/N: Yes, I am continuing "Darkness, Be My Light" and I thank all you readers for going back to it. Unfortunately, I'm trying to make it as perfect as possible and that it turning into a real be-atch. There will most likely be a new chapter or two in a week. Until then, I offer you this...
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in.
-Leonard Cohen (Anthem)
((1997))
It's strange, but Dean has never possessed anything all his own. Excluding knives and his gun, of course.
Dad's brown leather jacket has just always fit him perfectly and he borrows it whenever the old man forgets it exists. After a couple of years of constant wear, he's gotten the elbows broken in just right. Neither of them can remember where it came from. If Dean digs into the deep barrel of his earliest memories he thinks it's been around at least since Mom was still alive. Thrown carelessly over the back of a kitchen chair, hanging from the front hall coat rack, stuffed in some random closet….it's pretty much the only thing they owned that escaped from the fire that long ago night.
Three lives, an old car and a unquenchable thirst for vengeance…If Dean knew his future then at four years old, he might never have stopped running. Just taken his baby brother and fled down that pavement with all of Hell nipping at his heels. In some ways, they've always been carrying each other.
So Dean has decided that at the ripe old age of eighteen, he deserves a decent thing. They've never really celebrated birthdays in this messed up family. It's pretty much been an unspoken tradition that, if they're not killing things, Dad gets drunk and passes out in front of the TV in whatever dump they can afford. He forgets important dates and disregards his son's feelings sometimes, but fourteen years of hunting have whittled John Winchester down to the bone.
No one gets gifts in this family.
Okay, maybe the hokey, kind of cool amulet Sammy gave to him for Christmas one year counts. But that had been Uncle Bobby's before Dad's and then it was his brother's. Dean sometimes feels as if all his life has been had-me-downs.
He'll take it, though. Especially when he catches Dad staring at him from the corner of his eye. John won't admit it out loud, but his eldest son has inherited his late mother's looks. All the way down to the intense blue-green eyes and position of every freckle. Same expressions. Same confident posture. Same understated elegance of movement.
Dean will always remind his father of ghosts he can't escape.
Some presents you accept. Some you never ask for,
But receive anyway.