A/N: Takes place between In My Time of Dying and Everybody Loves a Clown. This story came to me while I was looking through my own father's old photo album.
Disclaimer: God I wish...
Photographs
The wind howled outside of Bobby's place, there was the sound of rain hitting the roof. Everyone was asleep, except for Dean, who was sitting at the wooden table in the den rummaging through a small, black box. Dean could hear barely hear Bobby mumbling in his sleep, and Sam snoring softly. How Dean longed to sleep, but every time he closed his eyes he saw his possessed father.
Taking the lid off of the box, Dean ran a rough hand over his face trying to wipe the sleep away. The box contained photos and treasured items. His father's marine dog tags were safely kept in a small brown envelope at the very bottom of the box. Dean grabbed the envelope and carefully opened it. Grasping the dog tags in his hands, Dean ran his thumb over his father's name, tears unwillingly filling his eyes. Sliding the tags back into the envelope, he returned it to the box.
A stack of photographs now laid outside the box. Dean began to run through them, stopping once or twice when he would see a picture of himself and Sam. Towards the bottom of the stack of photos Dean's brow furrowed. He had never seen these photographs before.
The aged photos were of a baby asleep, grasping a tiny blanket. Of a toddler on a tricycle focusing on how to get it to move. Of a child laughing as his mother wrapped her arms tightly around him. Of a teenager smiling shyly at the camera with his arm wrapped around a girl. Of a young man dressed in marine uniform standing with a couple other marines.
A small smile made its way to Dean's face as he noticed his father was rolling his eyes in the last photo. These pictures were all of his dad growing up. Photos of his dad when he was still carefree and innocent. Dean could hardly recognize the boy in these photographs.
As he glanced back through the old pictures, a sadness overwhelmed the hunter. When had his father stopped being so innocent? Stopped being so carefree? When had the world hardened his features? Dean of course knew the answer to his own questions. It was the night Mary died. That's when John had stopped being innocent, stopped being carefree, had let the world harden him into the man Dean had grown up admiring.
Looking pictures of himself when he was younger, when his mom was still alive, Dean didn't even recognize himself in the pictures. He saw a toddler trying to hold a football the way his dad had shown him. He saw a mother rocking her four year old to sleep. He saw a small boy holding a baby close, a carefree smile on his face.
When had he stopped being innocent? When had he stopped being so carefree? When had the world hardened his features? Once again Dean knew the answer to his own questions. The night his mother died is when he stopped being a four year old and became a man.
Placing the photographs gently back into the black box, Dean kept a photo of his father as a toddler outside of the box. Putting the box back into his duffle bag next to the front door, Dean took out his father's hunting journal, a finger tracing the worn binder. Picking the photo of his dad up, he opened the journal and placed it in the back where photos of Sam were safely hidden. Closing the journal, Dean held it close to him before finally relinquishing his tight hold on it and putting it back into his bag.
Standing up from the small table, Dean stretched his legs and hid a yawn behind his hand. As he began walking stiffly toward the room he and Sam shared, he noticed how quiet it was. The wind had stopped howling, the rain had stopped hitting the roof, Bobby was no longer mumbling incomprehensibly, and only Sam's snores filled the small house. Walking into their room, Dean collapsed onto the bed, no longer able to keep his tired eyes open. Exhaustion took over and Dean was asleep before he even had a chance to get under the covers.
For the first time since John had died, Dean was in a deep sleep and instead of seeing his possessed father, he saw the boy his father had once been.