This is not a sequel, but is a companion piece to "The Only Gift," told from John's POV. This is Dean's POV from a similar place in his head, but under very different circumstances. The mirroring of certain scenes and paragraphs is intentional, but the story stands on its own. There will also be a third story featuring Sam's POV to complete the trilogy.

The Only Gift II: Dean

He's drunk, and it's not the first time.

He remembers when he'd go straight home and not stop at a bar, not swing by a liquor store to pick up a six-pack; not bring home a new best friend named Jack.

He remembers that before the bunker, there were thousands of motels. But once there was a home.

Lawrence. Where a house burned, but also a mother.

He'd never told Sam, until Sam asked it of him: What was it like?

Fire. Heat.

A mere hour before, he'd hung himself over the raised side of the crib and bent down to tell his baby brother goodnight. And then fire, and heat, and Dad pushing a blanket-wrapped Sammy into his arms, telling him to run, to not look back.

But he looked back. And he saw Mom on the ceiling.

He has a vague memory of Dad once saying, when he—Dad—was drunk, Sam asleep, and Dean semi-concussed, that Dad wanted to be, resolved to be, a better father than his was, no matter what. And he remembers, now and then—rarely, these days—that Dad played catch with him; remembers, too, the sound and feel of a soft-lobbed ball landing in old leather, trapped in the webbing.

But that memory is all mixed up with Bobby, who one day said they'd play catch instead of practicing with weapons.

Yeah. Dad was strict about weapons practice. Bobby sometimes said it was important to just be a kid.

Dean knows he'd just been a kid the afternoon the fire started. Before the demon. After, well, no more time, no room, for that.

He remembers his mother. He remembers the man his father once was. He remembers that night—and that Dad was never, ever the same.

Nor was he.

Now? Now he's got a brother, and that's it. Mom's gone. Dad. Once it was a car and a string of cheap motel rooms, the occasional rental house, back when he and Sam were in school. Now it's a car and a Batcave. It's not the life anyone would ever dream of, but it's his, and that's okay. It's Sam's, now, too, and for all he sometimes wishes Sam really had been served the apple pie life for more than a few years . . . well, hell. Jess is dead, like Mom and Dad; Stanford's long gone. He never meant to rob Sam of that life—and probably he didn't, when it comes down to brass tacks—but it does occur to him now and then that Sam had a shot at something else, until his older brother used all his persuasive powers to talk him into looking for a missing father.

What might have happened had Dean gone to Jericho looking for Dad on his own? Would Jess have died?

That, he doesn't know. But Sam out of the life? Probably for good.

And yes, he feels guilty. It isn't his fault; but yes, he feels guilty.

But he's not a liar, and he admits it: he regrets Jess's death, he really does; yet he'd rather have Sam with him, and now he knows, now he believes, that probably the yellow-eyed bastard would have gotten her anyway.

He's drunk. And he hears Sam's voice as he always does.

Dean, we'll find a way. We'll figure it out.

None of them figured it out, or found a way to prevent the hounds from dragging him to hell.

Nor had he forgotten his baby brother even as he was a piece of metaphorical meat on Alastair's rack.

Now?

He can't lose Sam. He can't.

There is nothing, past or present, he will put in front of his brother. Certainly not himself.

Sam is strong in ways that defy Dean's understanding. Probably he himself had something to do with that, but he regrets that he had to take the clay of the youngest and shape it the way he did.

But he regrets even more that he took on the Mark of Cain. Because it has become a living cancer on his arm, and a darkness in his soul, and he's very much afraid he's losing himself.

Dean, we'll find a way. We'll figure it out.

Sam did find a way to bring him back from demonhood. But this? This is the cusp. Possibly his own private End of Days.

Cain has prophesied his brother's death at his own hands.

He knows he's a stubborn son of a bitch; but he knows, too, that the odds aren't good. The Mark is the toughest enemy Dean's ever faced. But there's far more to it than that.

There's Sam.

He's got to stop the Mark because it won't give up. Sam is in its sights.

It's enough to drive a man to drink.

And so it has. Smiling wryly, Dean parks the Impala outside the bunker, removes the key, hugs the bag to his chest and climbs out, recalls how once his father had mentioned absently it was time he took oil to Baby's door hinges. But Dean loves the metallic song, knows it's part of her personality. Sam once likened the noise to a drunken screech owl, but a punch to little brother's shoulder ended that comparison. Sam has not, for some time, made a peep about the car.

Dean doesn't think it's because the noise annoys Sam less, but that Sam is lost in a hopeless quest and creaking car doors don't factor in his life anymore.

He can't lose his brother.

But this thing is on his arm.

He clomps down the winding iron staircase. Sam, at the table surfing the internet, glances at the paper bag held against Dean's chest. The faintest twitch of his mouth states quiet regret, but he says nothing. He hasn't for awhile. He knows why Dean's upping his intake.

Dean sets down the bag with its weight of alcohol, tracks down two glasses, pours whiskey. Shoves a tumbler across to Sam.

Because it's just easier than trying to talk.

Dean, we'll find a way. We'll figure it out.

Now, he just wants to keep his baby brother alive. If that means taking the easy way out, or even the hard way, to prevent himself from harming his brother, so be it.

He wants to tell him. He wants to explain.

He wants to say he loves him.

He just doesn't know how.

Dean, drinking whiskey, sits at the table across from Sam, who avoids his eyes, and wonders when he lost the ability to talk to his brother.

He wishes it were otherwise.

He wishes Dad were here, and Mom.

He wishes they were all of them there, in Lawrence.

But maybe keeping his brother alive by taking himself off the board is the only gift he can give him.

~ end ~