Dean Winchester had never been normal. When he was four years old he carried his infant brother from the burning building which was the only home he would ever know.

After his mother perished in the fire his father took both Dean and his little brother Sam to a motel. "It's just temporary," he told Dean. "Just until we find a new place."

But temporary turned out to be a lot longer that little Dean had expected. John was busy, with the funeral at first, and then with house searching, it would be years before the old place was livable again and John didn't want to go back, not after Mary...

Without their mother Dean found himself watching Sam. John was busy, he would go to work, leaving Dean to play with Sammy. It wasn't hard, he would dangle toys in front of the baby, when Sam got hungry Dean would give him a bowl of the food John had left behind for him and wipe the messy baby off with a wet cloth when he was done. Changing nappies was easy, John would buy those disposable ones with the Velcro, getting Sammy to stay still was the hard part. When John was home from work he was sitting at the small table in the corner of the motel with a beer in hand going over papers. Dean didn't understand what the papers said, but they had pictures, some showed flowers, some showed big wooden boxes, and some showed gravestones. Dean guessed they were about his mother.

John tried, he tried to be there for them, but after the funeral he just couldn't keep going. After they lowered what was left of Dean's mother into the ground John took them back to the motel and drank until he passed out. Dean put a blanket over his father and picked up the little elephant toy on a string his brother liked.

Dean thought things would go back to normal after the funeral, but they only got worse. When John wasn't at work he was looking at pictures of houses and drinking until he fell asleep. The weeks turned into months, not that little Dean could tell, he didn't understand time as more than a day, he had been at the motel for an eternity. Eventually the pictures of houses went away and his father just drank and slept, until one day which sent them on a path Dean could never leave.

Dean was sick of playing with the elephant, elephants weren't green anyway. All of their toys had been burnt up in the fire and Dean missed his racecars. All he had was the stupid elephant and a teddy bear for Sam.

Dean wasn't great at telling the time, so he didn't know if his father was late coming home or not, but when the sun went down he knew something was wrong. Dean couldn't sleep that night, he stayed up watching the door for his father who didn't return. One day turned into two, and two turned into three, they were almost out of food when John finally walked in the door.

Dean watched his father limp into the room, his arm around a strange man. John smelt of booze and dirt, his clothes were stained in blood. The other man closed the door and John all but collapsed onto the bed.

The stranger looked around the room with a frown on his face, his eyes finally settling on Dean, clutching little Sammy protectively in his little arms. "Jesus John," the strange man finally spoke. "How long did you leave these kids here?"

John just groaned in response and the large man approached the two boys. Dean tightened his arms around Sam but the tall man just crouched in front of them and asked, "When did you last eat?"

Dean didn't know if he could trust the stranger but he told him that they had eaten this morning and the older man held out his hand. "I'm Bob," he introduced himself. "I'm a friend of your dad's, why don't I take you boys to get something to eat while he rests?"

Hesitant but hungry, Dean took Bob's hand.


When Dean was eight his father taught him to shoot. Things had been better once they met uncle Bobby. If John was away more than one day he would leave them with Bobby who made sure that they ate, slept, and bathed. Dean didn't know what his father did each day but he would be injured when he returned. Finally he asked uncle Bobby why his dad was always hurt and the older man explained that he was out fighting monsters so the boys would be safe. Dean understood after that that his father was a hero.

When John decided he was old enough, he took Dean out to an old brick wall with no one around. John put a small gun into his son's hand and told him to point it at the wall and pull the trigger.

Dean didn't expect the gun to attack him but it jumped toward him when he pulled the trigger and caused him to fall back on his arse, his ears ringing from the deafening sound.

After that John picked Sam up from Bobby's and took them back to the motel, he said they could try again later. Dean wanted to be a hero like his dad, he didn't want his dad to know how his wrist hurt and his hands wouldn't stop shaking, how his butt hurt from where he fell and his ears wouldn't stop ringing.

The next day John looked at Dean's wrist, it was big and red. He told Dean he could not shoot until it was better.

It was a week before John took him out again and this time Dean was ready. John told him to keep his arms straight and be ready for the recoil. Dean clenched everything in his body and finally when he pulled the trigger and the large bang sounded he didn't fall straight away, he stumbled for a while before finally losing his balance. John just picked the boy up and dusted him off before telling him to try again.

When Dean finally learned not to let the gun knock him down John painted a large circle on the wall and told Dean to make the bullet hit inside the circle.

For months John took him back there and painted a smaller circle inside the larger one whenever Dean got better.

Maybe Dean would be a hero after all.


When Dean was ten he went on his first hunt. John brought him along and took him to a home for troubled boys. John said he was a caseworker and that Dean's parents had sent him away after he broke his little brother's arm, he said if it was an accident or not was John's job to find out. That gave him the excuse to leave Dean, or Danny as he called himself in the home and visit him regularly to talk in private.

It was not until his second night there that Dean encountered the ghost. A young boy about his own age with his face burnt almost completely off warned Dean to, "Go back to bed."

Dean had expected the ghost to attack him but instead it tried to protect him. The young boy warned Dean to, "Go back to bed before he catches you." The ghost would not explain its meaning so Dean ignored the warning until one of the older carers, William, caught him out of bed and brought Dean to his office where he burnt the sensitive skin of the ten year olds arms with his cigarette, all the while telling him just how much trouble he could cause for the boy if Dean ever tried to tell.

With his father's help Dean was able to identify the ghost as Brian Kale who had supposedly run away from the boy's home a few years back. They discovered William had killed him for fighting back one night while he tortured him. When Dean told his father what the old man had done to him John broke into the boy's home in the middle of the night and beat the older man until he admitted what he had done to Brian's body.

The hunt became difficult when the carer admitted he had burnt the body to destroy the evidence, but they were able to find Brian's favorite toy, a stuffed giraffe, that William had kept as a memento.

When finally the hunt was over John left an anonymous tip with the police, blaming William for the murder of both Brian and Danny, knowing that even if they could not find enough evidence to convict him the accusation alone would prevent him from working with children.

Dean's first hunt had been a success, but he could not help from tracing the circular burns on his forearms and remembering being held down in that old man's office, too afraid to put up a decent fight. Dean was supposed to be a hero, he was trained to fight monsters, but he couldn't even stop one old man with a cigarette. It was that day that Dean vowed he would never let it happen again. That day Dean made a promise to himself, he promised that he would be strong, he would be a hero like his father, better than his father. Dean promised that he would become the hero monsters had nightmares about, and no one would ever beat him again.


Authors Note: This is my first Supernatural story, the first three chapters are the introduction and after that it will get into the main thing, but I wont say what it is about just yet, I'll leave it as a mystery and see if anyone can guess.

~SophieAngel69