Summary: Dean is contemplating his promise to Sam in the night.
Rating: Teen for general language.
Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural or the characters in it. I do not own the title or song "Ordinary World" by Duran Duran either.
Characters: Dean Winchester
Spoilers: Up to season five's finale.
Dean Winchester walked alone on the slick city street, lonely lamp posts his only companions in the dead of night. Everything quiet, everything still. The only sound came from Dean's hiking boots on the wet pavement, stepping into a puddle every now and then. He had his hands tucked in his brown leather jacket pockets, looking ahead into the summer darkness. It was a surprisingly cool for a June night and was somewhere in between one or two in the morning. In the bar, Dean could've sworn he heard Sam mutter softly. It brought back memories Dean just couldn't handle right now. He tightened his jaw, trying his best not to think of Sam. He thought of his brother no matter where he went. Tonight was no exception.
He entered Lisa's house after taking a shortcut down the avenue. Dean closed the front door gently, trying not to wake Ben or Lisa. He turned to his right, hanging his coat on the wooden rack. There was a tall, lean figure sitting in the far chair. It was out of focus but he didn't need to look at it head on to know who it was. Dean whipped his head to see Sam but found nothing. Just shadows in the dark living room. Dean closed his eyes in pain, sighing. He shook his head, telling himself it was late and he had too much to drink. He turned on the lights, the T.V. and the radio, trying to drown out his thoughts with the present. Dean sat back in the chair he thought the saw Sam sitting in, rubbing his temple. It started to rain quietly out the wide window. Dean had the notion to shut the blinds and keep the neighbors out of the sight of Lisa's house, but he couldn't do it. So he just sat there, watching the heavens cry, feeling Sam's ghost beside him.
He smirked to himself a little, thinking about how the hell he ended up here. What has happened to it all? Dean wasn't a hunter anymore. He now had the life he'd dreamed about for so long. The girl, the kid, the chance to finally work on cars for a living. It was surreal. Being a hunter you basically signed up for crazy every day, not to mention being called it if you would ever have to explain yourself—which Dean rarely did. But it was the only life he knew, the only life he recognized. Could he be normal? Sure, it was never meant to be, so said the angels. But—now that it has happened, could Dean really do it? Everything he ever knew was gone away.
Dean promised himself through all of this that he would never cry for yesterday. There was an ordinary world Sam had given his life for and made Dean promise he would live in. Somehow, to Dean, it didn't seem like the ordinary world Dean should've had from the beginning. In his so called normal world, he should've had a brother. He would have to try, for Sam's sake, to find this ordinary world and learn to survive.
Flash backs from the past replayed themselves in Dean's mind. His mother's death, carrying Sam out the burning door, his Dad taking Sam and him away from their childhood home and replacing it with the Impala, Sam and John always fighting, Sam finally having enough and leaving them for Stanford, separating from John and never hearing from him again, taking the dreaded trip up to Stanford to ask for Sam's help, finishing off a Woman in White, saving Sam from his own fiery death as Jessica went up in flames.. All of it was sprinkled with pain but a strange sense of happiness, of family. From the beginning Sam was meant for something more, and apparently, Dean was too. Too bad their call to greatness was the end of the world. Now there's something you could write to Grandma on a Christmas card, Dean thought bitterly.
Dean remembered when they were on the same side. They both wanted to desperately stop the breaking of the 66 seals but Sam had a different method that changed their relationship forever. Dean swallowed hard, still aware of how it felt to be choked by his own brother in the suite he had booked for his demon whore. In passion, or mere coincidence, it prompted Sam to say, "Pride will tear us both apart." Now pride's gone out the window, past the rooftops, run away to leave Dean in the vacuum of his heart. The angels had destroyed Dean's spirit. Pride was just the beginning.
What is happening to me? Dean would ask himself sometimes, recalling the time on Valentine's Day this year he didn't want to eat, drink, or heaven forbid, have his way with willing women. He was an empty shell, a meager skeleton of an insect the angels had insisted that he only was. Sam couldn't really believe it was happening. Maybe he really did, but like most Winchesters, kept it buried. It wasn't such a crazy notion to consider. All things come to an end. Maybe it was Dean's time to be like a candle and be snuffed out, only a faint puff of smoke in the grand scheme of things. It was absurd how the whole chain of events might've been avoided if Sam had been a better brother then. Where was Dean's friend when he needed him most?
Dean stood up from the chair, his eyes blurry with moisture. He stepped into the kitchen silently, taking a glass and filling it with water. He drank it all slowly, wetting his luscious but dry lips. He pulled the cup away, leaning up against the counter. Sam was not the best brother then, but he sure made up for it in the end. He fought tooth and nail right up to the end, and possibly beyond. Sam had a stronger will than anyone he had ever known. He was a stubborn ass when he wanted to be, just like John Winchester, but Sam was kind and gentle. He still had a certain innocence about him that every time Dean stole a sideways glance at him, he was taken back to when they were just kids and they just had each other.
He exhaled, placing the glass on the counter. Dean made his way through the living room again and grabbed his coat from the rack, finding the sudden urge to be away from this house. Dean left as quietly as he came in, stepping off the porch and walking nowhere in particular. He made it a few blocks without a thought until a newspaper in wind the caught his ankle. He leaned down and looked it over, reading it under a street lamp. It talked of suffering and greed that had been going on in the past few months. People were dropping dead left and right. Here today, forgot tomorrow. No one knew that the end was nigh. Dean smiled sadly. He was sure they knew but no one wanted to believe. Besides the news of holy war and holy need, Sam and Dean's story was just another written wretched page.
A tear rolled down Dean's cheek as he gazed up from the newspaper and into the desolate night. He had promised Sam he would learn to survive living in an ordinary world. Sam's promise was the only thing that mattered to him. Dean would allow himself to cry, but just for tonight.