Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me. The author of the original fic is White Damon. Here is it /s/6689165/1/Voir-l-invisible-Dean (by the way, there is another translation of this fic on Archive of Our Own under White Damon's name. Don't worry though; the author's okay with that.)
Pairings: None.
Summary: "Few beings know how to see things as they are. Some only see what they want to, others what they are made to." (Gustave the Good) Dean through the others' eyes.
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Religion side for those who don't know much about it (it can help understand some parts of the fic):
- the three monotheisms (Christianism, Islam, Judaism) affirm that "God created men in His image", which explains amid others things the sacred nature of the human body (to damage it, to market it, or to destroy it amounts to profaning the divine creation).
- Christianism: the Bible, the Christians' holy book, is divided between two books; the Old Testament, which is the same to Christianism and Judaism, and which corresponds to the facts before Jesus; and the New Testament (or the Gospels) which depicts the life of Jesus Christ, the Messiah.
-Islam: the Koran is "le" holy book of the Islamites, who consider it as God's parole revealed to the Prophet Mohamed. However, most Islamites add to it
-Buddhism: the Dharmas, or "truths", are the holy texts of Tibetan Buddhism.
-Hinduism, Animism, Shintoism: these three religions (India, Africa, Japan) have in common (grosso modo) that they recognise multiple gods and spirits. To have a temple/altar/monastery dedicated to one's worship is basically the same as being made a god for these cults.
-Judaism: unlike Christians and Muslims, the Jews are still waiting to this day for the arrival of the Messiah, the savior said to come by the Bible whose advent will mark the Judgement's beginning.
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To see what cannot be
Dean through the others' eyes
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While they respected the Winchesters (from afar - experience having proved that it was best to leave the three men by themselves if you were hung on extending your life expectancy), the hunters didn't like Sam, not anymore than they had liked his father. Whatever Bobby Singer said, a guy who devastated everything on his way to avenge a woman who died years ago was just mad (and dangerous). As for a man high on demon blood who provoked a damn apocalypse, he couldn't properly be considered as thrustworthy.
On the contrary, Dean was very popular within the small hunters of supernatural creatures community. People aknowledged his dedication, they appreciated his reliability and his skills to gank everything which shouldn't have moved. At the same time, outside the hunts, his amazing ability to hold drinks, his agility with poker, his way to pick up women and his a-bit-cynic humour, made him a great companion to spend a nice evening standing out from the rest of their, usually dull and not very happy, lives.
So, as years went by, the younglings who entered the business were told endlessly about the feats of Dean Winchester, inveterate playboy, extraordinary tracker and an all-around good guy who gunned down his first werewolf at fourteen, was able to shoot like nobody else's business and who, rumours had it, dragged a more or less fallen angel on his trail (but that, the younguns never believed it on the first time - the older hunters were chuckling in their beards and waiting impatiently for those rookies to meet Castiel).
However, after the triggering of the Second Apocalypse (or the sequel of the First - it was beginning to be hard to follow, that story), the other hunters didn't really know what to think of him anymore.
Dean spoke of Hell like he had been there ; rumours had it, Sam and he had died and come back multiple times, which was both ridiculous and terrifying. He, who had been more or less raised by the late Pastor Jim, blasphemed endlessly and, if asked to shut it, snickered sourly that holding back wasn't worth the trouble, God didn't give a damn about humankind anyway - and yes, he was sure of it! When people asked him if he liked to eat Italian, he replied kindly that yes, for sure, and what's more, "Death had shown him a small restaurant to fall over in Chicago."
Common opinion was that between John's death, his asshole of a brother and his several deaths/resurrections, Dean had taken a hit too many on his head and had finally become insane.
(Those who know the truth are surprised he hasn't yet.)
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On a not-so-far day, Dean will be regarded as a Savior, a Bright One, a Chosen One or a Prophet by almost all of the world cults.
A New New Testament, "the Winchester Gospel", will be added to the Bible; they will raise Hindu temples, Animist altars, Shintô monasteries in his honnor; whole passages of the Koran and the Dharmas will be rewritten to include facts of his life. As for Judaism, it will encounters its History's first schism and it will separate in two branches: those (the majority) who'll consider him as the Messiah they were waiting for since Abraham, and the others.
A new post-christian flow, entirely dedicated to his cult, will expand from Lawrence (Kansas). It'll count , after a few decades, millions of adepts and end up becoming the major religion of the United States' center.
(If he knew about it, Dean would hate it.)
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The angels, Uriel first, despise Dean Winchester. That human is a true catalogue of sins: he cheats, lies, drinks, steals, kills, fucks, swears, associates with monsters and, in general, acts like a living insult to God's Words.
Thus, nobody understood why Castiel was ordered to bring him back- surely, the bottom of Hell was the right place for such a sinner? But they obeyed, because such was His will.
Unfortunately, things became even worse after that. Dean protected Anna, the former angel, fallen for rebelling, he backed up his impious, demon-blood-drinking brother and, what was even worse!, he had the balls to believe himself important enough to refuse to obey the angels and Fate and not to agree to become Michael's vessel? The human stated that nothing was set, that the Apocalypse could -should- be avoided , because it would destroy all creation and that couldn't be good.
(The angels knew they were right and Dean was wrong. The Earth was corrupt and had to be destroyed and to, afterwards, be rebuild, like the Garden of the beginning. It had been written millennia ago and it was God's will.
They knew they were right; but the human believed. Some brothers and sisters, filled with wonder, remarked it -he believed like the first Christians and the tortured martyrs: with an invisible faith but stronger than the demons' lies and the holy breath.
Dean believed so much in his world that it was confusing.)
When Dean killed the false prophetess, the angels were astonished. The only ones able to kill a Whore or the other creatures of the Apocalypse were God's Servants -the most devoted priests or the Saints . So how...?
Then Dean disrupted the ending, scheduled millenia ago by the Scripts, by stopping the Apocalypse and the course of History changed.
(When the angels died and appeared before the Lord, they realised the truth; for all this time, Dean had served God better than the whole of them.)
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For a long time, John Winchester thought his eldest son took after him.
Would it be mono-manic hate towards the monsters they hunted, fighting skills , the deep conviction that "family is family" or manner to hold alcohol, Dean seemed to have greatly inherited from John's character. Other hunters or civilians, when they saw the boy -and later, the young man-, burst out laughing and friendly patted John's shoulder, declaring loudly that the kid was well and truly his father's son.
Dean never rebelled like Sam did so tiringly. He withstood the training with stoicism -or even with enthusiasm-, he accepted without prostest the needs of their itinerant lifestyle and obeyed exactly all of the orders. John was sometimes ashamed to rely so much on his son, instead of encouraging him to live his own life; but it was so much easier with Dean that he took the habit, when the kid grew up, to depend on him for almost all their life's aspects.
It was only much later that John noticed that he may not have been the parent Dean took the most after.
Frankly, the dimples of Dean's smile, his mean right hook, his shooting skills, his freckles, his ability to love and sacrifice himself for his child (because John had ceased to fool himself: Dean had raised Sammy as much as him -if not more) and to sell his damn soul for those he loved? For those who knew how to see, all of that came directly from Mary. (Well, beside the selling-his-soul thing, because John hadn't been a great example on that point.)
(He knows perfectly well that it's wrong and that a father shouldn't have any favorite, but John is prouder of Dean than anything else in his life, including his other children.)
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Demons hate and love Dean Winchester.
They hate him because he hates them, like few humans have hated them. Most of the time, humans hate them, but with some kind of respectful fear. Even priests and hunters, wholly dedicated to their downfall, can't help but be attracted by them. They seduce and horrify humans to the same extent, and so are used to be considered as majestic in horror, fascinating by their perversion and their danger in itself.
Dean, he hates them like we hate vermin, rats or cockroaches running on the floor. He considers them as insects, just good to be crushed under the shoes' sole, without the least trace of fascination, without an ounce of respect.
Demons aren't used to be the targets of such contempt.
On the other side, dear Dean possesses such an ability to love -and to suffer because of it- that torturing him is both ridiculously easy and incredibly delightful.
(During the thirty years he spent in Hell, his torturers made the other demons pay to be able to watch.)
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At first, the fourth Horseman thought that Dean was only a mere human among billions of other humans that he would one day reap. All living beings were the same to Death -creatures with a life as brief and fleeting as a spring breeze. Of course, some entities lasted a little while longer, but in the end, it always ended the same way: all of them finished between its hands.
Then, Death felt... puzzled, despite what it told Dean in Chicago's restaurant. The human seemed desperatly normal, beside a sure tendency to want not-to-stay-dead. It didn't see why the angels, the demons -and even God apparently- were so hung up on making him eat dust or including him into their Great Plan to the point of killing and resurrecting him regularly.
The Bet had come to its mind as a way to entertain itself. It had already offered it to a few creatures over the millennia : Hades, Baal, some wizards and -that was a mistake- a German called Heinrich; but none had really succeded.
It was amazed -no, it was never amazed: more like, surprised - that Dean had won. Oh, not literally -nobody truly won-, but it had been a while, centuries, whole eras since any other creature had understood Death that much. Dean knew now -he knew that Death was neither unfair, nor bad, nor against nature. Death was -and Dean Winchester had understood it.
When it learned that Dean would live a while longer, Death was satisfied.
(In the endless eternity, there were some less-boring-than-others periods. Dean Winchester, from Death's point of view, made things a bit more interesting.)
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The first year he spent at Stanford, Sam consulted a psychiatrist twice a week to try to become (or at least to seem like) a normal person. He quickly noticed that talking about his childhood amounted to complaining about his father who shamelessly exploited and took advantage of Dean's devotion who was much too well brainwashed to defend himself, to resist or to leave...
(and Sam would have so, so loved for Dean to come with him to California, but he had lost against John, he had lost Dean and all things considered, perhaps it was that which had hurt the most.)
Sam thought that Dean was both strong and fragile.
Strong because Dean was of course able to kick anything's or anyone's ass; but most of all, as far as he could remember, Dean's sole presence was enough to trigger a feeling of absolute safety -even after he had learned about the monsters, nothing could happen since Dean would always take care of him. It was unhealthy, had warned the psychiatrist; it was even a particularly twisted kind of domination, Sam had admitted; but he knew, deep down, that Dean would do anything for him. For God's sake, he went to Hell for Sam -he would go back straight away if needed- and Sam could ask him to do almost anything and Dean would do it. It was terrifying, that certainty, almost a burden; but it calmed Sam every time he thought about it like the most absolute truth: Dean loved him and protected him, the same way the sky was blue and John was sometimes a damn bastard.
But Dean was also fragile, desperately fragile. Sam had had an atrocious shock when his last growth spurt had made him taller than Dean. He had realized that he towered over his big brother, that Dean was shorter than him from now on, with hands that seemed terribly small compared to Sam's own big paws, dreadfully thin bones and features sculpted in marble, with lips seemingly made to suck which would land him in trouble without a doubt someday.
(When others began to notice Dean's mouth, face and body, John and Sam had tacitly made it so nobody would approach him. John had beaten up men who had loudly expressed their interest in Dean when his eldest son had still been a teenager. Sam did almost get caught when he shot a bullet through the shoulder of their high school's team captain who, according to him, stared creepily at Dean -he was right. John and Sam had unanimously decided that what Dean didn't know couldn't do him any wrong.
Dean never suspected anything.)
(Deep down in his subconscious, buried so deeply that even he probably won't ever notice, an un-neglectable part of Sam considers Dean as his mother, the one-who-made-nurtured-consoled-raised-protected-fed-warmed-me, the only person whose love was, is, will always be unconditional.
That explains both Sam's ambiguity towards Dean and the brutality of his arguments with their father. Sam made the most abominably twisted Oedipus Complex in all psychoanalysis history.)
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When he showed himself before God, Castiel dared to ask him, shyly, if he had been right to follow Dean Winchester and help him stop the Apocalypse instead of following his superiors' orders, Castiel didn't delude himself, he knew he would be, without any doubt, punished for his bad deeds and his insolence -but he genuinely wanted to know if what Dean, Sam, Bobby and he did had been right.
God smiled at him -even if he didn't have a corporal body anymore, Castiel felt his knees shake- and answered him that He had created Dean in His image.