Summary: All his usual coping techniques aren't working so Dean finds and goes on a hunt but instead finds himself a new crutch. Set after episode 3.2 and spoilers for 2.20,21,22 and 3.1,2.
Disclaimer: I own jack squat but a dream in my heart.
A/N: Much thanks to DeansBabyBird for beta services and for being my bridge over troubled wordage. You rock!
Wishful Dreaming
Chapter 1: The Madness of Dean Winchester
I lean against the headboard of the bed listening, in appreciation, to the slow, steady rhythm of Sam breathing in the bed next to mine. I take a long pull from the bottle of whiskey in my hand ( beer just won't cut it tonight) hoping to erase the memories that seem to be literally branded across the surface of my brain. Drinking, it seems, is an exercise in futility as images play on a loop, like some demented rerun, before my eyes in the darkness of the dank motel room.
Sam, so close yet so far away, stabbed in the back by that cowardly asshole, Jake.
Sam falling, in agony, to his knees in the mud.
Clutching his rag doll body to me in horror.
My hand, bloodied from the wound in his back as I assure him it's not that bad, we can patch him up good as new. That I'd take care of him because it's my job.
My job...
The light in his eyes dimming slowly like a candle with no oxygen to maintain the flame.
My head jolts back against the headboard as I physically try to retreat from the image flooding my vision. Try to avoid the inevitable conclusion.
Sam...
Dead.
In the gloom of that motel room I shudder and shake from this visual assault. Bad enough to live it once but now I'm living the echoes. I stifle a moan hoping I don't wake Sam. He doesn't need to see this. Doesn't need another reason to keep searching for a way out of my deal. Doesn't need to die. Again. Not on my watch.
I lift the whiskey bottle again and chug, determined to drown any coming visuals. I want the burn of the amber liquor to deaden my brain cells, to make it all just go away. Its not working and I press my eyes tightly closed hoping to quell the images that way but instead am hit with another barrage of clips. Picture and sound this time.
Sam. Lifeless on a filthy mattress in a ramshackle abandoned house.
Bobby's anguished look as I yell at him (my poor surrogate father). Kick him out because I can't leave Sam's side and I won't burn or bury him.
Shame and Guilt.
Nothing left to give because all I have is gone.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Please just go." and he does.
Talking to Sam. "I always tried to protect you. Keep you safe... It was just always my responsibility, you know?"
Crying over Sam. "I had one job and I screwed it up. I blew it. And for that I'm sorry. I guess that's what I do. I let down the people I love."
Yelling to Sam. "What am I supposed to do?!"
Leaving Sam.
Leaving Sam's hollow body to go make a deal with a demon to fill it up again.
My soul for one year ("It's a better deal than your dad ever got") and for Sam's life, but...
The catch.
No wriggling out of the deal or Sam is worm food. Again.
The kiss.
Tainted, sulfurous.
The deal is sealed.
One year.
I'm now sitting on the edge of the bed. My head hung low, I pray to anyone or anything listening for this sick home video of Sam and Dean's most depressing moments to end. Unfortunately for me, there is no remote control, no stop button. I focus again on the lump that is Sam in the next bed. Its not all bad. Sam is still here. Breathing. Walking upright. Alive.
It's enough. It has to be because a life without Sam, my little brother, my best friend, the kid I've raised since infancy is no life for me. If there had been no way to bring him back, no deal to be made, then I would have found a way to follow him.
I drop the whiskey bottle to the bed and clap my hands to my ears as the next incursion, loud and vivid, gushes forth like bile, churning, choking and burning me in its bid for freedom.
Bobby's stunned expression as Sam and I greet him at his door.
The hardened and suspicious face he wears as he follows me, with his eyes, into the house while Sam looks on in curious confusion.
Bobby's haunted desperation as he confronts me in the junk yard.
"You made a deal... For Sam, didn't you?" I don't have the courage to look him in the eyes but he already knows.
"How long did they give you?" I want to be anywhere else, having any other conversation. "How long?!" A demand.
One year. One year. One year. It is a constant litany that echoes so loud in my head that it takes me a minute to be able to say it out loud.
"Damn it, Dean!" Despair. Its etched in the lines on his face and I find myself needing to make him understand that we have to find Yellow-eyes and that I'm going to kill him. Exact my revenge on him for ruining my family, ruining our lives. I tell Bobby I've got nothing to lose now, which isn't true. I'm just trying to maintain my brave facade, the one that says, "I'm Dean Winchester! I'm a bad ass mother fucker and I'm not scared of anything, not even hell!"
But I am scared.
I am scared of hell but there is no escape because I'm even more afraid of losing my brother.
Bobby grabs and shakes me and says he could "throttle" me. He doesn't understand and I need to make him understand.
He brings up Dad's deal for me and yells that I'm just itching to follow in his foot steps.
"Dad brought me back, Bobby. I'm not even supposed to be here. At least this way something good could come of it. Its like my life can mean something."
Anguish. His face is anguish.
"What? And it didn't before? Have you got that low of an opinion of yourself? Are you that screwed in the head?!"
Yes and yes. The end will justify the means, though.
"I couldn't let him die, Bobby. I couldn't. He's my brother." I'm fighting tears.
Sammy is my responsibility. My job is to keep him safe. At all cost, even if that cost is my soul. And it is. Its the only way to fix the fact that I didn't do my job right the first time.
"How's your brother gonna feel when he knows you're going to hell? How'd you feel when your dad went for you?" Bobby(the man who'd once played ball with me instead of training me like dad wanted) fights tears while I panic inside.
Sam cannot know about the deal.
"You can't tell him..." I beg with my words, my eyes, with every fiber in me. "Please, don't tell him."
He grasps my chin in one calloused hand, his words spent, and I can see in that moment, he's already mourning me.
Ellen interrupts then and I'm grateful for the reprieve. Grateful she's alive. Once the holy water shot is out of the way, we ask about the bar and her escape. She says it was just dumb luck. The bar had run out of pretzels.
"A lot of good people died in there and I got to live. Lucky me."
Survivors guilt. I know all about it because I go around wearing my guilt like it's a super hero cape. It's part of my modus operandi. That, and causing those I care about nothing but pain.
I've moved from the bed (giving up on trying to be quiet enough not to wake Sam) to carry on the harrowing odyssey of this waking nightmare in the bathroom. Alcohol therapy isn't working, even after three quarters of a bottle, and so I hope to gain some peace from a steaming hot shower. The tepid semi-drizzle I get instead, offers little solace, however, and I debate taking one of the numerous knives from our weapons collection and gouging my eyes out. Perhaps that will kill this bizarre picture show, although I doubt it. The images are so ingrained that I'm sure I'll still see them. That I won't have even the briefest respite from them. Of course not. I moan as a tidal wave of memories slam me and threaten to drag me away to hell early.
The conflict. The gang's all there. Sam, Bobby, Ellen, me. All of us with guns trained on him. Jake.
"You were dead! I killed you!"
Shut up, asshole!
"Yeah? Well next time finish the job." My heart stutters in my chest at the thought.
Sam looks at me in dawning suspicion after Jake states that he'd severed Sam's spinal cord.
Damn it!
Sam and Jake verbally spar, then, of course, things go pear-shaped.
Ellen is forced to put her own gun to her head courtesy of Jake's freaky mind powers while he orders the rest of us to stand down.
He smiles sadistically and follows it with equally sadistic commentary.
"Once you give into it, there's all sorts of new Jedi mind tricks you can learn."
Jake holds us at bay by holding Ellen.
He pulls out the Colt, inserts it into the crypt doors and twists.
Bobby and I move to Ellen and pull the gun away from her head just moments before she's forced to pull the trigger.
Meanwhile, Sam shoots Jake three times(in the back, which, I believe is what they call poetic justice). Non fatally.
He raises his hands and pleads with Sam for his life.
Sam shoots him three more times. Fatally.
Jake is dead (may he rot in hell) and my brother looks...demented.
I pull the Colt free and we all run for cover.
The gate crashes open and all hell breaks loose. Literally.
I stare at the Colt in my hand. The last time I saw this, my father had it. It's the only weapon that can kill...
The Yellow-eyed demon! I know he's here!
The gun is suddenly ripped from my hand, I sail through the air and my world explodes in pain.
Yellow-eyes pins Sam and then he's... thanking me for putting Sammy back into rotation.
I don't know what he means by that but I do know that I hate him! I loathe him!
I'm going to kill him!
"... You saw what your brother did to Jake, right? That was pretty cold, wasn't it? How certain are you that what you brought back is 100% pure Sam?"
I consider his words while I stare at my baby brother pinned to a tree no more than fifteen feet away. I don't think what he did to Jake was that cold considering that it was Jake who originally stabbed Sam in the back when all he was trying to do was get away. No, Sam is fine. Well...
Sam, so close yet so far...
"... I knew I kept you alive for some reason, until now anyway. I couldn'ta done it without your pathetic, self-loathing, self-destructive desire to sacrifice yourself for your family."
I had served my purpose and was about to die by the hands of the same creature who had taken my mother and father.
Then... Dad?
Dad was there! He wrestled the demon out of his meat suit. Grappled with the demon's smoke form before being thrown free. The demon reentered his stolen body.
Not fast enough, though, and I had the pleasure of seeing the surprise on his face when he saw the Colt in my hand.
I didn't hesitate.
Just calmly pulled the trigger as if my whole life had not been leading to this moment.
He convulsed as mini explosions, demonic death throes, lit him from within. He collapsed and was still.
I'd done it! I'd killed that son of a bitch!
Then... Dad.
The comforting weight of his hand on my shoulder, one last time, as he beamed tearfully at me in pride. He smiled at Sam, stepped away and disappeared. I hoped that he was with mom now and that he was happy and at peace.
I knelt down next to the body that had hosted the Yellow-eyed demon. "That was for our mom, you son of a bitch!"
It was a bittersweet victory. Yellow-eyes dead after a lifetime of hunting him. But Sam...
He suspects. Too damn smart for his own damn good. He's piecing it together and I'm trying to evade him but where am I going to go?
"Sam we just killed the demon! Can we celebrate for a minute?"
"Did I die? Did you sell your soul for me like Dad did for you?"
"Oh come on! No!" but I can't look in his eyes because... those eyes. They see right through me. Plus, that kicked puppy look he's wearing right now is tearing my heart to tatters. I know now that no matter how hard I try, I'm not going to be able to keep this from him.
"Tell me the truth. Dean, Tell me. The .Truth."
"Sam." I don't want to tell you, please stop asking me. Please!
"How long did you get?" his voice cracks and with it my heart. A piece chips away like granite and stabs at my internal organs. I feel cold with dread that I have to tell him this.
"One year. I got one year."
"You shouldn'ta done that. How could you do that?" My heart splinters again, right down its fault line. How could I not do it? How could I not save him when he's the only thing I live for?
"Don't get mad at me. Don't you do that. Now I had to. I had to look out for you. That's my job!"
"And what do you think my job is?" I'm thrown. What?
"You save my life over and over. I mean, you sacrifice everything for me. Don't you think I'd do the same for you? You're my big brother. There's nothing I wouldn't do for you. I don't care what it takes, I'm gonna get you out of this. Guess I gotta save your ass for a change."
"Yeah." Oh Sammy, if only you could save me. If only you could.
The salty water of my tears mingles with the fresh (almost cold now) water coming from the shower head and I try to keep my gasping, hiccuping sobs as quiet as possible. Sam needs never know about the relentless war I'm waging with myself because then he'll want to talk about feelings and I just can't do it. I won't. It won't change anything anyway. I find myself suddenly wishing I could just seal off my tear ducts with wax or super glue because I hate crying. It feels like there is no point to it except to make me feel like a girl. Unfortunately, when my emotional cup runneth over it runneth out through my eyes.
I hope that the flashbacks are at an end. If they aren't maybe I could get lucky and flash back to that one super-steamy-girl-on-girl scene from Casa Erotica 3. Who am I kidding, though, I have no luck. I close my eyes in defeat, lean into the cold dribble of water and just let the remembrances continue.
We never get a break. When the devil's gate opened it spewed out a couple hundred extra evil sons of bitches, not the least of which were the seven deadly sins. Sloth, envy, wrath, greed, gluttony, pride and of course my favorite, lust.
We came, we hunted them, we conquered. Not without loss of our own. Tamara and Issac, a hunting couple that Bobby was friends with decided to confront the demons without really knowing what they were dealing with and Issac ended up drinking a drain cleaner cocktail.
We exorcised the ones we could and Sam had help from a strange woman with a demon killing knife. In the end we only manage to save two out of the seven. Not great, but better than none.
Tamara gave Issac a hunters funeral and we burned the bodies of the ones Sam's mystery woman killed.
After that, Tamara took her leave of us followed quickly by Bobby. And then there were two.
Just Sam and me.
Sam wanted to take me to some hoodoo priestess who Tamara suggested might be able to help get me out of my deal.
"We're not going and that's that." No, Sammy. Just no. And of course he wants to know why. So I told him.
"We trap a crossroads demon, trick it, try to welsh our way out of the deal in any way , you die, ok? You die. Those are the terms, there's no way out of it. You try and find a way, so help me God, I'm gonna stop you." I'd be watching him. No way was I going to let him die. No way!
"How could you make that deal, Dean?" Sam was hurting and his pain was once again a chisel to my stony heart. Another piece chipped away. Who would I be once my whole heart was pulverized into nothing but dust particles?
"Because I couldn't live with you dead. Couldn't do it."
"So what? Now I live and you die?" Yes.
"That's the general idea, yeah." I put on a brave front for Sam but truly I didn't want to die. I wanted to be around, have Sammy's back for many years to come but it just wasn't in the cards for me. I have to find a way to make him accept this although I'm sure it's going to be one hell of a battle.
He tells me I'm a hypocrite and brings up Dad's deal to make the point. He tells me that I was twisted and broken over it, but I've got news for him, I'm still twisted and broken. I've just managed to shove it down under all the other layers of crap I carry around.
"What you did was selfish." Selfish? Yes. No argument there. But you're alive and that's all I want.
"Yeah, you're right. It was selfish, but I'm ok with that." Because you're here in front of me drawing breath and I can't see that as a bad thing. Ever.
"I'm not."
"Tough. After everything I've done for this family I think I'm entitled. Truth is, I'm tired Sam. I don't know, its like there's a light at the end of the tunnel."
"That's hellfire, Dean." Probably. Definitely.
"Whatever. You're alive. I feel good for the first time in a long time. I got a year to live, Sam. So what do ya say we kill some evil sons-a-bitches and we raise a little hell, huh?" I try to buy what I'm saying and I've almost got myself convinced. Almost but not quite. What else can I do?
"You're unbelievable." Sam is disappointed and I wish I could use my big brother brand of mojo to wipe that all away. And if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. There is nothing I can do. Not about my deal, anyway.
"Very true." I've won the battle maybe, but not the war.
My skin is nearly blue from the cold water and I turn off the faucet. There can't be much more, can there? I wish I had a wire brush and a flip top head so that I could physically scrape away the seared on memories of the past several weeks from my brain but I settle for toweling myself dry and waiting for the next onslaught. So far, nothing.
I dress myself and wait patiently for the other shoe to drop. When it doesn't, I breathe a tentative sigh of relief. Tentative because it could always start over. I look at myself in the mirror, pale, drawn, shaking, terrified. NO! It needs to be over! I can't stand anymore! I don't want to die, but if this is all I have to look forward to for the next year, then I don't want to live anymore either. I'd take a nice coma to this relentless psychological torture any day.
I'm tired and wilted and I just want to sleep for a few hours. A deep dreamless sleep where I can escape the fact that in eleven months I'll be hell's newest resident on the block.
I exit the bathroom and pad stealthily to my bed. Sam is, blessedly, still asleep (at least I'd done that right). I note the stack of quarters on the night stand that I'd brought to feed the magic fingers and hope that it will do the trick and put me to sleep.
I feed the quarters, one by one, into the slot hoping that the noise isn't as loud as the cacophony in my head has been tonight. I need for this to work, desperately. All my other vices and coping techniques have failed me. Hard liquor, a hot (well, tepid) shower, even crying had been in vain. If this didn't work then I'd be left with no alternative but to surf porn. If I was going to have to be awake all night then at least I could try and distract myself with naked women. I would only use it as a last resort, though.
The magic fingers come on and I stretch out supine, throw my arm over my tired, burning eyes and try to drift. Reality, that cranky old bitch, has other ideas.
I beg Sam to go check out a case in Cicero, Indiana. He checks out the paper I hand him and remarks that, while it's weird, I must have some ulterior motive for wanting to go there.
I do. The possibility of seeing the lovely, bendy, Lisa Braeden, with whom I'd spent an awesome several days with eight and a half years ago,is that motive. I beg some more, this time playing the dying wish card. He gives in gracefully, like the awesome little brother he is.
I drop him at the local motel and seek her out. She opens the door and she's just as beautiful, if not more so, as I remember. I invite myself in (she's throwing a party) and discover that the party is for her... Son? Gumby girl went and had a kid? This changes things.
She tells me its his eighth birthday and when I lay eyes on the kid for the first time I'm shocked. He looks like Lisa but he acts like me! I do the math which sends me scrambling to find out the truth.
I could have a son? Wow!
I find her and ask her. She denies it and then I'm distracted by the case. I call Sam and tell him to start checking out the other victims I'd discovered while talking to Lisa.
I'm on my way to meet Sam when I run into Ben who is all alone on a park bench and upset because some bully has stolen his video game. I offer to get it back for him but he stops me.
"Only bitches send a grown up!" Spoken like a true Winchester.. only he isn't a Winchester. Still, I'm impressed by this kid.
"You're not wrong." I agree with him.
"And I'm not a bitch." I can't physically help him but I can offer him advice on how to get his game back. I send him off and offer him gestures of encouragement when he looks back at me nervously. He confronts the kid and asks politely for his game back (just like I'd told him to). The bully turns to him and gets in his face. Ben turns like he was going to come back my way and the bully laughs. Not for long, however, as Ben pivots back toward him, lightening quick, and knees him (twice) in the crotch.
He comes back over to me, game in hand, and proudly high-fives me! Once again this kid has made me proud. Watching him defend himself was like watching poetry in motion.
Our little victory is short lived as Lisa scolds Ben and then scolds me for telling him how to take care of himself. She pulls me to the side and tells me off. I try to reason with her but she tells me to leave them alone.
I watch them walk away from me and am surprised at how much what she said hurts, when Ben breaks away from his mother and rushes back over to me. He then throws his arms around my waist, looks up and thanks me. I'm humbled and pleased by this and find myself truly wishing that he was my son.
As I watch them leave I note three kids standing off to the side watching them too. They slowly turn to face me and I'm spooked by the lack of emotion on their faces.
Back at the hotel I tell Sam that I think there's something wrong with the kids of this town. He tells me that I'm right, that we're dealing with changelings. He explains everything that he's found in the lore.
The most important points that I take from all that research is that changelings can only be killed by fire. The real children are hidden away and any kid is susceptible.
Ben. Lisa. Crap!
I make Sam go with me to Lisa's before we try to find the other kids but I'm too late. They already have Ben. I search the outside of the house and discover the same red markings that Sam first thought was blood. It turns out to be red dirt and now I know where to look.
We get to the unfinished house that has a pile of that same red dirt in front of it, split up and search for the kids. I find them caged in the basement and begin freeing them. Ben, who was the first one I released, helps me with the other children and when I have to break a window, he offers up his own jacket to cover the broken glass. As we're helping the kids out of the window. Sam rushes in and tells me about a mother changeling. Sam releases the last prisoner and Ben and I have almost all the kids out, when "mother" attacks.
Sam and I battle and torch her while Ben helps the other kids out. Once again, he impressed me. He was brave and resourceful and I was just damn proud of him.
We get him home to a terrified Lisa who hugs him and cries in relief.
"What the hell just happened?"
"I'll explain everything if you want me to, but, trust me, you probably don't. The important thing is that Ben's safe." I can't resist tousling his hair.
"Thank you. Thank you." Lisa is suddenly in my arms and it feels like that is where she belongs. I glance back at Sam and, observant kid that he is, he leaves us alone to talk.
Inside the house, I explain things to Lisa. I'm not sure how much she understands but I tell her anyway because she asked.
"You know how I never mentioned my job? This is my job."
"I so didn't want to know that. Do you think he'll be ok?" She's watching Ben for signs of a meltdown.
"Yeah. I think he'll be fine." I stare at Ben for a moment and then ask that burning question again. The one I'm secretly wanting a different answer to.
"Ok. Seriously. I mean , you're 100% sure that he is not mine, right?" Lisa giggles, unaware of just how serious I am.
"You're off the hook. I did a blood test when he was a baby."
"Oh." That one word summed it all up for me in one neat tidy package of disappointment.
She tells me about the guy (a bar back at a biker bar) and when I looked at her in surprise she defended herself by saying she'd had a type.
"Guess I was pretty wild back then... Before I became a mom." I watch her watch Ben and I realize that I want this. A family to come home to after a long days work at a regular nine to five gig. Just like in that djinn induced lala land I'd been in before my whole world came crashing to a stop. Sam dead.
Demon deal. Sam resurrected. One year left.
"So yeah. You can relax."
"Good." but I don't mean it. I feel no relief. I'd give my soul... Wait. Already done that.
"I swear you look disappointed." That doesn't even begin to touch the tip of the iceburg of what I'm truly feeling.
"Yeah. I don't know. It's weird, you know. Your life. I mean, this house and the kid. Its not my life... Never will be." Never can be. One year. One year. One year.
"Some stuff happened to me recently, and , uh... Anyway, a guy in my situation, you start to think, you know. I'm gonna be gone one day, and what am I leaving behind besides a car?"
"I don't know. Ben may not be your kid, but he wouldn't be alive if it wasn't for you. That's a lot if you ask me." I'm thankful that I can leave her with a good impression and I turn to go but something stops me and I turn back to her.
"You know, just for the record, you got a great kid. I would have been proud to be his dad." She closes the distance I'd put between us and kisses me. It's warm and sweet and tastes of everything I want but can never have. I do want it,and badly. I want to stay, but this isn't a djinn dream. This is real life and I can't stab myself awake to get out of it. I only have my willpower and she's ripping it to shreds right now.
"Look if you... If you want to stick around for awhile... You're welcome to stay." I suddenly hear my mother, the one from the djinn dream, whispering in my ear, 'It's everything you want', and I can't deny to myself that she's right. Here. This moment. This is all I want. This beautiful woman and her son, who isn't mine but who I'd love as though he were my own. I want them so badly that I can almost feel them in my arms.
"I can't." The rosy bubble that had been harboring this thought, popped instantly. "I got a lot of work to do and it's not my life." One more glance at her as I walk through her door. I have to leave because what else is there to say, but its one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. Selling my soul to save Sam? Easy, because he's alive now. Killing the Yellow-eyed demon? Cake walk. Walking away from Lisa and Ben? Near to impossible but what do I have to offer them now? Even if I quit hunting. If I let Sam go or if I convinced him to settle down right here with me in Cicero, Indiana to be close to them, I'd be dead in one year. Ripped to shreds in front of them.
No. I won't do that to them. I do the only thing I can do. I leave them to their normal lives and convince myself that it's better this way.
A/N 2: This chapter was quite lengthy due to all the flashbacks. The next chapters might not be so long and will actually deal with original material so bear with me because I promise this is going somewhere. Also thanks for taking the time to read and feel free to review.
