This is a story about Dean Winchester and this is a story about a tragic hero and those two things are exactly the same. Enjoy =)

Silverware

There's that saying about a silver spoon. You know the one. Those who are born with a silver spoon in their mouth are the lucky ones, the ones with all the money and all the power. They are privileged; safe within the walls built around them, the walls built of thin green paper and heavy coins.

But rarely do you hear the story of the boy who was instead born with a silver knife in hand. This tale goes untold, perhaps because it is a rarity, and perhaps because it is almost too tragic to bear.

Because this is the boy who never gets a taste of the silver he clings to. He knows that silver is a weapon used for killing, not a utensil for sitting around the table crowed with food and family. He hasn't known a table like that since he was four years old, and even then, it was never real silver. He thinks about those faded memories from time to time. When the stars close their eyes and won't blink at him and he can't find his way back in from the cold; that is when he longs for the warm remnants of comfort that won't come. That kind of life hasn't folded its arms around him since the world was new for him and the skies were always bright. He didn't even need the stars back then, because back then, the sun never set.

But now he walks in darkness, haunted by the things he has seen and the secrets he must keep. He trudges through a swirling sea of blood that threatens to pull him under completely, sloshes along the soft leather of his boots and seeps into every crevice of his eroding mind. These are the memories he doesn't want and the screams he'll never drown out, and this is the price of knowing too much, too young.

So you see, his silver is always stained and his heart is always heavy, hefting a burden fit for a thousand weary souls who have never tasted the freedom of an open road. He travels such roads often, but it is not without purpose and it is not without consequence. Sometimes these roads feel like home. Sometimes they feel limitless, but this is not the kind of eternity he craves. Because his stomach is sick and all he tastes is the thick red of iron and the slow burn of whiskey that doubles as both sterilizer and painkiller, stitching skin under the glow of a cheap motel lamp as purpling bruises stand out against heavy shadows.

After all he has seen, all he has known, you would think this boy to be unhinged. Maniacal maybe. It seems he is so close to the life he longs for, can feel the slip of cool metal between his fingers as he wields his weapons. Yet still, he is so impossibly far from all that he desires, can never dull the edges of his knives enough to even start to resemble a spoon.

Maybe he is a little crazy then, because he tries anyway. Whittles away at the weapons in his bloodied hands and thinks that maybe if he uses them enough, they'll become something new, something softer and rounder, something that doesn't slice through skin quite so quick anymore.

He tells himself all this, almost partway convinced. But then he sharpens his knives again. It's unavoidable habit, a lesson drilled into his skull and another thing he wishes he could forget.

But blood is red and blood is blue and this boy is a warrior, that much will always be true.

So his weapons are lethal and his eyes are dry and he moves forward, does the job that has been forged into the fabric of his very bones from the time he was small. Maybe he is a little desperate, but he is also a hero, spreading brilliant light along the edges of his fingertips and out through the ends of his hair as he runs toward a death that cannot yet keep its grasp on him. He moves too quickly and he strikes too soon, pulls people away from the monsters that haunt them, even as his own nightmares converge and destroy.

It is a wonder he still stands on two feet, somehow always quick enough to avoid the collapsing walls and black smoke that wage wars inside his head. This boy is tragedy, but he will not let you mourn him. He fights the good fight and he fights it for the one he loves the most and he fights it for those he doesn't know at all. He is a soldier and an unfortunate son, built from the very fires that consume. One day he too will be consumed.

And still, the only way this boy will ever feel the cool sting of silver pass his lips is if he is eating a bullet.

Thanks for reading! I'm always up for taking requests, so shoot me a message if you feel so inclined. Otherwise, have a wonderful day.