What a surprise, another story about Dean flippin' Winchester. No spoilers/not set in a particular season (but focused more towards the beginning of the series). This one's been sitting around for a while on my computer so I figured I'd post it. Hope you enjoy!
Fill in the Gaps
He used to think flexible was the right word for what he was. Always bending moving twisting turning making sure to stay out of everyone else's way. There was no time for arguing, so he didn't. There was no room for error, so he did his best not to make any. Every question needed prompt answer, every dilemma a quick solution. It was either that, or somebody ended up dead. So Dean became...flexible.
There was Dad, a man who seemed to generate his own energy, imposing force that he was. There was Sam, whose fury could rival that of a tornado whenever life got too real or too bloody, slamming ceaselessly against the confined spaces of each run-down motel they had hunkered down in for the night. And then there was Dean, the one who slid into the empty spaces that were left, molding himself perfectly to fill in all the cracks, shaping and reshaping himself until the walls stopped echoing with angry rebuttals and the room fell back into silent, if not grudging, routine.
There was an art to this doing and undoing, this carefully choreographed shifting that Dean Winchester had mastered by the time he hit double digits. This was a complicated balance of push and pull, father and brother, family and duty, and Dean learned it by heart, practiced in front of the mirror and made sure the steps stuck in his brain, subtle but perfectly timed. He knew what to look for, could spot the signs of discontent before Dad or Sam even realized an argument was brewing between them. The same one over and over. Dean realized after a while that his own voice just got lost in the noise, so he stopped screaming so loud. He started to listen instead. He was the shoulder his brother could lean on and the open ears his father could vent to and the mediator that would sometimes have to force them both apart. Dean was security detail and bouncer, a role he filled reluctantly because he could feel the holes it left behind, the spaces he had to vacate to make room for this new job.
And then there was the job. Dean was good at that one, actually enjoyed it for the most part, as long as no one was bleeding by the end of it. He was 'soldier' and 'hunter' and sometimes even 'hero', pulling monsters from beneath the beds of those who never knew to defend themselves in the first place. This was a role Dean wanted desperately to fill, but sometimes he just wasn't quick enough. Sometimes he couldn't hold his shape, couldn't focus on strangers when Sam or Dad screamed his name and blood spilled from their lips. 'Son' and 'brother' were always his most important names.
After hunts like these, Dean became 'doctor' and 'caretaker' and 'help me please'. He dabbed methodically at red ooze and learned to act first and panic later because head wounds bleed a lot and he's still breathing, still breathing. Other times the blood spilled from his own mouth and he became 'patient' and 'hold still' and 'take the damn pills'. This was usually about the time the arguing started up again, when Dean's vision swam and his limbs ached and he couldn't open his eyes long enough to slide back into place between Dad and Sam and the nasty swells that rippled between them.
He didn't mind being the glue. It was in his nature to even out the scales, to 'insert lame joke here' and 'make inappropriate comment there,' just so their family didn't add enough fracture to an already collapsing frame. Dean Winchester pushed hard against that frame, got weighed down by time and absence and reemergence and tragedy. He shaped and reshaped, tried to be the support beams and the roof, the needle and the thread all at once. He lashed out against gravity, screamed a big 'fuck you' to the natural decay that came with flood after flood, water cresting over half-constructed dams he'd never had time to finish.
Dean folded and flipped, rolled and curled and straightened until his edges were worn and the tips of his fingers had eroded into nothing, leaving rough, uneven callouses and a breaking heart. He did this for a long time, became the things everyone else needed him to be until one day, he forgot how to bounce back. He lost his original shape. So he just kept bending and twisting and arcing, just kept sewing himself into the fabric of everybody else's needs so that he wouldn't disappear completely.
This path meant destruction and this road would eventually end in dust, but as long as Dean was still 'brother,' as long as Sam was still there, still breathing in the seat or the bed next to him, he figured he could handle oblivion just fine.
Thanks for reading! Let me know your thoughts if you have a minute!