Dolls

by ShannonKind

fem!Dean Snapshots of Sam and his big sister, Dee, as they grow up learning about monsters and how to fight them. 5/5 I just want to thank everyone who is reading this and following this journey. This is the first thing I've published in over a decade, and this is a huge thing that anyone cares to read it. You are all wonderful. Thank you. I can't wait to write more.

5. Epilogue

Somewhere in the future, John will open a large steel door, letting light into the storage room for the first time in years. He will have a purpose for being there, he always does. And he will get to that, but maybe not just yet. First he takes a moment to run calloused hands over his most secret treasures: a frayed hat from when Sammy did "Death of a Salesman", his bowling trophy, Dee's first homemade sawed off, the boards she broke learning martial arts. Black boxes with strange inscriptions line one of the walls, and it's towards these he will finally head, carefully avoiding the tripwires and other traps he laid out with care who knows how long ago and will check again before he leaves.

After adding another box to the shelf, this one will contain a cursed rabbits foot, he will finally allow himself to look the one place he had been avoiding. A small shelf, something he'd made himself, with just three small items on top. And then the memories will overtake him.

Dee, ten years old, and terrified. Hell, John was scared too, and if Mary had still been alive, he might have admitted it. But you don't share that shit with a scared kid. So he talked her through the stitches, keeping her anger hot enough that the fear wouldn't break her, just like he'd done in the Marines.

Those freckles. So dark against her pale skin. Green eyes red with the tears he told her not to cry. She had cried so much when Mary died, even in her sleep she cried. He wasn't going to let himself be the cause of her tears. Not then, not ever.

Her hands, covered in blood. He'd watched in the mirror the whole time she worked. He couldn't bring himself to look at her face, not once she started. He was damn proud of her, though, soldiering on like that. He even told her she'd done good.

He could only guess why she threw out the dolls she'd so lovingly made for Sam. But when his eyes swept the hotel room one last time he saw the mock ups of his family lying in the garbage can. He'd hidden them in his duffel, cleaned them off, brought them here. He still wasn't sure why. Just felt right.

When he closes the locker door this time, they will be the last thing he looks at. Dee in the middle, placed just slightly in front of the effigies of Sam and John. There they are. The three of them, standing against the world. Older-certainly, more worn-perhaps, but together, and ready.