Author's note: This flashback of Dean as a nine-year-old happens sometime before the canon flashback we see in "Something Wicked". What you see here could bethe first step which eventually leads to Deanmaking that choice. My hope is that this chapter gives some insight and helps the next chapter make sense. It didn't come easily and wasn't the direction I intended to take... but for some reason, it seemed this part needed to be told. Thanks to my fanfictionmentorH.T. Marie, for kindness, support and the answering of complicated questions. Thanks also to my patient husband, my friend Allie (who always gets to read it first), and those fabulous people who reviewed helpfully and generously - you are greatly appreciated!
Disclaimer: Thanks for letting me borrow the Winchesters, and rest assured that's all it is.
Chapter Three
The world is not respectable; it is mortal, tormented, confused, deluded forever; but it is shot through with beauty, with love, with glints of courage and laughter; and in these, the spirit blooms timidly, and struggles to the light amid the thorns. - George Santayana
When Dean was nine, they'd stayed in upstate New York for almost six weeks. Same digs, same story – dumb little motel, Dad gone days at a time. Dean and Sammy alone while John hunted his demons. At five, Sammy still took a nap. Like a tired mother, Dean encouraged (demanded) this – his little brother's nap time was Dean's respite from adult-hood, even if it was only an hour or two.
Dean wanted some air. Sammy had been a pain in the neck all morning, and Dad had been gone for five days. It was late spring, muggy nd warm, and keeping his little brother indoors was torture (as Dean understood it at the time). He glanced longingly at the closed curtains, and then back at Sam, lying on the bed, drowsy. He heard his father's voice in his head – "Never leave your brother alone. Don't leave the room during school hours. Don't go out after dark. Make sure the Do Not Disturb sign is on the door. Don't answer if someone knocks. When you go out and come in, double check the lock. If people talk to you, be relaxed. Don't act afraid, don't act lost, and don't ever – ever – tell anyone I'm gone."
Two more minutes glowed red on the clock radio and Dean's looked up from the newspaper he was reading and stole another look at Sammy, whose eyes were now closed. He'd timed it for the last couple of months and knew nearly to the millisecond how long it took for his baby brother to be sound asleep. If he stood up thirty-eight seconds too soon, Sammy sat bolt upright or started to cry or both and then they had to start all over again. Sometimes it felt fast, but today it was too long for Dean, and he had to will himself still. "Four more minutes, then I'm done." he thought. "Almost there."
Dad never cared if they slept or not, as long as they were quiet when he wanted them to be quiet. This napping pattern had first evolved because Dean observed that Sam was easier to control and less likely to make Dad blow up, if he wasn't tired. Dean's intention at this point in his life was to keep Sam happy and keep his father from being angry. The two were often the same thing. It was just the cherry on top that Dean got some time to himself.
Dean stood with stealth and walked to the bed, looking down at Sam. He carefully pushed his brother closer to the middle of the bed (why did the kid always fall asleep right on the edge?) and tucked the blanket around him. Sam stirred soundlessly, but didn't open his eyes. Now for the final test of Sammy Slumber. Dean leaned in close and whispered in his brother's ear. "I love you little Sam." No movement, no sound. Done.
Walking to the window, Dean moved the ugly curtain aside and looked out. They'd gotten a room this time that particularly pleased his father… back of the building, room facing nothing but a parking lot with an empty field beyond it. Corner at the dead end of a block of rooms. Dean would have preferred to be on the second floor – upstairs dead end rooms meant they could leave curtains or even the window itself open if there was one on the non-door side of the room. First floor meant they were stuck in a cave; another one of his Dad's rules was about open curtains and people walking by. The parking lot was empty, but beyond it the light wind rippling through the tall green grass mesmerized Dean – it seemed he could hear the rustle and swish.
Not for the first time, Dean Winchester wished for something he didn't dare put a finger on. In the twilight between dreaming and wakefulness what he still wanted was his mother… but that anguished yearning stayed behind when it was time to get up in the morning.
Sometimes he told himself that what he wanted was a friend. Or a school to go to, or a closet instead of a suitcase, or a pet turtle, or a baseball team to play on, or a day without fear… but he dreamed of the same thing every night. He spent a lot of energy forgetting about that dream while he was awake. He let the longing steam and ache inside but he couldn't face it whole – only in bits and pieces. One word wants – friend, Mom, school, peace – all slivers of the real wish, which encompassed them all. Dean Winchester wished for home.
Dean heard the truck before he saw it and ducked back so the curtain was open only an inch or so. A grey-haired man, skinny and mean-looking, grabbed a brown paper bag out of the car and watched it sail into the grass. Then the truck was gone… and Dean's eyes were glued to a dent in the sea of green.
Looking at his sleeping baby brother, Dean hesitated for what felt like an hour. Then he was outside the door, double-checking the lock, his father bellowing in his ear. Don't leave the room during school hours. Dean kept his eyes focused on the number 19, faded against the dirty grey of the door, and walked backwards. Never leave your brother alone. He felt his heart beating miserably in chest, thumping all the way to his stomach. "I'm not." he whispered, "I'm not leaving him. I can see the door, I can see Sammy's safe." Dean felt the grass tickle his legs, and he stopped. "I'm not leaving you Sammy – I'm still here."
In his mind's eye he saw himself at the window; saw the truck and the man and the bag. Dean's memory had always been good – something that served him when Dad remembered to enroll him in school and Dean hadn't been in math class for 2 ½ months. The bag would be about a yard behind him, an arm's length to his left.
Taking another step back – carefully – the smell of the crushed grass surrounded him and he was still for an instant.
"Oh, my Dean…" Mary sighed "I love the smell of warm grass."
"Me too Mama."
"And I love to watch the stars with my baby..."
"I'm not a baby" he protested.
"Not for long, my Dean, not for long."
In the darkness, Dean could hear the smile in his mother's voice and he smiled too. The grass tickled his neck as they lay on the lawn behind their house. He gazed at the moon – so bright, and took a deep breath of grassy green breeze.
He blinked as a noise registered, and it took all his willpower not to turn around and look. Two more steps and the bag was there, in front of him now, on the ground. It moved almost imperceptibly and Dean heard the noise again – "Something's alive in there!" he thought. One eye was still on the number 19, which he could see through the path he'd created, and he lowered himself to a crouch. Whatever was inside couldn't be anything that big, judging from the size of the bag, but his hands were hot and a little unsteady as he reached towards it. Taking the edge of the bag with both hands, he silently counted to three and then in a breath ripped it open. He fell backwards with a thud, his gaze jumping to the door and then back to the small bit of fur at his feet. It was a kitten.
John didn't come back for another week – the longest stretch he'd left the boys alone. When he came back he'd been badly beaten and it took him several days to realize they had a guest and then in a moment of softness that Dean hadn't seen from his father in a long, long time John said it could stay until they moved on. He had questioned Dean about the kitten, and Dean had been eager to share his excitement. Chances to share anything with his dad were few. John Winchester was a driven man whose attention to his sons was constantly overshadowed by his fear for them – so much fear that he pushed them away so he wouldn't be distracted by needs that seemed less than life or death.
The kitten (Chester) had arrived on a Friday and the next day Dean had taken Sammy to the library and smuggled home three books on feline care. He read carefully into the night and the next day they'd taken a trip to the store. Dean used his meager savings (change from the grocery money John gave him), to buy a few necessary supplies. Further study taught Dean how to tell the difference between boy cats and girl cats and Chester became Windy.
Dean slept with Windy on his chest for almost three weeks total and the day they left town he thought he would die from the loss. Dad didn't say much except that the road was no place for a cat and had given Dean a quiet, rare apology. As Sam slept in the back seat, Dean took the kitten into the animal shelter alone, feeling his father's eyes steady at his back. When Dean walked out of the pound leaving Windy behind, John was standing next to the car waiting for him. He opened his arms and held Dean tightly until the boy's sobs became dry shudders. As they hit the highway, Dean closed his eyes and felt the rumble of the road beneath him – he hadn't known before – the car sounded just like a cat, right up close to your ear. In a few more miles he drifted off, lulled by the substitute purr of the black Impala.