Author's Note: Thanks HT for asking where this was! Flashing-back is just for you. Special thanks to Allie for helping me feel it and letting me write your words. Thanks to Steven for telling me what he doesn't like and still loving me when I keep it because I like it. Cynthia, my greedy-reader, thanks for reminding me that my public awaits. Much MUCH love to those who review! Okay, done accepting award now. Read, review, call me to repentance.

Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended. Tell me where to send my scripts and maybe I won't have to steal Sam and Dean quite so often.

Chapter Four

The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his education and his recreation, his love and his religion; he hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence in whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he is always doing both. – Zen Buddhist text

Whoever can see through all fear will always be safe. –Tao Te Ching

Dusk moved into night and Dean was brought back from memory lane as a car filled with teenage girls slowed alongside him, whistling and wiggling for his attention. He smiled – enough to tease appreciatively, not enough to invite conversation, and they pulled past, blowing kisses and waving. The smile stayed on his face for a few moments and then he shook his head soundly, as if trying to shake it clear of recollection. "That's enough." He said to himself, taking a deep breath. "More than enough." He set his jaw tightly and his eyes skimmed the parking lot, not looking for anything in particular. "Let's get this party started" he muttered, "while we're still among the living." He circled the building and headed away from the StarNight Motel – away from the blood and the hunt and even… away from Sam.

When they checked into a motel, Dean always asked for an extra phone book. He told Sam it was so they had one in the car for research and since Dean seemed to forget to throw them out or leave them behind, Sam enjoyed griping about having to dump Dean's "collection" every few hundred miles. They'd come in handy more than once, but Sam had no clue that Dean had other reasons for the directories. "It's nice to have him so self-absorbed," thought Dean with a little sarcasm, "keeps him from getting nosy."

The streets were nearly empty as he drove, aimlessly at first. Then, seeing the map of the city that he had found in the front of the phone book clearly in his head, he made a left, then a right and pulled over under a sycamore older than he was. He turned off the car and found what he needed in the backpack he always kept in the trunk – Sam thought it was for a different kind of emergency – and slid into the front seat again. The shadow of the tree blocked the glow of the streetlights, and with the ease of hustle that comes from practice, he was changed and ready to run.

Dean stood for a time, stretching the stiffness in his knees, the knots in his shoulders. "Twenty-six and I feel like I'm sixty these days." He thought, his joints creaking as he leaned forward, placing his palms flat on the ground in front of him and pushing into them. He stood and started slow, feeling the oxygen moving through his lungs, feeling his muscles stretch with familiarity yet grumble from inattention.

It had been a couple of weeks since he'd had a run – or at least one that didn't involve hauling his busted-up self through cracks and crevices trying to outdistance howling spectral cave spooks. He grinned to himself and thought out loud, enjoying the snap of satisfaction that his habitual sarcasm brought. "Ah, the life of a professional monster-whacker. Superman ain't got nothin' on my constitution and even postal workers ain't got my stress."

It was full dark now, and the small town lights were not enough to drown out the shining cosmos. Dean was glad for both the company and the added light – tripping wasn't his idea of a good time and the last time he'd tried to run in the pitch black of some Ohio Podunk it had been a headache trying to explain away the massive damage Sam had seen on the flats of Dean's hands.

Warmth spread through him as he moved more quickly. He concentrated on the sound for a few blocks, his breathing even … the intake and exhalation bathing the weary wounds he carried, settling him into the run. His left shoe felt a little tight and for a half-dozen steps he leaned heavily on it as it hit the concrete, shaking his foot as it came of the ground, unwilling to stop and deal with it.

There was a time that this – running at night – would have frightened him, a dozen years ago maybe. He knew what was out there, he knew what could befall even the most innocent – which he wasn't – and he didn't know for absolute certain he could beat the evil that lurked in the shadows beyond dusk… beyond fairytales. By sixteen he was confident. Dad let him lead sometimes and as he became physically stronger he was able to withstand the terror better. Sixteen-year-old boldness might get you into fights at school, but it was actually a virtue for the serious slayer. He'd kept that boldness and used it as a vaccination against the freezing, dragging, horror that hunting held – the combination of killing's reality and evil's actuality.

Now, running at night, there was no fear. At least not enough fear to stop him, or close enough to the surface to make him stumble. Running at night is a sort of test for that, he's decided… a way to make sure he can still leave his dread and choose his destiny. Maybe there is something out there now, maybe there isn't – he was still going to run. And if he had to fight, he would. Being in the dark is intoxicating when you don't fear whatever fright appears in your path – when you no longer fear your own fear.

He'd never been allowed to walk in front of his father before, though he'd coaxed and stormed about it for the last three or four years. He'd learned to handle his first bowie knife at seven, a handgun at eight and shotgun at ten. At first it was only about protection.

While John hunted, Dean stayed with his little brother at a motel or the rare friend's house; waiting, pretending strength, telling Sammy it was all going to be okay. Always fearful that his dad wouldn't come home and then, like the tale of the squashed spider's family who comes for revenge, the thing Dad tried to kill would come for him and his brother. He didn't sleep of his own will while Dad was gone – at night he lay in bed, hand on his knife, holding his breath until exhaustion finally forced him unconscious without his consent.

At twelve, he started hunting. If you could call it that. Sammy came too and stayed in the car. It was a point of contention between father and eldest son – John wanted to leave him as usual, but Dean wouldn't budge. Dean was armed and allowed out, but his job was to keep the car in sight, protect his brother, and back his Dad up if the monster came into range because it wasn't going well and John was running. As John was good at what he did, Dean's first year of hunting consisted of …not much

Two things snarled ferociously at Dean during the months following his twelfth birthday – first, absolutely stunning panic that he wouldn't be able to protect his father and his brother. Second, that John could see how frightened he really was and wouldn't trust him or respect him. These gut-wrenching fears made him restless and impatient, which pushed him toward a choice.

Finally, Dean couldn't deal with mindless drills anymore. With battle fueled by the rage he could see inside his father, but not touch within himself. His anger was still the incomplete mourning of a lost, lashing, child and not that of a broken man. And while John could forget that his sons had survived his wife's death, Dean could not forget that his own pain had to be secondary to his brother's survival. So he turned the endless soldier's march that his life had become into something hopeful, something more striking and tremendous and breathtaking.

Even years later, he would remember the instant he chose to make the Hunt his life until one or both ended. From then on it was about more than just protection. Dean worked to turn proficiency into virtuosity. Dad didn't care about true technique when it came to the skills he drilled into his son – as long as you got the job done and flinching didn't cause you to put a good somebody's eye out. John didn't see the weapons they used as beautiful things, or the abilities they honed as artistry, just as he didn't see the good they did as universal. Everything was end and means, means and end.

In the world outside the Hunt, the world John's sons would have grown up in if Mary had not been killed, the Winchester boys would likely be considered gifted in whatever they chose to pursue. They were highly intelligent, curious, creative children. While Sam stubbornly refused to focus on the life their father had chosen for them, clinging to the constancy of measurable academics, pushing the family quest aside … Dean struggled to keep up with John and threw all the physical and mental energy he could muster into completing the quest – believing but never admitting that once the deed was done, the universe would right itself. They'd be safe, they'd have their father back, they'd grieve, they'd go on living. They'd start living. The sooner Dean was a perfect hunter, the sooner he'd be home.

And so he pushed himself – the Hunt becoming vocation and avocation – and pushed his father for full partnership. That first real hunt at sixteen, the one where he'd been in front, was the first time he'd let go of his fear… or maybe he'd embraced it. Whichever it was, he'd used the fear, creating a place inside himself where the fear was both fuel and focus point. The hunt had gone right and John had almost voiced approval. Dean felt the payoff and the cost, which chilled and warmed him almost into delirium. After looking the evils of the night full in the eye, night itself was no longer an enemy. And fear was still fear – but when you take a match to it, it blazes into something valuable.

There was a time that this – running alone – would have frightened him, and sometimes it still did. Running alone is powerful thing. For those lucky enough to be emotionally healthy, it's probably a good thing – rejuvenating and filled with revelation. For those who kill supernatural insanity with their dysfunctional family as a way of life… coming up against one's self in a dark alley can be pretty horrifying. Dean spent weeks debating his ability to handle it when it first occurred to him to try it as post-hunt therapy.

Avoidance was a Winchester way of life, and Dean knew that spending so much time inside his head would give him time to think. And he was not convinced this was going to be a good thing. But then again, he knew he needed to find something – he needed a way to not just physically loosen up from the stress and strain of hunting, but to have some space to clear out his head and set his soul to face the sun again.

He'd hated running when Dad first decided (after the Shtriga incident) that Dean needed an exercise regimen to teach him some discipline. However, he soon realized the usefulness of being able to bolt from an angry Dad, flee a tiresome Sammy, or impress teachers and girls at the occasional school. In addition – of course – to escaping death more effectively.

As soon as he was old enough, Dean ran track at every educational institution they had passed through. If they had a team, he was on it. He mostly missed meets due to their hunting schedule, but it was an extra-curricular activity Dad actually allowed him and the coaches seemed willing to make exceptions for this amazing yet transient student. After a short battle where they'd had to run for their lives, John had taken surprisingly little convincing. Dean laid it out in way he hoped was nonchalant, yet irrefutably logical.

John looked away, his eyes staring out the window at nothing. For an instant, Dean wondered if his father had forgotten the question, and then John turned and his dark eyes met Dean's.

"Son, I'd like to let you have this…to let you do this…but I don't want to give you the idea that it can ever come first for us." John sighed, and unconsciously his fingers probed the day-old wound on his thigh. Dean's concern turned immediately to his father.

"Dad, are you okay?" Dean asked, kneeling beside his father without waiting for a reply. "Let me look at it again, maybe I didn't clean it well enough – maybe you need stitches." As he started to remove the bandage, he felt John's hand on his head and he stopped, looking up at his father in surprise. He'd made an art form of reading the inscrutable John Winchester and still he felt dumbfounded by both the action and the expression on his father's face. A gentle touch had been rare enough in John's physical vocabulary when Dean was small, and now Dean was thirteen and near six feet tall and he couldn't remember the last time…

"Let it be, Dean – its fine." said John, his tone gruff though without the bite his son usually associated with it. His hand moved to Dean's shoulder, where it sat heavy and warm. John avoided sentimentality like it carried a reaper's touch, and while it seemed that this should qualify as sentimentality, it seemed more than that.

"What is it Dad?" he asked, looking up and meeting his father's gaze. John's eyes shone brightly in the dimness of the cramped kitchen and Dean realized with a flash that his father had looked at him like this once before. It was a look of sadness, of longing for the past, of dreaming it was different… the look that said he saw Mary in his son, that he saw his son. And he saw what this life was doing to all of them.

"I…You really want to do this?" John questioned.

"Yes, Dad."

"I can't say I'll be there for… races or competitions or whatever… I can't even promise that you can be there, Dean. Hunting is our top priority. Finding the demon that killed your mother is more important than anything else. Do you understand?" Dean nodded and his father's hand dropped from his son's shoulder, and John rubbed his jaw and sighed deeply, the combat fatigue showing.

"I know Dad," said Dean slowly, now sitting back with his arms loosely around his knees, "Hunting comes first for both of us. Always."

In a moment more truthful than most, John held the instant instead of stepping back. Likenesses and differences passed between them in the silence and for each the tally was enough to keep the ground solid beneath them.

So Dean ran like a star until high school ended and stopped because there was no where else to run. Then just after beginning his own final year of high school, Sam quit talking to Dean. Not completely – he still asked him to pass the milk and pick up toilet paper and turn down the Metallica – but noticeably for a baby brother who'd never been able to shut his mouth for more than ten minutes. Always before, even without words, Dean and Sam had kept each other going, kept the loneliness at bay for one another, continued to be The Winchester Family, no matter what Dad's mood or sobriety.

Now, after hunting there were no more late nights at the arcade together, no more wrestling, no more devouring boxes of ice cream sandwiches. Most of all, no more just sitting, not alone while you worked it out in your head, the chick flick moments Dad wouldn't allow playing out inside your head. He tried to bait him, tried to engage him, nothing worked. Sam showered, changed, ate and got out his books. He'd always studied, always escaped by reading – Dean did his fair share as well – but this was different. Sam wasn't just avoiding Dad, he was now avoiding Dean. And Dean couldn't figure out why.

He hung on as long as he could. Then, after Thanksgiving, they had a bad, bad hunt. Dad spent three days in the hospital, Sam and Dean both stayed overnight, Dean checking himself out Against Medical Advice. Even then, alone at the motel, Sammy wouldn't talk to him and Dean knew he was serious about whatever this was. He stormed and raged at his little brother, now taller than Dean with a sulky streak to match his height, and then he took the Impala for a drive and began to think about ways to not kill himself or anyone else when the weight of the evil in the world pressed down too hard upon him. He began to think about how to run without running away.