A big shout-out to Adrian Nox and my sister, who kindly read and reviewed this story. And thanks to everyone who took the time to read. Hope that y'all enjoy this chapter.
Dean is thirteen when he falls in love for the first time. Not just the usual staring-at-pretty-girls, schoolyard crush kind of thing. He's pretty sure that this is actually love. Whatever love is. They're in some little hick town in Colorado, Dorado Falls, chasing some violent spirit-a miner who was killed back in the town's digging days, Dad swears-who's been wrecking havoc on the tourist industry. Her name is Hallie Winston, and she's perfect. Blonde hair that shines even on a cloudy day, eyes that sparkle like a windswept sea, a face like an angel…she's beautiful. When Dean closes his eyes at night, her image is burned into his mind. Of course, his infatuation is entirely innocent for now-anything more than that seems forbidden and out of reach. He doesn't see Hallie posing like the girls in the dirty skin magazines that he quickly leafs through in truck stops while Dad and Sammy are paying at the counter, all puckered lips and unrealistically huge breasts. He sees her standing in that high mountain field that they hiked out to, her face tipped upwards towards the bright sun. Her eyes are always sparkling and she's always smiling. She has kind eyes, fiery eyes. There's a kind of determination in those eyes and in the way that she carries her wiry build that he admires. That's what he thinks that love should be about, no matter how beautiful someone is, it should be about how you feel. Of course, thirteen-year-old Dean has no way of knowing that in a few years he'll be driven wayward by every pretty girl he sees. That he won't give a damn about what a nice personality a girl has as long as she has boobs and doesn't look like a horse. But for now, he wonders if his Dad saw more than a pretty face in his mom. The way that John Winchester talks about Mary…it's like she was the light inside of his world. And Dean knows that she was.
The day that they have to leave town, the day after Dad leaves Sammy and Dean alone with a the usual arsenal and comes back four hours later with a broken wrist, is the day that Dean plans on kissing Hallie Winston. Actually, he just wants to say goodbye, but he's sure that it will turn into something more. He hopes it will, because he knows that he'll never see her again. He never sees any of them again, once the Impala hits the highway. That's the way things work in the Winchester family: you live, you love, you hit the road and you're gone.
They're standing under a streetlight, in that halo of yellow on the otherwise dark corner of Main Street and Birch Avenue. Dean holds both of Hallie's hands in his own, and tries to kiss her, but she pulls away.
"I'm sorry, Dean, but I'm not ready for this."
He's desperate and his heart is twisted and raw.
"I'm leaving," he tells her. "And I'm probably not going to see again."
He already knows, somehow, that this will become his mantra.
Her eyes turn sad, a cold ocean on a gloomy day.
"I know, Dean."
"I just…I just wanted to say that I really like you, Hallie." He's not sure what else to add, so he continues, "and you're really pretty and nice and…stuff."
Her smaller fingers clench his, and he then feels her sliding from his grip and she leans in and presses one little peck to his cheek and then she's gone, slipping away down the street and into the shadows beyond Pine Street. His heart twists violently, and suddenly all that Dean wants is someone to hold onto. So he walks slowly back to the Dorado Falls Motel and knocked three times on the door of room 15. Dad's out, probably getting smashed at the town's only bar, and Sammy is sitting at the little wooden table. Math homework is spread out across the warped surface, and a pencil is clenched in his fingers. Sam stares at a problem, frowns, then begins writing out the equation. Dean stands there for a moment, watching his younger brother with a strange mixture of sadness and pride. He shakes his head, shrugs off his jacket and puts it on the back of the chair.
"Let me tell you somthin, Sammy," Dean tells him, "Never fall in love."
His younger brother stares up at him with his usual trust and innocence, eyes wide and naïve. And for a second, it breaks Dean's heart to think that any of this will ever change. But for now Sam blinks innocently up at his older brother, the very picture of trust and obedience.
"Okay," he says.