Chapter Text
Author's notes: The prologue is from four people's POV (Jess, Sam, Dean, and Ellen) all thinking about the boys' childhood and their dad. Background info vital for the story.
1 – Jessica
When Jess had met Sam he’d been nineteen and so full of life and possibilities. He was the only person she had ever seen adapt that quickly to college life. It didn’t seem to bother him at all, living in a different place, not having any friends here, having to work his butt off at school – luckily he had gotten a full ride, a scholarship to Stanford that meant he didn’t have to work if he didn’t want to but even then he picked up a few jobs around the place to bring in extra cash. Of course as Jessica got to know him she soon saw the… she didn’t know how to describe it. The emotion that lingered inn his beautiful brown eyes was something in-between anger, sorrow, regret, guilt, and mourning. He missed his brother, she as sure of it, even if he never talked about it except to say that he had a brother called Dean, Jess still realised that it pained him to be away from his family, from his big brother. Sometimes she was jealous in a rather petty and disturbing way because she often thought that Sam would never feel the depth of emotions for his brother for any one else; aka her. But then she remembered that Dean and Sam hadn’t spoken in two years and her empathy got the better of her.
2 – Sammy/Sam
People tended to get Sam wrong. Whether it was Ellen misinterpreting his anger at his dad, or Missouri misunderstanding why he had gone to Stanford. Dean – his forever protector and best friend – had always understood without Sam needing to speak. Like when Dean could tell the difference between a moment when he could tease Sam about his sensitivities and chant ‘no chick flick moments, bitch’ at him and Sam would happily reply ‘jerk’, and a moment when Sam was crying because he was just so hurt and scared and frustrated – a moment that calling him a bitch would likely get him punched or something.
It was one of the reasons why Sam missed Dean so much. That and the fact that Dean had been the only constant in his life for all of his twenty-two years, the one person he could reply on not to abandon him like dad had, hell even Bobby Singer and Caleb had been known to ditch them at a moments notice, no explanation required.
Sam hadn’t just left to study and go to school properly. Yes, that had been a part of it but he had also left because it hadn’t been healthy the way Sam was the only person in Dean’s life. Hell, Dean had been twenty-four when Sam had left and still no serious girlfriend or anything, not even sixteen year old Jo making eyes at him had swayed him. Which had probably been a good thing since Sam knew for a fact that Ellen had a shot gun behind the bar, locked and loaded.
Sam hadn’t told Dean this when he had left – he had just expected Dean to know like he always knew because he knew Sammy. Maybe that was what had hurt the most, the fact that Dean hadn’t understood, hadn’t known.
3 – Ellen
Ellen never really understood why John Winchester never came clean about how Mary had really died and what he really spent his time travelling over America doing to those boys. And she told him so in plane, loud and clear English every time he visited the Roadhouse; which was probably why John only ever visited to drop the boys of for a few weeks during a hunt or to pick Ash’s brains on a problem he was having with a hunt; which Ash always said that was down right stupid because there wasn’t nothin’ he could tell John Winchester about the Supernatural and about Hunting and Killing the Supernatural that the man didn’t already know. Of course, it wasn’t always that way, John had been a chicken (a beginner) once too. It was just that his natural affinity for the Hunt was down right unsettling. Ellen would say it was scary if she didn’t know that what he was using that unsettling skill of his to do was fighting even more unsettling and damn terrifying things – keeping his boys and Ellen’s daughter Joanna Beth safe from the monsters under their bed.
Ellen had understood at first, after all Dean had only been four and Sammy just about six months old. By not telling them straight away he’d been protecting the kids – just like any good father would, like William and Ellen had done with Jo, waiting until she was older so she could fully understand what they were telling her and how this would affect her life. Of course, by the time she was old enough to tell William had gone and gotten himself killed which had made it that much tougher to tell Jo, but that hadn’t stopped Ellen from doing so. But no matter what Ellen, Ash, Caleb, Missouri, Bobby, Jo, and any other hunter or mystic had to say to him John insisted on lying to the boys even when they were past believing the lies and had to make up their own truths. In some respects it was harder on Dean because he remembered a time when John had been his daddy and when he had had a mother. But then again he had a mission in life too, protect Sammy from the truth about dad. Protect him from the fact that their dad would rather be off ‘finding work’ or ‘visiting old friends’ during Sammy’s tenth birthday than be with Dean, Sam, and Missouri in Kansas. Protect Sammy from the knowledge that their father couldn’t make it to Sammy’s play recital or to parent’s evening or June or graduation. Soon Sam had thought of his own reasons that John couldn’t make it – that his dad was a drunk, a coward, and a loser. It was no wonder Sam had left for college without seeking his father’s approval because really it was more of a case of ‘what father’.
The only thing Ellen hadn’t understood was why Sam had left without seeking Dean’s approval.
4 – Dean
Life had not been a picnic, that was for damn sure. He barely remembered his mother’s face or the scent of her perfume or the feel of her lips on his cheek kissing him goodnight. What he did remember with perfect clarity was the fire the night she died; the heat of the blaze, the fear when he couldn’t find his mother, the sense of responsibility when his dad had put Sammy into his arms, telling him to take his brother outside, to protect Sammy. That night was the last time Dean would get a hug from his father except for the ‘goodbye’ types or the ‘sorry I missed your birthday but I can’t explain why’ types.
As a child he had made up fanciful stories to tell to Sammy about their dad. Things like that he was in the CIA and went on undercover operations to save the world or that their dad was a superhero living a double life. Sammy had been five when these tales had stopped comforting him even in the slightest. By time he was ten Sammy was telling people that they didn’t really have a dad, but they were looked after by close family friends. It had hurt Dean to hear Sammy speak so lowly of the man that Dean remembered had used to be a super hero to him as a small boy of three and four. But then Dean would remember their dad’s latest excuse for missing birthdays and June and he would try and distract Sammy by saying that they had to think of a prank to play on Jo (Ellen’s daughter who was a few years younger than Sam) or watch a movie.
Dean knew he could handle whatever life threw at him as long as he had had Sammy with him. But Sam had left – he had out grown Dean, become a man and an independent man who wanted things very different from what Dean had wanted. Because in simple terms; while Sam had wanted normality – marriage, college, a proper job -, Dean had just wanted Sammy.