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12th May, 2003
He’s twenty-four and his back aches as he swings open the car door and collapses inside. It had been a straightforward hunt, the ghost of a woman pissed because her husband had moved his mistress in straight after her death, but he’s getting tired of being thrown against walls so damn often. Tired of all of it. There’s a gash above his left eyebrow that’s still bleeding, and his hands are caked in mud from digging up her grave. He can’t help but think of Sammy, probably tucked up in bed in California right now. Every civilian living a normal fucking life while he’s out here in the middle of the night, river water soaked through his jeans and his legs starting to shiver as he turns the key in the ignition.
He never asked for any of this. That’s all he thinks about over and over as he drives around in search of a safe place to park for the night - how unfair it is that the life he was supposed to have was stolen from him at age four. It’s something he thinks about often, but never without that familiar sting of guilt tearing through his stomach. If he hadn’t grown up this way, every person he’s saved would have died instead. It’s selfish, to wish for anything other than this. His life for theirs, that’s how it had to be.
He settles on the deserted parking lot of some mom and pop craft store. Urban enough to be safe, but not so commercial that he’d get a fine or the cops called on him for loitering. He’d learned not to sleep off the beaten path the time he’d woken up in the middle of the night to a werewolf staring at him through his windshield. He could get a motel for the night, but he’s all too aware that the hundred bucks in his pocket is the last of his money. If he had Sam with him, he wouldn’t bat an eyelid at forking out and dealing with the consequences later, but for him alone it was a luxury he couldn’t afford.
He turns off the engine, jumps into the back of the car, and pulls the musty old blanket out from under the front seat. In the old days this would have been Sammy’s spot, with Dean in the front, feet tucked under the steering wheel and nothing but his jacket for a blanket. They’d talk about everything and nothing until one of them fell asleep, a peaceful camaraderie that Dean aches for now. He doesn’t hate his brother for getting out, for leaving him behind, but sometimes he feels so lonely that death would be kinder. Is it too much to ask, to have somebody beside him? To not walk through life alone? He doesn’t find the answer before he falls asleep.
3rd August, 2006
Twenty seven is kinder and crueller in the same breath. Sammy is back by his side, where Dean knows he should be, but he’s also forced once more to sacrifice himself for his brother. As they stumble back to their motel room, pain in their bodies and adrenaline leaving their veins, Dean’s deal floats around his mind. He doesn’t regret it for a moment, would give himself for his baby brother a thousand times over if he needed to, but still he feels cheated. With only a year left to live, he’ll never find a nice girl and settle down, never get a big house in the suburbs with two point five kids and a dog. He’s never wanted any of these things, not really, but now that he knows they won’t ever happen he feels bereft. Like the life he could have lived has died right in front of him.
He sits on the hard motel mattress and stares at the dark screen of the television as Sam showers. Dean knows that he should do the same once his brother has finished, but he can’t find the motivation in him to do so. There’s drying blood all over his clothes, splattered across his face from the vampires they’d taken out. An ache in his side that tells him he’s going to wake up with one hell of a bruise, and grazes on his elbows from falling to the ground. He catalogues his injuries mentally, and gets the overwhelming sense that this is it. This is all he is going to have for the rest of his life. Ganking the bastards who need it and taking a beating on the way, over and over and over again until Hell comes for him. He has never, and will never, live for himself. A peaceful existence is something off-limits to him.
He thinks of Cassie. It’s always Cassie. Dean has had a lot of flings, even more one night stands, but it occurs to him now that he’s only ever fallen in love once. He was at his best when they were together, leaving to hunt and coming back home to her gentle hands and warm embrace. Whenever he dreams of a regular life, getting a normal job and a wife and maybe taking up golf or something equally stupid and regular, it’s always Cassie beside him, in his arms, walking up the aisle towards him. She had been the first person to love him unconditionally, to ask him for little in return.
He had Sammy, of course, but he always has to be his big brother. He is his protector, his provider. His little brother will always ask for more, which isn’t his fault- it’s what kids do. They take and you give, willingly, even though it exhausts you.
Sam gives him a strange look as he emerges from the bathroom, already dressed in his pajamas and rubbing a towel through his hair. Dean must look odd, sitting stoically and staring at a television that isn’t even on, as if unbothered by the viscera he’s covered in, but he doesn’t move. Without a word, Sam turns off the main light and gets into bed, leaving only the lamp between their beds to light the room.
Dean looks over at his little brother, and feels the weight of his short remaining life weighing down on him. After all the years he’s lived, this is how it is going to end. The only thing he will leave behind, his only legacy, is laying in the bed across from him. As much as he loves his brother, it kills him inside. He wants so much more. Dean may not be alone any more, but he’s sure as hell still lonely.
20th April, 2013
He has a post-hunt ritual, at thirty-four. When the bunker is dark, laminate floors growing cold underfoot, he emerges from his room in silence. He always waits until he is sure Sam has gone to sleep, not wanting to be disturbed, before creeping to the kitchen. He gets a beer from the fridge and sits at the table with it, the little portable TV he found at a thrift store set to whatever looks the least terrible.
It’s simple, but he needs it. He never gets any alone time on a hunt, always has Sam or Cas or whoever needs help this time hovering over his shoulder. It’s only now, in the quiet early hours of the morning, that he can finally relax. He’s showered and changed already, shedding the physical reminders of the shifter they’d been hunting, but it was still playing on his mind. The shifter had maintained a consistent identity for years, had a job and friends and a husband- but she’d started killing men in the next town over, so she had to go. He takes it as further proof to what he has always known- that none of them in this life, not the hunters nor the hunted, can have that normality. Nobody can get out, no matter how hard you try. Hell, he’s died twice , and both times he’s been dragged back into this job. No, there’s no getting out.
At the very least, he has more than he thought he would ever get. When he thinks back to the aftermath of his demon deal, and the sole year he thought he had left on Earth, he realises that he had so much left to do. Seven years ago he was still just a kid, barely scraping by and making shit up as he went along, living out of his car and an endless string of dirty motel rooms. He’d thought that was it for him, but Cas had gifted him with so much more. It makes him hope that there could be more out there for him. He knows he can’t ever leave this life, but at the very least he might be able to find somebody to share it with.
That would be nice, he thinks, looking up at the vast and empty room around him, the hum of the television the only noise surrounding him. He’d like to share these nights, so that maybe he wouldn’t feel so alone.
22nd December, 2020
He’s forty one and he realises that it was always painfully obvious. Of course it would be Cas, the angel who raised him from Hell, who would help him feel free. Of course it would be him Dean would share these nights with, limbs heavy and aching from their latest hunt as they laugh at the TV together. The downtime when it's over used to be painful for him - he’d get lost in his own head the second the monster was ganked and spend forever tearing himself to pieces. He doesn’t need to do that any more. He has new rituals.
When the bunker has been quiet for some time, Sam certainly asleep and Jack at least pretending to be, Cas and Dean tiptoe through the hallways together, socked feet quiet on the cold floor. Cas grabs their drink from the fridge- a large bottle of peach flavoured sparkling water. They switched to it when Cas confessed that he wasn’t much a fan of Dean’s beer, and they’d spent half a week trying different drinks to find one Cas liked. Dean grabs the cups, and they make their way to the Dean cave with quiet smiles. Miracle pads after them, a chew toy held in his mouth as his tail wags.
They curl up together on the sofa Sam helped carry down here a while ago, and Cas chooses a movie from Dean’s collection to watch. Miracle lies at their feet, head on his paws as he watches the movie with them. At any point, if Cas feels Dean’s mind wandering or sees his eyes glazing over, Cas will lean over and place a hand on his cheek, smiling at him before kissing him deeply.
It’s in this moment that he knows, with confidence, that he’s got it. Everything he ever wanted. He’d never pictured it like this. In his purposefully constructed ideal, he’d been with Cassie, or some other chick, not an angel in the shape of a dude. There had been kids and a house in the suburbs, but he supposes an underground bunker and a nephilim son isn’t too far off. The only thing he got right was the dog, he thinks with a chuckle. Maybe one day they’ll retire, try to pull out of the game as much as possible and pass the mantle on to the younger generation. He thinks he’d like that, moving somewhere quiet with Cas and Jack and trying to live as normally as possible. Even if they don’t, he realises he isn’t climbing the walls any more, itching to get out before it’s too late. He’s content as he is, with Cas in his arms and the rest of their family asleep upstairs. A smile breaks out on his face as he realises that he isn’t lonely anymore. He never will be again.