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If I were to make a list of all of my most endeared memories, of the handsome man who once lived next door, it would be long and melancholic. Something like;
Four years ago, I was hit by an SUV while on my motorcycle late at night, my bike was totaled.
By the time I returned home from the hospital, I had recovered physically but was utterly terrified of being behind a wheel of any kind. Thankfully my rather dashing next door neighbor had knocked on my door that first week of my home coming.
I was greeted by a small, green eyed, blonde and viciously buoyant young girl. She explained to me that her Papa was a man of very few words, but heard about my accident. As a recently retired Vet, he hadn’t managed to get back to work yet. Through that little lady’s (Emma, I later learned) confident voice, this man was offering to be something like a personal chauffeur for me and my two children.
For the next three months he took my daughter, my son and I to the grocery store, to school, to work, to movies, to parks. He held to his offer during which; he introduced me to the kind soul he had flickering in his chest. For a long time he only spoke to me through music.
I grew up Russian Catholic, and so this sudden world of rock and roll really did rock me. But more than that, the way in which this gorgeous man rocked with it, is what did it. I was entranced by the heavy bass, the trill of falsettos, the Dean Winchester of it all. Every morning in which we all piled into his glossy black classic to take our rag-tag tots (and one teen) to school, he introduced us to something new.
He held the heavy tune of Tool’s “Lateralus” in his gentle fist and he mouthed along with his daughter to the dialogue of Metallica's “Enter Sandman” wiggling his fingers at her in the rear-view just to elicit sweet blissful giggles. Of course, my first thought every morning was something along the lines of “How can a man in his thirties be this enthusiastic before 9am?” With the second being, “How could I be expected not to fall in love?”
Three years and six months ago, Dean Winchester spoke for me for the first time, or rather, he sang.
I had received a call from my quite adventurous older brother, Gabriel, informing me that he had found himself stranded, drunk, and half naked in the middle of Kansas city. Naturally, this being a 4 hour drive from my home, I was not particularly fond of the idea of rescuing him on my lonesome. I found myself gravitating to Dean, asking the worst favor in the world (Long, late night road trip, to meet my neurotic, flirtatious and ungrateful older brother). Dean had me packed up and on the road within the hour.
On the way, he had turned on much softer music than I had ever heard through his Impalas' speakers. There were sprinkles of Led Zeppelin, but Led Zeppelin’s “All of my love”, or his “Baby Come On Home” (remastered, ofcourse.) Between these there was Ray Lamontange’s “Trouble” and Death Cab For Cutie’s “I Will Possess Your Heart”. I found myself lost in the soft sway of the air, created by the melodic humming and tapping happening across the seat.
When I heard his voice hang over the music playing softly, I had almost convinced myself I was dreaming. I had spent weeks learning this man without his voice, he talked to me through his classic rock, his hand tapping, his green eyes, and then suddenly some blessed thing chose to grace me. Through my sleep depravity, I heard a silky smooth sound combing through me, singing;
“You remind me of cigarettes
The way I hold you in my chest
The way you kiss me with your filter breath
I keep thinkin' I'm gettin' over this”
I had been so transfixed, I know my mouth must have been agape, for all I know I could have been drooling. His voice had the gentlest growl, a deep vibrato, so masculine in its beauty. So loving in its drawl.
“Once you had me, you don't have me anymore
I don't crave you in the mornin' or at the company store
I don't use you to escape, in my fingers out the door
Once you had me, you don't have me anymore”
His voice carried through the cab like it was a cloud, I remember so well just how soft he sounded to me. For me. A dull and glorious thunder cascading into my soul. It was intoxicating.
“But honey, you're smooth
Honey, you're smooth
Honey, you're smooth
Honey, you're smooth”
His falsetto had fully, and irrevocably changed me. I could never listen to a song again, without hearing him. I was lost in him. I loved him, I loved music because of him, I loved the whole world because of him.
“You don't make me cool
And I can carry on fine without you
You're a spirit, you can't be beat
But when I'm jonesin', honey, I buy cheap
Once you had me, you don't have me anymore
I don't crave you in the mornin' or at the company store
I don't use you to escape, in my fingers out the door
Once you had me, you don't have me anymore
But the truth is that you do
Not the way you used to
But there's something after you
'Cause honey, you're smooth
Honey, you're smooth, oh
Honey, you're smooth
Honey, you're smooth, yeah”
Noah Gunderson’s “Cigarettes” floored me. I felt as though my entire life, every moment, had put me here. I have never felt more Holy, than I had listening to this Righteous man sing to me. His words seemed to have broken through a wall after that night, when it was just the two of us, he spoke so freely, so easily. Not long after he did the same in the presence of our little family.
Watching him become the first man, besides myself, that my daughter let hold her.
Claire had developed strep throat and had been home, sick, for over a week. Antibiotics proved to be unhelpful, and she was lonely. I knew she was, but I had missed too many shifts at the station to be gone any longer. Dean had offered to let her stay with him, because of course he had. The scene when I arrived home can still manage bring tears to my eyes, even as a memory.
Claire’s eyes were puffy and fluttery, she looked exhausted and pained, yet calmed through the worst of it. Dean cradled my fourteen year old girl like she was the size of his own four year old girl, rocking her and softly murmuring words I couldn’t quite hear. My heart had never truly known what love could feel like, until that moment. Even as a young child, Claire craved her independence. She rejected most physical affection in exchange for mental challenge, and yet here she was. Close to sleep in this gentle man's grasp, feverish and content for the first time in days. None of the three of us ever speak about that moment, but I had never felt closer to God than I had, finding my beautiful daughter cared for in a way she accepted, by a man who held more love in his heart than the world had room for. To me? That was faith. Blind and pure.
When Dean lost his father, and after caring for his first child, his beloved brother, he opened himself fully to me for the first time.
At that time in our relationship, it was incredibly unlikely for any of the five of us to be in separate houses. We simply swapped which house we wanted to be together in based on who was making dinner, or who had the streaming service subscription for the cartoons the littles craved that afternoon. This particular day, me and the kids were spread across Dean's living room, reading, playing and texting respectively, while Dean prepared dinner.
A sudden guitar riff riddled from Dean’s cell, I delivered his phone to the kitchen. I frequently would (and still do) take phone calls for him, especially at the end of longer days, so we did our communicative eye-dance that always drove (and still drives) our children crazy. He plucked the phone from my hands with a smile that quickly darkened. After a long and somber conversation held on his back porch, he had told me his father choked on his own vomit, and the neighbors had found him this morning.
The hours following passed like molasses. Sam made the hour-long drive, from his apartment in Russell, in forty-five minutes. Upon seeing his brother, he collapsed. Dean held the man in that same way he had held Claire, and Emma, so many times before. We gave them space of course, I talked with the children about what was happening, what it meant, what we could do. Eventually the littles were put to bed, and Claire headed next door to spend time in her room before she joined them in their rest. It was another two hours before Dean found me in his kitchen.
He stood beside me while I moved my tea to steep on the table, his voice was a whisper,
"I put Sammy to bed in my room, poor kid is a wreck.”
When I turned, I found his eyes unfocused, far away and puffy from unshed tears.
It happened right there in the middle of his kitchen. I closed the distance slowly, wrapping him up in my arms the same way I had Jack, so many times before. I listened to him cry, and cry, and cry. I ran my fingers through his short hair and held him tighter.
Eventually we ended up on the floor, Dean tucked into my chest. And he opened. He told me stories of the awful man who was John Winchester. He told me stories of the broken man who was John Winchester. He told me how John Winchester had broken him. He told me every milestone of Sam’s that Dean got to steal from John Winchester. He told me he still loved him, and that he always had.
I had been expecting to be angry, hearing the full story of a man who had haunted the love of my life for as long as he had been alive, but all I could find within myself was the want to have him closer. He had never allowed himself to “take” much of anything from me, always pulling away from my coddling touches, never letting me make a meal twice in a row, always trying to earn something he had long been gifted from me. It was this night that changed it. He sat with me for hours letting me pour every once of love I had into him. He was so tired, and so sad, and so, so loved. I told him as much. He kissed me. His kiss was like a prayer.
When I was first greeted with Dean's warm morning voice calling out “Mornin’ Sunshine” and every morning after that.
Watching the world's kindest man cry, soft and quiet tears, as he held his brother's arm, walking him down the aisle.
When Sam (finally, after several months of begging) first brought his gorgeous girl over for dinner, Dean had known. The second the front door closed behind the happy couple, he had turned to me and said,
“He’s gonna marry her.”
Of course, a year thereafter, Eileen was draped in gorgeous ivory silk, her hair braided up in a gorgeous array (courtesy of my own incredibly talented daughter) and Sam in a deep burgundy suit, adorned with a bright corsage, and Dean’s favorite navy tie.
Dean had held up incredibly well, all things considered. I watched him smile as brightly as I had ever seen, tying his (rather large) baby brother’s tie in his dressing room, pulling him in for an embrace laced with more love than any could truly imagine. He graciously handled all of the pre-wedding nerves on his brother’s part (“Dean what if I smell bad! Fuck! I totally should’ve got a haircut, she’s gonna walk down the aisle and confuse me for her fucking cat!”) and Eileen’s (“What if Bobby finds it weird that he’s walking me down the aisle! I don’t know how dads work, I’ve never fucking had one! I never wear heels Dean! What if I trip and then there’s a dirt stain on my ass!”). He had swiftly resolved the (seemingly enormous, at the time) issue of Elieen’s cat’s wardrobe cat-tastrophy (Jitterbug chewed through the lace veil attached to her collar, Dean brought a sewing kit. “I knew that fucking cat would try to pull something, don’t look at me like that! I made it out of Iraq because I always come prepared goddammit!”) And he held himself together like masonry.
The moment he truly broke, was one of pure beauty.
Sam had made Dean his best man, naturally, and it seemed he always knew Dean would be the one to walk him on his wedding day. He didn’t ask really, it was more of a statement (Dean had cried then too, but only after Sam was out of earshot). They wed in a small, southern chapel, with a gorgeous array of loving family, and meticulous flower arrangements (an elegant combination of morning glory, blue larkspur, and baby’s breath). The song they walked to was an instrumental version of Angel Olsen’s Something Cosmic (Dean had of course endlessly and relentlessly called his brother a “fucking california-ass, salad eating-ass, hipster.” after catching word of this.).
As gentle plucking and violin strings ringing filled every space for sound in the room, Dean held his brother's arm in both hands, one of Sam’s laying on top. I stood at the front of the room and watched as the low lighting highlighted the tears sliding down Dean’s cheeks. They seemed to glitter and catch the warm glow of candles scattered in the room. When they reached the altar, Dean grabbed his brother’s hand to squeeze. That brief moment of eye contact held just about every emotion you could imagine. Mostly pride, always pride.
They had their first dance to Leon Bridges’ Coming home. Dean swayed into my side, wiping his eyes for the second time that day and whispered, so very softly,
“I love that boy.”
I was thinking the same. I turned his face up to meet mine and pressed my lips to his. His green eyes looked glorious.
“You did such a good job with your boy, Dean.” I replied, just as quietly. And I meant it.
His Holy hands, laying his dog tags over my chest in silence.
“Hey, you know how I’ve been seeing Pamela awhile?”
“Yes, Dean, I remember. How’s it been going?”
“She uh- well she diagnosed me with PTSD today.”
I couldn’t say that the news had surprised me. I knew he was a functioning parent for his brother as early as four. And his father had left him bruised, and without money, and without support his entire childhood, and he had found a girl who would treat him the same his father did (even left him with a baby too) then he had to fight in a fucking war. I had frequently wondered how it was possible he was still standing, and not only was he standing but he was so loving.
“And how are you feeling about that?” I asked.
His reply was quite long and quite intimate. He told me about how movies made him believe he had made it out of hell unscathed. He never disappeared back into traumatic events, or believed people in his life were strangers because he was living in the past. Instead his body filled him to the brim with old feelings and tried their hardest to pull him under.
He talked about his time in Iraq, the way his guilt made him feel more unworthy and unlovable than his father could ever hope to. I’d never seen his retreat into himself before. It broke my heart, but I would not trade that movement for anything.
He trusted me wholly. He had talked himself into a flashback that left him shaking and he had told me then, very unconvincingly, to fuck off. Clearly, I didn’t. Instead I wrapped him in my arms and he tucked his head gently to the side of my neck. He had told me he was waiting for me to leave, because good things don’t last, and nothing had ever been as good as I had. I told him then,
“Good things do happen, Dean. I will hold you tight and raise you out of Hell as many times as I need to. Because I love you. And because you don’t have to be great, to me, you are always Good.”
He let out a very quiet sob, and I continued to hold him. I lost track of time on that couch, we could’ve stayed there days and I would have never moved an inch. Eventually though, he raised his head from its hiding place on my shoulder and grabbed my face (sturdy and worked-through palms had never felt more like love) and he kissed me deeply, before slinking off the couch and disappearing into his bedroom. When he returned he had sparkling silver tags hidden in his hands. As he sat down next to me, he took it by the chain and slipped it over my head. I picked them up, my thumb tracking over the stamped letters;
Winchester
Dean, R
USMC
8576129834
AB POS
Atheist
They’ve never left their place on my chest.
The breathtaking green within his eyes, glowing in dim lights as he asked me to be his, for the rest of time.
It started about two years ago, long after we had met and moved into Dean’s older but larger farm house (“It’s just economic angel, imagine how much money we’d save with you selling your place, our utility bills wouldn’t be any different anyway, it’s not like we’re ever apart.”). Claire strolled into the kitchen after waving a too cool for school kind of parting wave at her friend Alex, wearing a rather mischievous smirk.
“Oi! Pops, where’s the old man held up?” Dean popped his head up from under the sink he was tinkering with, looking rather offended.
“Hey punk, I’m a whole five years younger than your dad, how am I the old man? He’s got more gray than I do!.” She ignored his defensive commentary in favor of very nonchalantly handing him a flier.
“Don’t say I never did anything for you!” She called over her shoulder as she turned to climb up the stairs to her bedroom. The paper, upon further inspection, was an advertisement. In large, hand printed letters it read;
“PURGATORY” BAR GRAND OPENING
SPEAKEASY LOOKING FOR LOCAL PERFORMERS
[COVERS ONLY]
TO SCHEDULE CALL OWNER
FERGUS CROWLEY
(785)666-0013
And scribbled at the top in small, sharp handwriting (I knew to be Claire’s), there was a note;
10:45 pm on Friday night. You got an in house babysitter and a full band. You’re not allowed to chicken out. Don’t be late, you ass. <3
And so it began. Every Friday Dean piled his guitar (sometimes guitars, if he was feeling like an acoustic song or two) into the Impala, with myself as his chauffeur, to meet Benny, his incredibly charming bassist war buddy, (who Dean insists there was never a fling with, however I am not so sure) Kevin, their drummer (a 20 something college kid who Dean had meet at a bar and ended up adopting as another one of his cubs despite their age difference barely extending beyond 10 years) and Charlie who played piano and keys when she could spare the time (his childhood best friend, who my own kids had been calling their aunt for some time now).
I vividly remember listening to their first performance and quite literally being brought to my knees. They broke out with a bang (that bang being Led Zeppelin’s What Is and What Should Never Be). The only lights in the cramped bar were the fake battery powered candles centered at every table, and the lights shining down on the stage.
Dean stood close to the microphone, his lips brushing it ever so gently, the starting lyrics sliding off his tongue like honey. Soft and slow and sweet, he found my eyes and held them as he sang. A dangerous smile fell on his face as he burst into the chorus. His nose scrunched as he belted out the heavy rasp that the line demanded. He looked other-fucking worldly like that. Gracefully dancing between that sultry whisper of hushed lines and the growl of the melody. He played every note on his guitar perfectly, he looked like pure human ecstasy.
This went on to be my favorite night of the week. I found myself almost unable to contain my excitement at seeing him return to the lit-up and gritty performer he did not show anywhere else, no matter how many times I had seen it before. Even years after he had started his work at purgatory. There was one specific friday, where Dean was wearing his dangerous, adrenaline filled and dimple showing smile in the car on the way to the bar, which was very unusual. I decided I wouldn’t say anything (for completely selfish reasons I won’t retell for my children’s sanity.)
His performance started abruptly, the immediate and distinctive thump thump thump of Kevin’s foot kick and crash of his symbols creating the beginning of Jeff Buckley’s Eternal Life bellowing through the building. His energy was breathtaking, I had never seen him so enthused by a song he played before. I was (understandably) enthralled. I realized there was a reason for the raw and gasping act once his voice broke through the beginning instrumental, he was playing the Road Version.
My mind was sent back to a date we had several months prior. We had picked up a to-go order from a little dinner in town, and driven out to the vast country as we had done many times over our time together. It was tradition to spend as many nights as we could, laid on the impala’s hood, eating messily, blasting music through her speakers and staring at the stars.
We had gone on a Jeff Buckley related rabbit hole while winding down backroads, and decided to listen to his Legacy Edition of Grace. It was quickly becoming one of my favorites. After about an hour of listening, a new riff rang through the air and neither of us could place the song in our minds, until the lyrics broke out. It was so much rougher, filled with so much more rock than the original and we both were giddy with it. By the time the chorus hit, Dean and I were belting out the lyrics quite inelegantly, smiling until our cheeks were sore. When it ended, Dean turned to me and said,
“That fucking rocks.” And we laughed so hard we almost cried. I had told him then, if he ever planned to propose to me, that was the song to do it to. He laughed and said,
“Isn’t it a little too much?” I just kissed him blind.
I was brought back to the moment by the realization that I had slowly made my way to the very edge of the stage. Gravitating towards him subconsciously, even surrounded by drunk and dancing people enjoying themselves, my attention couldn’t be broken from Dean. He drew out the lyrics gorgeously, his head leaned back at any pause in lyrics to breathe with his neck exposed, sweat sliding down the veins there. He belted out the ending lyric long and gloriously, the walls shaking as he sang;
“Angel”
The song ended and Benny broke in with a steady thruming, then Charlie with an all too familiar beat.
“Starlight I will be chasing a starlight
Until the end of my life
I don't know if it's worth it anymore”
He found my eyes again, they were full, almost overflowing, with something terrifyingly like devotion. His smile had been dropped in exchange for focus. His voice was deep and vast, and reaching me, reaching my soul.
“I'll never let you go If you promise not to fade away
Never fade away
Our hopes and expectations
Black holes and revelations
Our hopes and expectations
Black holes and revelations
Hold you in my arms
I just wanted to hold You in my arms”
The way the sound of him echoed made it sound like the way heaven would call out to a dying man. He’d never sounded like he’d meant anything more. His mouth was the most breath-taking thing I had ever witnessed. I was thrown back to a moment before our relationship had even begun, when he was driving me back from some event at my sister’s where I had been absolutely miserable after hearing all of their you should come back to the churches and their you’ll give up on this lifestyle soon enough Castiels, he had whispered to me, so silently I barely heard it,
“I wish I could hold you. I’d never let you go.”
On the stage there was shuffling, Benny had passed his bass to Charlie, and taken Dean's guitar, adjusting the strap. Dean unhooked the microphone from his stand with a soft smile (one that he often wore in the mornings when he awoke next to me). Benny plucked out the iconic riff of Incubus’ Stellar. Dean Held the Mic and crouched in front of me.
“Meet me in outer space
We could spend the night
Watch the earth come up"
His hand reached up to cradle my jaw, if I had ever thought I had heard the gentlest his voice could get before this moment, I was wrong. His mouth, his eyes, his palm, I wouldn’t breathe if it meant turning my attention towards anything other than him. His thumb brushed over my bottom lip so sweetly.
“I've grown tired of that place Won't you come with me? We could start again”
He withdrew from his place crouched in front of me to move his body with the chorus rising. His head rocked rhythmically back and forth at every passing beat. He stood with Charlie as Benny’s bass echoed out its solo, his neck pulsing.
“It might be the only way
That I can show you how
It feels to be inside you
How do you do it?
Make me feel like I do
How do you do it?
It's better than I ever knew, ooh”
His back craned to cradle the mic, he moved and rocked and I was hot and red and on the verge of tears.
They Broke for a moment to drink water and whisper to each other, and then Charlie was back at her piano, playing something so entirely familiar, I shook with it. Dean and I sang this song almost every day, during our mornings in the kitchen waiting for coffee to brew. He played this song the night he first sang to me.
“There was a time I used to call ya all my very ow__n.
We were so happy woman,
Talkin' for hours an' hours on the telephone.
An' then one day I said you up'd and walked-a righta outa my life,
Leavin' me all by myself, All alone to cry every night.”
He stood in front of me, his familiar rasp rumbling into my chest, as I mouthed to the lyrics back at him.
“Babe, Oh! babe, babe
Baby, baby
Come on home.
Please come home ho__ yeah,
it's alright.
Ohhh yeah.
I know You been gone too long.
You been away so long.”
I could feel tracks of something wet and warm wandering down my cheeks, but I couldn’t be bothered in the slightest. The familiarity he had with the song shone through his performance, it was energetic with practiced ease. While normally, the ending would fade out, the band’s instruments just seemed to get louder. Dean belting out the last verse and sinking to his knees;
“Babe, babe, babe
I believe it's always callin'.
Can you feel the brown leaf against your face?
You oughta sing and shout and say
Ohhh yeah.
Baby, baby, baby
You been gone too long.
I want you to come home.”
While the crowd around me clapped and cheered and whistled, I watched him turn his face towards me slowly, his chest rapidly rising and falling, he wore the brightest smile I had ever known. He jerked his head slightly to the left, towards the entrance to backstage, and I started to run.
By the time I had pushed my way through bussiling people, and made it to Dean he had packed up his guitar, and was waiting at the door. I grabbed his sweat soaked shirt and kissed him harder than I’ve ever kissed anyone. Gently, without breaking apart, he took my left hand in his and reached into his pocket. His voice spoke into my mouth,
“Hey, Angel”
He delicately spread my fingers between kisses and slipped a silver and green banded ring onto its finger. I hadn’t realized it felt like something was missing from me, until I felt the metal against my skin.
“Hello, Dean.”
We stand here on a Thursday. I have loved this man in every lifetime I have lived, and I have felt it within me always. Dean Winchester is lighting, he is the breeze, he is Godly, and he has always been mine. He is gorgeously human, beautifully sculpted, and the most loving creature that has ever walked this earth. There is no other I could ever imagine myself loving, now that I have known his soul.
I stand here, Looking into the eyes of this Righteous man, and beyond anything else, I love him. I love music, I love my children, I love being alive. I love the entire world, because of him, and I will be with him until the world stops spinning. Every morning I thank God for bringing me this blessing of a life, for letting me love this man, letting me marry him. He is my husband and he gets to continue being. Continue breathing. There is not a more glorious truth in the entire universe. He is mine and also, still beautiful. Still Dean Winchester. Praise God. Amen.
*
Thursday afternoon, they said their ‘I love you’s' and danced to Led Zeppelin’s “Since I’ve been loving you” (remastered, ofcourse).