Chapter Text
The house was burning.
Dean remembered the dream differently every time. Sometimes he heard screaming, sometimes he only smelled smoke, and sometimes he saw his mother’s face, twisted with pain, somewhere high up near the ceiling.
And other times he only remembered his father’s hands.
Big.
Steady.
No, no… they hadn’t been steady then. They had been shaking.
“Take your brother and run!”
Dean shot upright. For a moment he had no idea where he was, caught in the strange hangover of a bad dream that was more memory than nightmare.
A motel.
Kansas.
Or Nebraska.
Maybe Oklahoma.
In the end, they all looked the same – peeling walls, the smell of cigarettes, thin blankets.
All of them equally lonely.
The digital clock beside the bed glowed.
3:14.
Dean rubbed a hand over his face. His shirt was sticking to his back. Again.
Damn it.
He reached for the bottle on the nightstand.
Suppressants.
One pill, then another.
He washed them down with the last of a slightly flat beer.
And for several minutes he just sat there, listening… to the silence.
Then he got up, checked his gun, checked the car through the window. Went through Dad’s messages.
Because he did that every day.
Someone had to.
***
When he was four years old, Dean was put in charge of Sam for the first time.
Not in the hospital. Not as some happy big brother.
In a motel, in the middle of the night. After another hunt.
John looked like he hadn’t slept in days, and maybe he really hadn’t.
He sat down on the bed and handed the baby to Dean.
“Hold him.”
Dean took him uncertainly.
Sam was tiny. In Dean’s eyes, he never really stopped being that tiny little thing that needed protecting.
Light. Warm.
Asleep.
Dean was afraid to move.
“Dad?” he whispered.
John stood beside him and put a hand on his shoulder.
Hard.
Heavy.
Like always.
“Listen to me, Dean.”
Dean nodded.
“If something happens to me, you take care of him.”
Dean nodded again.
He didn’t know why. He didn’t know what it meant.
He was four years old.
But John went on. “You’re his big brother.”
Another nod.
“So you protect him.”
Dean looked down at the sleeping baby. At that little face, those closed eyes, those tiny fingers.
“Yeah.”
John smiled, for the first time in days.
“Good boy.”
Back then, Dean thought he had just been given a job. In reality, he had been handed the rest of his life.
***
Stanford, twenty-two years later.
Dean cut the engine, and the Impala ticked softly in the silence.
Several windows were lit in the house. Sam’s was one of them.
Dean sat there for a while. Just sat, hands on the wheel.
His head was buzzing, from exhaustion and from something else, something much deeper and far more frightening.
The last few weeks had been hell. John had disappeared. Hunters were disappearing. Leads were turning into dead ends.
And Dean’s own body was starting to fight back.
The suppressants were working worse and worse. Stress was doing what stress did.
Sleep barely existed. Food didn’t much either.
Dean rested his forehead against the steering wheel.
Just for a second.
Maybe two.
Then he cursed himself in his head, and the voice sounded suspiciously like John.
And he got out.
***
Sam opened the door and immediately frowned.
“Dean?”
“Hey, Sammy.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Nice to see you too.”
Sam watched him for a moment… too long.
Dean knew that look.
Scanning. Assessing. Looking for the problem.
“You look like crap,” Sam muttered.
“Thanks.”
“I mean it.”
“So do I.”
Sam rolled his eyes, and Dean smiled. Automatically. Because that was how it worked. When he smiled, people stopped asking questions.
Most of the time.
But some people didn’t stop. Sam, for example.
Not completely.
Later that evening, Sam caught him more than once quietly taking pills, standing too long by the open window.
Restless. Tense.
Like someone waiting for an attack.
“Are you sick?” Sam finally asked.
Dean turned. “What?”
“I asked if you’re sick.”
“No.”
“Then why are you taking so many pills?”
For a second, Dean’s face went still. Only for a second. Then he slipped on his usual cocky expression.
“Migraines.”
“Since when do you get migraines?” Sam frowned.
“Since you started asking questions like the FBI.”
Sam huffed. He wasn’t convinced. Not completely. Dean could see it. His baby brother, all grown up, was smart.
The one who had always been aiming for college. The one who could actually make it there. That was why Dean had to be careful.
Because if Sam found out the truth...
Dean didn’t know what would happen.
Maybe nothing.
Maybe everything.
***
That night, he couldn’t sleep.
He lay on his back, listening to the distant traffic… and thinking about Dad. About Sam. About the hunt. About everything he still had to get done.
Everything he had to handle.
Everything he had to fix.
Everything he had to save.
Like always.
Because when Dean was four, someone put a baby in his arms. And ever since then, he had never really set him down.
Not even when Sam grew into a grown man.
Not even when it was tearing Dean apart.
Not even when Dean himself was barely holding together.
No one noticed. And maybe that was his fault.
Because the mask worked.
Far too well.