Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Like planets devoid of orbit, the irises of Dean Winchester's eyes are still and unseeing. They stay open, unblinking, disquieting, like the eyes of dead things. The green of them is always startling, but without the light behind them, they look wrong, glassy, just cold dead rocks floating in the vastness of space. 

Dean isn't dead. Not yet, anyway. 

Sam leans his elbows on the mattress, the mattress that faithfully remembers the shape of Dean, looking at his brother's slack face and prone form. Sam wears a lot of his sadness on his face these days. He's been different, ever since Hell. Who wouldn't be? Dean was different after Hell too, and he's different now, has been different ever since the mark, even now that it is no longer burning on his skin. But where Sam let all that pain and trauma turn him into something new, Dean was still trying to stuff all of that back into the same box of emotionally constipated, repressed self-hatred he'd been carrying his whole life. 

That box had never held together especially well to begin with. 

And isn't that more or less how they've ended up in this predicament in the first place? 

"How much time do we have?" Sam doesn't take his eyes away from Dean's face as he throws the question over his shoulder. 

"A few hours, I think." Cas' rough voice is emotionless, but Sam knows. 

Sam knows better than anyone, maybe even better than Dean himself, how much Cas cares. 

"Cas, this is taking too long." 

Cas is silent where he stands behind him, looming over his shoulder like the watchful guardian that he is. 

"I'm going in after him." 

"No." Cas steps up and places a hand on Sam's shoulder. It's not unwelcome, but these little touches of friendship and comfort are always a little awkward with Castiel. It seems normal and natural between Cas and Dean, Sam can see that, and he assumes that Cas is applying that logic of physical contact to Sam, because whatever it is that he has with Dean is his baseline for all human relationships. And Dean is too stupid about Cas to recognize that and teach him the things he needs to know about building other relationships. 

Dean being dense about Cas is also kind of how they got here, come to think of it. 

"Sam, I can't let you do that." 

Sam nods. "Yeah, I know. But we don't have much choice." 

Cas is silent for a long moment. Then: "I'll go." 

Sam looks away from Dean's face to peer up at Cas. He's still gazing past Sam, towards Dean's bed, his face drawn in a weariness that has become second nature. 

"It should be me. Dean would want it to be me." 

"Dean would want you to be safe. If I put you under and send you through into his head, I can't protect you." 

"I'll be fine," Sam says. This is almost always a lie, but he's used to saying it. "We've taken bigger risks." 

"You may be. But your own consciousness might influence Dean's, and if he can't sort through his own memories, his real memories, he won't be able to get back. If your memories get tangled up with his…" Cas shakes his head. "Both of you could be lost in there." 

"And your memories wouldn't interfere?" 

"No," Cas says shortly. "I'm an angel. I'd have to translate my memories out of their true form for them to even be compatible. They won't touch Dean's." 

Sam rubs his left hand with his right, his thumb automatically pressing into the scar on his palm, the point of pain that kept him tethered to reality for a long time. 

He knows his own mind. There are things in there that aren't… sane. There are memories in the darkness of the cage that could rip the most stable person to shreds. There's the demon blood, even now, in his veins. He will always be unclean. 

And Dean is not, of all things, stable. Not now. Not for a long time. 

There is the problem of Dean, though. Waking Dean, that is. Sam is pretty sure Dean will never forgive him if he lets someone else go traipsing through his head. True, he'd hate the idea of Sam in there, but they'd work through that. Sam knows the darkness is deep in Dean too, but they'd work through whatever Sam saw. 

Or at least, Sam would work through it, and Dean would drink and pretend it never happened. 

It took Sam a long time to let go of his anger about Dean giving permission for an angel to use him as a vessel. This is Cas, so it's different, but Sam knows better than anyone, afterall, how much Dean would hate the idea of Cas seeing his darkest secrets. 

It's a cruel spell. 

If Dean had just listened in the first place… but no, he had to go charging into that sanctuary and tip the angelic tripwire, and now here they are with Dean's consciousness trapped in some hell dimension while his body slowly loses its life-force. 

Seven Stars and Seven Lampstands and Seven Doors. It's all very Revelations-End-of-Days metaphorical, which irritates Sam on another, shallow level because, well, been there. Done that. 

True, the sanctuary hadn't been touched in a century, so it's not surprising no one had updated their curses to be a little more on top of the zeitgeist, but Sam's had enough of the damn apocalypse to last a lifetime. 

Through seven doors shall he pass, and not until the last will he make of himself a man worthy to set foot in my kingdom. Glory be to he who slays the demons of his own making, and woe to the guilty, who shall be damned to live out of the light. Sorrow to the weak of will too, for he shall find the doors as unpassable as the guilty, and he too shall languish in the shadows. 

But he who conquers, he who comes through unto the Truth beyond the last door, to him will I give Myself. Hear me, for I am the Lord your God. 

It reminds Sam of Osiris, of Dean being judged and found wanting. At least with Sam there, maybe he'd had a fighting chance of seeing himself as worthy of something. If Cas is right and each of the seven doors is a test, a level of personal hell, of confronting one's worst memories and darkest secrets, then Sam is not sure Dean will make it. He should have woken up on his own by now. 

"Come on, Dean," Sam mutters. But he knows, has known in a spike of cold dread to his very marrow, that the one enemy his brother cannot beat is himself. 

Cas abruptly lets go of Sam's shoulder and shrugs off his trenchcoat. He takes off his shoes, then his jacket and tie. 

"Uh, Cas," Sam says as Castiel moves around to sit on the other side of the bed, where there is more space. "What are you doing?" 

Cas blinks, looks at Sam quizzically as if his actions are obvious. "I don't normally sleep, but I understand that it's customary not to wear one's outer clothes in bed. When I go under, I will be as unconscious as Dean. So. I didn't want to be rude and wear shoes to his bed." 

Cas is as bad as Dean. 

Well, no. He's not. It's not his fault he's clueless about this sort of thing. But hell, if he's about to go climbing into Dean's brain, Sam isn't going to stop him getting in bed with him. 

Besides, if Dean isn't completely broken when he comes back, his utter panic about it will be a little bit delightful to watch. 

The two of them are fools. 

"What should I do?" Sam asks. 

"Set a timer for two hours. If I haven't pulled Dean out by then, you can try this." Cas finds an old takeout container on the floor and hastily sketches a symbol onto the side, using one of Dean's bedside knives to carve it in. Sam takes the box, looking at the Enochian symbol for calling. Return. The blowing of the horn. 

Cas shrugs. "It might work." He doesn't sound hopeful. 

"Okay. Yeah."  

Sam puts the box aside and pulls out his phone, setting a timer for two hours. Cas lays down, not touching Dean, but level with him. 

"Hey, Cas, wait." Sam clears his throat. "Uh. Look, whatever you see…" 

Cas' eyes are understanding. "I know Dean won't like it, Sam. But I'm not afraid of his secrets." 

Sam wants to tell him that maybe he should be, maybe they should all be a little afraid of Dean's nightmares. But Cas has already turned slightly towards Dean. He places two fingers to Dean's temple, and then Cas is out. His hand slips back to the bed, and his eyes are closed, but there is the same unnatural stillness in his body. He has gone in search of the darkness. 

***

Dean is sitting on the cold, mildewy floor with his back to the wall. It's gloomy in this circular room, the light flickering from slits far above him in the high ceiling. His fingertips are cold, but he doesn't tuck them in his pockets or do anything else about it. He just keeps bouncing a blue plastic ball against the floor, staring into the middle distance. 

There are seven doors in this room. One of them has an X burned above it and the door is turned black. The others are innocuous. Where the X is over the first door they are numbered 2-7. 

Dean gets it. 

He's just not going to do it. 

They can't make him. He's fine where he is, thanks. 

The only sound in the room is Dean's breaths and the ball hitting the floor. It's gloomy and dank and smells like mold, but Dean's seen worse. 

When there is that all too familiar rustle, and Castiel suddenly appears in front of him, Dean startles, grabbing the ball instinctively, the only item he has at his disposal. 

"Cas?" 

"Hello Dean," Cas says, looking around the room, taking it in. 

"The hell are you doing here?" Dean scrambles to his feet. He was pretty sure this was a nightmare. Positive, even. It couldn't be real. 

But… right. Cas has visited his dreams before. 

"You were taking too long," Cas says bluntly, turning back to Dean. 

Cas is glowing a little bit. Like Dean can see his grace here. 

"Taking too long?" Dean frowns. "Come on, I've been here like…" He was going to say "ten minutes", but now that Dean thinks about it he has no idea. Going through the first door and what was on the other side of it, sure, that might have taken a little time, but he's only been back in this room for a short while. He thinks. Maybe. 

"It's been five hours, Dean." Cas' voice is low. "We're running out of time." 

Dean remembers hitting the magical tripwire in that damn sanctuary, the near-electric current that went up his body. He'd felt himself going rigid before he hit the floor, and then he'd opened his eyes here. 

Dean can put two and two together. He knows about getting trapped in one's own head, about African dream root and Djinns and all the other crap that likes to go waltzing through the tulips of the mind. 

He'd recognized that he would, eventually, have to go through those other doors. He just… 

"Dammit," Dean mutters. He runs a hand through his hair reflexively. "How much time is left then?" 

"I'm not sure. Another couple of hours, I would guess." 

Cas sees the first door and frowns, taking in the X and the way the wood of the door is streaked with black burns, the way the handle is smeared with soot. 

"What was behind the first door?"

"Hell," Dean says shortly. Cas nods and fixes the uncanny blue of his eyes back on Dean. 

"You understand what you have to do," Cas says. It's not a question. "Seven doors, seven demons of your past, as it were, to conquer, before you can "set foot in the kingdom of the Lord."" Cas is getting better at air-quotes. "If you don't, you'll stay trapped here and your body will die." 

Dean swallows. He knows all this. "So what, I hit some angel booby trap that wants to give me exposure therapy? Is that it?" 

Dean's trying to get pissed, because the anger is usually what gets him through. 

"I suspect the intention was for those who are guilty to face their crimes, to prevent anyone unworthy from entering the sanctuary," Cas says mildly. "Tedious and a bit arcane, but not ineffective." 

"Great." Dean runs his hand through his hair. "Just great." 

"Dean, you are not one of the unworthy." Cas steps closer to him, too close. "I know you're afraid to face yourself, but-" 

"Whoa, hey, Dr. Phil." Dean puts his hands up and backs out of Cas' space. "None of that crap. I'm fine. I'll do it. I just didn't realize the time lapse, okay?" 

Cas' expression is one of gentle understanding, so Dean looks away, stares blankly at door number two. 

"I'll come with you," Cas says. He says it the way he always does, like it's obvious and inevitable. 

"No," Dean says. "No way. Thanks for popping in, Cas, but you gotta get out of my head. I don't need you here for this." 

"I'm sorry, Dean. I know these are your secrets, but you aren't…" Cas stops. 

And there's the anger Dean was looking for. 

"I'm not what?" Dean's voice is dangerous and low. "Not strong enough? It's my own goddamn head, Cas! It's all crap I'm already living with." 

"But not crap you've dealt with." Cas isn't trying to be cruel, with his blunt, matter of fact words. Dean knows that, but it still stings. "You keep it all locked up and you never… You never let anyone help you." 

"I don't need you to hold my hand," Dean snaps. "I'm fine." 

"No, you're not." Cas looks at him sadly, almost those same puppy-eyes that Sam gives him. "I'm sorry," he says again. "Sam wanted to be the one to come, but the spell… it might have been compromised by another human consciousness. And we don't have time for complications. We need to move, Dean." 

If he's being honest with himself, which he isn't, Dean's not sure if having Sam here would have been any better than having Cas. Sam already knows most of the worst parts of Dean, but not… not everything. And if he had to know, okay, they could get through that, but Dean doesn't want Sammy to watch. There are things he's always protected Sam from - not just the monsters in their lives, but the harsh, unsympathetic world of poverty, pain, and hard choices. 

He can't stand the thought of Cas seeing him at his lowest, his most broken, but at least Cas isn't his kid brother. At least Dean knows intellectually that Cas has been around for millenia and seen all the filth that humanity has to offer. It's nothing Cas hasn't seen before. So what if Cas can't look at him after this? So what if he knows that Dean… 

Dean swallows. "I'm serious, Cas. I need you to leave." 

Cas sighs. He shoves his hands into his pocket and gets that distinctly shifty look on his face. Cas is a terrible liar. 

"Cas?" 

"I… Uh." 

Dean swears. "What the hell did you do?" 

"I'm afraid I can't leave. I'm in your head, and right now there are no exits here." 

"Dammit, Cas! You shouldn't have come. If I get you killed…" 

"You're not going to get me killed, because you're going to walk through those doors." Cas gestures at the six unopened doors. "And we're going to deal with whatever's behind them. Just… let me help you, Dean." 

It's not that simple. It's never been that simple. 

No one hates you as much as you do , Crowley told him once. That's Dean's whole M.O. right there. His two fundamental truths are that it is his job to save everyone, and that no matter how many people he saves it will never change the fact that he is 90% crap. 

Dean knows who he is. Yeah, he's done some good for the world, okay, he gets that. But deep down? The person he is inside is still worthless. Dean will never be good enough, never be any kind of role model. He's never going to shake that, do if that's what this whole seven trials angelic bullshit is about, then he and Cas might as well hold hands and drive off the cliff now. 

"You're not going to like what you see," Dean says. His voice comes out almost as gravelly as Cas'. He walks over to the door with the number 2 above it and puts his hand on the knob. In his other hand he's still clutching the blue ball that rolled out when he'd first open this door. The ball that had made him shut it again immediately, his heart beating so fast it made him dizzy. 

Dean hesitates another second, turns halfway back. "Cas. Just..." 

"I would never tell anyone your secrets without your permission," Cas says. "Not even Sam." 

Dean swallows again. His mouth is dry. 

He doesn't say anything else, just pushes the door open. 

They're in a motel. It's like every other motel Dean's ever been in. The walls are tan, the baseboards off-white. The heater rattles noisily in the corner. It smells like cleaning agent and stale smoke. They still let you smoke in most rooms in 1983. 

Four-year-old Dean is sitting with his back against one of the tan walls. He's still in his pajamas, his hair disheveled, his eyes red-rimmed. 

Dean - the now Dean - drops the blue ball back into four-year-old Dean's hands, where it belongs, and backs up to the farthest edge of the memory. He leans back against the window and crosses his arms over his chest. Cas stays by his side, and Dean doesn't look at him. 

Instead, Dean's eyes go to the bed, and… 

Dean's heart breaks. He knows that's not the point of this memory, knows what's coming, but Sammy is laying in the middle of the twin-mattress, wrapped up in a blanket like a baby burrito, with a motel pillow propped on other side of his tiny body to keep him from rolling too far in his sleep. 

God. Six months old. He's so small. So innocent. Dean feels exactly the rush of love and anxiety he used to feel looking at his brother. He'd die to protect this baby. He'd do anything to keep him safe. That was his job. 

It's so weird to see baby Sam. Dean wants to pick him up and hold him, and that makes him feel all kind of weird paternal things he doesn't know what to do with. It makes his chest ache to think what this baby is going to go through, all of the ways that Dean is going to fail him. 

Dean's not going to cry. They haven't even gotten to the climax of this memory yet. He's not going to cry from the love he feels for his sleeping baby brother. 

Four-year-old Dean is bouncing the blue ball off the wall across from him, in the space between the two beds. A deputy at the police station had handed Dean the ball while they were waiting, while dad was back in a room with the deputy. Dean could hear his father crying from down the hall. He'd held his brother tight in his arms and shushed him, the way he'd seen mom do a hundred times. 

Now-Dean looks at his younger self properly. He feels a mixture of protectiveness and pity, and maybe some small amount of disgust. He was so young. He doesn't remember ever being this young. 

Dean glances at Cas. Cas is also staring at four-year-old Dean, but his expression is… 

Cas is looking at the younger Dean with undisguised wonder. It's a gentle sadness, an aching sweetness. It's not gross or creepy or anything, Dean knows well enough what that looks like, it's just… tender. Cas is looking at Dean the way Dean must have been looking at Sam. It's the way you look at someone you love when you think they're not watching. 

Dean does not possibly know what to do with that kind of affection, so he ignores it. Cas is a weird dude. Maybe it's just like wondering what an adopted dog looked like when it was a puppy, or something. Maybe he's also feeling protective. 

If so, Dean thinks with a full sense of the irony, too bad for him. 

There's a sound of the toilet flushing in the motel bathroom, the water running in the sink, and then John emerges. 

He looks wrecked. His eyes are bloodshot and the purple circles beneath them are half-moon bruises. The last twenty-four hours have aged John well into the next decade. He looks completely untethered. 

The old sense of self-preservation nudges at now-Dean, that internal barometer he developed for anticipating his father's moods. He wants to yell at his younger self to take Sammy and go outside, just let John sleep it off in peace. But of course this is just a memory, and young Dean is clueless. 

John goes to the empty bed and sinks onto it. He looks like a shell of a man. It's worse than Dean remembers, actually. He can see the shaking in his dad's hands, see the lines deepening in the circles beneath his eyes, see the way he is looking at his empty hands like he doesn't know what to do with them. Only Sammy has gotten any sleep. 

Dean doesn't remember his dad changing this fast. 

Four-year-old Dean is still bouncing the ball off the wall as John lowers his face into his trembling hands. 

For an indeterminable stretch of time, there is just the creaking noises of the older heater and the thud of the ball. 

"Dean," John says at last, his voice flat. "Cut it out." 

Four-year-old Dean looks up. His hair is shaggier than it's ever been since. His face is so… it's not innocent, not any more. That change happened just as fast for him. But it's still too trusting. 

Young Dean's hands tighten on the ball. The repetitive movement was an act of self-soothing. It was a grounding thing. He struggles for a few minutes, squeezing and squeezing his fist around the ball, before the oppressive silence in the room is too much for the four-year-old and he starts bouncing the ball again. 

John stands up, and now-Dean thinks how stupid his younger self was not to recognize the warning signs, not to just curl up in the corner and make himself as small and quiet as possible. 

"Did you hear me when I said to cut it out?" John rips the ball out of young Dean's hands and throws it across the room. It thuds in to the door louder than anything Dean had done. 

John backhands him across the face and it makes an audible *smack* that rings in the small room.

"When I give you an order, you follow it. You understand me, boy?" 

John's hand leaves a red mark on four-year-old Dean's face, and the boy reaches up to touch his cheek, staring up at his dad with his eyes wide. 

John shakes him by the shirtfront. "I said, do you understand me?" 

"Y-yes, sir," four-year-old Dean says, and, God, it's a child's voice. Now-Dean winces, hearing it. It's the voice more than anything that makes him realize how young, how fucking vulnerable he was. 

It's the day after mom died. It's the first time John's ever hit him. 

From the bed, Sammy starts crying. 

The memory dissolves, twists, reshapes itself into another motel. This one has off-white walls and tan baseboards. 

Dean sucks in a breath. He knows what this is too. There's no time between scenes to process and he's… 

Four-year-old Dean had looked so confused, like he hadn't expected to be hit, like he didn't even understand why it had happened, what he'd done to deserve it. And adult Dean can't… The thing is, adult Dean can't just watch a child get hit and say he had it coming. Not even when he's that child. 

He's always seen his memories from the inside looking out, always conceptualized himself as one continuous person, one long running series of fuck-ups. He doesn't think of himself as a child. He never has. 

Outside looking in, it's harder to deny that that Dean was just a boy. It was just a ball. 

"What happened after?" 

Dean jumps. He forgot about Cas. Cas is still standing at his side in this second motel where, currently, a ten-year-old Sam is laying on one bed reading a book, and a fourteen-year-old Dean is fieldstripping guns and cleaning knives, tossing them back into a giant green duffle bag as he finishes them. 

"What?" Dean says, distracted. 

"After the last memory," Cas says gently. Dean grits his teeth. He doesn't like people being gentle with him. It feels too much like pity, or like they think he's fragile. And maybe Cas does think that, since he and Sam clearly didn't think Dean could get through this on his own, but fuck him. Fuck them both. Dean's not a child anymore. He doesn't need anyone to pat him on the back and tell him he's a good little boy. This was his life. He's used to it. 

"After Sammy woke up, I couldn't get him to stop crying. I thought maybe he was hungry, I sure was, so dad went out to the store to pick up baby formula." Dean had forgotten about this part but he remembers now. He laughs bitterly and rubs the back of his neck. "He, uh, he came back with baby formula and two six packs. It took him two days to think about food." 

Dean had been so hungry, but after that first night he wasn't going to bring it up. He'd just made sure Sammy was fed and tried to ignore the new sensation of his gnawing stomach. 

Cas' expression is understanding. Kind. He looks about two seconds away from asking "And how did that make you feel?" 

Dean turns away from him, looks out at the room. He can still feel Cas' eyes on him. "Stop looking at me, man." 

"My apologies about my eyes," Cas says. 

Dean thinks this is Cas being sardonic, but it's always hard to tell with him. 

Fourteen-year-old Dean really does a number on now-Dean. He doesn't have any pictures from around this time - why would he? - and he forgot that he looked like that. 

Fourteen-year-old Dean is in the middle of a growth spurt so he's all stretched out and kind of skinny, no real meat on him yet. Too much running, not enough calories. His t-shirt is too big and it hangs loosely off his shoulders which are beginning to broaden out, but only just beginning. The baggy shirt only makes him look smaller, but now-Dean remembers why he'd started wearing his dad's old shirts around this time, why he'd been trying to hide his body. 

Fourteen-year-old Dean is almost obscenely pretty. Now-Dean gets it in a way that he hates, a way that turns his stomach to think about. He remembers something else he hasn't thought about in years, the grown man with liquor on his breath who'd stopped Dean outside a bar where he was working his pool hustle, stopped with a hand on his shoulder, crowding his space, and said "Look at you, sweetheart, you shouldn't be allowed ." 

Dean had put an elbow in his gut and gone on his merry way, but… he gets it. He hates it, but his fourteen-year-old self was all eyelashes and big green doe eyes, all freckles and a smooth jawline. His cheeks are hollow and he has this kind of permanent haunted look to him, which just makes him a little tragic. His face is too feminine, his torso too lean. Now-Dean hates it. He hates it. He hates seeing himself like this. God, it makes him want to slap himself, yell at him to be more of a man, to get harder before the world makes that choice for him. 

But… It's… 

That's John's voice, now-Dean realizes with a sinking, somewhat guilty feeling. John's voice telling him to toughen up - as if this fourteen-year-old Dean isn't tough just because his face looks like that. As if fourteen-year-old Dean hasn't killed all sorts of monsters single-handed, hasn't proven himself in a fight over and over again. As if fourteen-year-old Dean isn't making nearly every damn sacrifice in the books for his family at this point. The things he's done, the things he's seen… 

Fourteen-year-old Dean is pretty, yeah, and he has his weaknesses, but he's not weak. 

Dean can't help glancing at Cas to see what his reaction is to this teenage-twink version of Dean, but Cas' expression is just a sadder version of the tenderness he wore around four-year-old Dean. He looks straight through young Dean exactly the way he looks through now-Dean, sometimes. Like he can see every crack in his soul. 

Dean turns away hastily. Still, he can't help the slight relief that Cas doesn't seem disgusted or, worse, desirous. 

Not that he would, not that he's ever... but Dean's getting thrown around in the emotional whiplash of these memories and he can't… 

John bangs into the motel room from outside and fourteen-year-old Dean sits up straighter automatically. Sam looks up from his book, his face wary. 

"Pack up," John says. "Demon's exorcised, but we have a bogie on our tail. One of the cops I talked to earlier followed me from the bar. Lost him before I got here, but it's time to change plates and shake." 

Fourteen-year-old Dean hastily shoves the last of the weapons into the duffel bag and sweeps up the clothes on the floor from yesterday. John rifles through the bag he left on the nightstand and pulls out a set of Arkansas license plates. 

"Get your toothbrush, Sammy," Dean says to his brother, who hasn't moved from the bed. Sam is frowning down at his book, but at Dean's words he sighs and tosses it into his own bag. While he's grabbing their toiletries, Dean turns to their dad to ask him something, and that's when he realizes. 

Now-Dean can't smell John's breath from where he and Cas are standing near the motel room window, but Dean remembers. He remembers it was whiskey practically coming out of John's pores. And hey, Dean's no saint. A couple of beers, yeah, he knows it's bad, knows it's not safe, but he's made the calculated risk to drive tipsy before. 

If it had just been beer on his dad's breath… if he hadn't just said "followed me from the bar," which meant he'd just come from drinking, which meant, from Dean's calculations over the years, that not only was John still drunk, he likely hadn't even hit the worst of it yet. 

Fourteen-year-old Dean quietly takes the Arkansas plates while John is zipping up his bag, and when Sam comes out of the bathroom he hands them to him. 

"Hey, Sammy, go out and change the plates, would you? Dad and I will be right out." 

Sam narrows his eyes at his brother. Dean pushes his shoulder, rolling his eyes and keeping an easy smile on his face. "Go on, bitch. We'll be there in a sec." 

Sam goes, reluctance clear in the way he shoots a glance back over his shoulder at the door. Now-Dean's heart aches for this Sammy too. Young Dean ignores him. 

When it's just him and John, fourteen-year-old Dean turns to him and says, casually, "Hey, dad, could I drive today?"  

John's checking the messages on one of his burner phones. He doesn't look up. 

"Maybe later, Dean. We can switch when we outside Ohio. I wanna be sure we're not followed." 

Fourteen-year-old Dean takes a deep breath. He glances through now-Dean and Cas, looking out the window toward where Sam is screwing on the new plates to the Impala. Not at all suspicious activity for a ten-year-old. 

But now-Dean knows what his teenage self is thinking: Sam will be in the car. 

It's the only reason he does it. It's the only reason teenage Dean does anything. He would have let John drive them off a cliff long ago if he wasn't looking out for Sam. 

"I can make sure we're not tailed. It… it'd be good to have the practice." 

"I said no, Dean." 

Fourteen-year-old Dean visibly braces himself. He knows what's coming, and he does it anyway. He's pretty, but he's tough. 

"Please, dad. Let me drive." 

John looks up, finally. His face gets blotchy when he's mad-drunk. "Excuse me?" 

Fourteen-year-old Dean meets his gaze for a minute before dropping his eyes to the carpet. 

"You've had a long day," he mumbles. "I just thought… it'd give you the chance to - to get some rest." 

"You got something you want to say, boy?" 

John's eyes are glossy but burning. 

Dean doesn't take his eyes off the floor. "How much did you have to drink, dad?" 

The blow hits Dean across the face and he staggers back, putting up an arm instinctively so that the next one cracks against his bare forearm. 

"You think I don't know when I'm safe to drive? You think I'd put my family in danger for something so stupid?" John's neck and face are red. "You think you know better than me? Huh? Well, do you? Answer me!" 

"No, sir." Dean's mouth smarts where his dad's fist connected. "I just… I just…" 

"You just? What? You fall in line." 

Fourteen-year-old Dean swallows and straightens his spine. "Dad-" 

John pushes him hard against the wall. Another blow lands on his arm. And then one to his gut. Dean doubles over, putting up his hands simultaneously. 

It's nauseating to watch. 

Now-Dean sneaks a glance at Cas, because he can't help it. He's surprised to see that Cas' own fists are clenched at his sides, the tenderness gone from his face. He's glowing a little more brightly, like his grace is bursting to be used. 

It's… 

Dean doesn't know how to feel about Cas wanting to protect fourteen-year-old Dean from John. Four-year-old Dean was one thing, but he's a teenager here. He's not helpless.  

But then again, what was he supposed to do? Fight back? Shoot his dad? Risk his dad ditching him somewhere for good, taking Sam and driving away forever? 

"Dad, please." 

Now-Dean hates that too, hates the desperation in his younger self's voice, the begging. He was always begging John for something - to stop, to stay, to come back. 

John stops, his hand still raised, panting, looking down at Dean like he's vile - no, worse than that, like he's nothing. 

The silence hangs between them for a long time, Dean keeping his palms spread out before him, submissive, tensed and waiting. 

Then John swears. He fumbles in his pocket and throws the keys to the Impala at Dean's chest. Dean catches them instinctively and looks up at John, but his dad doesn't meet his eyes. He steps back from Dean and shakes his head. 

"I'm gonna use the bathroom. Have the car started and ready to go." John's voice is clipped, empty. He pauses at the door to the motel bathroom though and says "You look just like your mother, you know." 

Now-Dean doesn't have to look at his own face to know that that one bites deep. It's a confused flush in his chest because he loves mom, knows that dad still loves mom, but it's just another way John has pointed out how effeminate Dean is. And John has pointed it out plenty. 

Fourteen-year-old Dean doesn't respond. He waits until the door to the bathroom shuts, then hurries out to the Impala. 

Now-Dean and Cas follow him - Dean doesn't really make the choice to do it, he's just pulled along with his own memory. When young Dean gets into the driver's seat, Cas and now-Dean slide into the backseat next to Sam. 

Sam is glaring daggers at fourteen-year-old Dean's reflection in the rear view mirror. Dean glances up and notices, half-turns in his seat while he's starting the car. 

"What?" 

"You're bleeding," Sam says flatly. He looks frankly murderous. The Dean sitting next to the memory of his ten-year-old brother in the backseat can't help but feel a surge of affection for him. 

Fourteen-year-old Dean momentarily adjusts the rear view mirror, taking in his split lip and the red mark across his cheek that is going to fade into a bruise by that afternoon. He runs his tongue over the drop of blood on his bottom lip. The taste of iron is familiar, par for the course. 

"Hey, no biggie," Dean says, because he can't hide this one from Sammy, can't say it happened on a hunt or that he tripped or walked into a door. He's used all those excuses and more over the years, but Sam knows more than he should. 

Sam leans forward, the anger in his face mixed with something desperate enough to make now-Dean's heart ache for him. 

"Dean, let's go. Now. Drive off now, before dad comes out." 

Fourteen-year-old Dean turns to the backseat again. "What? Are you crazy?" 

"Yeah, maybe, but let's do it. Come on. We've got a full tank of gas, we can get a few states over and then pick up a new car. We could do it, now, today." 

"Sam, Jesus, what are you talking about? We're not gonna just ditch dad." 

" Dean ." Sam's voice is urgent, exasperated, touched with pleading. "We should do it. We should just go. Come on, please, just drive." 

"You're out of your mind, man. We're not bailing on dad." 

"So what, you're just going to let him beat on you forever?" Sam sounds somewhere between close to crying and like he might like to punch Dean himself. "We can get out of here. For good." 

Dean turns back around in the driver's seat, shoulders squared. He touches two fingers to his swollen lip. 

"He doesn't mean anything by it," he says quietly. 

"Jesus fucking christ, Dean." 

It's almost funny to hear ten-year-old Sammy swear like that.  

"Hey, Sammy, it's fine. Okay? Really, I'm fine. I've had a lot worse. Remember last month, that alligator thing in Georgia? That thing's tail could pack a punch." Dean smiles in the rearview mirror. It stretches his cut lip, but Dean ignores the sting. "Come on, cheer up, Sam. How about in the next town, you and I grab some grub, find the nearest woods, and just go for a hike. Huh? No hunting, no target practice, we'll just do your hippie-dippie one-with-nature thing." 

Sam slumps back into his seat as John comes out of the motel room, bag slung over his shoulder. 

John gets into the passenger seat, not looking at Dean. He notices the way Sam is glaring at the back of his head though. 

"Something the matter, Sam?" 

Sam meets Dean's pleading eyes in the rearview mirror again and his shoulders sag, the defiance going out of him, anger turning to bitterness. 

"No sir," he says. 

Dean pulls out of the motel's parking lot. 

"Don't," now-Dean says as the memory blurs again. He can feel the way Cas is looking at him. 

"I didn't say anything," Cas says. 

"Yeah. Keep it that way." 

Dean’s not stupid. He knows he’s got daddy issues or whatever. He knows, in an intellectual, adult sort of way that John’s treatment of him had sometimes crossed over into abuse. He knows that if he had a kid, he wouldn’t raise them like this. 

“He was doing the best he could,” Dean says, as the air around them turns hot and arid, a shimmering asphalt parking lot forming beneath their feet. The words come out rote, the line he’s said a hundred times. Dean believes it. In his heart of heart, he truly believes John was doing everything he could to protect his boys, raise them right. It’s just… 

How do you say that a parent’s best wasn’t good enough? 

Dean can practically hear Cas biting his tongue. 

No one is supposed to see this shit. This is supposed to be part of the whole Dean Winchester package, the quiet tragic mystery, the backstory of unsaid trauma, the understanding that he is a skin suit wrapped around some nameless darkness. You peel back those layers, and Dean’s not the troubled hero anymore. When you actually get to it, his trauma isn’t interesting. It isn’t entertainment. The things that made him the way that he is, they’re just… 

If Dean is supposed to lay all of his fucking emotions out for this place, if he’s supposed to resolve everything that’s ever gone wrong in his past, then they are shit out of luck. There is no amount of time that is going to be enough for him to come to terms with it all. 

It takes Dean a second to realize where they are this time, and his gut churns. Past the parking lot, he can see the orange-tinted sand and the green dots of cacti poking up from the unfriendly ground. 

“Okay,” Dean says, turning his head up to the big blue sky above them. It’s hot as hell, even in this memory-scape. “I get it, okay? What do you want me to say? I didn’t deserve to get beat up? Fine, I get it. Next issue, please.” 

Nothing happens. He didn’t really expect it to, but it was worth a shot. Anything to avoid… this. 

“How did you get out of the last one?” Cas asks. He’s looking around in interest, apparently unphased by the heat, even in his trenchcoat. 

A sixteen-year-old Dean is leaning against the trunk of the Impala, twisting his hands together. He’s filled out a little in the last two years. He’s still too pretty for a hunter, but his jawline is sharp and has a little stubble, his shoulders broader, his muscles bigger. His hair is cropped short, normally it’s mussed in the front with gel, but it’s clear this Dean hasn’t showered in a few days and his hair is lank and greasy. There are shadows under his eyes. The sun in this place has given him more freckles than usual. They stand out on his face and hands, little constellations from spending so much time outside the last few days, searching. 

Now-Dean takes a deep breath. He’s distracted by this Dean. This Dean is much closer to how he remembers himself, how he still sees himself sometimes. He’s always thought of this Dean as fully grown, fully capable of handling himself, handling anything. But outside, looking in, he can see the hollowness in him, the fear in his own eyes. 

He was just a dumb kid, Dean thinks, somewhat shocked again at the realization. Sixteen. Jesus. He’d been so fucking cocky, plastered on a persona that was so damn sure of himself. And he had been a good hunter - hell, a great hunter. Dad even let him take low-stakes hunts on his own. Dad trusted him. And that had felt… 

“I…” 

“Dean?”

Now-Dean tears his eyes away and looks at Cas instead. Cas’ eyes are steady, his expression still one of too much understanding. 

“I just…” Dean rubs his forehead. The visions of Hell behind door number one had been brutal. Everything that had been done to Dean, everything that Dean had done to others. He’d been numb at first, watching it happen, but the thing about those memories was that they were in Hell. 

Everyone knew that he’d been to Hell, been through Hell. If he woke up gasping from nightmares about it, that was something he could explain. It was something people would get. Dean isn’t okay with what happened there. He’ll never be okay with it. But the point is that it happened, and those forty years exist in a space in his head reserved especially for them. Hell was Hell, and life was life. He can compartmentalize. 

Dean doesn’t forgive himself for the things that he did. He is never going to feel absolved. But at least he can separate Hell Dean from the choices he makes in his life. A man does desperate, horrible things in eternal damnation. 

“I don’t know, man.” Dean shuts his eyes, just for a moment. “I went through it and then the door like, spat me back out into that room and I felt like, you know, it wasn’t great, but I see that shit all the time. I don’t need a magical “worst of” recap to tell me what I already know about Hell. I told you, I’m coping.” 

“And with this?” 

“With this, I… I’m…” 

This is a motif in Dean’s life; the demon version of himself that he’d dreamed of long before he’d ever become one for real calling him “daddy’s blunt little instrument”, Agent Hendrickson saying “I’m sorry your daddy touched you in a bad place,” the sad look in Sam’s eyes whenever Dean makes an offhand comment about Dad. 

Dean’s not fucking stupid. He gets why this one is different. He gets that having no one to protect him since the age of four, growing up too fast, being put into this position to be both a father and a mother to Sammy, a soldier and a replacement partner to John, he gets that this has fucked him up. This was just life, crummy, dirty, exhausting life. 

He remembers standing in an empty warehouse with Sam, talking his brother down, trying to get him to see the difference between his hallucinations and reality. That’s what all of this is. It’s real in a way that Hell could never be. It’s different. It’s in everything that he ever was, everything that he still is. Even if he could intellectualize it, how is he supposed to compartmentalize what has been the fabric of his being for almost his entire life? 

“Let’s just get this over with, okay?” Dean says, like he has any control over the memory. Cas nods, slowly, looking Dean over with his kind blue eyes. 

No one is supposed to see this. 

It’s Flagstaff, Arizona, and Sam is missing. 

Dean has looked everywhere for him. He’s stopped checking warehouses and motels and started calling hospitals and morgues. He’s stopped just short of filing a missing person’s report, because all that would do is raise questions about where the parents of this missing twelve-year-old are. 

Sixteen-year-old Dean, standing in the parking lot sweating under his usual protective layer of flannel, just got the call from John saying he was back at the motel. Dean hasn’t told him yet, couldn’t bring himself to call him over the phone and confess his failure. He’d been holding on to a desperate hope that he could find Sam, or that Sam would come back on his own. 

It’s been almost two weeks now, and Dean is pretty sure Sam’s dead. 

Why else would he leave like this? Sam has talked about running away before, yeah, but he always tried to convince Dean to come with him. He always talked about it as them both getting out. Dean can’t believe that Sam, Sam of all people, would abandon him. 

Sixteen-year-old Dean finally gets off the Impala and walks into the motel, now-Dean following numbly, Cas at his side. 

And… 

Now-Dean watches it all unfold, numb again. This is probably the worst of it, what this place has to show him. 

John Winchester is not a bad man. Dean believes that. Most of what he did was disciplinary, necessary, if hard-handed. Sometimes he was drunk, and those were the beatings that he obviously felt guilty about, the ones that maybe Dean hadn’t deserved. They never talked about it, but John always did something trying to make it up to him, giving him the keys to the Impala, taking him out shooting, letting him drink a beer with him. 

For Dean, it was the sober ones that were worse. 

John’s anger is blinding, as sixteen-year-old Dean confesses that he’s lost his little brother, his shoulders hunched, shrunk in on himself. John yells, of course, yells that Dean had one job - look after his little brother, make sure Sam was safe. How could he fuck it up? How could he fail his family like this? 

And Dean, the now-Dean, watching this happen is struck anew by how double-edged his father’s words are. Dean, unconsciously mirroring his younger self’s body language, shoulders hunched, knowing what’s coming, sucks in a deep breath. Because it’s not sixteen-year-old Dean John is yelling at. Not really. 

John comes down from the rage and fear, and instead of burning hot the way he does when he’s drunk, he becomes like ice. 

It’s evening, the air still hot and heavy in the cramped motel room, the light outside darkening by the minute. 

“We’ll start searching tomorrow on a grid, go over everything again, anywhere you missed,” he says tonelessly. 

Dean’s looking at the floor, refusing to cry, hating himself. He nods. “Yes, sir.” 

“Take off your shirt.” John’s voice is dispassionate still, devoid of any emotion. When Dean looks up, startled, his father’s face is the same blank facade. His eyes, though, are full of hate. “You heard me boy.” John undoes his belt, popping the buckle open and sliding the thick leather from his jeans. 

Dean swallows. His dad hasn’t done this in… god, it’s been years. The last time must have been when he was ten, when… when that monster had almost killed Sammy. 

Dean takes off his flannel and hangs it over the bedpost. He strips off his t-shirt too, folding it automatically. He doesn’t let himself shake. He’s not a fucking baby. He deserves this. He’s earned it. 

It’s quick and brutal. Dean stands with his hands braced against the smudgy gray motel room wall and John brings the belt down on the bare skin of his back. 

Sixteen-year-old Dean stares at the gray of the wall and sinks into the pain, keeping his damn mouth shut as he feels the burn of the strap, the bite of the metal buckle raising welts across his skin. He deserves this. This is his fault. 

It all goes to hell after that. 

Now-Dean remembers. Of course he remembers. He watches it, detached, seeing the scene as a spectator for the first time, conscious of Cas next to him. He remembers being dizzy with the pain, with not having eaten or slept in days, with how sick-to-his-stomach he is with fear about Sam, with the guilt that this is his fault, it’s his fault if Sam is dead or hurt. 

He remembers exactly how it felt when John drops the belt, panting, turning Dean around roughly. There are tears in his eyes as he shakes him. Then he’s throwing Dean to the ground with a thud, the newly formed sores on Dean’s back rippling with pain at the contact, and John is on top of him, and they’re fighting, somehow, even though Dean never fights back, even though it’s futile. Dean remembers being off-balance, nauseated, not thinking straight and his body taking over for once, fighting his dad off like he would with any other attack. But he’s seeing double, and then John is pinning him down and his large hand is wrapped around Dean’s throat, cutting off his air. 

Dean chokes, squirms, tries to gasp. 

The dizziness magnifies, and Dean’s lightheaded, his vision is going black. 

Dean thinks in that moment that John is actually going to kill him, and Dean remembers distinctly, painfully, how relief had washed over him. He’d felt such a surge of lightheaded gratefulness to his dad that, yes, this was what he deserved. If Sam was dead, Dean didn’t have any reason to go on living. If Sam was dead, then maybe if Dean died, he’d be with him. 

Living Dean, the now-Dean, chokes. He’s himself, but he can feel it like it’s happening, like he’s sixteen and hating himself, just wanting to be with his brother, happy that he won’t have to fight anymore. 

Cas’ hand hesitantly brushes his shoulder. It’s the thinnest tether, but Dean grabs on to it, tries to keep himself out of sixteen-year-old Dean’s head as he lays there pliant, breathless, choking beneath John’s tightening hand. 

John lets go. It’s sudden and Dean stays on his back, sputtering, reaching up to rub his own throat. John gets up and backs away from Dean. Now-Dean can see what he couldn’t then, that John’s hands are shaking and his eyes are wide with horror. That it’s his own horror at what he’s done, what he’s capable of. It’s his self-hatred screaming in that room too. 

The rest of it plays out. John books another room, because even though there are two beds in this one and money is always a problem, he clearly can’t even look at Dean. 

And Dean… he leaves the lights off as evening turns into night, letting the room go dark around him. He lays on top of the covers of the bed on his stomach, face in the pillow that still smells like Sam while silent tears leak down his face. 

The memory twists and turns and drops Dean to his knees on the cold, slightly damp floor of the room with the doors. 

Dean is shaking a little and he stays on his knees, even though Cas has managed to remain on his feet and he’s standing there with his hand on Dean’s shoulder. 

Dean lets himself cover his face with his hands for just a moment, just looking into the dark of his own eyelids and trying to forget the feeling of fucking serenity that his sixteen-year-old self had on that motel room floor. 

It’s not… 

Dean doesn’t want to die. He’s done it plenty already. Yeah, he’s tired. And yeah, there have been times when he’s been tired enough that he’s wanted a fasttrack out. He’s not going to deny it. 

But sixteen. Jesus christ. 

Dean has always said he was never a child, and it’s true. Hunters aren’t. He couldn’t be a kid, not with everything on his shoulders. He’s not going to deny the adult shit that sixteen-year-old Dean was dealing with either. But looking at himself like that, seeing himself for the first time, really… 

“You know,” Cas says, when Dean gives no indication of getting up or speaking. “I saw you once. Before hell, I mean. I wasn’t supposed to, we were all under strict orders not interfere with the Winchesters unless specifically instructed to do so. But I was on earth. Reconnaissance, unrelated. And I knew you were in the area. We all knew, of course, that you were something special. Someone important. “Big plans for those boys,” Anna used to say. 

“I had faith in the plan then, faith that I would know what I needed to when I needed to. But this wasn’t about need. I wanted to know more than I’d been told. I located where the famous Dean Winchester was supposed to be while I was in the area, and I turned up. 

“You must have been sixteen, seventeen. You were in a deserted parking lot in Nebraska, teaching Sam how to drive. I remember looking at you through the Impala window, thinking you were so young. The both of you. You were so… human. Sam kept pulling into the parking spaces outside the lines, but you were being patient, talking him through driving in reverse, how to account for the car’s engine. You were teasing each other, laughing so easily together. I didn’t stay long, but I remember thinking that the way you loved each other was so apparent. It was something I didn’t really understand then. Even so, I wanted to protect it, protect you. That was when I began praying for you.” 

Dean takes his face out of hands and peers up at Cas. “You never told me that.” 

“No. I didn’t think you’d like the idea of me watching you.” 

Dean grunts. He pushes himself to his feet, shaking off Cas’ hand. The Dean that Cas had pulled out of Hell wouldn’t have liked the idea, no, but that Dean didn’t really know Castiel yet. 

“Well, thanks for your thoughts and prayers, I guess.” Dean doesn’t mean it to come out sounding sarcastic, but he’s not at his best. 

Cas doesn’t wince or look offended. “I do wish that I could have done more, Dean. I -” 

Dean raises a hand. “Don’t.” 

Cas bites off whatever he was going to say and sighs instead. 

Door number two is still whole, still has its number clearly visible above the door frame. 

“Well,” Cas mutters. “One of us has to.” 

“Shut up, okay? I’m fine. Let me just…” Dean runs his hands through his hair. The silence hangs heavy around them and Dean wishes he was alone here. He thinks that, actually, Sam would have been worse than Cas, because Sam would have been pissed. Sam wouldn’t have understood why Dean wasn’t angrier, why he couldn’t just be mad at John for what he’d done. 

Sam would have been guilty too, would have blamed himself for Dean putting his neck out to protect him, Dean taking the brunt of John’s anger for Sam running away. 

“I don’t hate him,” Dean says finally, quietly, staring at the door, willing it to catch fire the way that door number one had. 

“Your father?” 

“Yeah. I mean, I don’t know, sometimes I have. I’m not a fucking idiot, okay? I understand you don’t hit your kids like that. I get it. But dad was just…” Dean swallows around the words “doing his best”. “He was doing what he thought he had to for us to survive. All of us. And we did. And yeah, yeah, sometimes it wasn’t… But I forgave him, you know? I mean, when it happened, every time, I always forgave him.” 

There’s a lump in Dean’s throat. 

“So what’s the point, you know? I forgave him at four, at fourteen, at sixteen. I can see that it’s… I get that it wasn’t great. I get that looking at it, you’d think I was a kid getting - getting abused, or whatever. But that was never how I saw myself. I saw it as heavy-handed discipline, and he was right to discipline me, most of the time, even if the way he did it was…” Dean trails off. The door is just a door. 

“Dean, can I say something?” 

Sam would definitely not have asked. 

Dean grunts, which Cas takes as an affirmation. 

“I do not think you are an idiot, first of all,” Cas says. He’s always standing too close to Dean, never quite grasping the concept of personal space. At this point, Dean just kind of allows it. 

“Nor would anyone who knows you. I… I think that you care more intensely than anyone I have ever known. And that doesn’t make you stupid, it doesn’t make you weak. It’s something bea-” Cas stops suddenly, and Dean looks at him sharply, because for a second it sounded like Cas was going to say “beautiful.” 

“It’s something brave,” Cas goes on hastily. “To love like that. And to love even after all you’ve been through. 

“Cas, come on.” 

“All I want to ask you is how you would feel about what you’ve just seen if these events were something that had happened to Sam instead of you?” 

Dean’s first impulse is to tell Cas to fuck off. That he doesn’t need Cas to be his fucking therapist. 

But… God. He thinks about the way he felt looking at baby Sammy. He’d never say it out loud, not to Cas or Sam or anyone, but it’s the most intense love he’s ever felt in his life. That desire to protect Sammy, it’s built into his very bones. He still feels it when he looks at his brother now, that engrained worry that he’s not eating enough, not sleeping enough. That Dean’s not doing enough to take care of him. 

He can’t help it. 

That’s who Dean is. 

“I…” Dean starts. He doesn’t have anywhere he’s going with that. 

Because the truth? 

The truth is that if it had come down to choosing between his dad and Sammy, Dean would have killed John to protect his brother. 

That was why Dean didn’t fight back, wasn’t it? Why he always stepped between them. Why the night that Sam left for Stanford, the night that Sam ripped the beating heart out of Dean’s chest, he’d ducked between them as they screamed at each other. Dean had thought of himself as an adult, or at least as a hunter, but Sam had been just a kid. He’d tried to let Sam be a kid. Tried to take it all on, so Sam wouldn’t see, so Sam wouldn’t hurt. 

So Sam wouldn’t hurt the way that Dean had. 

Because… fuck. 

Dean had forgiven John because it was easier, because it hurt less, because Dean had to hold on to the idea that someone loved him. It was easier, if being hurt was his fault. He’d internalized all of it, vacuum-sealed all that pain and fear and betrayal into his core.  There’s no fucking way he’s unzipping all of that after ten minutes of angelic headshrink bullshit, but… 

It’s true. It’s different outside, looking in. 

Dean would have literally shot John if he’d laid a hand on Sammy like that. He can see traces of himself in Sam, traces of Sam in himself. Maybe Dean had been a child. And if he hadn’t, maybe he’d deserved the chance. 

The door bursts into flames, and when Dean blinks the spots out of his eyes, the number two has been replaced with the same charred X.