Disclaimer: Supernatural ain't mine.

Warning: I updated with two chapters today. Make sure you didn't miss chapter 23!

There once was a boy who didn't believe in fairy tales, saving dreams for just his brother.

Life was bloody and he learned that his fists could pull him through. He learned to grin like he meant it, to wear bravado like armor, and, above all, to take care of his brother.

Then came more anger and more pain and he learned there was destiny. Somehow, he was the world's savior.

He dreamed of demons. He dreamed of angels.

Hellish memory pushed him along until he stumbled upon fiercest self-hatred. As he fell, another rose to contend with fate, even as the boy begged for it not to be true.

This is the moment the boy lost everything. His innocence fell to blade. His brother hurled himself into lies of blood and addiction. The angels swore on Heaven that the world could burn.

And then there was the moment afterwards- he saw his brother fall, as he himself floundered for air. His brother swaggered towards sharp promises, sure of decisions just as he was sure of the weaknesses within the boy.

Curses and bloodlines came into play, forcing their hands and giving them choices.

The boy was not strong enough, so his brother fell further. Straight to Hell and farther still, hand in hand with the devil.

All that was left was to fulfil promises and pretend that he could live with that.

Not that he could. Not that he ever could.

So the boy's losses made him a man. He raised a son and held dreams of caged brother close. He let war settle like deposits on the bank, there but bone deep.

He was eased into compromise, the throes of responsibility for family reverberating within him, when his brother made a shady return.

He was man as he slowly lost everything. Again. He lost family to strange brotherhood, wounds and secrets anew festering into something worse than he knew.

Then there was nothing left, for a time. Just keeping his head down and hunting.

But then the day came- he learned his brother was without a soul, and the man knew what to do.

Death raised his brother, his real brother, to Earth. They were a team again, unstoppable or damn well too stubborn to ever be stopped for long.

And life went on.

And with that, reader, I bid you adieu.