Co-Author: SPNXBookworm
Artist: venuscas
Fandom/Genre: SPN/ AU, action, drama, hurt/comfort, romance, angst, fluff, Destiel, brothertouching

Pairing (s): Dean/Castiel, references to Dean/Jo, Sam/Jess, Sam/Sarah, Sam/Madison.

Word Count: ~82k

Warnings: suicide, character deaths (including major character death), sex, torture, slavery, severe PTSD, panic attacks, nudity, violence

Summary: In an ugly world ruled by demons where humans are enslaved and hunted and killed, Dean must find his way through blood, loss and power. In this journey he realises that whether eternal or ephemeral, beauty can be found anywhere and everywhere. Sometimes it's in the laughter of his brother and sometimes in the warmth of his father's eyes. Other times, Dean remembers his mother, and how she always told him that all his wishes could come true one day, if he just thought of it hard enough.

Eventually when everything starts to crumble beneath his feet Dean is forced into a desperate fight to keep his family together. And in this journey he finds another thing that he never expected to: love in the arms of an angel.

Acknowledgements:

Hello there! There's quite a few people we'd like to thank, without whom this big bang wouldn't be the same.

Our artist venuscas. Thank you so much for claiming our fic and giving it a chance. The artwork you shared with us is amazing.

Our badass beta darcydelaney without whom this fic would be a mess. She is such a sweetheart and gave us the most amazing feedback and really helped this fic become what it is. Also, thanks for flailing right along with us while reading the fic ;)

Our awesome girl Naila/remy-areyousrs who is our biggest supporter and the most amazing friend. Thanks for listening to us flail and rant to you. Thank you for all the awesome feedback and late night squee sessions. ;) You are so freaking amazing, babe! We love you so so so much! 3

And finally, the great mods over at DeanCasBigBang on LJ on organizing this every year. You guys are absolute heroes!

Authors Note:

Well, there you have it! Quite a few people but this fic wouldn't be what it is without them :) We'd been planning this for months and we've worked really hard on it so we really hope you all enjoy! This fic is technically both our first attempt at AU, although my account will now beg to differ. However, we hope this does well! Any and all feedback is welcome. :)

Trigger warnings are mentioned above, please read them carefully. We hope our take on these idiots in love appeals to you! Thank you!

This fic has an NC-17 version which I was originally going to post here but Sanj and I have decided to keep this version tame. If you want the raunchy sex scenes (and that's the only difference), head over to AO3! :)

1. When His World Broke He Wished Upon a Star

Dean Winchester is almost four years old when he first realises that Mommy and Daddy are afraid of something. He hops off his bed, smoothes over the Batman sheets, and pads across the corridor, his eyes widening as he tries to make out what Mommy and Daddy are fighting about. They've been like this a while, and Dean is getting scared. But it's just shortly after that when he realises that his parents aren't really angry. They're scared, too.

"John," Mommy says, voice muffled by the door separating them and Dean, "I can't let anything happen to them."

"Neither can I," Daddy replies. "I love all of you, Mary, but we gotta do this."

"It's too risky!"

"Is it? Because I think this is worse. That way, we'll at least have other people around us. It's safer."

"And how do we get there?" Mommy asks him. "How do we get there without the demons tracking us? It's a day's drive from here. We can't take a train, or fly."

Demons. Dean freezes. Mommy and Daddy told him demons are bad. Dean doesn't know who they are, just that they're bad, and that he can't go outside to play much because of them.

"We don't have to go that far. I've heard there's one in Lebanon," says Daddy.

"But you aren't sure?"

"No, we could drive, and—"

"John…"

"Mary, is this the life you want for them?" Daddy asks her with a sigh. "Dean's already going crazy in here. He's an energetic kid. He needs to go outside more. We can't do this to him. And we can't do this to the baby."

Baby? Dean creeps closer, putting his ear on the door. What baby?

"If we leave," Daddy continues, "they can both lead better lives. They can get educated, be normal, and live in a little less fear. They'll have friends, Mary."

"I know," Mommy replies, "I know what you're saying but – but if I lose anyone… John… I…" Her voice breaks, and there's a sniff, and then a rustle. Dean releases a breath, and continues to listen. Mommy and Daddy sound afraid and Mommy sounds like she's crying. Why? What's going on? Will they be mad if they knew Dean has been listening all this while?

Dean is about to leave, when Daddy speaks. "So, do you wanna tell Dean that he's going to be a big brother, or should I?"

Big brother?

Dean listens to the words, feels them ring in his ears, and suddenly his eyes are filling with tears as he lets out a loud wail. The door opens, and his parents spill out, Daddy scooping Dean up and holding him close, with whispers of, "What is it, buddy?" but Dean doesn't reply.

Because he doesn't want to share Mommy and Daddy with anyone. Even if it means that he gets to be a big brother.

~o~

"Baby, look at that."

Dean follows Mommy's hand with his eyes, as she points towards the sky. It's evening; a part of the day that Dean really likes, because Mommy allows him to come out of the house and play outside for a while. Not for long, though. And Mommy is always sitting on the porch steps, keeping an eye on Dean.

Dean doesn't have many friends. Everyone he knew has moved away from the street, and the whole place is empty and quiet and boring. Even the place where Daddy gets their food is very far away, as is Daddy's work.

Daddy fixes cars. Mommy is always nervous when he leaves home to work, and is only happy when he returns. Then they sit together and eat, because Mommy won't eat until Daddy is home, and sometimes, they will drive to the hospital to check on the baby with the doctors.

Mommy's gotten really big now. When Dean smooshes his cheek against her tummy sometimes, he can feel the baby kicking at him, and it makes him giggle. He still isn't sure he wants to share his mommy and daddy with anyone, but maybe it would be cool to finally have someone to play with, and for all of his life, like Mommy and Daddy remind Dean.

Presently, Mommy puts a hand on Dean's chin and tilts his face upwards, towards the sky. "Look at that," she whispers, her nose coming once to press against his cheek, and making him smile.

It's a star. A very bright star. And Dean thinks it's cool because—

"But is…is not night, Mommy!" he explains, as he looks at it in awe.

"Exactly," Mommy replies. "And that's why it's special. Just like you."

"An' the baby?"

"The baby, too. Both of you are my special, special munchkins."

Dean giggles again. "'M… 'm no' munchkin!"

"Ohh, yes you are," Mommy chuckles, rubbing her nose against his cheek again. She twists her arms around him to pull him into her lap. "And that up there," she says, "that star, is called the Evening Star. You can wish upon it."

"Really?"

"Really, babe."

Dean leans back, and Mommy smells like ice cream and flowers and everything nice. "How?" he asks her.

"Just close your eyes and ask for it," she tells him.

"Okaaaaay." Dean shuts his eyes. "I wish the baby would go awaaaaay."

"Dean!"

"I don' wan' it," Dean pouts.

"Don't be mean, baby."

"Okaaaaaaay." Dean sniffles, and shuts his eyes again. "I wish… I wish I got apple pie for breakfist tonight."

"Break-fast, Dean. And we have dinner at night, baby."

Dean grumbles as he shuts his eyes again. "I wan' apple pieeee," he whines, already tired of this game. He hears Mommy chuckle softly as she rocks him, and he opens his eyes, to find no apple pie in front of him.

"This is st-stupid," he grumbles.

"Dean."

"Stupid," he repeats, and his mother sighs.

"Go to your room," she says softly. "I've told you not to say that word."

"Fine!" he huffs, and gets up, ignoring his mother's unimpressed face as he stomps off to his room. The apple pie isn't there either. His patience, however, pays off when the pie actually turns up for br—dinner.

At that point, he has no idea that his other wish is going to be fulfilled, too.

~o~

Sammy is born weird and cranky and stupid (Dean's not supposed to say the word out loud), on the second of May, later that year. Dean hates him at first sight. He starts to cry again at the hospital, and Daddy is scooping him up and shushing him and stroking his hair. But then Dean goes in to see Sammy a second time and takes a good look at his little face and big eyes, fixed on Dean, open and wide with awe. Daddy tells Dean that Sammy loves him. Sammy was born to love him. From that day on, Dean is very sure that he was born to love Sammy, too.

Sammy grows up quick, getting bigger and squashier, and he coos and smiles and adores Dean as much as Dean adores him. He loves it when Dean gives him his bottle sometimes. Loves it when Dean sings to him. Loves it when Dean tries to make him burp and pets him to sleep and when Dean holds him close, while Mommy watches them to see that they're safe.

Dean forgets everything when it comes to Sammy, and his baby brother's big eyes are his whole world, and he thinks he could be Batman for Sammy. He thinks he could do anything for Sammy. And he tells Sammy that, to the baby's chuckles and coos and gurgles, and he thinks that Sammy understands it all. Sammy is just Dean's best-est friend, ever. Even when he makes dirty things in his diapers.

One day, it all comes crumbling down. Dean's perfect world with Mommy and Daddy and Sammy comes falling down at all their feet when there is a hot, hot fire in their house one night. Daddy is outside Sammy's nursery, and he hands over the baby to Dean, and Dean has never seen Daddy so scared. "Take your brother outside as fast as you can!" he says. "Go, Dean, go!"

Dean runs outside, Sammy squirming and crying in his arms as he hears gunshots amidst the roar of the fire, and he can feel his lips start to tremble. The next thing he knows, there are hands on him and someone's behind him, poised to lift him along with Sam, and Daddy suddenly comes out of the house with a big, big gun and shoots. The hands are off Dean as Daddy's eyes shine with fury and he holds the gun to his side while he runs towards Dean, lifting him into the car, and starting to steer them out at a crazy speed.

Sammy whines, and Dean fusses with him on his lap, trying to put Sammy in his car seat before climbing into his own. Sammy is not ready to let go—like he knows, and Dean thinks his baby brother might be very smart.

"Daddy?" he whispers, his voice refusing to come out of his throat.

"Yeah, bud." Daddy sniffs. The anger that Dean saw in him a few minutes ago is gone and his voice is shaking a little, and Dean thinks he might be crying. He feels his own eyes burn.

"Daddy, where's Mommy?"

Daddy doesn't reply for a whole ten minutes. Finally, when he talks, Dean knows Daddy is really crying. "She's gone," he says, his voice sounding stretchy and rough. "She's gone."

Dean doesn't fully know what Daddy means, but suddenly, there's something coming up his throat, and he has to ask him to stop the car so he can be sick.

It's one of the worst days of his life. The second of November—Sammy's half birthday.

And they were going to celebrate with pie.

~o~

Dean watches Sam's puckering lips as he pulls the empty milk bottle from his brother's chubby hands. Sam coos, reaches for the bottle again, but Dean puts it aside and adjusts his baby brother in his arms, trying to hold him properly so he can burp him. Sam grumbles and smooshes his small face against Dean's stomach, unwilling to cooperate.

Dean wants to say something to him, coax Sammy to stop resisting as he lifts him, but nowadays he doesn't feel like he wants to talk. His voice is stuck there, in his throat, like everything else, and he thinks his will to talk might have gone with Mommy.

It's two months since Mommy left. Sam's bigger, squashier, and his teeth are giving him loads of trouble. He cries at night from the pain and discomfort and Daddy grumbles from his room and Dean has to climb into the crib and hold his baby brother to get him to calm down. Sam can eat other stuff now, as Daddy had told Dean in a gruff, gravelly voice. Sam can eat stuff that's not milk, and his diapers are getting grosser and grosser. Dean wonders if, apart from making all that kiddy food for Sam, Daddy's noticing his diapers too, and if they're supposed to be this gross, because a lot of the time, Daddy is just in his room, drinking something from a bottle, and then he's asleep.

"Ya yaaaaa," Sam whines as Dean tries to detach him from himself, and Dean can feel the impatience cropping up as he maneuvers Sam in his arms. He wants Daddy to handle Sam today. He wants, just this once, to be able to crawl into his own bed, and he wishes Daddy cared about him or Sam, but it doesn't look like he does. It seems like Daddy doesn't want either of them, and the whole thought makes Dean's throat tighten.

He can feel his eyes get wet but he swallows it down as he successfully hitches Sam up in his arms and holds him to his shoulder, thumping his palm softly against Sam's back. Sam snuffles a couple of times, whines, and then goes on to burp like he's doing everyone a huge favour, and Dean stumbles to his feet to put his little brother to sleep. He peers into Daddy's room, to find him slumped on his desk, a bottle beside him. Dean's breath catches in his throat.

He hurries and puts Sam in his crib because his heart is going fast, fast, fast, thumping too strong, and Daddy isn't moving. Dean climbs onto his father's lap, pushing his hands against Daddy's scratchy beard, and he can feel the tears starting to form.

Big boys aren't supposed to cry. Daddy's been saying that ever since Mommy's been gone. But what if Daddy… what if Daddy—?

The tears are falling out of Dean's eyes and Daddy's cheeks are too cool, and Daddy's too still, and Sammy's too little right now and Dean can't go on without Mommy and without Daddy and he wishes Daddy would wake up, just wake up…

A full-fledged sob escapes out of Dean's throat as he holds on to his father's neck, and the tears are falling rapidly. His breath hitches once and he sobs again, wailing, and suddenly, in his grip, Daddy jerks awake, red eyes blinking confusedly at Dean, who continues to cry. Daddy springs into action then, and Dean feels himself being gathered by strong arms, lifted, and pressed against a wide, warm chest.

"Shh," Daddy says, running a hand over Dean's hair. "Hey, hey, what happened?"

Dean can't speak between the sobs and the tears continue to pour as he tries to sniffle the disgusting snot back in. Daddy keeps stroking his hair, shushing Dean, but Dean can't stop, can't stop, so he buries his face further into Daddy's chest. "D-Don' gooo," he wails, coughing miserably as he tries to catch his breath. His voice is scratchy and itchy, probably because he's not talked in a long time, but he holds on to his father. "D-Daddy, pl-pleeease," he sobs, even as his father holds him closer and cradles him.

He feels a whiskery kiss land on his head, and his father's voice rumbles deep in his chest, against Dean's ear, as he speaks. "Not going anywhere, kiddo," he says, sounding so calm, Dean could go to sleep. "I'm gonna be right here with you and Sammy."

Dean squeezes his eyes shut against more tears, and relaxes in his father's arms, barely realising it when he falls asleep. The next thing he knows, Daddy is carrying him, and he opens his eyes briefly as he feels warm blankets pulled over him. Daddy flashes him a small, sad smile, then, strokes his hair again, and leaves.

Dean feels something light in his chest, and turns to watch Sammy snoozing peacefully in his crib as he goes to sleep, too. He knows that Daddy will never go back on his promises. He knows everything will be okay, more or less, as long as he has Sammy and Daddy with him.

~o~

As he grows up, Dean's father keeps making them move from place to place, one abandoned house after the other, and a year after his mother's death, they find themselves in a bunker, which Dean later realises is in Lebanon, Kansas. The memories of their stealthy house-hopping never leave his mind, but the first time he really sees people—other people who aren't his family—is in Lebanon.

The bunker is one of many in the area, underground, with many rooms, shared bathrooms with shower stalls (and Dean remembers thinking that he'd never seen so many showers and toilets and mirrors in one room), a large kitchen, an infirmary, target shooting arenas and sparring rooms, and other places for honing all kinds of self-defence skills, a big library, a war room, and a garage amongst other things. The elders never allow the children to wander away inside the bunker without adult supervision. They have a dungeon, too, but no one goes in there.

The bunker, and the others around it, is a part of a ghetto. It's not very easy to live like this, but they somehow manage. The ghetto, like many others, has a small school for children to study the basics, but not really much more than that. Everyone is taught how to read and write, and some of the elders will impart their limited knowledge to the children.

There are small eateries and shops and supplies, mostly raw material like grains, milk, meat, vegetables, and fruit. There is no money involved, just trade. Food is traded for protection, education, and sometimes, personal belongings. Gas and car maintenance are traded for the same. There are hunters who hunt animals and birds, people who keep cows and goats, and others who take care of small gardens for the fruits and vegetables. And that's just how it works.

It's a suffocating life. Sam grows up to become a whining, rebellious kid and Dean sometimes despises his brother for always complaining about everything, but he reckons he gets where Sam is coming from. He and Sam share a room in the bunker that's now home to them, and grow up getting to know each other like the backs of their hands. Dean knows when Sam's having a bad day or a good day. Dean knows when Sam's sad, happy, or particularly bitchy. Dean embraces all those versions of Sam with equal amounts of exasperation, adoration, and annoyance, and sees them all reflected in his little brother, and feels incredibly proud on the good days.

John can't probably win any Dad of the Year awards, but Dean thinks his father is pretty good at being a dad. He is mostly about tough love and training, but after the incident when Dean was five and he'd found John drunk, John has been doing his best. He cares and he loves and maybe he doesn't show it all, but he does. Sam, being the ever-rebellious bitch, regularly butts heads with John, and Dean ends up in the middle of them. The fights grow worse as Sam gets older, and frustrations grow higher, but there's nothing any of them can do about it, so they continue chugging on, loving and hating each other in equal parts.

Dean even accepts the cheesy, embarrassing emotion of love that he has for his family. They become his world, Sam at its centre, and when he thinks he's unlucky to be in this life, he thinks of having his Dad, and Sam, Sammy, and he thinks he might just be really, really lucky.

The stories about demons are innumerable, but the most accurate version is the one that Dean hears from Bobby, another resident at the bunker. Bobby is older; not too old, just slightly older than John, but he's seen things. He's like a second father to both Sam and Dean. He lost his wife to the demons too, has no kids, and he was regularly responsible for Sam and Dean in their littler days, when John went out on hunts.

"Demons are basically evolved people," he tells them one day, when Sam and Dean drop by his room to visit. They've always been inquisitive about this; the big, 'what-the-hell are-we-dealing-with-and-what-are-we-fighting-for?' question that their father has never been patient enough to explain.

"So they're not really smoke?" Sam asks him, pushing back his too-long hair when it falls into his eyes.

"They can change bodies, by turning themselves into smoke," Bobby replies, "but really, they need a body to survive in. Salt and iron ain't their friends. You shoot 'em up with rounds made o'those, an' they get paralysed. Then you can do what you want with 'em."

"Why?"

"Damn if I know. You can bet yer ass I tried to find out," says Bobby, "but then ya don't wanna look a gift horse in the mouth, either."

"So they're a mutation," Sam concludes. "An experiment by nature?" He always knew how to use the fancy-ass words, Dean thinks.

"If ya mean a stupid-ass experiment, yeah," says Bobby.

"So angels?"

"I was getting' there." Bobby takes off his ball cap to scratch at his hair, and continues, "Angels were made when the demon problem got to be bad enough fer all the countries of the world to forget about nuclear warfare and identify a deeper issue. The scientists poked and prodded all kinds of crap in their labs for years, until their joint experiment made it a possibility to create artificially mutated people who could gank all the damned demons. Human super-soldiers." He casts a meaningful glance at Dean, who finds that his jaw has dropped.

"They were called angels. Name's cheesy, but those were the tough sons o' bitches. An' they were all just people. People like you and me, but a little less selfish, 'cause they'd voluntarily stood up and given themselves up to this experiment. They were infused with special serum, which the scientists had named as grace."

"Grace." Sam shifts himself closer to Bobby, as though he won't be able to hear him from the one-foot distance that they have.

"Yeah," Bobby tells him. "It was this blue chemical in a glass vessel. They knifed these people's necks, put the grace in, and sewed 'em back up. What they got was them angels.

"Angels were very strong. Emotionless. Pretty much the perfect soldiers. They healed quicker, ran faster, were more intelligent, never aged, and were designed to be immortal for all regular methods of being killed. The chemical that made up grace was poisonous and it would burn the surrounding area, so when the angels were around, the only way to identify them would be to look for scarring in their necks, because of the burns and the stitches from opening them up for grace surgery, or whatever that was."

Dean swallows, and looks at Sam who looks engrossed, as though he's reading one of his geeky library books. Nerd, he thinks fondly. What Bobby is saying, though, makes sense. It makes a lot more sense than what the others have been saying about the demons and the angels.

"Anyway," Bobby continues, shifting in his place a little. "Creating those angels was genius, and we finally had this big, badass army of super humans, killing demons by thousands and battling their way through the world to protect humanity. It worked quite well, if ya ask me, but that was until the demons discovered how to kill these, well," and Bobby does air quotes, "'immortal' angels. They understood that without the grace, angels were just people. There was a bloody war, with them demons fighting hard and going for the precise angel weak-point, winning purely by manipulation and numbers until all the angels were killed, with their graces leaked outta them. You know what happened after that."

Yes, Dean knows. The angel-demon war was what had marked the start of the reign of demons on earth. Ever since, the demons have been treating humans like rats, enslaving them, overworking them and using them for entertainment, and then mass murdering them for sport. They kill most of the civilians, and the younger, particularly healthy people are spared, only to serve demons for the rest of their lives. Sometimes, demons kill these people as well, so they can use their bodies as vessels for their amorphous forms.

"Every country has 'em big-shot demons," Bobby provides. Dean knows about these demons, too. They are the ones who are completely in charge of whole countries, like dictators, and they're usually the most notorious and powerful of them all.

"There are five here, right?" he asks Bobby.

"Yeah," replies Bobby. "There's Crowley, Lilith, Abaddon, Alastair, and the biggest son of a bitch of 'em all—Azazel."

"Dad told us," Dean mutters. His throat tightens as he takes a painful swallow. "Azazel was the one who killed Mom."

Bobby sighs when he notices the rapid change in Dean's expressions. "I know, kid. It ain't easy down here. But that's what me and your daddy and so many others are fighting for. You gotta believe that."

"Us too," Dean says. "Me and Sam—" He turns to his brother, who is playing with a loose thread on his jeans. "Right, Sammy?"

"Yeah," Sam replies, without looking up. "Us too." He doesn't sound nearly as enthusiastic as Dean, though, and Dean lets it slide. Sam's still a kid. He'll know. He'll understand, some day. He'll want to fight as hard as Dean does. He'll want to hunt just as much as Dean.

Hunt. Dad and Bobby, and many others at the bunker, are hunters. That's what their dad's training Sam and Dean for. Hunters are the people who protect other people from the demons. They guard ghettos and bunkers and help civilians. Angels without grace, so to say. People who are just people. John's been insistent on training Sam and Dean to be hunters and to help other people.

"I gotta have a word with yer daddy about you two being normal kids," says Bobby. "This isn't on you and Sam. What we do is what we do, but—"

"We wanna help," Dean tells him stubbornly. "Don't tell Dad to let us go, Bobby. We wanna help too."

"Dean…"

"Please." He pauses, licks his lips and looks up at Bobby. "So… those demon camps. They really exist?" He really wants to change the subject. He knows that many of the elders at the bunker don't approve of the kids who are being trained as hunters, but he thinks they should shut up. This is his decision. His family's decision.

"You bet your ass they exist," Bobby tells him grimly, in reply to his question. "Why d'ya think we keep fightin'? We lose, and we all end up there. And those ain't yer school summer camps. Those are death camps."

Dean blows a plume of breath through his mouth and grinds the heel of his palm against his forehead. "This sucks," he says.

"Don't it?"

Dean snorts, even though he can feel the goosebumps on his arms. He knows what these camps are all about. There are four of them, owned by the five American demons; large camps where they regularly throw in people, when they go raiding secret ghettos. People are only safe from these demons as long as they stay hidden. And that is the hardest thing to achieve.

Though it's really no secret, Sam and Dean's father has confirmed with them that their mother was, in fact, killed by a demon. That's mostly the reason Dean is down with the idea of being a hunter. He wants to make sure that the other surviving families aren't affected like his. He's also down with his father's intention of being powerful and strong enough to take down the demon empire one day.

Sam's a totally different case, though. He's training as a hunter mainly and purely because he's pissed off at the demons for depriving him and the others of what could have been a normal life. He can't remember Mom, and what drives him is simply different, and Dean can't even get himself to blame Sam for it. The demons are to blame for everything. Everything that's wrong in their lives.

Azazel was the precise demon who had killed Mary. Sometimes, while training rigorously with his father, Dean replays some very colourful, gory pictures in his head of how exactly Azazel will die at his hands. John encourages Dean, gets Sam and Dean to train harder, and Dean knows Sam hates it, but he also knows that Sam often thinks of his own goals of normalcy, and goes with it.

Bobby sighs. "Don't think about it, boy. Your daddy will die before one of you is thrown in a camp."

"Doesn't mean I want anyone to end up there, Bobby," Dean tells him.

He gets a shrug in reply. "Doin' all we can to stop that, ain't we?"

"Yeah," Dean tells him, vowing to put more effort into training starting now. "We're doing all we can." He promises to himself, once again, that he will kill that son of a bitch called Azazel.

~o~

On one of the many bad nights that Sam seems to have, Dean is woken up suddenly, something akin to a sixth sense rousing him, to find Sam tossing about in his own bed, in the throes of a nightmare. Cringing at the seemingly horrific dream that his brother is having, Dean peels his blankets off him and makes his way to Sam.

"Sammy?" he calls out, shaking his brother's shoulder. He hasn't switched on a single light, and there is thick, deep silence enshrouding the bunker like a black pall. The only things that bring deep cracks into the quietness of the place are Sam's muffled moans.

Dean shakes him again. "Hey. Wake up, dude."

Sam gasps at that point, shudders, and opens an eye, scrutinising Dean in the darkness. Dean can practically see the sweat dribbling down the sides of his little brother's face, and he watches as Sam pulls his blanket up to wipe it away. "D'n?"

"Who else d'you think it could be?" Dean manages to grin, even through the worry. He pauses. "What's wrong?"

"Nightmare," Sam tells him simply, as if that weren't obvious.

"No shit, Sherlock." Dean stops there and he knows that Sam knows he wants him to talk.

"Does it matter?" Sam grumbles, at long last.

Dean crosses his arms. "It's been happening for a while."

"You—"

"Stop lying to me, asshole, I'm right here in the next bed, and I know."

Sam sighs. "It's okay—nothing… I—"

"What?"

"Just… just Mom. And that attack we carried out the other day on demons. You and me and Dad, and…"

Oh. Oh. That had been brutal. The day that demons had attacked a bunker at Wichita, and John had taken Sam and Dean along for the hunt. It had been Sam's first time hunting.

Dean remembers the unsure look that had been on Sam's face before they'd exited the car. He remembers seeing that look being replaced by determination as Sam had loaded up his gun, taken aim and shot at a particularly fierce demon who'd been all but gunning for their father's throat. Dean recalls the sense of pride he'd felt seeing Sam cover for the other hunters and use his smaller size as an advantage, dodging and weaving through danger to help those trapped or in need.

Dean definitely cannot forget the fear he'd felt when Sam had recklessly ran towards Dean to push him out harm's way, only barely escaping himself. The fight had ended in the few remaining demons fleeing from the bunker. Apart from a few scratches here and there and a nasty gash on Sam's arm from saving Dean's life, no one else was worse for the wear.

However, Dean doesn't think he'll ever forget the ringing in his ears from the loudness of the gunshots and the sense of urgency and fear of losing Sam or his father during a hunt. The images of the bloodshed and slashed up dead bodies are something that haunt his and, now he knows, Sam's nightmares every now and again.

But the training helps to keep their mind off of a lot of it. It is not only a way to get better at their job but also take out the anger and frustration at the fucked up world they now live in.

They've been training really, really hard as hunters, and harder after Bobby told Dean about all those stories. By the time Dean was ten, he was one of the best shots around at target practice. Sam was the same when he hit ten. Now, they've each mastered hand-to-hand combat too, and Sam's just touching twelve.

"I don't like this, Dean," Sam whispers, pulling Dean out of his reverie. He looks down at his brother again, who's dragging himself into a sitting position. "I don't want this life."

"Yeah, well, we can't complain, Sammy," Dean tells him. "This is as good as it gets."

"I know," he agrees. "Yeah, but…" He trails away, and he's staring at the wall opposite them, as though he's thinking hard about something.

"But?"

"I want this to be over. I want to study. I want to live somewhere else, in my own apartment, where I don't have to worry about food, and crap like that." Oh yeah, Sam's always wanted to study. Study more, know more, explore the fucking planet and all the books it has and though Dean is amused and proud that his kid brother is so ambitious, he catches something else behind Sam's confession.

"You want to leave me and Dad behind so you can go be a geek?" he asks Sam, heart thumping fast against his chest, like that night, so many years ago, when he'd found John drunk and slumped at his desk, and thought he was dead.

"I just want my own space," Sam tells him dejectedly. "I mean, do you like sharing a room with me? Don't you feel like you'd like your own place?"

Would Dean like his own place? His own room? That's not even a question. But, Mary had always told Dean to count his blessings. To look at the things that made him happy. To be thankful for everything that was good, even during the bad times in his life.

This shrimp of a little brother that Dean's got, is what the good in Dean's life amounts to. What's been his constant all these years, is Sam. This stupid, whiny brat telling Dean that he would rather be far away from him and John than understand the fact that the three of them literally have no one else to call their own, and celebrate the fact that they each at least have family, unlike some of the others at the bunker. And this idiot, lying here right now, this idiotic, floppy-haired kid is what Dean counts as his blessing, and Sam just wants to ditch them all and run away some day.

Sam might be annoying, but he is very important to Dean; brother, friend and confidante, and his significance in Dean's life just increases by the day. Dean considers his little brother his own responsibility and vows to himself to look out for him at all times. Sometimes, he thinks it gives him more purpose.

Sam won't understand, though. Sam will never understand.

"Hey," Sam calls out quietly.

Dean turns to Sam. "Hmm?"

"Don't tell Dad, okay?" Sam tells him. "He'll be pissed."

Dean snorts as he gets up, and heads to his own bed. "Have I ever, bitch?"

Sam doesn't reply to that. Because Dean's always kept his secrets. "Pinkie promise?" he'd ask when he was a kid, barely over six, and Dean would let him clutch their little fingers together. It has always been like this, and it's never changed between them.

"I wish, though," Sam says wistfully as Dean lays back down, "I wish I could go somewhere—somewhere far, away from all of this, for a long, long time."

Dean doesn't let the tightness in his throat get to him. Not until Sam's goddamned wish comes true anyway.

~o~

During Sam and Dean's fourteenth and eighteenth years respectively, the other hunters around the bunker deem them good enough to start training the younger hunters. It's a good ruse; since hunters are trained young, and Sam and Dean not being too old themselves, are able to gel better with the kids. Bobby and some of the parents violently disagree with this, but there are still kids who get trained; kids who are taught how to handle a gun. Sam and Dean don't think this is a great idea either, but then they just decide to go with what the majority wants.

That is essentially the beginnings of the young hunter army at the bunker. It's one of the first in the whole of America, according to Bobby's contacts. Dean doesn't know whether he should be proud or ashamed, but he decides to go with proud, because that's the only thing that maybe makes him feel marginally better about this clusterfuck.

Maybe.

~o~

Dean feels Jo's breath ghost over his face in a huff as she pushes him away from herself, hands pressing against his shoulders. He blinks and disconnects their lips, wiping his with the back of his hand. "What happened?"

"You gotta try harder than that, Winchester," she replies, putting her hands over her hips. "Just catching up with me in an empty room and trying to eat my face isn't sexy."

Dean grins at her as he straightens up. "Playing hard to get, huh?"

"No," she says, an eyebrow arching at his statement. "It's called self-respect." She snorts, pushes her fingers through his hair once, ruffling it, before starting to stalk away.

Dean licks his lip. "We still friends?"

She looks back, winks once, and leaves the room. Dean sighs as he watches her go, her little skirt swivelling around slim thighs while she walks. "Ah, fuck," he mutters to himself.

He runs his hands through his hair to straighten the mess she just made of it, feels his shoulders slump as he makes his way to the library, where he knows he can find Sam. He feels a small spark of joy when he realises he's right, and finds Sam bent over a book with Kevin by his side. Kevin is an Asian kid, staying at the bunker with his mom. He shares a passion for books with Sam, and they often geek out together at the library, like they are now.

Dean walks up to them, drags up a chair beside Sam's, and plonks himself down on it. "Hey."

Sam looks up from his book. He actually looks up from his book, which is weird, because he'll always mutter a 'hey' back and not talk much. But Dean sees the concern in his brother's eyes, and knows that Sam somehow already knew. "What's up?" Sam asks him, and seriously, fuck this kid.

Dean scoffs, eyes Kevin, and then shrugs. "Nothing. Kinda got dumped. Y'know. Your everyday scenario."

Kevin knows about him and Jo; they're in the same circle of friends anyway, and Dean trusts Kevin not to go gossiping with the rest of the bunker.

Sam, bless that kid, doesn't smile or laugh. "What'd she say?"

"Just that she's got self-respect." Dean wrinkles his nose. "Does she mean that Cassie didn't have any?"

"No," Sam tells him, "but you didn't bug Cassie like you're bugging her."

"You think I'm bugging her?"

Sam shrugs his sixteen-year-old bony shoulders. "Kinda. You keep chasing after her. You didn't do that to Cassie."

"'Cause that just kinda happened."

"Maybe you should give Jo some space too."

Dean stares at his brother. "Your advice is crappy, dude."

"Fine," Sam replies, returning to his book. "There's a six-pack stash from last week. Under my bed. I'll be there in five."

Dean blinks a few times, and grins, bringing a hand to clap on Sam's shoulder. "That's my boy." He pauses. "Don't tell Dad?"

Sam puffs a breath of laughter into his book. "Have I ever?"

~o~

"So how's it going with you and Madison?"

Dean loads his shotgun as he and Sam stand at the trunk of the Impala, checking their weapons and filling them in their duffels. It's August, and a little pleasant, but they know it will be anything but pleasant at Texas, where they're headed to rescue a ghetto from a demon attack.

"It's cool," Sam tells him, straightening the collar of his thin plaid shirt. He goes a little pink around the ears as he smiles. "She's really nice." The I like her a lot is unsaid, but Dean hears it anyway.

"She comin' over to fight, too?"

"Yeah, she is."

"You know," Dean says, as he throws the shotgun in and clutches at his keys, "Dad still thinks you're a virgin or something. He totally lectured me on how I was dirtying up your mind by advising you."

"Really?" Sam asks him. "Come on, man, I'm eighteen. And Maddie and I aren't a secret."

"Yeah. I don't think he wants to accept that," Dean says with a wistful chuckle. He looks behind at the others, who are loading their own vehicles. He watches his dad settle into a truck with Bobby, and give them a thumbs-up.

"That's our cue," Dean mutters, pushing his sunglasses over the bridge of his nose. "C'mon."

As he gets into the driver's seat and waits for Sam to follow, he wonders if this is their whole life; flirting and shacking up with the limited people at the bunker, going on hunts, bribing for food (and going hungry for days sometimes), and living in fear and secret.

And then he watches Sam get into the passenger seat and thinks, he can take it all; fuck, he can take it all, as long as Sam's there to sit through this shit with him and make it all a little better.

~o~

"D'n?"

"….ean?"

"Dean…?"

Dean's brain pulsates against his skull, stomach churning, and he pushes weakly at the hands trying to grab at his blankets. His arms and legs and face and ass are throbbing and he wishes people would stop calling out his name. He wonders why he goes on benders like this; why he lets himself get so drunk, when it only makes him feel so crappy the next day.

"Dean." The voice is much gentler this time. A hand finds his hair. It's rough and familiar and Dean leans into it.

"Come on, dude," says a voice. "Open your eyes."

Dean swallows, but there's no saliva in his mouth. It feels like his tongue is sewn into his hard palate and like someone wrung all the water content out of him and left him to dry. He can recognise the owner of the hand and the voice…and there's something wrong with it. There's something so, so wrong…

"S'mmy?" Dean doesn't even know how he gets himself to say it, but it's like an automatic response; something springing out of his mouth, that's wholly not under his control. His tongue still feels dry and shrivelled and Dean doesn't know how he managed to get it out of its lifelong alliance with the palate.

"Dean, it's Dad," says the voice.

"S'mmy."

There's a sigh. The hand leaves his hair. Dean drifts off.

When he wakes up again, it's in a dark, dark room and in a familiar bed. Dean squirms underneath his blankets and turns, trying to open his eyes to see the Sam Lump curled up in the other bed, wrapped up in fifty blankets to keep his overheated body warmer than anyone should be comfortable with, but when Dean turns, there's someone else in Sam's bed.

"Sam?" Dean startles, fumbling out of his covers and trying to reach for the gun under his pillow, but before he can get his arms and legs to move, the lights turn on and his dad is bending over him, trying to get him flat on his back.

"Shh, shh, come on, Dean, it's me," John repeats under his breath as Dean struggles against him, blinking against the bright light.

Dean tries to fight him because he needs to see Sam—needs to get to him and he can't remember anything. Why is he here? What happened? Where's Sam? Why's his dad behaving like… overcooked cauliflower? Dean tries not to chuckle at the description his mind provides, and thinks he might have been given some of the good stuff to knock him out.

"Relax," John tells him, like Dean's going to be able to do that. "I'll explain. I'll explain, okay? Relax."

And Dean looks at his father, notices his wet eyes and his heart is racing and suddenly, he's slumping, feeling like everything around him is collapsing. What is this? What does this mean? Why is his dad being like this?

"What do you remember?" John asks him gently.

Dean thinks for a whole minute, and gets it—Texas. The attack on the ghetto. The bloodbath. Demons killing people, dragging women away and shooting at children like it's all funny. The moment they'd entered, Dean had felt his blood boil as he'd picked up his shotgun and aimed it at the nearest dickbag demon.

The creature turned, smiled, eyes pitch-black, and Dean shot at it again. That's all he remembers clearly, anyway. After that he thinks of his fingers constantly pressing at the trigger, the frantic reloading of the shells, and sounds from gunshots everywhere as Dad and Bobby and Sam and the others did their job. Dean had seen his mother in his mind, heard her coo into his ear, and he had felt something roaring in his chest as he shot at the demons, paralysing them with the salt shells, injuring them, and wishing he could kill them and tear them apart.

There was smoke and fire, and the feeling in his gut that something was just so wrong. And more smoke and more fire, fumes suffocating him, black invading his vision, and…

"Where's Sam?" Dean asks John. "Dad, I shot those demons and there was a fire, and…"

"You came back to the truck somehow," John tells him. "And you passed out after."

Dean's throat is dry. "And Sam?"

John takes his own sweet time answering. He fumbles with his nightshirt, then Dean's sheets, and if Dean's hands weren't shaking so damn hard, he'd grab the man by his collar, but he waits, every heartbeat loud in his ear, and he waits, until…

"Dean, after you came back, Bobby and I went looking for Sam." John swallows, and Dean is startled to see tears in the eyes of his unbreakable father. "We looked everywhere, son, and—"

"No."

"They killed that girl, too—Madison. And Isaac and Tamara and Rufus."

Sam's going to be heartbroken. Dean needs to find his brother. "Oh God," he whispers. "D-Dad…"

"We couldn't find Sammy," John repeats. "He's – he's gone…"

"No."

"Dean—"

"He's not dead, Dad," Dean tells him. "The demons have him. They took him with them and we just need to—"

"They kill hunters," John tells him. "Even if they'd kept Sam in one of those godforsaken camps; Manhattan or Maryland or wherever, we could have gone, Dean, but you know that they don't keep the hunters alive."

"N-No." Dean's heart is going to come out of his chest. The room spins and his gut churns and he doesn't know if he's going to pass out or puke or explode or…

Don't tell Dad.

Have I ever?

No. No, Sam can't be gone, he can't be gone…

Dean looks through blurring vision as his father clasps his shoulder. His mouth is downturned, voice rasping as he talks. "He's gone, son. Sammy is dead."

That is the moment when Dean's whole world implodes around him.

~o~

Madison, Isaac, Tamara, and Rufus get their farewells in the woods at the back of the bunker. Dean can't recollect much of it, except for leaning heavily into his dad because his legs can't yet support his weight. He wonders where Sam is, and if the demons dumped him somewhere to let him die and rot away, and…

He stops thinking when his stomach roils threateningly, and when he's walking back to the bunker, Charlie catches up with him, curling an arm around his waist and leaning her head against his shoulder. Dean feels his breath catch in his throat, and then leans in himself as they trudge back to the bunker. Charlie is an orphan who was brought in when Dean was six. She was just a baby, barely a year old, both her parents having been murdered when the ghetto she was staying in was attacked. Bobby, John, and a few others had gone to help out there and had returned, sullen-faced, with Charlie as the sole survivor. She was always quiet, and Dean had seen her many times with sympathy gripping his heart. She'd mostly kept to herself, though, and Dean hadn't really known her until she'd come in for hunter-training. Now, Charlie is seventeen and brilliant, and Dean thinks Charlie might be the little sister he never asked for. He wonders what he'd do without her.

Dean carries on every day after the funeral; drags himself through and hopes he won't become a raving lunatic, and he wonders if Sam's watching over him and laughing. Because Sammy can do that. Sammy is totally capable of doing that. When he feels better, he drives back to Texas with Charlie stubbornly keeping him company. The ghetto is in ruins but he looks and he looks, for Sammy, any sign of him, any sign of his remains… but there's nothing. And he looks. He pushes over the remains, runs into broken-down houses, and…

"Dean!"

He can feel a tug, arms around him, and he turns around and Charlie is appalled. She reaches to brush away the wetness on his cheek, but he ducks, and walks towards the car.

He doesn't get out of bed or talk for a week after that.

He goes out to the small woods behind the bunker in the evenings, thinks about what his mom said about the Evening Star and he shuts his eyes and wishes; wishes every day for his brother to return from wherever he is, because that's the one constant Dean wants and needs in his life, like oxygen, like water. And he feels like he's drowning; like something's progressively crowding his lungs and stopping him from breathing and maybe, maybe he'll die in his sleep…maybemaybemaybe.

The phone rings while he's in his room one day. The bunker has one line and phones are in every room, but no one ever calls because of the danger of being tracked by demons. Bobby and John and even Dean usually get requests for help or info from other hunters on their cell phones, which are untraceable by some advanced hocus-pocus technology in the bunker. So when this phone rings, when Dean hears it, he's out of his bed and he's holding the receiver to his ear because…

"Sammy?" he whispers into the line.

There is no reply, but Dean holds on. He waits a whole minute, and then braces himself against the side table, hands gripping at it and knuckles turning white. "Hey," he says. "Talk to me. I'm here, man. Tell me where you are I'll come get—"

"Dean?" Dean almost jumps out of his skin, but then he realises that the voice is coming from the other room, and it's not Sam. It's Dad. John peeks into the room, and looks at Dean questioningly. "Who is it?"

Dean doesn't reply to John. He turns away, unable to face his father. "Sammy, I know it's you," he whispers, voice catching in his throat. "Sam, talk to me."

"What?" John asks from behind, and Dean presses the receiver closer to his ear.

"Sammy, please."

There's nothing, noting, and then he hears it. A ragged breath—a shuddering, scared breath, and Dean's vision blurs as his lips quirk in a small smile. "Sammy," he says, voice quivering, "Sammy, hey—"

The receiver is snatched out of Dean's hands and he watches, fists clenching, as his dad takes it. "Sam?"

"Dad, he—"

"Sam?" John says sternly, eyes hardened, and Dean's heart is racing again, but before he knows it, his father moves ahead and puts the receiver back in its cradle. "The demons could be trying to track us," he mutters. "Son of a bitch."

"Dad, that was Sam."

"Sam's dead." John looks at Dean with finality as he says it. "I let you go back to Texas even though it was stupid, but that's the last time I risk losing you, okay? Sam's gone. I want you to remember this, son." His voice is soft as he wipes a hand over his face. "Sam isn't coming back."

Dean wants to tell him that he doesn't have a life anymore, not without Sam, but he shuts up. He watches his father walk away, and waits for Sam to call again.

He waits months, and then years. He waits an eternity. He just keeps waiting for Sam, knowing that one day, maybe one day, his hopes and wishes will come true. One day, maybe life will decide not to be so cruel for him.

Dean drags on through sunrises and sunsets. He drags on for Sammy.