DISCLAIMER: I own nothing but a crazy grandmother and a penchant for raw cookie dough.

A/N: Please don't kill me! I know I've been away for a very long time but I promise you I have very good excuses. Seriously, truth is stranger than fiction and my life is plenty strange. Apologizes all around!

Story notes: This thing has been bouncing around in my head for a while. I finally got the chance to write it all out, and at midnight no less. If you want to be the best reviewer in the whole wide world, plaese point out any galactic-sized errors in spelling and/or logic. Also this story contains SPOILERS FOR THOSE WHO HAVEN'T SEEN PAST SEASON 2 (Don't say I didn't warn you. It's there. It's a frikkin' big all caps warning.) Right then, on to the actual thing you're expecting to read.

-SALE 35% OFF FULL PRICE GENUINE LEATHER-

The young man bought the jacket for 17.95 at a discount outlet store. He'd wanted to impress his date for the night. After all, she wasn't just some girl; she was the girl, and you'd have to be blinder than a bat with glaucoma not to see that he was head over heels in love with her.

He wore the jacket on another date, much further in the future. Different year, same girl. Sitting on the hood of his car, prompted by her shivering, he'd draped it around her shoulders, shielding her from the cold. And that's what the jacket would be from then on: a shield.

They talked to nearly sunup. They spoke of many things; of shoes, of ships, and sealing wax, and of cabbages and kings. They spoke of children and homes, of families and futures. Then, in the cold gray of the pre-dawn light, he had asked her to be his future. In the pocket of the jacket was the ring that sparkled with such promise.

Years later the jacket became part of their lives again. Another pre-dawn moment, this one accompanied by Lamaze breathing and frantic grabbing of overnight bags. Her coat was left behind in all the confusion. Again the jacket was around her shoulders, warding her from the chill of night and calming her just long enough to make it to the delivery ward. Later that day he would watch in awe as the tiny new life form clenched and unclenched tiny new hands that could barely wrap around his finger. And exactly at that moment they became what they had talked about years earlier; an honest-to-goodness family.

It was a strange thing, and it happened very slowly. The jacket absorbed his scent. Not just the oil-and-metal smells from his workplace, but the smell that was part leather, part old spice and all him. It was a nice reminder for her to have while he was off acquiring more of that oil-and-metal smell from long hours and weekends spent trying to keep their new family afloat.

He slept in that jacket during the as-yet bleakest days the family had ever endured. It wasn't that she didn't want him in the house and it wasn't that he particularly wanted to be out of the house. It was just that they seemed like magnets then, rubbing polarities against each other in just the wrong way. They simply couldn't occupy the same space, and there was no help for it. So he had slept four blocks away in the backseat of his car, nothing for a blanket but an old jacket with grease stains.

Flash forward through the rough bits and you would see the firstborn son sitting behind the wheel of that car, making engine noises and wishing his feet were long enough to reach the petals. The jacket was there too, and in it was the father the young man had learned to be. Soon they'd both be leaving to pick up mommy and the newest member of the stronger-for-all-the-hard-times family.

Again the jacket was there when they needed it. This time though, nothing could shield them from the nightmare. They were there, all three boys of the family, but she was gone and gone forever. They huddled together on the hood of his car and tried not to think about a future without her in it.

He looked ridiculous, the child with too-big staring eyes full of fear and longing for comfort. His sleeves were rolled up six times in a futile effort to keep them from falling down over his hands. He was trying, too, to be bigger. Big enough and strong enough to watch out for someone who was almost as helpless as he was. He wanted to be just like his dad, and it just about broke his dad's already fractured heart.

"I'll be back soon, you'll see. Look out for your brother."

He deliberated for a second, then shrugged out of the jacket that was stiff with years of use. He wrapped it around the boy's shoulders, and it stayed propped up, a true shield between the innocent boy and the scary world his dad was venturing into.

From that moment on, the jacket belonged to the boy.

It was his when he came home with his first black eye.

It was his the first time he thought he'd lost his little brother, the one he was supposed to look out for.

It was there when he found him, too.

It was there on his every first day at every new school.

It was there on his first date.

It was there when his baby brother left, not so much a baby but an adult capable of making his own decision to abandon the fractured family.

It was there when his dad left, too. A remnant of his childhood haven.

It was there when he un-lost his brother and brought him back into the life he had walked away from.

He wore it standing before his father's funeral pyre.

The thing seemed more than likely to outlive them all.

Much later, he would give it to the son that had been lost from him for so many years. He would wrap it around the kid's shoulders and tell him everything would be okay, that he would be back soon and to look out for his mom. It would continue, as much a shield as the strength of the great men who had worn it before him.

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I know, sickly sappy, right? I just couldn't help myself. For those of you who are lost, this little ficlet makes the assumption that Ben is Dean's kid. If you want to say something, even if its to yell at me, please click on the little button down there and review!