against all odds, sam winchester does not die young and bloody. (or, rather, he does; over and over again, but it just never seems to stick.)
so sam celebrates his fiftieth birthday, and his sixtieth birthday, and his seventieth birthday, and really, this is getting ridiculous.
dj is home for four weeks one summer ("you should get hazard pay for that job of yours," his dad grouses every time dj regales him with tales of the modern middle school classroom) when his dad says, "think it's about time you help me clear out some'a this junk, so you don't have to do it all yourself when I'm gone."
dj feels his heart jerk in his chest. he knows the statistics; that men on average live to be about seventy-five, and that his dad's got risk factors he's never given dj a straight answer about. scars that never saw the inside of a hospital; bullet wounds, plural. hell, who knows; probably exposure to radioactive waste or crazy volatile chemicals, the sort of thing you'd see commercials for class action lawsuits about. his grandpa john died young, some kind of sudden cardiac collapse. but sam winchester is an institution. a behemoth. he'll never die, not really.
his dad's a stubborn old man down to his very bones, though, so dj spends hours sorting books in the library, and moving boxes in the garage, labeling totes and rifling through file folders, and all the other myriad things his dad wants. they load up dj's honda and take several trips to the good will, a few to the scrapyard, two to the antique dealer and furniture restoration specialist dj sorta thinks his dad might've had a thing with back in the day, and one to the household hazardous waste collection center. dj's touched goddamn near every single thing in his father's house. everything but the big old footlocker tucked away at the back of the closet.
"it's nothing you'd want," his dad says with that wry smile, the one he always wears when he's got a secret tucked in his cheek like a piece of hard candy. "and it's personal, deej. no passports or birth certs or deeds hiding in there. just... mementos. a couple lifetimes' worth of junk that somehow manged to make the trip every time I moved."
and... it is mostly junk, when dj cracks the padlock off, still wearing his sober black funeral suit (thank god his dear departed dad kept four pairs of bolt cutters in the garage and one in the trunk of his car).
an old flannel shirt, soft and worn thin in the elbows, the red faded pinkish from a million trips though the washer. a ring of keys that don't open any doors in the house. a pair of kansas license plates that expired back in '06, an unimaginably ancient year. a bunch of old school ID cards for dad and his brother, dozens of them shuffled together in an old tin box the used to hold electrical splicing tape. (dj has the laugh at the mullet his dad was rocking in the early '90s, the long over-gelled daytime tv heart-throb bangs his older brother — dean senior, dean the first— sported back then.)
receipt papers with unfamiliar designs scribbled on the backs and old brochures and brittle, yellowed newspaper clippings leaving acid stains on the folder they're tucked inside. a library copy of the collected works of vonnegut, absconded from a high school in battle creek, michigan. old leather bracelets, the knotted kind you're supposed to leave on until they rot off, wrapped around a black jelly bracelet. beer bottle caps, flattened into misshapen coins. an old winchester repeating arms belt buckle, cowboy logo dark with tarnish and age, attached to a belt whose cheap pleather strap flakes off on dj's fingers. a dark green hoodie with "HURON HIGH SCHOOL MATHLETES" on the front and "S. WINCHESTER" across the shoulders in cracked white vinyl letters. a navy blue bandana with a crusted brown stain gluing the folds together. (it smells like iron when dj tries to peel it apart.)
a box of four- and five-leaf clovers, each one carefully pressed and dried, easily a hundred of them, piled neatly in an old peanut brittle can. a pocket knife with DEAN carved into the casing in crooked, spikey letters. a red plastic whistle on a lanyard, like a lifeguard might use. a keyring with a silver bullet dangling from it. an index card labeled "LAWRENCE HOUSE" in sharpie, folded in half and taped at the edges into a makeshift envelope, filled with grass clippings that scatter all over dj's lap and the closet floor when he finally rips it open.
polaroid pictures, faded blues and oversaturated pinks distorting the faces of people dj only knows by sight. his grandparents. uncle bobby, who "wasn't really our uncle, but if you'd've told him that, he'd've kicked your ass." dean. there are others — better pictures, from cameras and phones; the dark-haired man whose commitment to being photographed repeatedly in a trench coat stems either from a strong personal sartorial philosophy or a complete lack of sense, fashionable or otherwise; the redheaded women, one tall and one tiny; the boy with the sunshine grin — but there are so many photos of dean. dean, and his dad, and dean-and-his-dad frozen in time throughout the years, moving and sitting and standing as a unit, without a sliver of space separating them.
dj had asked his dad over and over as a kid, how come he didn't have a brother or a sister, and his dad always got that little half-grin that it took dj almost two decades to realize wasn't a smile for him, but for the man he reminded his father of whenever he used that tone.
"because you're dean winchester, and you're destined for great things," he'd say every time dj asked. "and as an expert on the subject, I can assure you that one dean winchester is more than enough winchester for your generation."
i imagine dean junior physically makes his own cards for his dad because all of the dad-stereotype ones they have in the stores don’t really fit: sam mows the lawn but doesn’t particularly care about it, he doesn’t grill and you have to catch him on the right day to even eat meat, he’s never been in a position where the thermostat has affected the electricity bill so he’s not militant about it, he’s not particularly punny.
so dean junior—when he’s small, and it’s a habit that sticks even as he gets older—takes a piece of printer paper and folds it in half. he draws a stick figure sam, smiling widely, on the front with a big book in his hand and a shaggy dog at his feet. sometimes he’ll include a tool box in the corner because that’s one stereotype his dad does fit: junior once saw him rewire a switch in their house and fix the dishwasher in a single afternoon.
he writes “i love you daddy” in big block letters on the inside when he’s small, and more elaborate, heartfelt messages as he gets older. his dad reacts like he’s given him the best gift of his life every year, a little teary eyed and smile wobbly.
after sam dies, junior finds a file folder in his dad’s dense library full of the cards, some crinkly like sam has looked at them a hundred times, some a little yellow with age. he kept every single one.
When Dean jr was 17 he started becoming a lot more curious about his Dad’s mysterious— dark, past. And it wasn’t just about the scars anymore, though those continued to whisper menacingly from where they marred his aged skin. No, Dj had more questions about what his Dad did, than what was done to him.
He couldn’t help himself, one day. Dj knew you couldn’t believe everything you saw on the internet, but at some point you couldn’t exactly ignore the numerous articles labelling your Dad a murderer, freak, psychopath, and worse, either. There was one in particular that he couldn’t stop thinking about.
“STANFORD STUDENT BURNED ALIVE IN APARTMENT FIRE. SUSPECT ON THE RUN”
Posted Nov 3, 2005. Last updated Dec 15, 2005.
On November 2nd, 2005 what was seemingly another normal day for this beloved Stanford student, Jessica Moore, turned out to be her last in a terrible twist of fate. She was found last night by her friend and classmate, Tyson Brady, who rushed to her building when he heard about the fire. What Brady discovered would scar him for life, and turn this tragic incident into a suspected murder and arson….
Dj remembered the day he came home from school buzzing with excitement about this new friend he had made— Jessie, but he called her Jess. His Dad had frozen on the spot. Not like he did when he brought up his namesake, but more akin to the time Dj asked about his grandmother. His eyes grew distant and he swallowed dryly.
“That’s nice, son. What else did you do today?” He had managed, but it was strained. Dj could take the hint, and never brought her up again. She moved the next year, anyway.
He had always remembered that name, though. The way his Dad reacted. He had odd reactions to a lot of names, but that one felt different somehow.
That article about Jessica Moore, and every other one he had found, they all mentioned two names. Tyson Brady, the friend who found her, and Sam Winchester, her boyfriend and roommate. Sam, who was nowhere to be found in the wake of her death. Sam, who everyone said had been acting weird and disappeared right before the fire. Sam, who was arrested and even went to prison once with his brother for unexplained, heinous acts. Sam who was a wanted man, at least when he wasn’t known as a dead one, for years.
Dj found the arrest records, and the countless theories that sprouted alongside them. Dj had seen very few pictures of his father when he was young, so he told himself that was why he couldn’t tear his eyes off his mugshot. He looked so young. Concerned and annoyed, but mostly, achingly, young. So far from the man Dj called his Dad.
Every theory and crime he read only carried the man in the mugshot further from the father he grew up with. The freak Bonnie and Clyde. Religious serial killers. Evil nutjobs. Wanted for impersonation, auto theft, grave desecration, murder, arson, faking death, on and on and on.
Dj thought about the life he and his Dad had led. Somewhat isolated maybe, definitely cautious, but they were Sam and Dean Winchester, in one home and one community, known and loved despite our oddities. That wasn’t the life of a wanted serial killer. Right?
The long since healed but once grave wounds covering his Dad’s body screamed at him. They begged to tell a story locked more securely than the black box in their attic. They yearned to be understood.
Dj looked at the mugshot always accompanying his father’s. The first, the original, Dean Winchester. Without a care in the world, smoulder fused into place.
What if Dean Jr travel back in time during 12-15? When Dean finds out who Jr is, what would be his reaction? What would Jack’s reaction be? I love unrequited!Castiel. If Castiel finds out about Jr, do you think that would make him think he could have a chance with Dean? Because from his perspective, Sam and Dean can’t be so codependent as before because of Jr.
I feel like Dean would be very conflicted because he’d be flattered that Sam named his kid after him, he’d be so happy that he had that kind of impact on Sam, that Sam was so “obsessed” with him too. But DJ is also the reminder that Sam had a life without Dean, a life and a partner that he had a child with and Dean wasn’t there for it. He would probably even be jealous of him because DJ had a bond with Sam that’s really close and nobody but the original Dean should have that.
Jack I think would be a little jealous too at first, because well he would have to share his mommy now but I think he would take to him pretty quickly and see him as his brother.
I can’t really say too much on Castiel but even if he might think so, it would obviously make no difference in their codependence. Sam and Dean don’t see how codependent they are normally so why would they now that DJ is there? So it would just be another unrequited attempt of Castiel’s to try and get with Dean.
Thinking about Sam and Castiel helping Dean Jr. with his homework.
Thinking about Dean Jr. asking Sam and Cas about what it’s like being a werewolf.
Thinking about Dean Jr. wanting to hunt despite everything his dad and uncle went through, and talking to Garth and the twins about it.
Thinking about Sam (our Sam) sitting at his kitchen table after Garth called to tell him what happened.
Thinking about Sam (our Sam) telling Dean Jr. to sit down and having a full conversation about hunting, the effect it had on Sam and Dean. And what it’s like.
Thinking about the next generation of hunters, Sam, Cas, and Dean. And how that would go.
they hired like four(4) different actors to play Sam’s son but the blurry wife ™ might as well have been a fucking dummy for all we know like why do they hate women so much
