𓏵America's sweetheart, starved straight to death𓏵
SUMMARY: Three kids, a punishment taken too far, one desperate last attempt at staying alive. 3.7k
WARNINGS: inspired by flowers in the attic. child abuse. teen!dean. somehow I managed to make john even crueler than he is canonically. forced confinement. starvation. angst. ambiguous ending. non-healthy dynamics. blood-drinking. blood and injury. honestly i don't know what this is. i'm sorry.
You haven’t eaten in so long you’ve started to forget what food tastes like.
Sammy groans somewhere down on the carpet, where he’d curled up two days ago and refused to move from, and you know you’re lying.
You faintly remember the taste of that chocolate cake, from your eighth birthday party. You remember the burn on your tongue from those spicy wings you’d stolen from Daddy’s plate back when he was still alive. You remember the cold, greasy, insipid fries John had thrown your way back in Maryland—before this fucking cabin had become your cage.
You should’ve saved some, put a few in your pocket. You should’ve forced Sammy to eat more than half of his portion, maybe then he wouldn’t be just skin and bones, lying like a pile of decay on the floor. You should’ve given half of yours to Dean, instead of ignoring his pleading, ever-hungry eyes.
There are so many things you should’ve done, back when you could feel the warmth of the sun on your skin and the brush of the breeze on your cheeks. When your bones didn’t ache and your throat didn’t burn like acid. When you were strong enough to escape. To even move.
You should’ve known better than to trust John, and his dim-lighted, moldy cabin, and his snarled promise to come back soon.
He never did.
You should’ve known.
Sammy groans again, the sound quickly fading into a cracking whine, like a broken, haunted hurdy gurdy.
You want to force yourself up, hold him in your arms, whisper sweet nothings in his ear. He's just a baby, barely grasping the reality of your confinement. And so he’s so easily comforted, so eager to cling to your whispered lies of reassurance and chapped-lipped kisses on his face—it breaks your goddamn heart.
Your hand twitches, almost instinctively reaching out for his long, shaggy hair, now grown past his bony shoulders. But the moment your head lifts from the pillow the world spins, and an invisible force pines you back down to the smelly, dirty mattress you’ve been sleeping on.
It feels like sin. Like the Devil wrapping his claws around your neck and laughing as you struggle against his hold. Or maybe it’s God. The two have been blurring together more and more with each passing day.
Tired of looking at the stained ceiling, your head slowly rolls to the side, eyes wistfully searching for a window that you know won’t be there. Like every other time, all you find is wood planks nailed over glass and barely-there slits of light filtering in.
Not enough to heat up your icy skin, or preserve Dean’s faded farmer’s tan, or light Sammy’s puppy-eyes.
This has been the last almost two weeks of your life. Sealed windows, a locked door, unbreakable cement walls. Nothing but tap water, a few crackers, and some cheese that you managed to stretch for four whole days. A dirty mattress, smell of mildew, and a single long, silver knife.
All of it, because Dean and you had sneaked out one night. Just one night, to skinny-dip in a nearby lake and bathe in the late summer moonlight. Just one selfish moment of being kids, one minute without monsters to gut or burning ceilings to plague your sleepless nights.
“Since I can’t fucking trust you two,” John had gritted out through his teeth, dangling a key on his finger. It was an odd key, and a weird door. Strong-looking iron, locked only from outside. You should’ve known. “You’ll stay here until I come back. It'll be a quick hunt, just a few days. Your only job is to take care of Sammy, nothing else. Think you can manage that without fucking up again?”
When you tried to argue for him to leave you at least a shotgun, he sneered. His face contorted in such an ugly way, like demons when they’re drenched in holy water. Monstrous. Terrifying. Evil.
“You’ve always been so slow,” he’d uttered your name in a way that still brought goosebumps to your pale, withered skin. “Nothing gets inside this cabin, and nothing gets out. Be grateful I even trust you with that knife.”
You hadn’t grasped just how serious he was then.
You’d waited for Dean to argue, to defend you like he’d done so many other times when kids were mean to you at school or the few playgrounds you’ve had the time to lounge in.
But he, Daddy’s perfect little soldier, just nodded with his eyes on the ugly carpeted floor.
Daddy's darling boy, his perfect hunter, the dutiful son amidst the ungrateful children.
Even after John had left, the metal door clicking shut behind him—depriving you of what unbeknownst to you was the last glimpse of outside you’d get in a long time—Dean’d evaded your betrayed glare, eyes glued to the dark smudge on the carpet near the bathroom door.
Same smudge where Sammy shriveled up now, made darker by the stain of the kid’s vomit after he’d secretly eaten an entire bottle of old paste.
“But my tummy hurts,” he’d cried in your arms that night, after retching whatever was left in his little stomach. You held him close to your chest, rocking him back and forth as he sobbed. “It hurts so much. I just wanted the pain to go away. Please, make it go away.”
Now he doesn’t cry anymore. You don’t think he has the strength to even try.
You’ve cried a few times, crouched in the corner of the shower when the rainfall could conceal the wounded noises leaving your throat. One time in Dean’s arms after a night of relentless terrors. But there were no tears left now, nothing in your chest but exhausted resignation.
And hollowness. Fucking hell, you feel so hollow.
You catch movement from the corner of your eye, a blur far too lucid to be just another phantom scare. With all the strength you can summon, you turn your head toward it.
Dean has risen from wherever he was lying down that wasn’t next to you in the twin-sized mattress. His hair has gotten longer as well, some patchy, still boyishly-blond stubble now covering his lower-face, even when his locks are darkening with manhood and the lack of sunshine.
The stubble, along with his sunken green eyes and deep lines on his face, make him look older. Like a strange man you barely recognize as your sweet boy. But his gaunt cheeks and lost gaze almost make him look Sammy's age. A strayed kid, desperately trying to hold onto the notion that their parent would never abandon them like this.
You see him take in Sammy's shape from the bathroom’s doorway—even scrawnier than before, barely moving, barely breathing—and you see something flash behind his eyes when he finally makes a choice.
Almost in slow motion—but to be fair everything has felt in slow motion since that iron door closed—he pulls out his old curved knife.
Same rusty blade that has cut through your bloody clothes so he can patch up an ugly gash, same handle that his fingers grip in despair through every night. Same knife that had slashed that shifter’s throat years ago, saving your life.
A gasp leaves your lips when Dean slits his wrist, the first sound you’ve made today. If he hears you, he shows no sign of it as he kneels next to Sammy, guiding the kid’s mouth to the wound.
Something equally repulsed and fascinated fills all the empty crevices of your innards when Sammy whines again, trying to pull away. Dean cups the back of his head firmly, forcing him to stay still. After a bit more struggling, the kid gives in and starts to drink.
Slowly, through the dust floating in the air and the haziness of hunger clouding your eyes, you watch as Dean feeds Sammy his blood. The same knife that he once used to protect you from the things hidden in the dark, now saving you one more time.
It’s just like Dean, to figure out a solution to every problem that would otherwise beat you into pulp.
He stops Sammy after a while, ignoring his whimpering as he tugs him back by the hair, whispering something that would forever remain just theirs. The kid settles back down on the carpet, and Dean makes his way to you.
Somewhere between horror and admiration, something else grows. Something that powers you off the mattress, allowing you to sit up and meet Dean’s eyes.
Dean. Oh, your sweet Dean. There he is now, cutting himself and offering that which keeps him alive just to stop you from fading away. Always the sacrificial lamb, your beautiful martyr. Your boy, your man. Your only one. Your curse, and your savior. Your hanging sword, your sandbox comrade, your Darling Dean.
No. No, no, no.
The slit on his wrist has dried up from all of Sammy’s licking, barely any blood oozing from the smooth red line now. Dean braces himself, guiding the sharp silver back against his skin. The sickening, tacky thing in your chest foams up and coats your mouth.
With a power that must’ve come from some deity watching—maybe pitifully, maybe smugly—through the thick roof, you wrap your slim fingers around Dean’s wrist and yank the blade away from his skin.
He tumbles forward with a yelp, falling onto the mattress with the knife now secured in your possession.
It feels wrong, Dean shouldn’t be this easy to manhandle. Even if he’s only two years your senior, he’s always felt older. Wiser than you and Sammy, always having all the answers to your fearful questions, always with a grin and a joke in his back pocket that spring to the rescue at the sight of trembling lips.
But right now, with his hair falling in cascades over his forehead, his ribs visible under his skin, and his muscles weak with famish, he looks so… shatterable.
It feels wrong.
He twists where he’s sprawled, now resting on his back, staring into your eyes with a nebulous glaze. He hasn’t really looked at either Sammy or you in a few days. He claimed to be hungry and irritable, not wanting to pick up a meaningless fight over some trivial thing. You think he’s ashamed. That guilt chews on him just as hard as his appetite.
There you are, dying. His two Darlings, evanescing into bags of bones and skin. And he has to stand there and watch, unable to find a joke or a grin good enough to fix this one.
With no hesitation, you fist the knife. Dean calls out your name, surely reading your every thought on your face. You were never too good at hiding from him.
But he must be dizzy from the fall, because even with your heavy limbs you’re able to cut a deep line across your forearm before he can deter you.
“No,” he says your name again when you crawl closer to him, flinching away from the crimson river you try to ease into his mouth. “You need that more than me.”
“No, I don't." Your voice is hoarse, barely used since Sammy has retreated to the ground and Dean has been sleeping God-knows-where. “Come on, De. Drink.”
He struggles to keep his eyes away, even when you grip his jaw with trembling fingers and try to make him face you. But flesh is weak, your grandmother used to murmur in your ear every night. So weak to temptation. To depravity. To sin.
His gaze flickers, fluttering over the warm blood running down your arm and unable to avert. And just like that, his ever-hungry eyes turn starved.
“I can’t,” he whispers, but his lips are parted and willing. Calling, begging.
“You can.” You cup the nape of his neck just like he had Sammy’s, gently leading him up and closer to where your flesh parts for him. “We need you, Darling Dean. Sammy needs you, I need you. You can’t brittle, De. Not now, not ever. I couldn’t stand it, I’d brittle along with you! And then Sammy would be left here to rot on his own. We need you strong, please.”
You smush your arm against his lips, meeting his supplicating green eyes with just as much fear.
“Don’t let it go to waste. Please.”
Dean folds, rough lips wrapping around the cut, suckling softly. Lips that used to be soft and full, pink and oh-so-amazingly tender against your own. Childish pecks shared under blankets and behind thin walls. The kind of innocent touch you’d never know again.
Without breaking eye-contact, Dean parts away from your skin and lowers his face to your elbow. His tongue peaks out, pale like the rest of him, catching the dribble of blood that was about to drip on the naked mattress.
His eyelashes flutter as he collects all the spilled crimson, licking a long line up your skin until he reaches the wound again. He moans, something new flashing on his face. An expression you’d never seen before, not even when you watched him hold hands with other girls under bleachers and sneak his hand up their ruffled skirts.
It brings tears to both your eyes. Yours are bitter and relieved, his seem sour, almost pained. Still, he doesn’t let go of you, holding your arm against his lips with both hands—suckling and suckling until the cut dries up and the skin around it starts to bruise from the suction.
But Dean looks peaceful for the first time since you’d run out of crackers and cheese, and still there were no signs of John. So you let him keep mouthing at your arm, like a baby gnawing on their mother’s finger, closing their eyes and pretending they were being nursed. That they were loved, kept safe in warm arms that would never deceive them. That would never leave them forsaken, by fire or wheels.
After a few minutes he drops back down on the mattress, tears still glistening down his cheekbones and lips tainted scarlet.
“I’m sorry.” He tugs on your shirt just like Sammy does in the middle of the night, until you’re next to him on the bed and he can cling to your gaunt frame. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
His words break with a sob, so deep and so sorrowful that it tightens your throat and shatters your soul. Carefully, you use the hand still petting his nape to draw him against you, pressing his cheek to your breast over the flimsy camisole that did nothing to shelter you from the cold autumn-almost-turned-winter.
Dean tenses in your hold, vacillating to give in. Always the honourable soldier, your dear knightly prince with the dirty blond hair and dashing black horse.
Under your breath, you start to hum. A fractured melody at first, some distant echo of a song. But as the seconds trickle by, it starts to shape into a recognizable tune.
Hey Jude.
Dean melts into you. His whole body gives in, his face burying further into your shirt and your bodies pressed so close together that you think, just for a moment, that you’ve finally fused into one.
Maybe that’s how it was always supposed to be. Maybe the little missing piece on your chest has always been Dean, your body recognizing in some fundamental way that he and you were always supposed to be one, bonded by something deeper than anything the world’s seen before.
Your humming soon turns into whispered words, lyrics that you’re too afraid to even think of when John is around to hear you. But he’s not here now.
In this single-level prison, no one but the mold in the bathroom tiles and Sammy’s coal-drawn flowers on the walls are here to witness it.
Here, in the worst place you’ve ever known, where there’s nothing but woe and cold and agony, you finally find freedom.
Or at least the ghost of it. A translucent holograph that should be enough. That has to be enough.
Just for now, until you finally vanish into the Hell your grandmother promised you when you were still too young to understand why. Or until you’re let outside again, and you can plunge into another lake and bathe under the glow of another moon.
Whichever it is, you’ll take Dean with you. To the heat of sunlight or the heat of inferno, you will drag him along. Never again will you let anyone rip this boy away from your arms.
Slowly, like syrup glossing over buttermilk pancakes in another diner you can’t name, Dean lifts his head. Under the barely-there light of a single, half-melted candle, you lock gazes. His green irises with the golden speckles swirl like grass on the wind, like algae in the deep sea, like a dense forest where you could run and hide forever.
You’re once again pinned down, but this time the pressure around your neck is lovely. Almost enchanting enough to make you deaf to the screaming of your stomach. Almost filling enough to fuel you for another century.
He scans your face, like he’s searching for something secret. Like you’ve ever been able to keep anything from him. Whatever he finds, he seems to be content with, because you’re rewarded with the weight of his lips on yours.
With both your skins chafed and mouths dry because drinking too much water would only macerate you faster, the kiss reminds chaste and slow. Your spit is thick and Dean’s tongue still tastes metallic. Sammy is just a few feet away. You’re both too drained to grope and probe.
Even in your captivity, you have to smother the flame.
But as something mellow and heavenly washes down your throat and curls around your gut, you promise yourself that if you ever see the blue sky above your head again, you won’t ever hold back.
You’ll run away, sweep Sammy into your arms and clutch Dean’s hand, and run. So far away that John won’t find you, that the monsters will leave you alone, and no one will ever mortify you again, for Hell and its terrors are nothing compared to the paradise of holding your Darling Dean in your arms.
But one glance at those now-shinier green eyes tell you that, again, you’re dreaming too far up the clouds. Dean will never turn against his beloved Daddy, and even if you plead and wail and stomp your feet, you’ll be back inside that stuffy Impala in no time.
Another fucking cage. With windows and vinyl seats and classic rock, but a cage nonetheless.
That night you drag a half-willing Sammy into the mattress. The blood seems to have done something, for his eyes are more focused and his frail arms around your waist grip you tight.
“If Dad never comes back and we die here,” he mumbles, and you’re so happy he’s speaking that you don’t shut down the grim talk. “Will they ever find our bodies?”
Your baby Sammy, always so somber beyond his years. Just the kind to ask questions that keep you awake at night.
Thankfully, he drifts off before you’re forced to come up with an answer. You tuck him right under your chin, curling around him like you could shield him from the hands of Death. On the opposite edge of the bed, Dean wraps around Sammy’s back.
His arm reaches over the kid, big, calloused hand finding its rightful place on your waist. He plasters both of you against his chest, your foreheads pressed against each other over Sammy’s dirty hair.
“I’ll get us out of here,” Dean whispers, his crooked nose brushing yours—already broken so many times, your ever-bruised love.
You want to remark that he won’t. Not to be mean, but to be realistic. The walls are solid rock and the ceiling is too high to reach. Every window is barricaded from outside and the glass is unbreakable. The iron door won’t budge, no matter how many times Sammy kicks it with his tiny feet or Dean smashes his knuckles against it.
But he looks so frantic, so hopeless. Drowning in the feverish urge to make it all better.
“Of course you will.” You place another kiss on his lips. The touch soothes him almost as much as the words.
For tonight, you’ll let him have this.
Tonight, there won’t be any burning ceilings or demon eyes plaguing your dreams. Tonight, he’ll dream of tearing down indestructible barricades and you’ll dream of unattainable liberty in the forest. And tomorrow, when the morning comes and you’re still here, you’ll both have those fantasies to lull you as the skeleton hands of Death finally find you.
Then you’ll rot, and one day someone will actually smash down these rock walls and metal doors, and they’ll find three kids huddled together in a twin-sized mattress. Nothing but pearly white bones, all skin gone by then.
Or maybe no one will ever find you, and the secret of your punishment will be kept only by the wind and the earth. No one out there will miss you—the three weird kids that lived in a car and never stayed too long in the same place.
Maybe you’ll live in the blurry memories of those you’ve saved for some days, perhaps even weeks. The two green-eyed boys and the odd girl. And then those would fade, and never again will your names be said except in whispered chants next to John Winchester’s ear in the middle of the night, when it’s finally time for him to pay for what he’s done to you.
Whatever happens, wherever you go, you’ll take Dean with you.
His hand on your waist twitches. A silent promise.
I’m not letting you go. You can’t escape me. You’re mine.
In the comfort of those words you find sleep, and by the time morning comes, Sammy is cold in your arms and Dean’s hand doesn’t twitch anymore.
The last thing you see before you’re submerged into a vision of tall, luxuriant trees and silver stars glinting over a crystal lake is that unyielding iron door. There’s a faint click, the metal finally relents, and light floods inside the room in a blinding tide.
Then, darkness. No pit of fire, no seraphic choir. Just plain, everlasting darkness.
And when you reach for it, you find Dean’s hand already waiting for you.
At last, freedom.
NOTES: hand on my chest, I don't know where this came from. as some of you may know, i've been going through a rough patch (quick act surprised) and i was experiencing a bit of writer's block. but I finished flowers in the attic in one night and suddenly it was 5am and I was feverishly typing this on my notes app.
this was all written in one day, pls excuse any mistakes.
Christopher Doll, this one is for you.
thank you for being here, i'm sorry for the weird ass shit you just read, and I promise to let dean be happy at least once one day.
i love you all, see you again soon<3
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