SPN Advent Calendar 2020: Prompt 2
Dean drummed his fingers against the keyboard before finally closing his laptop. He’d ended up on a video. The guy had been earnestly staring into the camera, talking about how his childhood lessons of hell affected him even now. Dean had watched with a growing sense of unease. This stranger, ignorant of all the monsters in the world, could sit there and just know that no hell would take him.
But Dean had been there. He’d spent forty years in hell.
John had spoken about heaven far more than he had hell. But it felt as though all the endless nights where John would talk about Mary in heaven only existed as some far away blob. Dean couldn’t picture those memories in full. It was as though he only ever half listened. What did the nice fantasties his father conjured up matter? He still needed to feed Sam. The guns still needed cleaning. Monsters still needed hunting. His Mum was still dead.
Dean could remember though, very clearly, other memories. A small diner in Lewiston with blue leather chairs. Dean had ordered their cheeseburger which had come with a slice of cheese top and bottom. Sam had a green shirt on and was asking questions about whale bones. The place had smelt faintly of smokes, overlaid with years of cooking fat.
His father had been glaring daggers over Dean’s shoulder. Dean had swiveled around to see what his father was looking at. Two men, sitting close together. One had his arm draped around the other. They were smiling at each other, fondly enough that Dean started to smile in return before remembering his father’s glare. He tried to blank his expression as he turned back around, his father’s gaze now on him. Dean shrugged, trying for a short of ‘well, what are you going to do?’ that didn’t entirely satisfy John. His father stood, the table shaking.
“Come on,” he ordered. “We’re not staying with those here. Creeps. Probably don’t even care that there’s children here. Anyone could see!”
Dean could remember the gnawing hunger the next day as he wished he had eaten that cheeseburger with a slice of cheese top and bottom a little faster.
He remembered each time Cas stared a little too long, or when Cas would give a rare smile. And Dean remembered there really was a hell every time he thought he might really be falling in love with this angel who told him heaven was real.