Winchester Child 3 of 4 (thanks John)
Warnings: None, spoilers for Supernatural’s earlier seasons Words: 2500 (I swear I don’t feel like it’s that long) Summary: A short where you are another one of John’s bastard children who grows up with the family but never really feels apart of it until much later. Reader: 2nd-person, female pronouns A/N: I’m trying to do some writing while I have spare time and it’s not going great but the best way to move past it is to force yourself to write more so I tried to write a short on an idea for a reader-insert I’ve had for a while :)
The night air never made you shake as hard as you did that night. Maybe it wasn’t the wind that caused your discomfort, but the yelling as your father, John and half-brother, Sam, fought. Beside you was your other half brother, Dean. You stood between your brothers with Dean closer to your father. You were freshly 18, a year and a bit younger than Sam.
After the death off his wife, John had turned to a rather unhealthy form of grieving. One night, after finding a baby sitter for his two young children, he encountered a rather pretty woman who took pity on his situation and offered him a night of free beers and other activities which resulted in you. Unfortunately, like many women the Winchesters encountered, your mother didn’t live long after birthing you and informing John of your existence. Now stuck with two babies, John really did try to make you someone else’s problem. He could barely take care of two kids, how was he going to take on another, not to mention a girl? Yet, despite all he tried, you just seemed to stick. Now one could get rid of you no matter how hard they might have tried. So you grew up as the illegitimate Winchester girl. The black sheep of the hunter family.
John never really looked at you the way he did Sam and Dean. Dean never recognised you as his sister. It was hard enough for him to relate to Sam, who’d never met his mother, but even harder for him to relate with you. You were only half his sister and a burden on top of that as for many years of his younger life he was stuck looking after you and Sam. But hey, at least you had Sam. Being very close in age and slightly less traumatised than Dean, you got along very well and would always be on research duty. In many ways, you two were the same. You both caring and thoughtful and neither of you had a good relationship with your father. The difference was Sam had a goal and aspirations. He wanted to be a lawyer and he wasn’t going to let anyone stop him. You, on the other hand, had no idea what you wanted to do and never got the opportunity to explore your passions.
You’d never forget the sound of John raising his voice like he did that night. Even as you heard it all you already knew what was going to happen. Sam had made up his mind. He was going to Stanford and he wasn’t going to let his dad bully him out of it anymore. Sam had spoken to you about it the night before and offered for you to go with him. You were old enough to enrol in a nearby community college and crash with Sam in whatever little apartment he could get his hands on. You both knew you wouldn’t get into a course at Stanford- you didn’t have the education thanks to the constant travelling- but Sam assured he’d make it work. You turned him down, though. You couldn’t stand up to John as Sam could, and you couldn’t bare to become a burden on Sam when he finally got to get away from it all.
“If you leave us- if you go to Stanford- don’t you ever come back, you hear me? Don’t you ever come back!” John had yelled. Sam had given you and Dean a sad look like a silent goodbye and left after that.
With Sam now gone, and John growing more and more absent in your life with each passing day, you were forced to get closer with Dean. It was weird. You’d know Dean your whole life and yet he felt like a stranger to you and it was clearly mutual. Often you were chasing at his heels, scared of getting left behind. The years you spent with Dean while Sam was off at Stanford didn’t include a lot of bonding between the two of you, but you did pick up a lot of his traits that included but were not limited to: being headstrong, stubborn, argumentative, and thinking that yelling louder meant you were winning. This lead to a lot of screaming matches between you and your older brother that never really went anywhere.
Living in close quarters with Dean and constantly butting heads caused you to gain quite the temper too, to the point that you were once 5 seconds away from getting arrested for assault after finding out Dean had let some poor unsuspecting waitress borrow your clothes after spending the night in the neighbouring motel room to the one you had been staying in.
2005 rolled around like a blessing you didn’t realise you’d been praying for. Dean had grown anxious enough about your father’s disappearance that he’d resorted to asking Sam for help. He dragged you along for the long drive to Stanford. As per tradition, you sat in the back of the Impala.
“You know, I’m surprised your pride calmed down enough for to actually admit needing help, Dean. I didn’t think it was possible,” You mocked from the back seat as you toyed with the cord on your walkman.
“Yeah, well maybe if you were any help we wouldn’t be needing to go harass Sammy,” he retorted. “You don’t even want to help look for dad. All you do is whine and complain until it comes to your turn to get off your ass and then suddenly it’s not an issue.”
“My stance on dad is very clear.”
“What? ‘Cause he said you were acting like a skank that one time? Geez, (Y/N) he’s done way worse to me and you don’t see me just up and abandoning family like that. It’s not like he was completely wrong anyway-”
You kicked the back of the headrest on the driver’s seat. “Family- bah,” you scoffed at Dean. “Family is you, dad and Sammy. I don’t come into that equation. Never have, never will, all ‘cuz my genes are a bit different to yours.” You could see Dean roll his eyes in the revision mirror. “Just ‘cause Mary wasn’t my mum doesn’t mean I didn’t lose a mother. You don’t give Sam shit and he knew your mum as long as I knew mine.”
From the reflection in the mirror, you could see Dean’s mouth go taut. It was something you had argued over many times and there was never any progress, so he instead he turned up on the volume on the stereo. In response, you turned up your walkman and spent the rest of the drive in bitter silence.
Hours later, the Impala rolled up to a little flat a couple blocks from the university which you assured was where Sam lived now. It was the middle of the night and Dean was already out of the car and looking for a way to break in before you could get a word out. You raced out after him and yanked him back before he could crawl through a window. Dean went to protest, but stopped when you gestured for him to be quiet. That was one of the few things you and Dean could do and that was work well on hunts together. When one of you gave the other a signal, you would listen.
“Why don’t we use the door, Dean? Like normal people.” You hissed under your breath. Dean smirked.
“Normal people? Since when have we ever been like that?” Although he joked, he obliged and you both snuck back over to the front door and Dean knocked. You eyed him and saw he was nervous. It was weird to see him practically sweating with anticipation. You never saw that side of Dean, but before you could tease him, the door opened.
A groggy looking blonde woman stood in the doorway in a robe while rubbing her eyes and hiding a yawn. Clearly she’d only just woken up, and no wonder considering it was past midnight. “Hello?” She said with a frown.
“Hi, Jessica-”
“Jessica?” Dean scrunched his nose and looked down at you, confused.
“I’m (Y/N), Sam’s brother. We spoke on the phone last year around Christmas. This is Dean, other brother.” You smiled as recognition washed over the girl’s face and she nodded.
“Yeah… yeah I remember. What are you guys doing here? Actually, nevermind… I’ll go get Sam.” She stepped back into the house. “Give me a minute.” She then disappeared into the living room to assumably go get Sam. Once the coast was clear, Dean grabbed your arm and spun you to look at him.
“You know her?” Dean said in a hushed voice.
“Of course I know her, Sam and Jessica have been dating for a while. And before you ask, I ring Sam every Christmas and we talk shit about you for a few hours. It’s no big deal.” Besides complaining about Dean, your annual calls to Sam also involved you catching up on what was going on in his life and getting to unload your own problems to someone who would listen. You never told Sam, because you didn’t want him to feel guilty, but you missed him a lot.
Sam came into view a minute later, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and a large smile stretching across his face as he saw his siblings standing in the doorway. You were practically beaming and leap and him as soon as he got close and pulled him into a tight hug. You felt the rumbling of his chest as he gave a hearty laugh and hugged you back. Big hugs were something you always did with Sam before he left. You were surprised, though, when there was a pressure against your back as Dean joined and squished you in the middle. It was… a shock to be sure- Dean hadn’t ever given you a proper hug before- but it was a welcome one.
Dean decided to let Sam get back to sleep and process your arrival and he and you spent the night in the Impala. The next morning you both met Sam bright and early at a local coffee shop to talk and catch Sam up on everything that had happened and why you were there. Sam chuckled when he saw you both.
“What’s so funny?” You mused as you slide across the seat in a booth and Dean sat beside you, giving you a slight shove.
“Oh, it’s just..” Sam was looking between the two of you fondly. “It’s like I’m seeing double.” He finally admitted. This caused you and Dean to look at each other, where you realised you were practically wearing the same thing. You both had a grey shirt, red button-up and black jacket with jeans and boots. You even had similarly scruffy hair. As if to prove Sam’s point further, a waitress came by with an order of two coffees and two plates of fries and a burger.
“It wasn’t intentional,” you snapped. Sam’s eyebrows raised a little at the sudden burst of attitude.
“You’re like a mini-Dean.” Sam joked.
“Yeah, she wishes,” Dean teased and gave you another shove with his elbow. You grumbled.
“More like he’s an exaggerated me.” You pushed Dean back and then shuffled to sit away from him to avoid further harassment. “If you don’t stop I’m gonna start acting like Dean and then you’ll have two big babies with a bad taste in movies to deal with.”
You decided to instead focus on eating your food and listen after that while Dean briefed Sam on what was going on.
Neither you, Dean or Sam, had expected that after that day you’d all be travelling together again. After what happened to Jessica, Sam was back and hunting. It felt almost wrong to see him in the front seat again with Dean. Sam was the one who was meant to get out, yet here he was getting dragged back in again. You wanted to console him, but there was only so much talking he’d do before getting frustrated and wanting to be left alone. You found yourself sitting with Dean outside of whatever motel you were staying at some nights. You’d mainly talk about Sam and how you both worried about him. It seemed that finally the two of you had something in common.
Weeks and weeks of running around the States, hunting monsters and what-not, you were finally blessed with the knowledge that your father was, in fact, alive and had not had the time to get back to Dean. Instead of getting to hear some sort of praise for your efforts, John instead gave Dean instructions and lists of jobs to go finish up. During these jobs, the three of you encountered a demon named Meg. Like a lot of demons oddly enough, Meg liked to talk and revealed she had a connection to what had killed Mary. All the time you found yourself getting angrier with your father’s actions and the way he treated your brothers. It wasn’t until Dean reported what you’d found out about Meg did the Winchester father make the effort to come to meet up with you.
You stood back by the Impala while your brothers paced the street impatiently, waiting for the arrival of their dad. He arrived eventually. Dean was first to hug John, while Sam was a little more reluctant. You picked at your nails, waiting for it all to just be over so you could get back on the road. You were annoyed at your father and weren’t in the mood to be acting like you weren’t. No one seemed to notice you for a while until finally, Dean spoke up.
“And, you know, if it wasn’t for (Y/N) we never would have heard anything off that demon.” At the sound of your name, you perked up and begrudgingly walked over. Neither you nor John made an effort to hug as your brothers had. As you stood awkwardly, Dean looked down at you and saw the tight expression on your face. “Of course… you never notice when she does stuff, huh dad.”
Nothing came from that comment and you ended up excusing yourself to sit in the car to avoid saying something you’d regret, but as you sat in the Impala with your walkman, you smiled a bit. Dean… stood up for you? Sure, it wasn’t much but it was something. Now that you had the chance to think about it, Dean had been acting differently towards you ever since Sam had come back. It was nice. Maybe things were going to start changing.
