iāve been fleshing this out with alyx and goose since yesterday afternoon and im having sooo much fun. important points are :
mary is NOT GOOD at single parenting but she IS really good at hiding from demons (rather than hunting azazel, sheās avoiding him because iām making the decision that she DOES know what killed her parents + the deal to bring john back. minus the time travel from that episode because i truly just donāt care) which leads to a lot of moments where sam does actually vanish off azazelās radar entirely and he has to work actually kind of hard to keep track of the kid
as a result of mary hiding from the demon rather than hunting it, they do still move around, but its more of a ābouncing from apartment to apartmentā kind of moving around rather than like. living in motels permanently. the kids actually grew up with kitchens and might know how to cook
mary is, ostensibly, not a hunter anymore. she doesnāt take jobs, turns people away with claims that sheās retired and settled down now (even when sheās breaking her third lease of the year to move halfway across the country again), and sheās not actively searching for monsters to kill. the problem is that sheās travelling around with and hiding hellās favorite child, so demons and monsters alike tend to crawl out of the woodwork wherever she goes. whenever possible, she chooses flight rather than fight, for the sake of her kids. when thatās not an option, she deals with it herself as quickly and quietly as possible.
dean learns about monsters fairly early on still because while mary still wants a life for her kids that she didnāt get, sheās not stupid and naive anymore and she knows thatās not realistic for them. she protects them as long as she can, and then one night when dean is ten years old, something gets in the house, and if she wasnāt there it couldāve killed both of her boys. it probably wouldāve. so she tells dean exactly what it was and how to use a gun, and to look after himself and his brother when she isnāt there
and dean, who assigned himself Man Of The House in johnās absence at age 5, internalizes that in a normal way š©· itās deanās job to protect his mom, his sibling, and the random civilians in the way all the same. heās twelve shooting targets in the backyard, and then heās fourteen hunting ghosts behind his momās back, and then heās sixteen and she finally agrees to let him come with her on her hunts.
sam comes out at 15 as a girl because this is my au and i said so. without the stifling levels of toxic masculinity from both john and dean she has a lot more freedom to be herself Yay!! this doesnāt make much of anything else any better for her. everything is still going to happen. but at least sheās on estrogen for it
in this au, dean is the one who leaves (or at least tries to leave) the hunting lifestyle at 19. itās the last thing any of them expect, considering how hard dean leans into it during his teen years. but iām fond of aus where ben really is deanās kid, so i think thatās what happens here ā he accidentally gets lisa pregnant and then decides to stay and make it work. mary is notttt happy with him because the last thing they need is yet another kid getting dragged into this life, so she tells dean his only choice is to leave. cut ties with their family, pretend he never was a winchester at all and stay the hell away from monsters. donāt be stupid, obviously; stay sharp, stay alert, and be ready for something to go wrong, but donāt go looking for trouble either. ever.
so dean does. settles down in a big city to blend in with as many people as possible, age 20 with a newborn and an on-and-off relationship, age 25 dropping his son off to kindergarten on his custody week, rocky as hell life that he doesnāt even like but heās keeping ben safe and thatās gotta be enough.
and then he gets home to sam on his doorstep, looking so different from the last time dean saw her, and she tells him that mom went missing after the last hunt and she needs his help. please.
