I write fics to make my brain less squishy

You’re a tomboy, scrappy knees, hair disheveled. There’s a big angry scratch on your chin from where you got into a fight at school. You’d be such a pretty girl if only you behaved like more of a lady, relatives tell you, petting your cheek. It makes you pull away, which your mother tells you is rude. 

Dean’s fascinated you since you’ve been able to be fascinated by boys. He recently had a growth spurt, towers over you now. He wears a leather jacket he got from his dad and his face is perpetually set like he doesn’t have time for whatever is happening, like he has other, better things to do. 

It’s all an act, though, you already know at this young age. You see him with Sam, who’s still a little wise-ass shit at twelve - and will be for a long time. The jacket and the cool look and the cans of beers he sneaks from John and Bobby are all one thing, but the Dean you fall in love with is the one who skips school so he can be with Sam when he has a fever, accepts his father’s abuse because the school called again about his absences without putting up a fight. He once beats the shit out of a kid who makes fun of Sam, now chubby and round in the face. There’s hell to pay after that. But it elevates him even more in your eyes.

Dean and you are walking down a dirt road on a late afternoon in early fall. The two of you are talking about all the places you’ll go when you’re grown up, the things you’ll do, the stuff you wanna buy. You don’t know if any of it will actually come true, but it’s a nice fantasy to indulge in.

Your arm keeps bumping against Dean’s hand while you walk, and you’re intensely aware of your skin touching his. It’s warm and there’s hair growing on it. He’s starting to become a man, you’ve heard the women at church say about other boys his age. It makes you nervous to think about. You’re not sure what to think about men yet. You’d rather he just stayed a boy for a little longer.

Earlier this week you decided that you want Dean to be your boyfriend. You’ve kissed a boy from school, and your cousin tried it on with you at your grandfather’s birthday party earlier in the summer. Shoved his hand up your dress even though you told him to stop. You had to knee him in the groin, then go back to the party, act like nothing happened. You knew your mother wouldn’t believe you, even if you hadn’t been wearing that short summer dress you insisted on and later buried in the backyard, even if there hadn’t been the smell of liquor on your breath. You only wanted to try it. See what the fuss was all about.

But you think, you know, that kissing Dean will be different. You’ve seen him, in the back of his father’s car, with girls. Pretty girls, girls with soft, flowy hair, not your tangled mess, girls who wouldn’t spit on you if you were on fire. 

Dean doesn’t know you’ve watched him, but you’ve seen him there, one arm slung around the girl’s shoulders, the other roaming somewhere lower, out of sight. The girls look like they’re enjoying themselves. You imagine yourself as one of them. All soft and nice and pretty to be loved by Dean.

So now here you are, on this small dirt road, the setting sun making you both squint, and you stop walking long enough to make Dean turn around, think something’s wrong. You have this all figured out, know exactly what to do. 

Dean’s got a questioning look on his face and you look up into his eyes, cross the distance between you in two large steps. He still looks confused, and then you push yourself up on your toes while you lean against him, hands on his shoulders, and push your lips against his. 

The second it takes him to react, you later tell yourself, is because maybe he did like it. But his face when you pull back, drop down, and the way he looks at you tells a different story. 

“What the hell are you doing?” he asks, pushing you away from him by the shoulders. You stumble a little, feeling confused. You didn’t plan for this reaction. 

“I just thought…” you say, but you’re not sure what you thought. All you know is that you wanted to kiss Dean, because he feels safe, and you would like for once to have someone touch you who feels safe. But Dean doesn’t seem to feel the same way, and already tears are shooting into your eyes. 

“You’re like, like a sister to me or something,” Dean says, and it makes you want to sob. Because you don’t want to be his sister. You want to be his girlfriend, his wife, maybe, one day. And then he actually rubs at his mouth with the sleeve of his shirt, and it’s just a little bit more than you can take. 

Your closed fist connects with his chin, and Dean stumbles back. 

“I hate you!” you screech, but you’re not even sure if it’s Dean you mean. Weirdly, Dean doesn’t seem upset, or angry. Just confused. 

The look on his face is burned onto your retinas while you run home, tears streaming down your face. You make it to your room and, dramatically, throw yourself on your bed. 

Life is over, as far as you’re concerned, because Dean Winchester doesn’t love you. 

With your face pressed into the pillow, you sob your little heart out. When there are no more tears left to cry, you turn your face to the side, look out the window of your room. Night has fallen. At least this day is about to be over. 

You fall asleep in your clothes, arms tucked tight against your chest.

Dean shows up at your house the next day. Your mother calls you down, cigarette held in one hand, face a mask of disapproval. You trudge down the stairs, still wallowing in your self-pity and when you see the open front door with Dean standing there, you freeze. 

The day that has passed has made you understand that you have acted wrongly, that punching Dean for not wanting to kiss you isn’t fair. So the shame you feel on top of the embarrassment adds a sour flavor. 

You walk up to him, since he seems reluctant to come in. Your mother moves, but the way she looks at you tells you she does not approve of this boy coming up to the house. 

Dean has his hand behind his back, and when he reveals it, you see he is holding some flowers. Wild ones, so he must have picked them himself. He passes them to you, and you feel your face heat up. 

“I’m sorry for upsetting you yesterday,” he says, looking at the ground mostly, but stealing glances up at you. “It’s just that I’ve known you for so long, it feels strange to—” 

“I know,” you say. You realize you’re squeezing the stems of the flowers. “I’m sorry.” Dean finally looks up at you. 

“Friends?” he asks, a small hopeful smile on his lips. You nod. 

“Friends,” you confirm. 

It breaks your heart a little, but thinking about losing Dean completely makes you want to lay down and die. Life without him would be unbearable. 

You don’t hug, things still too awkward between you, but when he leaves and you close the door behind you, you feel like things are okay between the two of you. You hold the flowers to your chest, intent to find a vase for them so you can put them on your windowsill, let them be the first thing you see in the morning and and the last thing when you go to sleep at night, so you walk into the kitchen. 

Usually, you’re hyper aware of where your mother is, needing to dodge her having become a practiced sport in your house. But right then, you’re simply too distracted, so when she speaks from where she’s sitting at the small kitchen table, you flinch. 

“If that boy knocks you up,” she says, and you spin around to face her, “don’t think I’ll pay for you to get rid of it in a nice clinic.” You stare at her, the flower stems grasped closely again. She looks at you with her deep, empty eyes. 

“I’ll do it right here myself with a coat hanger if I have to,” she continues, tapping off the ash of her cigarette. You nod, don’t dare to say anything else, and then you leave the kitchen, walk upstairs. No vase. 

Instead you use the water glass you have by your bed. It doesn’t look as pretty but when you put the flowers on the sill and sit in bed to look at them, knees tugged tight against your chest, you couldn’t imagine anything more beautiful.

Sam and Dean are barely around for a while, spending more time on the road. Dean calls you sometimes when they’re traveling - he thinks of a code, three rings, then he hangs up, then calls again. You grab the phone then, sneak into the little junk room off the hallway. Close the door, but not fully because if you damage the cord you’ll be in big trouble. 

You hold the receiver close while you listen to Dean and all the adventures he tells you about. You still need to grow a little older before you understand there are no adventures. That it’s mostly Dean and Sam, John off on a case or passed out somewhere in the room. That Dean tells you these pretty stories because he needs to believe them himself. 

When your mother asks who’s calling, you say it’s the poor, someone wanting you to pray for them on the phone. That’s usually enough for her to leave you alone. 

It helps that she’s often confused these days, your mother, dazed. You’ve noticed it for a while, but it’s getting worse. Sometimes she thinks your father is still alive and one afternoon she thinks you’re her mother. The doctor your uncle takes her to says it’s early onset dementia, but you wonder if it’s also something else. Wonder if she isn’t hiding from her own pain, her own fears. It scares you, and you wonder if the same thing will happen to you one day. You’re pretty sure your mother has suffered in her life, and even though it’s made her mean and scary, you do pity her sometimes. 

You wonder if enough bad things have happened to you to make you forget as well. The way you imagine it is a glass of water: you are the glass, and the bad things are the water. Will your brain simply shut down once the liquid reaches the rim? Do good things take water out of the glass, or can it only ever fill up? You could drive yourself crazy thinking about it. 

A boy at school likes you. He's repeating the grade so he's a little older. He writes you a note, asking if you want to go for a walk with him after class. You turn around in your seat, look at him. He’s nice-looking, but he’s no Dean. You’ve barely talked to him all year. 

It’s getting warmer outside and this boy and you go for walks, again and again. He tells you so much about himself. You listen, nod and smile, and when he looks at you, you make it a point to brush your hair behind your ear. He keeps looking at you.

On your fifteenth birthday, he kisses you. It’s wet and not very nice and you can’t get your lips to relax. You freeze up when his hands land on your body. He rubs his fingers along your ass and then pulls you towards him, pushes his leg between yours, rubs you hard against him, grinds against you. 

He continues doing that for a few minutes. Distantly, you think you feel something - you’re not sure what, but maybe it’s something good. Your mind drifts, and you imagine what this would be like with Dean.

A softness comes over you. You imagine you pull back, open your eyes and his face is there. His green eyes and long lashes. All those freckles. His puffy lips, pretty as a girl’s. His tanned skin from when he rolls up his t-shirt’s sleeves in the heat.

He’d kiss you softly, carefully, and you’d keep your eyes open so you could see him, only to see his eyes are open for the same reason, and then you’d both laugh.

The boy groans, then sighs before he separates from you. His hands are around your upper arms. His lids are low and he has a lazy smile on his face.

“That was really great,” he says. “We can do it again, if you want.” You nod. Soon it’s time for you to go home, but not before he presses another wet kiss to your lips.

You go home, shower. Scrub at yourself. It feels like there is a panicked bird in your chest that you cannot quiet.

The next day, you visit Bobby. Once, a few years ago, he tried baking you a birthday cake, but luckily he has let that tradition go. Instead, there is a large piece of your favorite pie from the store waiting with a single candle in it. You sit down with a smile, as you and Bobby attack it with two forks.

You chat about school, about what subjects you’re good at, which ones you’re struggling with. Which teachers you like and which you don’t. You want to tell him about the boy, about the way he touched you - you feel like you need an adult to look at the situation, tell you if you should be as alarmed as you feel. But Bobby treats you like a little girl. You don’t want him to stop looking at you that way.

What significantly improves your mood is that before you leave, Bobby hands you a postcard - the handwriting immediately tells you it’s from Sam and Dean. The card says Howdy from the middle of nowhere! You smile at it, hide it in your jacket.

When you’re back home, you look at the card in peace. After your mother found the postcard last time, you became careful for a while, but with how confused she is, you feel safe having it in the house. You lay on your bed, on your back, read it. There’s a chance they will be back in town in the next couple of weeks - it looks like John has found another case he can’t take them on. Dean’s disdain for his own perceived uselessness is palpable in his writing, but you can’t help the fact that you are excited to see him and Sam.

Maybe with your new experience, Dean will be more interested in you. Maybe he’ll want to do the things the boy from your class did. You know you agreed to only be friends - but maybe he’ll still change his mind?

Dean’s too late, though. The next week, the boy takes you out to the edge of the woods. He kisses you again, and you close your eyes. When he pulls down your pants, you float away. He squeezes your breasts, too hard, painful. It’s over before you know it, but it feels like an eternity. 

When he rolls off you, you look up into the trees. The ground is cold below you and the clothes on your butt and back are wet from the grass where it rained the previous day. You’re a woman now, you think, even though it doesn't feel like it.

You wake up with a cold the next morning. Coughing, and head so thick with mucus you feel like you’re going deaf. Everything is itchy. You lie in bed, feverish, drift in and out of sleep. The woman who comes over to clean brings you tea. Holds the back of her hand against your forehead. Her hands are cold and soft, and when you squeeze your eyes shut, tears fall from them. You’re sure you’re the loneliest girl in the world, but you’ve never felt as lonely as in this moment. You hope the sickness will kill you.

It doesn’t. Three days later, you wake, bleary-eyed, lips chapped. You feel like the skin a snake leaves behind when it sheds - dry and empty.

A week later, Sam and Dean are back. They call you from Bobby’s, tell you to come over. The grin on your face is endless as you promise you’ll be there soon.

You sit at the little vanity in your room, look at yourself. There are no external changes you can see. You still look like a young girl, the baby fat in your cheeks not gone, your breasts no bigger. You chew at your lip, quickly stop yourself. You reach for a brush, then instead go for the curling iron you took from your mother months ago. An idea strikes you.

Half an hour later, there’s lipstick on your lips, a touch of rouge on your cheeks and soft waves in your hair, a change forced from its usual texture, paid for with several burned fingertips.  Only when looking at yourself again you realize who you’re modeling yourself after - Mary Winchester. 

You’ve seen the pictures of her, held by Dean because they’re already falling apart from so much touching. They are cut from the same cloth, Mary and Dean, equally beautiful, where Sam has some of the roughness of his father, even though he wears it completely differently. 

It’s all wrong. She was effortlessly beautiful, feminine, maternal but youthful. Your hair doesn’t fall the way hers did, and your face is too grim, you think. It’s an attempt, nothing more. You could wipe it all away before going over there. But you don’t. You add to it. A blue dress that you usually wear to church. A spritz of your mother’s perfume - flowery and too sweet. Then you make your way over to Bobby’s.

The front door is unlocked and Bobby’s truck is nowhere in sight, so you let yourself in. The boys are sitting at the kitchen table. Well, Sam is. Dean is leaned against it, arms crossed in front of him. You step into the kitchen, your hands fidgeting. It takes them a second to notice you.

Sam beams at you, actually waves even though you’re only standing a few feet from him. Dean turns but when his eyes fall on you, his easy smile vanishes.

His gaze travels over you once, and for a hopeful second you think he’s checking you out. But he’s not, you realize immediately. He’s judging you. And he doesn’t seem to like what he sees.

It’s not how you imagined it. In your head, he was supposed to step forward, take your hand. Look into your eyes like he’s finally seeing you, who you are, what you could be for him. He doesn’t. He looks away, frowning. So you focus on Sam instead.

You walk over to where he’s sitting. The three of you have become too awkward in your own bodies to hug when you see each other again, so standing next to them, you press your hands together.

“What are you doing?” you ask after initial hello’s. You look at the book Sam has open in front of him. He looks there too.

“Algebra,” he says. Now it’s his voice that’s cracking. You frown.

“Last year’s?” you ask, and Sam shakes his head.

“Next year’s,” he says. 

You raise your hand before you know it. Lay it on Sam’s head, gently pat it. His hair is thick and warm under your fingers. He freezes, visibly freezes, then briefly closes his eyes. You ruffle his hair for a second longer.

“Well done,” you say, your voice sounding breathless. “You’re so smart.”

Looking back when you're older, you imagine the scene like some kind of classical painting. Girl trying to be a mother. You'll try again, many, many years later. Stand in this very spot in the kitchen, big and round, looking out the window, when you remember it. See it before you. An unbelieving chuckle will leave you. It's one of those things that, looking back at it, feels so significant. How maybe this was always meant to be.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Dean asks, and you quickly drop your hand from Sam's head, turn to him, eyes wide. Dean's brows are low as he looks at you. If you were older, smarter, quicker, you'd ask him what he means. Play dumb, or oblivious. But you're fifteen and in love with a boy that doesn't love you back and have had a low thrum of panic at the back of your mind since that afternoon with the boy from your class. So there's no clever retort. No pretending that you don't know exactly what Dean is talking about.

Or maybe you like being found out. Maybe you like someone bothering to look through your pretense. 

Dean stares you down a few seconds longer. You swallow, the sound embarrassingly loud, like in a cartoon.

“I'm sorry,” you say, voice low. Dean blinks, then pushes off the table and walks over to the couch without another word, drops down on it. You don't look at him, just stare at the floor where he stood. He turns on the TV. 

You flinch when Sam touches your hand. Look down at him, blinking. He gives you a hopeful smile. Trying to smooth over the waves the tension in the room is causing. You don't understand yet, but later you'll know that's what he does. First with Dean and John, and then with Dean and you. Little Sammy, always there to make sure things don't reach a boiling point. 

Except that sometimes, also, he’s the one who sets the entire kitchen on fire.

“Do you want to watch a movie?” he asks. “We got Ghostbusters at a garage sale.” You nod. Sam stands and the two of you walk over to the couch.

You don't want to watch Ghostbusters. You'd think a story about friends who hunt ghosts would be perfect, right up your alley, but right then, you're too distracted. Embarrassment and shame sit deep in your gut. You don’t understand yet that your failure lies in touching part of Dean's life he doesn't want anyone to touch. Instead your brain is telling you that the issue lies in you trying to be what Mary is to you, to them - something beautiful, perfect. Something that just is, didn't have to be formed. You'll need to become a woman first to understand that Mary Winchester has been made holy and perfect only in her family's memory. At some point, she was human too.

As you sit there, pressed deep into the couch, your eyes fill with tears. The sides of your mouth pull down. You can feel the waves you put into your hair start to lose their curl, the little perfection they had. The color on your lips is starting to feel tacky. The dress seems ugly, all of a sudden, cheap. Dean gets up to get some snacks, and he doesn't look at you, not when he stands up and not when he sits down. It hurts more than anything in the world.

You try to keep the tears in, you really do. But they won't stay where they are. You cry quietly, hoping the boys simply won't notice. But at some point, a deep, stuttering sniffle leaves you. 

They both turn to you. Dean is sitting at the other end of the couch, what feels like miles and miles away, while Sam is sitting on the floor, roughly halfway between your and Dean's legs. There's room on the couch, so you're not sure why he's down there.

It's started to darken outside, and no lights are on inside. There's shadow on Sam and Dean's faces, and you can't keep either of their gazes. You feel them look at you expectantly. 

“I just wanted to feel pretty,” you mumble, the dark of the room and the flashing light of the TV making the confession a little easier. Dean turns himself towards you, his face neutral, like he doesn’t understand, for a moment. You’re sure it’s something he thinks about too, how the outside world perceives him. You wish you could not care.

“You are pretty,” Sam says and your gaze moves to him. His legs are tucked in, and he’s turned his upper body, keeps looking up at you. He smiles shily. “At least I think so.”

It tugs at your heart so heavily that you need to blink, swallow.

“Thank you, Sam,” you breathe, and then your hand wanders to his shoulder, squeezes. He gives a tight-lipped smile, then looks forward again, back at the TV. His hand sneaks into the bowl of cheese puffs Dean got earlier, maybe to distract from the violent blush spreading on his cheeks and neck. He takes some out and he shoves them in his mouth.

“You’re gonna become a cheese puff yourself, you keep eating these,” Dean teases, and your head whips around to him.

“Don’t be mean to him,” you say, voice terse, and Dean’s smile immediately falls off his face. Without waiting if he’ll react any other way, you turn back to the movie as well, lean back on the sofa. After a few seconds, you feel Dean lean back as well. 

All of you are quiet for a while. But ten minutes later, Dean makes a dumb joke. Sam and you laugh at it, add to it, and you're pretty sure you can see the relief on his face. For a second, he was outside of it all. But Sam and you let him back in.

The boys stay for several weeks this time. You're there, once, when John calls. Watch the deep frown on Dean's face, the way Sam slinks away from where the phone is attached to the wall, and his brother, in turn, to the phone. Dean's quiet afterwards, distant. There's an expression on his face that you haven't seen before. The expression of a boy who has not been chosen.

It's towards the end of the summer, the last really hot days, that the three of you decide to drive down to the river. You got a new bathing suit- stole it, actually, from a store in town. You were walking through some shops, saw it, white with red cherries on it. You knew your mother would never buy it for you. You had some money still, from the last time you helped Bobby with a new order of books.

But once you thought about stealing it, the thought didn’t go away. You walked up, pretending to be checking the size. When you found the right one, you looked at the display next to it. Scrunched up the fabric and then pushed it into the little handbag you were carrying. Turned and walked outside without looking back. No one stopped you.

It's how you've seen Dean do it. With gum, chocolate bars. You know that sometimes they don't have enough food, but you don't think that's the case at Bobby's. Still, he does it. Almost like a habit he picked up and can't quite quit just because he doesn't need it anymore. But from watching him, you know what the trick is - to act like you're doing nothing at all. 

You're wearing it now, under jeans shorts, cut from an old pair of denims, and a white t-shirt. You’re also sitting in the backseat of the Impala.

John Winchester’s old car’s never meant much to you, but you can tell it means something to Dean. The way he cleans it, scratches at little flecks of dirt on it. Whenever the three of you go into town, he always refuses to drive you and Sam. The two of you take bikes instead, and Dean hangs back or drives somewhere else - you don't want to think about where. Probably to some girl.

But now you're sitting in it, the leather warm against the backs of your thighs. Sam is lounging in the passenger seat, book propped up against his raised knees. He's dressed in several layers, much too warm for the weather. But your eyes are on Dean, in his black t-shirt, sleeves rolled up a little, skin tan from the sun. He looks so handsome it makes you feel dumb.

The banks of the river are full of families and kids. You recognize some from school. Usually, you'd avoid them, but getting out of the Impala, you feel boisterous, proud. Dean makes a joke about mosquitoes as he walks over to your side, and you give him a brilliant smile.

The three of you. Unstoppable.

Once you've found a spot, you stretch out. Dean takes some sodas out of his backpack, passes them to you and Sam. You take one, put it down next to you and take off your t-shirt. You need to fight through some self-consciousness for a moment, but you sit up straight, push out your chest, and reach for the soda again. Open it and take a sip.

When you turn, it's not Dean looking at you though - it's Sam. He's down to his swim trunks, a sad, oversized pair that is probably a hand-me-down from Dean. Knees all knobbly, arms over his stomach. He’s been looking like he's having a miserable time since you arrived.

He looks away quickly when you turn, down the length of the river. You can't help but smile a little. Dean's still rummaging through his backpack.

“Damn it,” he mutters, “forgot something in the car.” He looks up, then at Sam. You perk up.

“I'll wait with Sam,” you say. Dean blinks at you, then nods. Stands, dusts off his pants.

Dean can't be gone for more than a few minutes when you see two boys from school approach. One is one you lost your virginity to only a few weeks ago. You haven't talked since - school's out for the summer and if anything, you were expecting him to make contact. Not that he has. Not that you've really wanted him to.

“Hey,” he says now with a distant smile. You nod, brush some dirt off your leg. 

“Hey,” you say back. He nods at Sam.

“That your brother?” he asks. You look at Sam, then shake your head.

“No,” you say, “that's Sam. He and his older brother are friends of mine. They're here for the summer.” The boy nods, while his friends reaches into his jeans, pulls out a rolled cigarette. It doesn't look as neat as the ones your mother smokes, more like someone squeezed and bent it. He pulls a lighter out of the other pocket, then lights it.

It's weed, you realize the next second when the sweet, earthy smell hits your nose. You've never smoked it. You've drunk liquor at home, in secret, just to know what it's about. Stolen some of your mother's cigarettes. But never weed. Once, when Bobby picked you up in town, you could smell it through the rolled-down window when you passed a group of college-aged kids on summer break. Bobby chuckled and shook his head.

“Damn pot heads,” he mumbled, which is how you knew what it was.

You take the joint from the boy when he offers it to you, bring it to your lips. The puff you take is deep, and you make a face. The boy you had sex with chuckles. He's looking at your chest intently. 

“You like it?” he asks. You nod, pass it back. The truth is, you don't feel a thing.

“Hey!” you hear suddenly, and all three of you turn.

Dean is walking down the river bank, looking angry. He's staring at the boys standing in front of you. He's much taller and broader than both, and they freeze when they see him. He walks up to the small group, stands next to you.

“The shit is this?” he says and snatches the joint away from where the boy is holding it. He holds it between two fingers, looks at the boys in turn. They shrink under his gaze. 

“Dean,” you say, but you're not even sure what you're trying to tell him. Maybe to calm him down, but the truth is, you like that he's mad. He doesn't know that you had sex with one of the boys, and you can't stop yourself from wondering if he would be equally mad if he knew. 

“Get the fuck outta here,” he says to the boys. They scram, neither looking at you again. You find yourself not caring.

You turn back to Dean, and he looks at you. The joint is still in-between his fingers. He gives you an earnest look.

“Don't take drugs from fucking losers you don't know,” he says. Then he brings the joint to his lips, inhales deeply. He makes a face, holds the smoke, then slowly lets it curl out between his full lips before throwing the whole thing into the river.

“Especially not when it's bad shit like this,” he says and you start laughing and then you can't stop.

On the way back, you get to sit in the front seat.

Dean says it's so you don't hurl. You're not sure if that's the truth. Right then, you’re not sure of anything.

You've rolled the window down, your head leaning out, hair whipping into your face. The sunshine is warm on your skin as the Impala speeds down the country road. You're pretty sure you're flying.

“It's like when we rode to the hospital,” you say.

“Hmm?” Dean asks over the sounds of the tires on the road, the radio blaring. You wonder if he doesn't remember. When Sam broke his arm. You sink lower into the seat, back against the inside of the door.

You turn your head, look at Sam on the backseat. He's looking outside, the wind whipping his hair around too. You love him with all your heart in that moment. Only you wish he smiled more.

“Who were those punks anyway?” Dean asks, and your gaze slowly wanders over to him. You wonder if he's feeling the same way as you are right now - sleepy but weirdly aware of everything.

“They were boys,” you say, needing to concentrate to make sure the sounds make it out of your mouth. “Just boys.”

Dean nods, doesn't look at you.

“You saved me,” you say to Dean, but then you look at Sam so he knows you mean him too. “You two saved me from the boys.” Dean looks at you, then throws a look in the rearview mirror at Sam, frowning. Sam gives you a clueless look.

You don't know how to tell them. You try to form your thoughts with your lips, but they feel buzzy. You don't know how to explain that every other boy you've met aside from Sam and Dean has been irrelevant. That they're the only two who matter. You can see it so clearly in your head, but your body refuses to produce the sounds necessary to let them know.

“Jesus,” Dean says, looking over at you again. “You're blazed out of your mind, aren't you?”

You start giggling, and it doesn't stop. You look at Sam and he looks worried, but Dean can't help himself, snorts, starts laughing, his shoulders shaking. Yours are too, and there are tears in your eyes. You look back at Sam, and then suddenly he sputters, and then he's laughing too, looking surprised at his own amusement. You laugh until your sides hurt.

When you make it back to Bobby's, Dean sends you over to the couch and you drop down on it. You fall asleep while the boys rummage through the kitchen, talking in low voices.

It's the best sound in the world. It sounds like home.

You wake hours later, disoriented, a slight sheen of sweat on your brow and upper lip. There's noises outside, coming in through the opened window, and a deep voice you know.

You jump up, legs nearly tangling in the blanket someone laid over you. You rush out of the office through Bobby's kitchen. He comes in just as you make it to the door.

“There you are, honey,” he says, voice gruff. “Boys said you got too much sun, they're just–”

But you already know.

You rush outside, kicking up dust. You watch as the Impala drives off the lot. You keep running, even though it makes your head spin. It's not going fast. Not yet.

Sam turns and waves out the back of the car, and you think you see Dean looking at you in the side mirror. You stop running, then raise your hand to cover your eyes from the sun as dust kicked up by the car swirls around you. Your fingers are shaking.

And there, in the driver’s seat - you don’t see him, but you see his silhouette. Broad shoulders, looking straight ahead, managing to be intimidating just by sitting. John Winchester doesn’t look back. There’s nothing for him to see.

You see the sunlight’s glare go over the car once more, and then it's down the road, turns and is gone. You drop your hand, stand in the sudden silence.

Your heart is pounding and you take a stuttering breath as the long hours and days without them feel like they’re being rolled out in front of you like a long carpet. 

You don't see Sam and Dean again for two years.

Next time on SUN BLEACHED FLIES:

Despite the brilliant heat of summer, you feel a shiver run over you when you get out of the car. The house you’re in front of is small, humble, shaded by large trees. It’s pretty, but something about it makes your skin rise into goosebumps. There’s a swing nearby that creaks in the early evening breeze. Dean stands next to you, close enough that you think you can feel the atoms between his and your body. 

“Spooky,” he whispers, making you giggle. 

You see the way they care for each other. The way Sam plays into his role as little brother, rebels against Dean in a way that is so soft, so sweet, even though you can see he wants to push him further. The way Dean takes care of Sam, looks after him. Puts a jacket on him when the leaves start falling. Makes sure he always brings his books if Bobby takes you anywhere, but not to read them while he’s in the car, or he’ll get nauseous. Despite how young you are, it moves you deeply. This little boy taking care of another little boy. 

Their closeness makes your own loneliness feel almost violent. Some of the kids in school start being less understanding about your mother’s strict regime. You feel different, and it’s not nice, it’s painful. But looking at Sam and Dean, you’re pretty sure they’re different too. It’s just that, on them, it has something mesmerizing, beautiful. You wish you could be like them. Be one of them, a sister maybe, but not quite, because anytime you see their father, John, he scares you a little. He’s quiet, rarely raises his voice, but there is something about the way he narrows his eyes at the world that lets you know there is something bubbling under the surface. When he snaps, he snaps suddenly. You feel it at the bottom of your spine. Like a slap, or the sound of a gun going off.

Dean tells you about the cases his father goes on, but it doesn’t take long for you to realize he doesn’t really know what his dad is doing. Still, you don’t call him out on it - he is still closer to the hunting world than you can ever hope to be, so you hang on his every word. How he saw his dad pack a shotgun, and salt. At night, you repeat everything you remember to yourself while you lie in bed. You have salt in the kitchen and although you don’t have a shotgun, you’re sure you could hunt ghosts anyway. You will, one day, but in the meantime, you know you have to learn. Once you wonder what it would be like to hunt with Sam and Dean when they’re grown-up too. Maybe you’d be a good team. And you wouldn’t have to walk into old houses and dark basements on your own.

The first postcard arrives when you’re eight years old. It’s from Salt Lake City. You take it up to your room, sit on your bed, and read it.

There are a lot of churches here. Dad works all the time. There is a snack machine at the motel. Dean ate a whole thing of sour candy and got a stoumech stomach ache. I’m reading Huckleberry Finn and I like it, I like that he tries to be a good person.

Sam W.

And then scribbled below that:

We watched monster trucks on TV and Dad has been hunting. I nearly fired a shotgun, but then didn’t have to. He says he’s gonna drop us off at Bobby’s while he finishes the hunt.

You keep looking at the card, hold it between your fingertips. Turn it around, look at the front, then turn it back again, read it once more. 

The thought that someone, somewhere, is thinking of you makes you feel funny. It makes you feel like you’re real. So far, you haven’t been sure, always, if you actually are.

Later, in bed, you hold the card over your heart and stare at the ceiling. You close your eyes, imagine a motel, which you've only seen in movies. 

The cards keep arriving. Your mother tends to bring in the mail, throws it on the small table in the hallway. Sometimes there are letters in red envelopes there, which you know means something bad. When you go to church and to your grandfather’s house afterwards, and a lot of the red letters have been showing up, your mother is always extra nice to him. Smiles and nods, the corners of her mouth tensed and twitching. As you get older, you notice there’s always less of the red letters that show up for a while.

You make it a habit to bring in the mail when you come home from school. You’re not sure if your mother would mind the boys sending you postcards, but you’re not going to risk it. The anticipation of going through the stack of mail makes your heart beat fast, your mouth dry. Most of the time, there’s nothing. Sometimes there’s so little mail that you immediately know there won’t be a card, but you still carefully go through it. Drop it on the table in the hallway and stare at it for a second, as if it might materialize at the last second. You’re already thinking of the next day.

One card has the Niagara Falls on it, even though that’s not where Sam and Dean went. They tell you they drove by it, stopped at a gas station. You imagine them going through their pockets, looking for change to buy it. Another card, just before Christmas. More and more. You keep them all locked away in a jewelry box wedged into the space between your mattress and the wall of your room.

The card you’ll always remember, the one you never get to read, shows up in the summer. You’re nine. The Olympics are on TV. You like the pole vaulting. The way they seem to defy gravity for a few seconds. 

School is out for the summer, and you’ve started running outside as soon as you know the postman has delivered the mail. Your mother doesn’t work, hasn’t for as long as you remember, due to what you’ve heard an aunt call a “nervous condition”. So you never know when she’ll be home. 

The reason you’re so careless is because when you grab the pile of letters out of the mail box, you can immediately see the corner of the postcard. Your heart beats faster, but rather than simply grab it and pull it out, you slowly go through the pile. That’s the rule. The anticipation, the ritual, is important. If you rush, look at it immediately, it will transform from a card from Sam and Dean into something else, something not meant for you. 

You’re walking up the small path to the house as you go through the pile with shaking fingers. Shoulder open the front door you left open, push it closed with your foot, which you know you’re not supposed to do. Only one brightly colored flyer separates you from your window into the world out there. The window into what could be.

Your mother shows up out of nowhere. You didn’t hear her, too absorbed with your process. Your entire body goes rigid, and you can’t bring yourself to look up at her.

“Give me that,” she says, not more or less mean than she usually does. Her nice, manicured fingers come into your field of vision. She needs to tug on the letters for you to let go.

Maybe she won’t see it. Maybe she won’t care. But you know she will. You know.

She looks at the flyer, does a small scoffing sound at whatever is on it, then moves it to the back of the pile. The card is next. She stares at it, then turns it around. You feel numb. Nauseous.

“What…” she says, but doesn’t finish the sentence. She keeps reading, then slowly turns to you.

“Look at me,” she says, and you force yourself to look at her face. There’s dark rings under her eyes. Lately, you often hear her walking around the house at night. Once, when you went down to the kitchen for a glass of milk, she was sitting at the small table there. Smoking and muttering to herself.

“What is this?” she asks, holding up the card, but it feels like you’re looking at it through a tiny hole. You move your lips, but no sound comes out for a second.

“It’s a… it’s a postcard,” you say. She waves the card in front of your face.

“I know what it is,” she replies, tone nasty, and you want to tell her that if she knows then she didn’t need to ask. But you don’t. “I’m asking why you always have to ignore everything I say!”

And no, she didn’t ask that, but you know not to point that out. You’re also not sure what she means by ignoring what she said, but when you open your mouth, she’s quicker.

“I told you explicitly I don’t want you to be friends with these boys,” she says, and now her voice is raised, and you feel the hot heat of anger flow through you. She never told you that. She does that, though. Insists she told you something she never did, then gets mad you forgot, or didn’t read her mind. “I told you– hey, come here!”

You haven’t moved, but still she grabs your arm. Her hand wraps around your biceps, the fingertips digging into your flesh. You look up at her, wonder if she’ll slap you. But she’s not angry enough at you yet. She always needs a little bit of time to become comfortable in her anger.

But you don’t. It’s been growing in you recently. The older you get, the more you feel like some significant part of your life is made up of lacking - lacking a father, lacking a mother who is nice to you, lacking a family that doesn’t make your skin crawl. Of consistency, of honesty. You have stomach aches all the time. So you pull your arm back, out of her grip.

“You didn’t tell me anything,” you say, your voice already thick with tears at the unfairness of it all. “They’re my friends!”

“Oh, your friends?” your mother asks, her tone mocking, and it’s so mean, so disgusting. 

“Yes, they are!” you say back, your voice cracking and shrill. You’re terrified she’s going to question your friendship to Sam and Dean. There’s enough holes there. How little you see them. How much of your time is spent apart. But for that, to point these holes out, she would need to pay more attention to your life. And you know she doesn’t. So she takes a different route.

“Well, they’re not anymore,” she shoots back. “I forbid you to see them! They’re nasty little boys.” Your eyes widen.

“You don’t know them!” you bite back, your voice taking on a tinge of hysteria. 

“I know where they come from,” your mother says, meeting your voice with a raise of her own. “I know what they are. Them and Bobby. They’re all filthy.”

“They’re not!” you scream now. If she forbids you to see Sam and Dean, if she forbids you to go to Bobby’s… you don’t know what you’ll do. The thought is too terrible. “They’re not! They’re not!”

“Stop yelling!” she yells back, and if you were a little more removed from the scene, you might see the irony in that. But you’re not, and you can’t. Because what your mother is saying is that you are filthy. Whether by association or not, it doesn’t matter. But it’s even worse actually. Because if they are filthy, then you want to be filthy too. And that’s a sin if you’ve ever heard one.

It sets something free in you that makes it feel like you’ll catch fire. Your mother keeps looking at you for a moment longer, studying you with disdain. Then she grabs your arm again.

You assume she’s gonna take you up to your room. You still tear against her hold, but your muscles feel weak and atrophic. You whine, and she only pulls harder, making your shoulder hurt. She drags you after her.

But it’s not to your room. 

It’s only a few feet to the door to the basement.

She rips it open before you can say anything, react in any way. She pulls you down the stairs, and for a few seconds, you have to concentrate on not tripping and falling. Your hand goes out to steady you against the wall as the rickety stairs below you groan. She lets go of you when you’ve reached the bottom.

The low dangling light bulb illuminating the space throws strange shadows over your mother’s face. It makes her look demonic, evil, like something out of a nightmare.

“You’re gonna stay down here,” she says, panting hard, “and think about what you did. You need to listen to your mother, and I won’t—” She briefly loses her place in what she is saying, unsure how to continue.

“You do not disobey your parents,”she starts over. “That is a sin. And I don’t want you coming upstairs until you’ve understood that.”

Before you can say another word, she turns, starts stalking up the stairs. At the top, she flicks off the light and then closes the door behind her with a slam. You are too alight to say anything, shout something after her. Because deep fear has gripped you.

You don’t like the basement. You don’t like the dark. It scares you, the way it encroaches on you. The way it’s so easy to see people and faces in the shadows. The way they come close, crowd in.

It’s suddenly deadly quiet around you. You can still hear your mother moving upstairs, her footsteps heavy and fast, but it feels distant, the dull quality of it making it feel worse than if they were in the room with you.

You look away from the stairs, carefully take in the rest of the room. There is a small, dust-covered window at the far end, but the light that comes through it is miserable and weak. The dark is already feeling closer. 

The first sound leaves you and you barely believe it’s you making that noise. Terror sits low in your spine, but it’s quickly spreading outwards, into your stomach, into your fingers that become numb. Reaches your lungs, making them flutter and tighten. 

You look the other way, away from the window, immediately realizing it’s a big mistake. The other end of the room is pitch black, or not quite, but close enough that you can still see shapes in it. One shape in particular.

It must be a shelf. It must be. An old winter coat hanging from it. But it looks like a person. Standing there, watching you. He will step towards you at any second. And you know what happens then. You can’t turn and look away and move towards the window. If you turn your back on him, everything will be much, much worse.

You begged your mother to buy you a night light after you moved out of your grandfather’s house. All bedrooms were pitch black there. It wasn’t a place for children. Your mother told you you were too old for one, which you don’t think is right, but had no way to prove it. You know none of the kids at your grandfather’s house had nightlights. Even though you were the only child living there, cousins would come over, spend a week there with their parents. None of them had nightlights. You loved having them sleep in your room, which you always had to beg for, because while that didn’t light up the night, it meant he wouldn’t come.

You whimper, fat tears spilling from your eyes now, as you’re sure the thing moves closer. It’s like that one dream you have, that recurring nightmare, where your arms don’t work and your hands don’t work and you can’t move, like something thick and heavy is sitting on your chest. Except you’re not sure it’s a nightmare.

If you were a hunter, you wouldn’t be scared. Or maybe you would be. Maybe you’d just be more brave than you are scared. You’d raise your gun, which you’d have, of course, point it at the thing. Tell it to stop, because in the movies you’ve watched with Sam and Dean, the good guy always tells the bad guy to stop, giving him one last chance. But the bad guy never takes it. He always moves, despite the warning.

You’ve seen the way both boys flinch at the inevitable gunshots. Sam’s eyebrows draw together, and he looks more worried than scared, like he’s upset at the whole entire state of the world. Dean flinches too, but he corrects himself almost immediately. Puts down the hands that went up as if he’s defending himself against something, forces down his shoulders. Reaches for the bowl of popcorn, like he doesn’t have a care in the world.

If they were here now, and if all of you were hunters, you would not tell the bad guy to stop. You would shoot right away. Bang! You would see him crumble, fall down on the floor. You’d turn to Sam and Dean. All of you are older, but it’s difficult to imagine what you would look like. Still, you think you manage. 

“Good job,” one of them says, you’re not sure which one of them. And they say it in a nice way, in a way where they mean it. Not like your mother does when you accidentally push over a glass and spill the water inside it. Not the way your teacher says it when you haven’t been paying attention, have been looking out the window dreaming of a different life, and can’t answer their question. Good job. You want someone to say it to you and mean it.

Sam and Dean would mean it. They would pat your shoulder, those strange, adult versions of them, the ones that have their childhood faces. They pat your shoulder, and then all of you go upstairs and watch a movie, and none of you flinch when the bad guy is shot. Because you know that it’s right and it needs to happen.

You don’t know when you sit down on the floor. You don’t know when you realize that your mother has forgotten you down there. Her footsteps become slower and less performatively angry. At some point, you can hear her hum, something she only does when she thinks you’re not around. The ground below you is dusty and cold, and soon your butt is cold too. 

A thin rivulet of snot makes its way from your nostril to your lips. It tastes salty.

The light from the window grows dimmer. You hear your mother walk up the stairs, maybe to sit on her bed and turn on the small TV she has in her room. You sit there a little longer. When the light is almost fully gone and you can’t see the thing standing in the corner anymore, you get up. 

Your entire body hurts as you unfold it. But that is part of the life of being a hunter. Bangs and bruises and cuts. You know this because the good guys always need to hurt a little. But they make it in the end. The bruises are there to remind them of the battles they fought, and the hardships they faced. 

The lights are off downstairs, the last of the day’s sunlight filtering in through the large windows. You go to the kitchen, turn on the faucet, wait until the water is icy cold. Then you form a cup with both of your hands and wash it over your face. Next you drink some of it. You’re hungry, but nauseous at the same time. You walk upstairs to your room, pass your mother’s on the way.

You peer into her bedroom, carefully. She's lying there, eyes closed, chest slowly rising and falling, still dressed in her day clothes. The light of the TV plays over her features, the volume turned down low. She looks peaceful.

How can she sleep? How can she sleep after doing that to you? 

A weird, eerie calm settles over you as you stand there and watch her. For a moment you contemplate simply dropping into your own bed, letting tiredness overtake you. But you can’t. You need someone to know that you’re alive, that you made it out of that basement, even if they didn’t know you were in there in the first place.

You walk downstairs again. Quietly open the front door. Take your bike from where it’s lying behind the large hydrangea bush in the front yard. Walk it out the garden gate before you get on it and start pedaling. 

You’re definitely not allowed to be out this late, and you sort of understand why. The cars with their headlights seem more imposing, bigger than they do during the day. You drive fast, and there’s goosebumps on your arms from the evening chill. You should have brought a jacket.

The road to Bobby’s house is dark and quiet, as opposed to the streets in town. You can hear cicadas so loud that you think they must be sitting on your shoulder. A possum crosses the road in front of you and you need to swerve to avoid it.

The porchlight is on. The house seems quiet, and you wonder if he’s already gone to bed. You don’t know why you came here. For comfort. To be somewhere you don’t feel so unwanted, even if you only sit on the porch stairs for a bit, leaving Bobby to sleep in peace inside. You quietly get off your bike and put it down on the ground before you keep walking towards the house.

“What are you doing here?” you hear a voice from your left and you whip your head in that direction. 

Dean looks taller than when you last saw him. He’s sitting on the hood of a beat-up beige car. You step closer to him, which is when you see the bruise under his eye, dark and angry. 

The silence is loud between the two of you. You feel a little light-headed, and maybe that’s why the moment feels so significant. 

“I just needed to get away,” you say, your voice sounding foreign to you. You’re not sure if what you’re saying is making any sense, but Dean nods slowly. He scoots to the side and indicates the space on the hood next to him.

You walk over, hoist yourself up. The metal is dusty and it’s getting on your clothes, but you don’t care. You feel too tired to care.

You look over at Dean, then follow his gaze up to the night sky. It seems massive, with thousands and thousands of stars. It makes you feel tiny. It makes you feel huge.

“I’m gonna grow up,” you say, breathing slowly, “and I’m gonna become a hunter, and I’m never, ever coming back here.” You don’t say it to Dean, not really. You say it to the stars. Make this promise to them. Witness, you think they call it when someone says something did or didn’t happen in court. You hope they hold you to it.

You’re surprised when you hear Dean speak. For a long time and many years later, you’ll wonder what moved him to say the things he says. You never get a chance to ask him.

“I’m gonna become a hunter too,” he says, his voice breaking then squeaking, something that you already noticed happening the last time you saw him. He stops, presses his lips together, then starts over. “I’m gonna become a hunter, and I’m gonna be the best one there is, and I’m… I’ll just be really good, and I’ll watch after Sam, and we’ll be safe cause I’m so good at it. And my dad can stop hunting then.”

You’re not sure why Dean thinks his father would want to stop hunting. He must like it too, you think, your idea of what hunters are already colored by John Winchester. But again, you’re too tired to question it. You watch his face, watch the way the low porch light reflects in his eyes.

“I could come with you,” you say, and it takes every bit of bravery you have. “To hunt. We could both look after Sam.” You feel sudden heat rise to your cheeks, as you realize how that sounds, like you’d be mother and father, but you don’t know how to correct yourself. Dean shifts without looking at you.

“You can,” he says, and you take a slow, endlessly grateful breath. “But there’s something we need to do.” You nod. Anything. You would do anything.

“What do we need to do?” you ask. You see Dean’s fist clench and unclench.

“We need to kill a demon,” he says. You nod again.

“Okay,” you say. “Which… which demon?” Truth be told, the thought of any demon scares you. You’ve read a little bit about them in Bobby’s books, but they seem terrifying. Able to go into people’s bodies, control them. But if this is the price, you’re fine with that.

“The one that killed my mom,” Dean says. You purposefully quiet your breathing, the moment feeling too monumental to interrupt. 

Sam and Dean’s mother is a taboo subject. Sam has mentioned her a few times, but the longer you’ve known the two, the more you notice that he does it when Dean’s not around, notice the dip in his voice. You know her name is Mary, like the Virgin Mary. You know that she died when both boys were very, very young. 

“If the demon’s dead,” Dean says, and his words sound weirdly recycled, “then everything’s gonna get better.” You don’t reply anything, just keep looking at Dean. Barely thirteen years old, a splattering of freckles over his nose, a big, ugly bruise under his eye. Staring up at the night sky, swearing blood vengeance. You’re not sure if your picture of him ever changes much after that night.

“I’ll help you,” you say, quietly. Dean turns to you, frowning. He could make fun of you. What do you have to offer to possibly help him? But maybe he’s as afraid of being alone in that basement as you are. “I’ll help you kill it.”

He could laugh at you now, just because. But he chooses kindness over ridicule. Buys your eternal loyalty, in that second.

“Promise?” he says, and it makes your heart bloom that he wants to make sure.

“Promise,” you say. “I swear. We should…” You look around. Dean blinks, looks around too, though he doesn’t know for what. 

“We should make a blood oath,” you say, one leg dangling off the front of the car, flair for the dramatic taking over. “To swear it.” Dean keeps looking at you for a second, and maybe there is just a hint of doubt on his face. But then he reaches into the pocket of his jeans, drags out a pocket knife. Of course Dean has a pocket knife. You should have known.

You scoot closer to him. Watch as he opens the knife, then brings it to the heel of his hand. He hesitates, then presses the knife against it. He smells like grass and sweat. Like laundry detergent, but that must just be his clothes.

He makes a hissing noise, and only when he pulls the knife back do you see that he’s actually parted skin. It shocks you a little, how easily he does it. He hands the knife to you, then looks at your face. Maybe he expects you to back out.

You take the knife from him, press it against your skin too. It hurts, and then it hurts more, and then you move the blade in a slight cutting motion, and all of a sudden the nature of the pain changes. It becomes clear and sharp. You pull the knife back. Watch beads of blood bloom on your palm.

“What are you doing?”

Both of you look up, even though you know the only other voice it could be is Bobby’s, but it’s way too small for that.

Sam stands in an oversized t-shirt, dark hair messy and too long again. His arms are hanging at his sides. He’s skinny as all hell, which is an expression you’ve heard from Bobby. The heck has your daddy been feeding you? You’re skinny as all hell. Look, arms like twigs.

“Sammy, go inside,” Dean says, voice slightly raised to seem like the authoritative brother, but not loud enough for it to carry across the rest of the lot up to the house. Sam just shrugs, apparently unimpressed.

“Bobby’s asleep with the TV on,” he says and Dean sighs. “What are you doing? Can I do it too?”

“No,” Dean immediately says, and Sam throws him a dark look. You look between the two, then at Dean.

“Just let him,” you say. Dean gives you a sharp look.

“No,” he says again. Sam takes a step forward.

“Please, Dean?” he says. Dean looks at his brother, then at you, both of you imploring. You two are the biggest pains in my ass, he’d say if you were fifteen years older. Sam would laugh, and you would press up on your toes to kiss Dean’s cheek. But all of that is still a long way off.

Dean sighs, shakes his head.

“Fine,” he says. “But if anyone asks, you fell, okay? Scratched your hand.” Sam nods eagerly, steps closer. 

You drop off the hood of the car and cross the two steps towards him. He’s still shorter than you, but won’t be for long. When he sees the knife in your hands, his eyes widen, and it’s only then that you realize that he begged to join you and Dean even while the darkness was still hiding what you were actually doing.

“I can do it for you,” you say, and he looks up at you. You give him your most reassuring look back. You see him tense, but then he nods.

Carefully, you take his hand in yours, press your thumb into his palm so he doesn’t move away. It’s way stranger, and worse, in a way, to do it on someone else, but Sam’s brave. You hear him make a little noise when his skin finally parts, but you keep it to yourself. Dean doesn’t have to know. 

You step back and pass the knife to Dean. He takes it, and then the three of you stand there, clueless. You stretch out your hand.

“To what we wished for tonight,” you say, feeling like you better choose your words carefully, since they seem important. “And that we help each other… do it.”

You’re unhappy with your choice of words, but then Sam and Dean extend their hands too. You’re pretty sure for it to be a proper blood oath, the blood of all three of you needs to mix, but you don’t feel like pushing it, so all three of you just awkwardly bleed on the ground for a few seconds. Then you pull your hand back, press it against the side of your leg, against the jeans fabric. Let your mother yell at you for ruining it. Let her dare to.

“Yellow Eyes,” Dean says, and you look up at him. He’s looking down at the dark ground where the three of you have washed the earth with your blood.

“What?” you ask.

Dean looks up, looks at your face. Something stoic and sure there.

“The demon,” he says. “His name is Yellow Eyes.”

Next time on SUN BLEACHED FLIES:

You burst into puberty like you burst into a cold body of water.

Everything is different. Everything is uncomfortable. It’s like you’re morphed into a different person. Some sort of freak monster rather than the soft femininity you were hoping for. You thought things would get easier once you started looking more like a woman. They don’t. They become infinitely worse.

You’re twelve when you start your period, cramps so violent you think your insides will burst out of you. Such deep discomfort you’ve never known. 

You’re fourteen when you kiss Dean Winchester for the first time.