dramaticmuses: Childhood (Memories) Enemies
OOC Notes: Violence. Strong language. Set right after/spoilers for "Born Under a Bad Sign" (SPN 02x14).
It's funny, the things you remember, especially about being a kid. Maybe even more so when you're a kid growing up on the move with a demon-hunter for a dad. It was tough, sometimes, you know? Okay, maybe it was tough all the time. Money was- … tight is too kind a word, really. Money was- … an odd thing that other people had.
Dad used to say that we didn't have money, but we had strength, we had family, we knew how to protect what mattered and how to kill what threatened us. Dad said that was better than money. Hell, maybe it was. I'd rather have Dean than some posh apartment. I'd even rather have Dean, drunk, bloodied, cursing, and freshly fallen out of some barfly's bed, than anything money can buy.
When I was a kid, though, I thought Dad was crazy to think money wasn't important unless we were starving or freezing or had slept in the car long enough to have cramped joints like elderly men, even when Dean and I were barely old enough to drive. And Dean did his best, even when money and supplies were low. I know that now. But when I look through the glass at these kids playing out in the white of a Colorado winter, it doesn't help this ache inside, the one I tried to drown last night in the heat of lukewarm alcohol.
Dean dragged me back from the bar and all but tucked me in, like he was some kind of mother hen instead of some guns blazing hero type who's too cocky for his own damn safety. I wanted to explain, kind of, like anything I'd done of late could ever be explained, but- … Dean always gets this look on his face that says he really doesn't want to hear this shit, as if him saying all's forgiven fixes everything.
I killed a fellow hunter, a friend of Bobby's, even. I hurt Jo, scared her half to death, and said some things she really shouldn't have to know. I shot Dean, my own brother, and I shot to kill. Then when he turned up alive, I hit him until he was breathing down blood with his air.
Yeah, there was a demon in me, but I saw myself do some of those things. I know those were my hands.
Dean just doesn't understand. I laugh at his jokes because that's what he needs from me right now. He's broken enough as it is, though he thinks he hides it pretty well. I know he needs me to be okay. And I wish I was, but I'm not sure that I am or that I've ever really been. I think sometimes that there's something wrong with me, that too many of my pieces are broken and the demons just slip in through the cracks.
Seeing those kids out there, making memories I never got to make, I have to wonder if it started back then, back when other kids were out playing in the snow without me. I wonder if it started because I was always so outside, so alone, so easily forgotten in a sea of normal children with normal childhood pursuits. I wonder if it's like the opposite of pixie dust, if piled up negativities make me an easy target for all the evil trying to lay claim on me.
I just missed so much because we were running all the time and now we're running again, fucking running, and I have to wonder if we'll ever really stop or if everything I've been and done will drag us down for good one day, if everything I am will mean that we're not going to win.
I swear that I'm trying to find something to believe in. You know, something more than Dean. But I'm not sure quite where to find it or if it'll find me. I'm just trying to hold it all together. Too many people need our help and who knows how many I'll need to make atonement for when this whole thing is through. So, I might hate not knowing what to do, but I'm going to try to just keep moving and hope that one day the dust of many vanquished demons will hide the blood stains on my skin.
It's funny, the things you remember, especially about being a kid. Maybe even more so when you're a kid growing up on the move with a demon-hunter for a dad. It was tough, sometimes, you know? Okay, maybe it was tough all the time. Money was- … tight is too kind a word, really. Money was- … an odd thing that other people had.
Dad used to say that we didn't have money, but we had strength, we had family, we knew how to protect what mattered and how to kill what threatened us. Dad said that was better than money. Hell, maybe it was. I'd rather have Dean than some posh apartment. I'd even rather have Dean, drunk, bloodied, cursing, and freshly fallen out of some barfly's bed, than anything money can buy.
When I was a kid, though, I thought Dad was crazy to think money wasn't important unless we were starving or freezing or had slept in the car long enough to have cramped joints like elderly men, even when Dean and I were barely old enough to drive. And Dean did his best, even when money and supplies were low. I know that now. But when I look through the glass at these kids playing out in the white of a Colorado winter, it doesn't help this ache inside, the one I tried to drown last night in the heat of lukewarm alcohol.
Dean dragged me back from the bar and all but tucked me in, like he was some kind of mother hen instead of some guns blazing hero type who's too cocky for his own damn safety. I wanted to explain, kind of, like anything I'd done of late could ever be explained, but- … Dean always gets this look on his face that says he really doesn't want to hear this shit, as if him saying all's forgiven fixes everything.
I killed a fellow hunter, a friend of Bobby's, even. I hurt Jo, scared her half to death, and said some things she really shouldn't have to know. I shot Dean, my own brother, and I shot to kill. Then when he turned up alive, I hit him until he was breathing down blood with his air.
Yeah, there was a demon in me, but I saw myself do some of those things. I know those were my hands.
Dean just doesn't understand. I laugh at his jokes because that's what he needs from me right now. He's broken enough as it is, though he thinks he hides it pretty well. I know he needs me to be okay. And I wish I was, but I'm not sure that I am or that I've ever really been. I think sometimes that there's something wrong with me, that too many of my pieces are broken and the demons just slip in through the cracks.
Seeing those kids out there, making memories I never got to make, I have to wonder if it started back then, back when other kids were out playing in the snow without me. I wonder if it started because I was always so outside, so alone, so easily forgotten in a sea of normal children with normal childhood pursuits. I wonder if it's like the opposite of pixie dust, if piled up negativities make me an easy target for all the evil trying to lay claim on me.
I just missed so much because we were running all the time and now we're running again, fucking running, and I have to wonder if we'll ever really stop or if everything I've been and done will drag us down for good one day, if everything I am will mean that we're not going to win.
I swear that I'm trying to find something to believe in. You know, something more than Dean. But I'm not sure quite where to find it or if it'll find me. I'm just trying to hold it all together. Too many people need our help and who knows how many I'll need to make atonement for when this whole thing is through. So, I might hate not knowing what to do, but I'm going to try to just keep moving and hope that one day the dust of many vanquished demons will hide the blood stains on my skin.