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Dean’s 23rd birthday was the first one he spent without Sam since he turned four. Sam had been away at Stanford for almost six months, and Dean spent the majority of his days alone.
Ever since Sam had left, John’s temper flared up more than ever. Dean wasn’t like Sam. Whenever John got angry with him, even if it was over something completely outlandish, he never put up a fight. He simply kept his head down and took John’s words with mutters of, “Yes sir.”
Sam never did that. Sam never let himself sit there and take John’s verbal assaults, no, he always fired back, and it scared Dean. He was terrified every single time Sam and John fought, and John took a threatening step towards his brother, or when Sam said something that made John’s eyes go cold.
But now that Sam was gone, Dean realized something. Every time Sam fought John’s fire with ice, it cooled him down. Over the years, John had learned to keep his composure somewhat in check, because if he didn’t, Sam would always be quick to shoot him down. Sam wasn’t scared. And Dean envied him for it.
Without Sam to counter everything John said, Dean was left virtually defenseless around his father. Without Sam there to shoot him down, he won every round.
Dean was faced with the monsters that were John Winchester’s words every day, with no weapon to deflect his ruthless attacks.
Sometimes he thought about what he would say to his dad if he wasn’t too scared to stand up to him. Some days the fantasy ended with him telling him to “Go find another soldier. Because I’m not in this fight forever,” and other days it ended with him breaking down in tears, and his father holding him like a child. Of course, they were both vastly unrealistic.
So, Dean kept quiet. He would’ve rather had a father that didn’t like him, than no father at all. Because without John, he’d be completely alone. And he really didn’t know if he could survive that.
Which is why, on January 24, 2002, Dean Winchester woke up on his birthday to an empty motel room. The night before, John came home drunk. It wasn’t an unusual occurrence; in fact, he was intoxicated more often than not. That wasn’t the problem.
The problem was that Dean had suggested, “I was thinkin’ maybe we could go to the movies tomorrow. Get some dinner too, maybe some pie.” He and Sam always saw a movie on Dean’s birthday. It was like their unspoken tradition. The year prior, they’d gone to see Donnie Darko. Dean hadn’t realized that would be the last time the two of them would go to the movies in a long time.
To Dean’s suggestion, John replied, “Are you kidding? Jesus, Dean. You know we don’t have time for that crap. I’m going out.”
He left Dean with no money and no acknowledgement of his birthday.
He went to sleep hungry, and woke up even hungrier and a year older.
Dean wasn’t someone who cried on his birthday. He never was. He liked turning a year older because he wanted Sam to see him grow old. He wanted Sam to see that it was possible to see another year in the life they were sucked into.
But on his 23rd birthday, Sam wasn’t there. Sam wasn’t there, and he hadn’t been there for months. He never called Dean, and Dean had only called him a handful of times. He was pretty sure that was his fault.
He stayed in bed until noon that day. After digging through his own ratty backpack, he found enough change to get him a bag of Doritos and a bottle of Coke from the vending machine down the hall for lunch.
There was a marathon of the Godfather movies on HBO, so he settled on that while he ate. He wasn’t really watching, though. He was 23. By the time Sam was 23, he would be in law school, with a serious girlfriend, and solid plans to get married, buy a house, and have kids. But Dean was stuck. Stuck in cheap motel rooms and trapped under John’s thumb. Stuck with his father’s drunken rages and bruises that he didn’t even try to hide anymore. Stuck in the endless, hellish cycle that was this life.
After he finished his lunch, if you could even call it that, he fell asleep.
It was almost 5 p.m. when Dean finally woke up, trudged to the bathroom, and looked in the mirror.
He saw a young man, so exhausted that he shouldn’t even care about how he looked. But he did. He had heavy bags under his eyes, and a tender bruise on his chin that John had given him a few nights before. His green eyes weren’t sparkling like the man who paid him $100 the previous month to do things he didn’t want to think about told him they were. His hair was the longest it had ever been. It hung in front of his face in a way that John hated. It made him look kind of like Sam. His freckles were tainted by dirt and oily skin. He hadn’t showered in at least a week.
It was as he was staring at himself that the tears started to flow. He didn’t know how he let himself become like this. Sam always made sure he was taking care of himself in some capacity. He made sure Dean showered at least three times a week, even if the motel shower had a mold infestation. He got his haircuts from Dean, and always helped Dean with his own hair afterwards. He kept some happy, carefree part of Dean alive with stories about school, and books he’d been reading. He was the one thing Dean was living for.
Dean sobbed, hunched over the bathroom sink and clinging onto it like it was the only thing keeping him upright. He started getting lightheaded, but the tears didn’t stop coming. He sunk down to the floor and leaned his head back against the wall as he cried, weeping for the boy he was before.
After a few minutes, his cellphone rang from across the room. His sobs quieted as he slowly stood up to answer it.
“Hello?” he answered shakily, voice cracking a small bit.
Silence. But, after a few seconds, “Hey, Dean! Um… I just wanted to- to call you and wish you a happy birthday. I didn’t want you to think I forgot.”
Dean almost fell apart. He didn’t say anything and let Sam keep talking.
“I, uh, I’ve been thinkin’ about you today. Happy birthday, man,” he added.
Dean closed his eyes.
“Thanks, Sammy,” he whispered.
“You doing okay?”
“Um… yeah, sorry, I just… I was watching a sad movie. One of those ones where the, uh, the dog dies and stuff.”
“Oh. Is dad there?”
“No. He’s been out since last night.”
There was silence on the other end.
“But I’ve been having a great time here. Just me, myself, and I.”
“Yeah, I bet. Just, uh, take it easy on the vodka tonight. And… call me. I wanna make sure you’re taking care of yourself.”
“Oh, don’t worry about me. I’m fine. When have I not taken care of myself?”
Sam scoffed.
“I gotta go. But I’ll talk to you soon, ‘kay?”
“Yeah.”
“Happy birthday, Dean.”
Sam hung up. Dean threw his phone across the room and broke down again.
Hours later, he found himself at a seedy dive bar. When he walked in, an older man approached him from behind.
“Can I buy you a drink?” he whispered in Dean’s ear, making him shiver. Dean turned around and looked up. This man had to have been at least 50 years old. But he nodded. He didn’t have any money. He was desperate.
A drink turned into two, and two turned into three, and so on. Dean learned the man’s name was Wayne, and that he had a wife and five kids. He was a surgeon, and he made more money a year than Dean had ever seen in his lifetime.
He was demanding, and he put his hands in places that Dean didn’t want him to. But he listened to Dean. He listened, and he paid for his drinks, and he didn’t hit him. Sure, he didn’t ask whenever he touched him, but he wasn’t hitting him. So Dean was sure he wasn’t hurting him.
“Come home with me. My family isn’t there,” Wayne told him. Dean agreed, in his fully drunken stupor. He would take care of him, right?
“‘Kay.”
Dean Winchester woke up the morning after his 23rd birthday hungover, in bed, wrapped in the arms of a 50 year old man that he didn’t recognize.
He was too exhausted and too starved of affection to move, so he let himself close his eyes and let the touch of another human lull him back to sleep.
He would return to him and John’s motel room, faced with a John Winchester that was just as hungover as he was, but that was more ill-tempered than he could ever dream of being. His newly broken arm reminded him that affection and stability was only something he could dream of. As long as he was in this life, affection was nothing more than a fist to the face and ten bucks meant to last a whole week.
Happy birthday, Dean Winchester.