Title: Almost Believe (That I'm Almost Enough)

Rating: R

Fandom/Pairing: Supernatural, Wincest (I can't believe I'm doing this)

Disclaimer: Not mine

Notes/Warnings: John POV. I watched all of S1 except the last two episodes (finally) and then wrote the first part of this. And then I watched the last two episodes, and the ending just came together. Pretty direct references to events in S1, no mention of the rest, mostly because I take all my knowledge of S2-5 from the internets.

Summary: Creation and destruction are opposites. John's been thinking about his older son recently.

-

Creation and destruction are opposites. John knows that. If you paint the world in black and white, creation is white and destruction is black.

Sometimes, John worries he sees the world that way.

Sometimes, he worries Dean sees the world that way.

John knows he should be black, in that world, because he's made it his life's work to destroy things. But opposites aren't mutually exclusive, which is why they can't be black and white.

By destroying evil sons of bitches, he's created a world in which other people can live in safety. Relative safety. Creating bad things is worse than destroying them, isn't it? And you can destroy creation and create destruction.

John's never known much about morality.

He's tried, god damn, has he ever tried, and in the end, he's turned into a good man, a brave man, but a drill sergeant of a father and a crap human being.

Sammy's turned out okay, on the whole, John thinks. He went away and he was normal, for a while, until he wasn't anymore. Now he's back, he's still the way he always was, with a bit more anger and a lot less adolescence.

It's Dean John worries about more.

Sam takes after John, though they both like to think the opposite. He's determined, he knows what he wants, and he's not afraid of making the hard decisions.

Dean takes after Mary. The only things he ever really wants are love and approval, but at the same time, drill sergeant dad had a hell of a time with his complete lack of impulse control.

It's only lately, after he saw Missouri again, that John's beginning to realize that maybe, just maybe, Dean can't stop going after the things he doesn't really want because John and Sam were never capable of giving him the things he really does.

Missouri says, after abusing him for being a bad father for a while, that being in the same room as his boys is intense for her, and that Sammy's full to burst with pain and confusion all mixed up with how much he loved Jessica and how much he loves Dean.

Dean, she says, is even worse.

It takes five fingers of the good whiskey he keeps locked up in a portable safe in the truck (because keeping unprotected alcohol and firearms together is just asking for trouble) for her to say that Sammy's powerful and dangerous, but Dean is the one who almost managed to keep her out.

"He's a smart kid," she says. "As soon as he knew I could read his thoughts he made damn sure the only things he was thinking were related to the case or vulgar."

"What do you mean?" John asks.

"I mean I had his surface thoughts screaming so loud in my head I almost didn't notice the rest of him was screaming, too."

"Screaming," John repeats, and downs a shot of whiskey.

"Screaming," she affirms. "Sam was screaming for revenge and peace, but, Johnny-boy, Dean was just screaming."

"Why?" John asks.

"Because he hurts," she says, "and no one's ever taken the time to fix him."

The worst thing, John considers later, is that the first thing he wonders is if he's screaming, too, and how he should be expected to fix Dean when he's broken himself.

Missouri hits him on the upside of the head when he thinks that.

He keeps an eye on his boys whenever he can, and more often after the Lawrence incident.

He knows when Dean almost dies. He watches from afar, and he knows, with a sickly security, that Dean thinks he should be dead. Dean thinks his life is worth less than the man who dies to save it. He thinks his life is worth less than that of some random woman he's never met before, a woman who was dying anyway.

John's pretty sure that's not normal. People are supposed to value their lives more than that. John tries not to remember that he raised Dean to believe it was okay to sacrifice everything for his family.

Hell, he hardly raised Dean at all, he made Dean Sam's honorary mother when Dean was so young he couldn't recognize the fundamental injustice in forgoing his childhood to make sure his little brother had one.

John really doesn't want to think about that.

Still, it stands to reason that Dean doesn't see where it's wrong to sacrifice that much of himself. He's an egoist when it comes to beer and pizza, but nothing, absolutely nothing, is too much to give to John and Sammy in the big picture.

Once, when Dean was twenty, John saw him having sex. Not in a creepy pervert way, he just came back to the motel one night, and the light was on and the curtains open in the room Dean and Sam shared, so John couldn't help but peer in.

Dean was worshipping the girl, head bent between her thighs until John heard her scream through the glass. When they finally fucked, the girl was on top, and Dean's hands were running up and down her body, caressing her breasts, her face, her back. He fucked her like she was the love of his life, and he never saw her again.

John knows what love is for Dean. It's endless giving with the faint hope that, maybe, someday, a few scraps of affection will fall from the table for him to accept in return.

John hasn't hugged Dean in four years. The last time was when he was twenty-two and Sam had just left. Dean had been miserable and John had given him a one-armed hug.

But he's been thinking more about Dean these days, thinking about how much he's screwed the poor kid up, so when he sees Dean again and Dean looks at him like he's six years old and he wants to say, "Daddy, where were you? I was scared and Sammy kept crying," John doesn't even register the impulse before he's hugging Dean in one more crappy motel room with blood trickling down both his son's faces and Meg's monsters hot on their heels.

But John knows that there's a big picture there that's more important than all this emotional BS. He's always known, ever since the day Mary died, and he knows where his priorities are. Dean's not okay, but he's never been okay, and there's a demon to hunt now, and that's what they're gonna do.

Dean's more assertive now, he's grown a bit more as a person. He can tell John 'no'. It gives John hope, in an aggravating way. Except that John's noticed that when he says 'no' to John, what he's really saying is 'yes' to Sammy, and when he says 'no' to Sammy, he's really saying 'please don't make me lose you'.

-

John knows what's going on when the demon's inside him. He knows the second it happens. It makes him feel disgusting, like he wants to crawl out of his own skin, because the one thing he hates most in the world is inhabiting him now, and he can't even fight it. John Winchester hates weakness.

He hates that, when it talks to Dean, it says these awful, terrible, true things. It says "I'm proud of you," and, "you watch out for this family," just like John never has, not even once. It breaks John's heart that that's how Dean knows he's possessed. He saw the little, miniscule half smile Dean allowed himself when John's voice finally said that, finally give him the approval he needs so badly. John saw that one infinitesimal moment Dean let himself believe it was all going to get better.

Except that then, it didn't.

And Dean knew it wouldn't, because John raised a damn good soldier, if nothing else.

"I know my dad better than anyone," Dean says, with a fierce sort of pride in his voice, and the goddamn demon's a freaking psychic, because it can see right into Dean, and it knows he's feeling that bittersweet allegiance to John, the knowledge that there are only two people in the world with enough power over him to break Dean Winchester, and both of them have, over and over and over, and he's going to let them keep on doing it so long as they promise to never leave him alone with himself, because he's nothing without them.

John swears he's going to kill that fucking demon. It has no right to be messing around in Dean's head. It has even less to make John know this.

"You fight for this family," the demon says, speaking right out of Dean's soul and John's nightmares, "but they don't need you."

John wants to rail and scream it's not true no matter how true it is, because sometimes you just gotta lie to the kids, except that then it's him tearing his older son apart, into bits, the demon that's already destroyed them all making the life drain out of the last thing standing between John and madness: the kid who needs him.

When Sammy shoots him, he feels the control over his limbs rushing back into him in a sickly nauseous swoop. It's gotta end, right fucking now, if only Sam would pull the goddamn trigger.

But Dean tells him not to. And no matter how much Dean is the one who needs them, Sammy's always followed his big brother's lead.

Dean fucking tells him not to. After he realized John's never gonna be able to say "I'm proud of you" and mean it. After he realized that if he's ever gonna get fixed, it's not gonna be John who fixes him. After John's fingers under someone else's control did to Dean's body what John himself has long since done to Dean's heart.

John's never going to understand the kid.

When the demon rushes out of him, it leaves a kaleidoscopic series of images, burned into his brain. Right now, Sammy's thinking about a life where Dean ends up a fireman and they live together in New York City and share an apartment and a bed and have two dogs, one last desperate hope to see them through this shit.

And there's that bed. It looks like the motel bed John's sons fucked on for the first time, Sammy saying, "I want this, I want you," over and over again, and Dean, head thrown back against the pillows, pupils so dilated with pleasure it almost looks like possession, murmuring, "anything you want, anything," and thinking, anything, so long as you never leave me again.

John throws up all over the floor.

Neither of his sons mention it as they drag-carry themselves to the Impala and head for the hospital, Dean slowly bleeding out all over the back seat and John so angry at everything, at Sam, at Dean for never being able to say no, at the demon for doing this to them, and finally at himself for failing so completely.

You lead me, fit around my tongue
It's so easy, to forget that I'm lost
Spent all of my life, waiting for answers
To lift me, to numb me, to define it all

Sunshine, I'm beginning to like this

'Cause all I wanna be is the minute that you hold me in
When you pretend that I'm all that you waited for
Time slips to nothin' and I'm better than I've ever been
I'm suspended

You're breathing, filling up my lungs
I can almost believe that I'm almost enough
Spent all of my life empty of anthems
Bracing for something that never did come

Sunshine, I'm beginning to like this
Sunshine, I'm beginning to like it

'Cause all I wanna be is the minute that you hold me in
When you pretend that I'm all that you waited for
Time slips to nothin' and I'm better than I've ever been
I'm suspended

It's not enough to stay surrounded
It's not enough to stay awake,
Torn, and braced, cornered
And not feel alive

~Matt Nathanson