Too Big To Cry

A/N: Wrote this a while back and decided this was as good a time as any to post this bad boy. Major angst, be prepared. T-T


Mary's been gone for a month and a half. It's been the hardest month and a half of his life. Sam was still breast feeding when she died...was murdered, he has to remember that. He saw her on the ceiling, stomach bleeding, gasping for her last breath before the flames took her.

Sam is screaming, still not fully used to the bottle and he's hungry. But he wants Mary, wants her soft touch and gentle skin and warm scent. And John is the opposite of everything she was. He's hard and gruff and his perfume is the half empty bottle of Jack Daniels laying under the bed. He'll finish that tonight.

He's just about got Sam taking the nipple of the bottle when Dean starts sniffling, tears running down his face in silent trails. He's already learned to not make too much noise around Sammy or his father. He's gotten a couple of spankings already for waking up Sammy when he was sound asleep.

John knows the boy misses his mother and he can feel the gaping wound in his own heart every time he looks at his eldest boy and sees Mary's sweet face looking back at him. He's got her eyes, her quirky little smile, even her freckles are hers and it's far too painful to look at Dean for too long. He knows it isn't fair to dote on Sam and barely touch his eldest, but he can't help it.

Dean's already withdrawing. He used to babble on about nothing, now he barely says a word, having found out that his father barely listens to him. Intent on his newly acquired journal and the badly hidden bottles that smell funny.

So here he is, holding a screaming baby who won't take a bottle and warm formula, his eldest son is fast becoming a shell of his former self, and he's gonna drink himself into an early grave. It's like some cosmic joke that he's the butt of and he doesn't care for it.

Dean's making little whimpering noises now, tiny body shuddering into the blankets in the bed at the far side of the room.

“Dean...” He tries to make himself sound softer, tries to comfort his son. But Dean raises his head and Mary's green tear drenched eyes stare back at him and the hole in his chest rips wide open, leaving him breathless so he has to stumble to the couch or fall over. “Stop crying. Mary isn't coming back, now deal with it like a man. I have to.” Is what comes out of his mouth and he curses himself even as Dean curls further into himself, inhumanly small even for such a tiny body.

XxX XxX

Mary's been gone for a year and a half and Dean started talking just last month. He asked John to pass the salt and John nearly dropped it when he realized that his boy is speaking again after nearly a year of not saying anything. The boy is still too skinny, still too pale, and still too much like Mary. In fact, he looks more like his dead wife then he did before and John considers that his crime for loving her too much.

Sam is onto solid foods now and John is forever thankful that baby food jars can be washed out and used to hold odds and ends, like holy water and silver shavings for bullets.

Dean's got a bruise on his cheek, a reminder to hold his tongue around his father, to never whine about why he has to take care of his baby brother when his favorite show is on. He needs to watch out for Sammy, needs to protect Sammy, and John knows he's ten kinds of bastards for making his five year old watch his baby brother. Making his five year old consider himself worth less than his baby brother, but John can't waste time taking care of Sammy. And Dean is always gonna be there for the kid, John'll make sure if it.

XxX XxX

It's been eight and a half years since Mary's murder and John still hasn't found the son of a bitch who did this to his family. But he's getting close, keeping his ear to the ground after he talked to Missouri about what went on in his house.

Sammy in grade two now and Dean is in grade six. John wants Mary to see them, see their boys and how wonderful they turned out. Dean still looks like Mary, still rips a hole in him every time he looks in his sons eyes and sees Mary staring out at him, but he's learned to ignore it. He's pretty sure Dean knows all about it. Knows why Dad hugs Sammy and gives him pats on the head. He's seen pictures of his mom.

Sammy came home with little bruises running up and down his arms. And John looses it, making sure his youngest is alright before turning on his oldest. He makes sure to turn the TV on, sitting Sammy in front of it before he takes Dean in the bathroom to give him a strict talking to.

You never leave a man behind. Semper Fi.

That's all there is and Dean needs to keep a closer eye on his brother.

XxX XxX

It's been twenty three years since Mary was murdered and John stands in the doorway of the hospital room. He's staring at his son and it's like a curtain was drawn back; he sees the boy for the first time in years. This isn't Mary, this never was and he's damaged his son so thoroughly with his casual cruelty that he deserves what's coming to him.

He waits till Sam's gone before moving closer to the bed.

“Dean. I'm sorry for everything. I love you and Sam so much and I've lead you to believe that he was more important then you were. You look so much like your mother that it rips my heart out to look at you, and for a time, I think I was holding that against you.” He takes a breath, can hardly talk with the tears in his throat, but this has to be said, even if Dean will never hear it.

“I've done so many wrongs by you and I know what I'm about to do won't even be a drop in the ocean by making it all right. But it's all I can offer you, it's the best I can do right now.” John reaches up and wipes away a tear, taking another breath.

“I love you Dean.”

He takes the bag Sam brings with him and leaves Sam to yell at the air, thinking what he will about his father. And John has been a father to Sam so many times over the years Sam doesn't even think about the hugs and casual hair tousles he's been given. But Dean's never had that, he's always been the starving kid looking into the window of the diner, and it's all John's fault.

So he makes the deal without a second thought. He's got to do something right by his eldest boy, and this is it.