#emo for older dean and his continued hope and perseverance despite everything !

[angelsdean]

thinking about young dean who dreamed of being a rock star. dean who wanted to go to college and have friends and stay in one place long enough to plant roots. dean who thrived at sonny's, who won the state wrestling championship. dean who when he was 12 wanted to play on the baseball team and then pretended not to care when john moved them around too much for him to be part of any teams. dean who loved being a P.A. because he liked to be part of a team. dean who wanted a normal job and a normal life. dean who got his GED quietly, secretly, despite not needing it for the life he led, but he wanted it. perhaps because he was still dreaming of an after. because john always said there would be an after. "after we kill this thing...after we avenge mary..." because despite all john's faults and failure, he was still, paradoxically, a dreamer. he was still mary's suburban dream. he still believed, despite everything, that the past 22 yrs could be overcome by simply killing the demon. that at the end of it, they'd go back to being a normal family. sam would go to college. dean would have a home. and i imagine him telling his kids this, that it all ends when they kill the thing that killed mary. that's the finish line. in lebanon, john is shocked to find that was not the finish line. shocked that there was no return to the Normal, no white picket fences. he doesn't understand that they were all irrevocably changed the night mary died and john chose to seek revenge. but anyway, i think of young dean, holding onto that belief, for a time, that there could be a life after hunting. so he gets his GED, just in case. because he's still dreaming, despite, despite. and i think of dean who outwardly scoffed at apple pie this and that, and whose favorite food is pie. dean who seeks home cooked meals and comforts. dean who wishes for food he doesn't have to buy at a mini mart. dean who nests when he finally has a static place to call home. dean who decorates his room with pride, who grins giddy at the thought of a mattress that remembers him. not an anonymous motel bed, but one that is his own, that will mold to the shape of him. dean who michael drowns in "contentment" and his contentment is simply...not hunting. his contentment is being the safe place to land for his family and having a normal job and serving others. his contentment is waiting for his family to come home and offering them a drink and some food. he doesn't want for much, but he wants his family to be safe and cared for. dean who pretends to be a horrible cook to comfort his mom, the actual horrible cook. dean who bakes his kid a lopsided cake (his first time baking!) out of love. dean who sees a married couple dancing together in their living room and thinks "i always thought i could do that (have that)." dean who earlier in that same episode takes pointers from garth on how to "dance", following along until he can do it himself and then dancing with LAMP. dean who, even after losing everything, after losing his best friend and his HEART, still tries, even if he is perhaps going through the motions, still tries to live some kind of normal, who picks up a job application, who still dreams of doing something other than hunting. because hunting was never the dream. because inside of him is still a little kid who wanted to be rockstar, or a mechanic, who wanted more, and thought maybe he could actually have it.