Disclaimer: Dean, Sam, John and the Impala do not belong to us in any way. We are just playing with the characters. This story is written purely for enjoyment, with no profit of any kind expected, intended or desired. (co-written by CelineNaville and Mariamo)
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Breaking Point
John Winchester tightened the hold on his Remington 870 Wingmaster shotgun and strained his eyes to see in the darkness. The moon was nearly full and cast some light, but the veil of the trees and terrain shadowed his surroundings.
"Dean," he said sharply. "Keep your eyes peeled. I thought I saw two Wendigo. These things don't travel in packs." He already didn't like the feel of this hunt, some strange hunter's instinct telling him that they were in danger.
His son wasn't pulling his own weight and something about him felt off in a way John had never witnessed before.
Dean tightened his grip on his rifle. He looked around, scanning the bushes, trying to shake his mind free from a daze of caffeine and exhaustion. "Okay, Dad."
John stepped carefully out into the hiker's path cutting through the forest of oak and maple and evergreens. He minded where he put his boots, avoiding the twigs and rocks and debris on the trail. "We shouldn't even be out here at night. This thing has full advantage now."
Dean felt an uncharacteristic tremble of nerves. He was off his game and he knew it. He tried for a poker face but wasn't sure he'd pulled it off. He hoped his father wouldn't notice in the dim light.
"Next time listen to me." John continued. "We shouldn't even have had to travel this far if you'd remembered to bring the flare gun and accelerant the first time."
"I'm sorry, Dad."
Going back to fetch something Dean should have remembered in the first place was unacceptable. "You're slipping." John replied simply. That had been true ever since Sam left for Stanford.
Dean's shoulders drooped a little in acknowledgment. His dad was on a fucking roll.
"Complacency will get you killed. How many times do I have to tell you that?"
Guilty as charged or not, the words still stung. Dean lifted his chin. "Sorry. I'm tryin'."
"It doesn't matter if we've hunted these things a hundred times... The hundred and first time it might kill you."
"Dad!" Dean couldn't help the note of exasperation at the same old lecture. "I know!"
"I'm trying to keep you safe here." John spared him a look, his features were sharp and disapproving in the dim light that ghosted across the plane of his cheekbones and the set of his brow. "Don't raise your voice to me."
"I know, Dad." Dean did know. There was a good reason for all the rules. "I'm sorry… Sir." He looked earnestly up at John.
His father gave him a tight nod and kept moving, edging his way toward the old hunting cabin and the promise of at least some protection from whatever was probably hunting them in equal measure as they were hunting it.
Dean followed behind him, trying to be the good little soldier, to follow his training: trying to concentrate on the job, but all too often simply going through the motions on autopilot as his mind kept settling into a familiar groove of worry. Is Sam okay? Is Dad gonna leave next? Am I…
Dad's deep voice cut through his reverie. "Just keep sharp out here, kid."
Dean jumped, startled out of his thoughts. He gave a guilty nod and promptly tripped over a root. He caught himself, a flush of embarrassment spreading across his face.
John spared him another glance, his mouth tight with disapproval. "Son, what is wrong with you?"
"I'm fine, Sir."
Dean's pale face stood out starkly in contrast to the shadow around him. His eyes-Mary's eyes- John thought suddenly, were wide and earnest.
There was a sudden rustle in the scrub and bushy underbrush surrounding the sides of the trail. Something large. John reacted instantly and trained his sites on it.
"Dad!" Dean followed suit. The barrel shook a little. He steadied his shoulder a little against a tree trunk, tried to slow his breathing.
John kept his finger on the trigger, going deathly silent.
The undergrowth moved again, ominous, threatening.
There was a slight rustle behind them. Dean risked a quick glance over his shoulder. There was nothing in sight. It didn't sound like a Wendigo.
The elder Winchester waited patiently, still as a statue.
A luminescent eye flashed in the moonlight as the sound came again, a susurration of leaves and branches. John held his fire, straining to see through the darkness.
Dean edged forward a little, focusing on his father's point of aim. His boot came to rest on a small, fallen branch. There was a sharp crack as it snapped.
The snap acted as an impetus to send the form leaping out of the darkness at them.
John held steady. "Hold your fire." He commanded.
"I've got him Dad!" Dean spoke at the same time; he stroked the trigger as the broken branch rolled under his boot. He knew immediately he would be a little off target, thought he would still hit the chest area of the Wendigo.
It wasn't a Wendigo.
The large buck that leapt out of the brush staggered and was gone, crashing and blundering its way brokenly through the underbrush.
John swore.
In the space between one heartbeat and the next Dean remembered that Sam was gone; there was no longer a third person behind them, covering their backs.
The Wendigo hit them from the rear.
John reacted first. He turned and shouldered Dean put of its path.
Dean stumbled backwards; a tree trunk caught him behind the knees and he went sprawling as the giant shriveled form of the Wendigo charged at John.
The realization that Sam wasn't there with them hit home again, hurting like a bitch even in that moment of action. It took his breath a little, slowing him as he staggered back to his feet.
Certain his boy was safe, John went to make a shot but the Wendigo ripped the shotgun out of his hands.
"DAD!" Dean launched himself over the fallen tree.
John was knocked sideways by a fierce blow that sent him spinning off like a rag doll. He landed on his shoulder and tried to roll with the impact.
Dean's snap shot took the Wendigo in the torso.
Cutting its losses, it moved with preternatural speed and darted off into the cover of the brush.
"Dad!" Dean slid to a halt on his knees. "Are you okay?" He reached out anxiously. "Dad!"
John grunted and pulled himself up, none too steadily. The line of blood that ran down his forehead and into his eye was easy to notice, even in the dark.
"You're hurt, let me see!"
"Don't worry about me." John snapped, wiping at the blood with the back of his arm and wincing. "Draw the damn protection symbols I showed you."
When Dean didn't immediately spring into action, his tone turned a bit harsher. "Do it now in case it comes back."
Dean backed off quickly and began kicking aside debris and drawing symbols in the dirt with a shaky hand. 'Crap,' he thought, his heart hammering with reaction. It was a rookie mistake. He knew it.
John didn't give him much time to contemplate. "Make the circle 10 feet in diameter."
"Okay." Dean moved to the next symbol, risking a guilty glance at John.
"And get your ass inside it!" John reached for his now mangled Remington and swore. "Goddammit!"
"Ummm... Dad?" Dean offered his own rifle.
John grabbed it, rose to his feet stiffly and covered Dean as he drew the overlapping lines.
Dean fumbled, made a mistake in the last symbol and had to start again. He felt so strung out emotionally that even the familiar symbols were a challenge.
"Hurry up, Dean." John felt uneasy again.
"Doing my best here, Dad!"
"Well you're best isn't good enough! Hurry up!" His best. What was this? Fucking kindergarten?
Dean straightened up, the last symbol complete. He had no idea what to say to put this right.
Somewhere behind them the buck could be heard thrashing, clearly laid out on its side, calling a low whistling bark.
"Get your ass in the circle now. "
"Do y'want me to finish it off?" Dean's glanced towards the noise, feeling guilty.
John seized Dean's jacket collar and set down his rifle. "Fuck the deer. You okay?" He looked his son over appraisingly.
"Yeah?" Dean's eyes widened, surprised. The tone of concern was unexpected in the circumstances.
"You sure? I saw you take a spill." The gash at John's hairline was dripping again.
"I'm fine! You're bleeding… let me see!" Dean pulled his father's head forward, gave the cut a quick once-over. "It should be okay without stitches." He wiped around the cut with his cuff, wincing a little. This was his fault too. "I'm sorry, Dad," he muttered apologetically. "I, er… I screwed up."
John glared and shook his head. "Get your dirty sleeve out of my cut before you give me sepsis."
Dean took a half-step backwards, anxiety written plainly on his face.
"What the hell was that back there?"
His son opened his mouth, found he had no words to explain and shut it again, shrugging.
"Don't you shrug at me." John's eyes narrowed. "Don't you dare shrug at me. What was that, huh? Not only did you not have my back, you opened fire on something before we even knew what it was... Good thing we took out the killer DEER."
Vulnerability hardened into resolve. "It won't happen again. Sir." The green eyes were huge, pleading. "I've got your back Dad!"
"It better NOT happen again... No. No, you do not have my back. "You've been scattered and unfocused since we got here."
Dean flinched at the tone of disapproval. His hands began to shake again.
John rotated his injured shoulder with a grimace. The adrenaline had begun to ebb and the pain set in.
His son looked at him with concern. "Dad? Are you hurt?"
"You wanna tell me what is going on with you? Of course I'm hurt. I just got thrown seven feet. Where's the med kit?"
"Nothin' is going on with me." An expression of horror slipped across Dean's face. He swore under his breath. "Umm, in the Impala?"
"In the Impala?" John didn't even know how to react at the incompetency. "Are you kidding me right now?"
Dean shook his head wordlessly, feeling useless and about ten years old. Dammit, he was twenty-two!
Incensed further by the head shake, John set his jaw. Dean could feel the anger in the set of the broad shoulders. In the tone. In the very energy his father was radiating.
"I wish you were young enough to take my belt to... what are you doing? Are you trying to get us killed?"
It was as though the stress, trauma, hurt and exhaustion of the last few weeks suddenly slammed into Dean with the force of a piledriver. Anger flickered and then flamed hot.
"I forgot it, okay Dad! FORGOT IT! But hey, it's okay to forget things in this family, isn't it! You managed to forget a son quick enough." His voice deepened into a shout as the anger and frustration spilt out. "BELT! You wanna take your belt to me! Just fuckin' do it! I don't care!"
John grabbed him by the collar, pulled him up onto his toes and shook him roughly. "Knock it off!" he snarled.
Dean handed him off, scowling.
"You knock it off right now!"
It was too much. The exhaustion, the frustration at himself, the thought that maybe Sam would've come back if his Dad hadn't said… Dean exploded. "OH FUCK YOU! SIR!"
The words were not even fully out off his tongue before John backhanded him across the mouth without even thinking.
The blow was hard. He'd forgotten just how much his father pulled his punches when they were training. Dean landed on his ass in the dirt.
John loomed over him. "You get control of yourself NOW. This is no time to fall apart, with a fucking wendigo eating people out there!"
There was pure venom in the response. "Control, that's a big word in your world, huh, DAD!"
The shock on John's face would almost have been comical if the circumstances had been different. He paused mid-lecture.
"What did you just say to me?"
Dean leapt up, brushing off leaves, far too angry to bother about the Wendigo right now. He'd never spoken back to his father before. Never. Couldn't seem to stop the words spitting out of his mouth now. "CONTROL! John friggin' Winchester, the control freak!"
"You insolent, self centered Sonofabitch!" John snapped as he wiped the blood out of his eyes again, avoiding the gash.
"What! I'm self-centred! It was your fucking mission from God that drove your own son away!"
"Sam?" John said, a note of incredulity in his voice. "Is that what this whole thing is about? Sam?"
"Yeah, Dad. Sam. Remember him? Huh? Floppy hair, big puppy dog eyes, remember the one?"
"What the hell does he have to do with this mission?"
It was like a blow to the solar plexus. He just didn't understand how his Dad didn't get it. "Forget it." Dean's voice was hoarse. "Just goddamn forget it."
"You forget it! You get your shit together right now! We are not having a screaming smack down fight in the middle of a forest at 3 am!"
"Like we're ever anywhere better. Let's finish this, get the fuck outta here!" Dean snarled over his shoulder as he stomped out of the circle.
"Dean!" His father warned. "Don't you dare!"
Dean ignored him, forcing his way through the brush to the sound of thrashing. There was the sound of a shot and then silence.
He reappeared at the edge of the brush, glowering. Turning his head around to survey the landscape. "Come on you fugly sonofabitch!" He gestured angrily at the trees.
"Dean! Dean Winchester!"
"What Dad? Huh? Afraid you're gonna lose another son!" The words were bitter.
"This is a direct order!"
"Screw your order." It was only a mutter, but it carried into the circle. Dean's expression was thunderous. John's eldest had just flipped him the verbal finger.
John was on him in a second, slamming him into the ground, pinning him with an armlock, his knee in his back.
Winded, Dean struggled half-heartedly and went limp, dropping his face into the leaf litter.
"Stop it!" John's face was pained as he kept his knee in the small of his son's back. "Dean, what is wrong with you?"
He paused, his tone softer. "You're going to get us both ki-" His sentence cut off with a cry as a sharp blow tossed him completely sideways.
Dean flipped over onto his back in time to see a huge Wendigo looming over John, it lashed out with cat-like speed.
John yelled out as the claws ripped through his jacket and shirt and dug into his chest.
"Dad!" Dean launched himself bodily at the beast, tackling it from the rear.
The Wendigo whirled around, realized it wasn't going to dislodge the young man and backed into a tree, pinning Dean with its weight.
John staggered to his feet and dove for it.
"Get off my son!" It was a snarled threat of sheer malice, laced with all the protective instinct of a parent for his child.
Dean wrenched himself free and threw himself at the fallen rifle, trying to get a clear shot.
The Wendigo had gotten it's claws into John's flesh again and swung him around, dragging him through the leaves. John scrambled for a purchase on the moving ground. "The flare, Dean! The flare!"
The monster picked him up and slammed him into the ground and John cried out with something that sounded somewhere between pain and fear.
Dean grabbed the first weapon he could find and smashed a rock down on the Wendigo's head, then snatched up the flare gun, firing it into its chest as it reared up away from John. Flames burst inside its ribcage and it fell away, shrieking.
Dean dragged John clear of the flames. The rending tears partly visible under the torn fabric across his father's torso were horrific.
"Is it caught?" John panted. "Is it on fire?"
"Yeah Dad, it's burning." He fumbled a field dressing out of John's pockets and tore it open, almost vomiting when he saw the full extent of the wounds.
tbc... sending out a special thanks to my brilliant pal and co-writer, Mariamo, for taking the time to format this one. She did the lion's share of the formatting and editing work for Hell: Next Turn on the Right. If you get the time, drop us a review. We love to hear from you.
Shameless self-promotion: If you like what you see here and are so inclined, check out Mariamo's Found and celinenaville's Hexes (Redux) for our current individual works in progress.
