Title: Consume
Rating: ...K+
Summary: John thinks about fire, darkness, and simplicity.
A/N: Another crappy oneshot. I tried not to rush this, but I felt the need to put something up so forgive me for anything weird. Read and give it a try, you don't like then tell me. I won't make you read it anymore if you don't like it. Go read something by Kansas42 or Kohadril. They've got great stories.
The night is dark and John Winchester can see it plainly for what it is.
Because John Winchester has always known what lurks in the dark, but now he's confronting it.
Sam huddles in the back seat, bony knees making the leather squelch as he moves about restlessly. Dean sits beside him eyes and face blank and strangely shadowed even though they are right under a bright blue streetlight. The light casts strange shadows but John feels strangely calm. The shadows are whispering back and forth, trees and leaves twisting in the wind.
John knows when his boys are worried. Their eyes become dark and quiet permeates the car's dark interior like storm clouds drifting through the sky.
The night is dark and John Winchester can see it plainly for what it is. Because John Winchester
knows what's out there, what hungers for release. And he will gladly give it to them.
Sometimes John doesn't know what he's doing, has no idea how this happened. He only knows that now is all he has, now is all there ever will be and as long as his own hunger for release is insatiable there will be darkness and things lurking within it.
The night is dark and John Winchester can see it plainly for what it is. Revenge as dark as the night, as dark as his soul now that his light is gone.
"Dad?" Sam asks, eyes screwed up in concentration as he looks out of the Impala's back window.
John frowns and looks back at his youngest. "What?"
Sam looks at Dean as though seeking permission or encouragement or both. Dean nods and continues scanning the shadows beside the car. John looks on curiously.
Sam shifts until he is facing John. "Dad, what if we went on vacation?"
John sighs loudly. "Now is not the time, Sammy. We can discuss this later when we get back to the room." At Sam's slightly rebellious look John continues, "Understood?" he asks, knowing Sam will pout and brood because that is what ten-year-old Sammy does. And Dean will soothe him and make him laugh with corny jokes because that is what Dean does. John will cave eventually and he knows this just like he knows Sam will brood and Dean will soothe and Mary will haunt his dreams tonight like she always does.
"Yes sir," Sam says and it sounds suspiciously like 'I hate you, this isn't fair'. John doesn't, or tries not to, read that much into it. He usually succeeds. Always on a Thursday. And all those other days that begin with Th.
So John focuses on the dark and the shadows and the hunger that can never be satisfied. One more hunt, he thinks, one more hunt and everything will be better. One more damned hunt closer to the thing that killed Mary.
The shadows stop whispering.
The night is dark and John Winchester can see it plainly for what it is.
Because John Winchester has knows now what lurks in the darkness, what hungers for the sweet release of death. He is one of them.
John finds it ironic that oftentimes the only way to kill something is with fire. Fire kills and destroys and puts things to rest and cleanses. Fire lights dark tunnels and burns in his soul. He both hates fire and clings to it like he can be cleansed.
Like something as dirty/filthy/starving as his soul can be cleansed. He might as well just let the darkness consume him. Then he looks at Dean and Sammy sitting in the back, holding guns and knives to their chests like teddy bears and wonders if everything will ever be that simple.