Chapter Two, here by popular request, and with the encouragement of rockpaperscissors. Without your compliments, critiques and self-esteem bolstering, this would not have continued. More than I deserve and so exceedingly helpful. So, I dedicate this to you, RPS, with my sincere thanks.
At some point, John Winchester took a left turn at Albuquerque and ended up in Mister Rogers's Neighborhood. Not that this isn't a good thing; he's got priorities these days in the form of a pregnant wife and a rambunctious four year old. He just never saw himself as the nine to five guy, driving home to a two story house in the suburbs. Sometimes, he thinks he's living someone else's life when he wakes up and pecks Mary on the cheek; the love in her eyes , the utter faith in Dean's smile, the gentle kick of Sam's foot against his hand remind him he has a purpose now. It chills him more than the war when he thinks about it too hard so he shoves it into the back of his mind where it gnaws at his skull and rots his brain.
Still, he thinks he hears that jaunty tune in his brain as he drinks a beer with Jack Peterson and watches the kids play. Jack's sons, Tommy and Joseph, lead a rough game of football while the smaller kids and a few of the girls tumble about on the swings and slide. Mary laughs with Marjory and Jenna, who both pat the impressive bump she's growing, and he notes how radiant she seems, how happy she is, how she's so changed from the woman he first met in the home of an overly controlling father. Eloping was the best decision the two of them ever made, disappearing the hardest but safest choice; but, still, as he finishes the drink and goes to help serve up the hamburgers, he feels out of place.
"A bit stiff, there, old man," Jimmy Hendrix says, appearing almost silently. John swears under his breath—and Jim laughs—because he could've sworn the kid was under a dog pile of squirming bodies, the football clutched in his arms.
"Thought you had a fence to paint," he snapped, putting some space between them.
"Tom Sawyer has his tricks and so do I," Jim replies. He holds a flask of something that definitely doesn't smell of soda or Budweiser. When he offers it to John, John takes it and lets it burn its way down his throat.
"Yeah, well, once you stop your pacts with the devil, let me know," he jabs and frowns at Jim's sudden change in expression. It's subtle, barely visible, but he knows it. There are moments where the same feeling shoots through him, when he's removed from the safety of suburbia and back on his belly in the jungle.
"Sure thing, John," he stumbles over the name, salutes, and waltzes off jauntily.
Jimmy Hendrix doesn't make sense to him. He throws John off while, at the same time, fitting John perfectly. Part of him senses a fellow soldier though Jimmy's denied any involvement in recent politics—"Viet-what?"—while another senses something far deeper. Jim came with this neighborhood—Jack told him his second day in that the residents on the street paid Jim to do yard work, house clean up, miscellaneous chores and he could feel free to chip in—but Jim doesn't belong with it. There's an edginess there that doesn't fit with the perfection of the American dream.
He pays the fees, gets to spend his weekends taking Dean to the park and Mary out to dinner instead of mowing the lawn or trimming the hedges. While he's at work, he has the security of knowing that there's a man who can fight—he once watched Jim take on a guy twice his size, and win, without getting winded—roaming near his house, even if it's with a bucket of paint or a pair of pliers. He has to put up with the kid's mouth, his flirtations with his wife, his strangely predatory disposition, but it's worth the costs; and hell, he'll admit it, he actually likes Jim a bit. Enough that he invites him to dinner almost every Friday.
He doesn't expect it to be anything more than another beautiful day in the neighborhood until he's hovering over the kid's—no, he's a man, a man John's age, a man in pain—body as he writhes and whimpers and wells blood so the grass looks like Christmas. Physically, he's aware that he's in Kansas, in Lawrence, soothing his handyman but a part of him hovers low in the tall grass, holding another man's head out of the water. The red on his fingers squirts, drips, puddles about; the voice that meets his ears is one but a hundred at once.
And all he suddenly wants is to be safe in his distant illusion of Pleasantville. His eyes wander up from Jim's so he can see his Mary and his Dean, both unharmed, if traumatized. Mary has turned the same white as the Peterson's steps, the same white as the towels, the same white as the bone poking through the skin and muscle in Jim's shoulder. His heart thrums with the adrenaline of caring for an injured man, with the adrenaline of protecting his charges, with the adrenaline of fearing—painful, chest rending fear—for his family. It contrasts starkly with the sudden relief of finding both of them fine.
"Dad," Jim whines, pawing at his hands as he wraps the towels around the worst of the injury and holds on. "Oh fuck."
"If my kid starts using that word, I'm washing your mouth out with soap," he warns. Jim's head tilts one direction then another, his eyes glassy. "Hey, where do you think you're going?"
"Nowhere," Jim slurs. "Nowhere. Sticking with Sammy. Just like you said."
Delirious. Has to be. That's all right. He can handle disassociation. He's been a grandfather, a dad, a mom, a brother, a boyfriend, a girlfriend, more than once. Still, it's the clarity that still lurks in Jim's gaze that frightens him, especially when he looks at Mary and calls her 'Mom.' "Yeah, well, stick with me. All right? You still owe me a gutter cleaning."
"I just want to go home," Jim sounds tiny and pathetic, a puppy as opposed to the big guard dog he normally plays. "Please, please, Dad, I want to go home."
"Soon," he promises and lies. "You just need to do this last thing, soldier. Got it? Then you get to go home." Sirens; he can hear the sirens coming, hear Jack and his sons returning, hear Jim's breathing roughening and his pulse slowing. "You listening?"
"Y'sir," Jim mumbles and they lock eyes.
John's stomach drops. He knows that expression, the apology right before the lights go out, the silent plea to, "Tell Mom and Dad I love them" or "Give this letter to my fiancé" or "I didn't want to go this way." Jim may not be all there but he's doing what every soldier does on his deathbed; he's regretting the pain he's about to give the ones he loves.
"You're going to live," he commands in his strongest tone. He uses it with Dean when the four year old refuses to clean up his room or go to bed. "And you're going to fix that shingle on the roof."
"Oh sh't," Jim hisses because he leans down harder, feels the gritting of bones but is too concerned by the saturation to care. "Oh shit, Dad, I'm—fuck. I'm dying."
"Suck it up, you pussy," John tells him, relieved by the new wave of fight. "No nurse wants to screw a whiner."
And, without warning, Jim passes out.
He can't wake him up, even when he trades places with Jenna who doesn't cringe away from the injury. She's a good woman, Jenna, "tiny but fierce" he usually teases, and he uses his freedom to check Jim's pulse and breathing. He taps his face, does a sternal rub, pinches the soft inside of the man's arms and frowns at the familiar birthmark just under his armpit. Then he dismisses it as the EMTs unload from the ambulance and remove the problem from him. They cart Jim away with the curt warning that they're taking him to county.
"John," Jenna touches him and he nearly jumps out of his skin. "Here, wipe off."
He obeys stoically, feeling oddly displaced. The blood catches in his creases and under his nails, dyes his skin. It will take scrubbing and time to remove it all and he knows that this will join his nightmares. For some reason, he's shaking a bit; and his gorge rises and he swallows it down. It takes Mary grasping his face, brushing away the sweat from his cheeks, for him to brace in reality again. The mosquitoes and the humidity flee and leave him in the fading sunlight of the Kansas night. A gentle kiss on his lips assures him that it's real.
"It didn't get you, did it?" Mary whispers, stroking his neck, his chest, his ears, lithe fingers searching for hurts.
"Dean's okay?" he asks, not sure why he feels like he's almost lost something important.
"Scared, but he's fine. Not even a scratch," her lip trembles. "He's just fine." Tears drip down her cheeks. "How's my man?"
He licks his dry lips. "Take Dean inside." He sees Marjory Jackson petting Dean's head even as he squirms to get to them. "And I want you to sit down. Marjory'll take care of you."
"John," Mary begins, suddenly tough like she used to be instead of the hormonal, pregnant woman.
"Please," his voice cracks a bit. "I have to go to the hospital."
"I'll drive," Jack Peterson says. He tosses his gun to Joseph. "Tommy, walk Mrs. Winchester home. Joseph, help your Mom with those towels."
"Mommy," Dean shrieks. "Mommy!"
"John, I really think I should go with you," Mary insists as he sheds his flannel button up and grimaces at the glowing red on his white undershirt.
"I'll call you soon as we know what's happening," he grasps her shoulders. "Mary…" She tries to say something more, but he kisses her before she can utter a word and strides after Jack.
