oOoOoOo
Bobby and the boys set camp where the trees separated slightly, little thin rays of light streamed into the dark forest. Bobby dropped the tent and an order for the boys to erect it while he scouted the area for firewood they would need later. They took to the task as Bobby disappeared into the brush. As precaution, he grabbed a stick and drew a series of symbols in a wide perimeter around the camp. They were Cree Indian symbols to ward off the kinds of evil he promised Mary and John did not exist in this neck of the woods.
He hoped he was right and that the pictograms he traced would prove unnecessary.
As he scratched the symbols out of sight of his young companions, the boys worked on their shelter for the night. Sam had the written instructions and drawn a diagram. He proceeded to assemble the supports and lay out the spikes while giving orders to his brother to unfold the canvas tent in a certain way. Dean listened for all of two minutes before ripping the page from Sam's hands and balling it up. He flung it over shoulder and barked at his brother to "fetch." Sam stalked off, angrily snarling at his big brother for his strong arm tactics, while prophesying Dean could not put the tent up properly without following instructions.
Bobby heard the spat through the cover of the trees, but let it run its course. When he returned, he was surprised to see the tent erected—not perfectly taut or straight—but done passably well. What did not surprise him was Sam sitting with his back against a tree sulking. Dean stretched his shoulders then announced his intention to take a swim in the river a couple dozen yards away.
"What's with you?" Bobby asked Sam as Dean could be heard humming some tune while he made his way to the water.
"I told Dean how to do it, and he didn't listen," Sam sulked. "I had the instructions all written down for us to follow so it was done right."
"Well, looks like he listened because it's up just fine," Bobby observed.
"No, he didn't listen," Sam shook his head. "I told him what to do, and he did something different than I said. He didn't follow the directions. He didn't even know them, but…"
"You're mad because he did it without reading about it or listening to what you knew?" Bobby translated. "Look, Sam, your bother ain't exactly an academic superstar. He's smart enough and all, but he's more like… Do you know anything about music?"
"I listen to the radio," Sam nodded. "We have music class at school, too."
"Well, you know what classical music is, right?" Bobby offered. "It's all technical and orchestrated—very orderly and precise. It's complicated and beautiful when it's done right. Play all the notes just as they are put on the page and you have a glorious symphony." Sam nodded, following him. "That's you. You're the classical symphony. You're Beethoven."
Sam grinned. Beethoven was a genius—that much he knew about classical music. He blushed, too, at the comparison. Bobby was one of the smartest people Sam ever met—smarter than all his teachers, he was certain. He knew history and all sorts of other facts, and he could speak Japanese.
"Well, Beethoven is great, spectacular, but it ain't the only kind of music there is," Bobby continued. "You ever heard of Jazz?" Sam shrugged and nodded. "Well, Jazz is unique for music in that it don't have rules except to break 'em. It's less structured and confined. Some folks say the genius is in both the notes that get played and the ones that don't. Do you understand that?"
Sam offered him a puzzled look. Bobby sighed and put a reassuring hand on the boy's shoulder.
"Three jazz musicians could play the same song, exactly perfect, and they wouldn't sound alike at all," Bobby explained. "They put their own spin and flare on the notes and make up some new ones along the way. It's just as beautiful and complicated as classical music, but it's just gotta go its own way. It's less formal, and you can't teach it. You gotta feel it. It comes from your heart and your soul."
"And you're saying I'm orderly, but Dean's a mess?" Sam wondered.
"Yeah, he's Johnny Coltrane to your Beethoven," Bobby nodded. "Not better, not worse, just different. See those jazz guys could play Beethoven too, I guess, but it wouldn't sound at all like your symphony. It'd be just as beautiful for some, but it would get the point across in a different way. That's you and your brother."
Sam sighed and nodded, accepting the comparison but not sure he fully understood. Bobby could see the boy making mental notes to go to the library and research jazz as soon as he got out of the woods. Bobby knew if he had said the same thing to Dean, the boy would have asked him to hum something or asked if he had a CD he could listen to. The old hunter stifled a chuckle, thinking that alone made his point on the differences in the boys. Bobby also made a mental note not to have the same conversation with Dean. He would, no doubt, completely agree his little brother was a symphony, but the teen would undoubtedly hate jazz. The more Bobby thought about it, the more he realized Dean was better compared to the Delta Blues—another fact he would never utter. The kid carried too much on his shoulders still. Pointing him at music focused on the wrenching pains of the heart and soul wouldn't do the kid any favors.
"Go make sure your brother doesn't drown in the river looking for mountain mermaids," Bobby said, planting a smirk on Sam's face.
The boy nodded once and hurried down the path carved through the brush by his brother a few minutes earlier. The hunter then inspected the tent. Although he had to adjust it a bit, the boys (or more specifically Dean) hadn't done such a bad job—which was a miracle considering the bitching that went on about how he erected it. Bobby knew that the fact the tent was up did not bother Sam. It was the younger boy's lack of understanding how his brother could simply look at the puzzle of pieces and put the picture together without following the proscribed rules that didn't sit well with the young scholar. Sam was all about order and following rules. He was the quintessential good kid—the one every teacher wanted in their class and who would breeze through his academic career with praise and accolades galore. He would be a success in whatever field captured his interest because he would work hard to master it.
Dean was a different story. Most teachers dreaded his name on class lists. He did the bare minimum and spent most of his day waiting for the clock to reach 3 o'clock. He was smart enough to do better, but was not interested in applying himself. He was mechanically inclined, Bobby knew. The kid would fall asleep trying to diagram and dissect a sonnet, but he could take and a mess of parts to make a working contraption with ease. Dean could see the art and order in chaos, the final picture in the many scattered details. Reading instructions (or being told what they were) likely would hinder his problem solving process.
As Bobby assured himself the lines were sufficiently tight, having straightened and wedged just two of the tent spikes for insurance, he stepped back to admire the work. It was then that the high pitched shriek of a young boy tore through the woods like a jagged knife. Noting it was a cry of delight rather than fear, casually Bobby checked his Bowie knife (the dual purpose one overlaid with silver in case he ever needed it for something other than the type of wild game folks ate). He next grabbed the small netting from his pack with little hope of it being effective as he ambled toward the shouting.
"Damn idgits are gonna scare the fish," Bobby grumbled and trudged toward the river.
He had checked the water on his survey of the area surrounding their campsite earlier. The river was wide and high, the last of the spring runoff from the mountains swelling the veins of water. However, the currents were slow. He felt confident the boys faced no serious danger from the water. Of course, he forgot to factor in their own numbskull defaults. He came into view of the riverbank to see Sam soaring through the air and landing with a splash in the chilly waters. From the trajectory, Bobby surmised his brother had flung him (no doubt at the younger one's urging) from a rock outcropping that hung over the edge of the water, jutting out a few yards toward the deeper part of the river.
"There could be damn rocks down there!" Bobby shouted perturbed but not overly worried as Sam quickly broke the surface and swam with a slow but confident stroke back to the banks with a huge grin in front of chattering teeth. Goosebumps erupted on the boy's skin as he shook droplets from his shaggy brown locks.
"There's not," Sam shouted gleefully, all animosity for his brother evaporated in the brilliant sunshine. "Dean checked."
"Of course he did," Bobby said to himself as he waved the kid back to his diving perch. He then spoke more loudly so both could hear him. "Then try not to drown."
"Okay," Sam nodded as he scrambled back up the rock.
Bobby gazed to the outcropping to see Dean, lounging lazily in his boxers soaking in the afternoon sun while drying off. His shirt was tossed carelessly on the rock as were his jeans and boots. His pale skin shone ghostly in the sunlight as he nodded confidently to Bobby. The teenager, for all his internal hang ups and fear of rejection, sat with such an air of confidence and poise that Bobby nearly felt sorry for the high school girls who would surely lose their hearts (and a few other things) to the budding Casanova. Without a single girl within a hundred miles to ogle him, he perched with such grace and contentment that Bobby almost wondered if he was posing. Then the reason for the ease in the teen's posture struck him.
It was Sam.
Dean's little brother was laughing, giggling like a kid with no cares or worries in the world while running off at the mouth about how cool it would be to have a river like this back at their house; how they could go swimming all the time after school; and how he and Dean should go camping like this every year forever. Dean nodded, listening, and smiling at the flood of happiness in his brother's voice. Sam's happiness was Dean's refuge, Bobby knew. No matter what might be wrong in Dean's world, if Sam was happy, Dean was too. It was a touching sight, both wondrous and sad to observe. The love the boys held for each other was stirring but also worrisome. If anything ever happened to one of them, the other would suffer unspeakable agony.
Bobby's eyes were drawn to the scar on Dean's chest—a surgical mark from a lifesaving procedure one year earlier. While his big brother was in the hospital in grave condition, Sam had endured a worry and anguish so deep one would think he was the needing emergency surgery. Sam might be able to struggle on if he lost his brother, but it would be a long and hard uphill battle for him. If anything were ever to happen to Sam… Bobby shivered at the thought. Too many years being the brother, parent, friend and bodyguard to the little guy intrinsically tied Dean's life to Sam's. There was no doubt in Bobby's mind that if any ill-fate befell the youngest Winchester, Dean wouldn't survive.
Brushing aside that chilling thought, Bobby waved at them, pointing further down the bank, leaving them to their moment of contentment while he attempted to catch a trout dumb enough not to be scared away by the two yahoos recently thrashing and splashing in their universe. The hunter moved another 30 yards down the bank of the lazy river, keeping the boys basically in his line of sight. The water presented no threat, but the worry in expressed by both John and Mary over the boys leaving struck Bobby profoundly. His previous jitters about the woods were melting. He decided most of his worry was just residual fears from John and Mary's concern. He didn't blame them, but he was experienced in the woods with all sorts of critters—the kind game wardens knew about and the kind they denied. So, Bobby gave the boys their space to play, but he kept them in sight while he marveled at how far they had come in a single year.
No longer were they the skittish and combative waifs who arrived exhausted, confused and emaciated on his doorstep to be reunited with a family they thought long gone. Now, they were mostly happy, much healthier and (he dared think it) hopeful. Dean remained cautious with an aloof streak that would kick in at the oddest and most unpredictable times, but he no longer held thoughts of running away. Sam was a complete success on the family front. He embraced his family like he had never been without them—which, considering his brother's careful decade-long oversight wasn't far from the truth. Bobby smiled. The little boy was growing up fast. While the teen years were on the horizon, the hero worship for his big brother remained.
Bobby shook his head as he watched Sam resting on the rock, striking the same pose as his brother—purposefully copying Dean's posture and attempting the aloof air his brother radiated naturally. A quick glance at the older boy showed he had no idea Sam was mimicking him. Dean was watching Sam carefully but the thought that his little brother admired him so greatly simply would never cross his mind. Perhaps, Bobby thought, that was because the older one's thoughts were too firmly rooted still on protecting his little brother and making him happy. That simply being there for Sam was a huge part of the equation would simply never enter Dean's consciousness. He did not think highly enough of himself to think anyone (even his greatest fan) could value him that much.
Thoughts like that always tensed Bobby's throat. That damn kid. Dean got under the old hunter's skin nearly the moment they met. It was something about the pain the boy held inside that made Bobby ache in a way he hadn't since he'd had to bury his wife. He knew about fear and wanting to feel safe while shouldering an obligation to protect someone you loved. He couldn't do that for his mother, and he was not able to do that for his late wife. Hunting and saving strangers gave him some sense of peace, but he did not feel it in his heart—hadn't felt a thing in the ticker in years, until he met the Winchester boys.
Bobby's life had changed, drastically so, in 12 short months. Now, it was less hunting and more homemaking (sort of). He spent his time scouring estate sales for books on botany for Sam rather than books on Buruburu's for his research. He honed his negotiating skills on talking Dean through dealing with tough teachers rather than keeping his tongue wily to talk twitchy cops out of arresting him when caught in a compromising situation. He sighed as he realized he'd become the one thing he never wanted to be: a family man. He actually celebrated holidays now and last year even had Christmas for the first time since his wife Karen died. Bobby was beyond surprised, shocked in fact, when Mary offered him the invite to the Winchester home that December day. He only planned to stop in for a minute, not wanting to invade, but Sam had made Bobby a Santa hat out of felt and cotton balls and presented it with a toothy grin that let Bobby know the kid expected him to stay the whole day. The crusty hunter did so, gruffly swallowing back the sudden tightness in his throat. When he did finally depart long after the sun went down, he returned home feeling better than he had in ages then wailed like a baby without exactly knowing why. His eyes grew misty again at the memory of that day. He sniffed pointedly and felt like a fool as he brushed his watery eyes and looked down the river bank for a distraction.
What he found dried his eyes and cinched his stomach. In the side of a tree, at least 10 feet off the ground, were a set of deep and not too old claw marks. Bobby's blood ran cold as he looked to the west to see the sun beginning is descent to the horizon. Night would begin falling fast. The hunter felt a cold chill snake down his spine as he realized he and the dynamic duo were now the hunted.
oOoOoOo
"Shit!" John hissed as the sting of his razor bit into his neck.
The small cut, a nick, drizzled blood down his the cords in his neck. He mopped the spot quickly with a towel and stuck of a piece of toilet paper to it. His hands were still shaking. It wasn't from the sight of blood. That had not bothered him since his days as a boy scout when he earned his first aid badge. No, the quakes were straight up nerves. He felt like a teenager going on his first date. In fact, he did not even recall being this nervous for his first date with Mary regardless of when that actually was (which he still contended was Tom Clayton's party).
Still, despite the nerves making his hands shake, ruining his shave and give his stomach a case of near seasickness, he was eager. This was, he knew about himself, a good feeling. It wasn't angsty nerves based on something horrible on the horizon. It wasn't the pain of anticipating something going horribly wrong. No, this was something that had to happen, and he would just accept the results. Not that he was feeling cavalier about it. John did care about the outcome, but he just felt that whatever happened, he could deal with it because some moments in life were too huge to second guess.
It reminded, he realized, of the way he felt the night he proposed to Mary. In fact, there were five moments in his life that left him feeling this way: excited and nervous with a bizarre mix of fear and elation. Each one, although stressful on some level and fraught with worry, turned eventually into the happiest moments of his life. He recalled each of them as though they just occurred. The first was 20 years earlier, the night he proposed to Mary. The others were both days she told him she was pregnant; and the moment both of his sons were born. Each instance left him trembling but also gave him an overwhelming feeling of purpose and duty. He did not know if feeling this fearful anticipation for his date with his wife was a good sign, but he could not make himself worry that it was a bad one.
Mary Campbell was the love of John Winchester's life. When they first met, it was all sparks, but not the kind that people recognized as sexual tension. They were more the kind between two people who legitimately revile each other, but then something changed. How and when was not clear in his mind any longer. He knew her through a friend of a friend kind of deal. After a while, the friends drifted and John and Mary were left with each other. It seemed, once the crowds were missing, they could see and hear who the other was rather than just hanging on to those flawed first impressions.
He always knew part of her attraction to him was her father's objections. John thought that odd at the time. Girls were supposed to be attracted to the bad boy image. He was, at least then, as straight-laced as they came. He was a blue collar worker, a mechanic with a steady 8-4:30 job. He was a Marine—present tense in his mind as there was no such thing as a former Marine (at least not to any Marine worth the title). John liked his life orderly and predictable. He believed in honor and protecting those things he cared about. Family came first with him. His own father walked out on him when he was just a kid. His stepfather, a mechanic and World War II vet, taught him the importance of supporting your family and standing by them no matter what. When his mother died while John was still in high school, his stepfather did not turn him out in the streets. He let John know that he was family, blood ties did not matter. It was that lesson, primarily, that kept John's own occasionally jealousy over his own boys' affection for Bobby Singer from boiling over. Family was important, whether they shared blood or not.
So Mary's desire to defy her parents all those years ago did not sit well with John at the time, but as it brought her closer to him, he did not argue about it. Their odd and untimely deaths ended any chance for fixing those fractured family ties. After her parent's passing, John started to feel that Mary saw him as more than just someone who she rebelled against her father with. He was the stabilizing force in a life torn apart. John understood that the enigmatic and highly private Mary Campbell wasn't some snobby, pretty girl. She was more than the most independent girl he'd ever known. He saw something vulnerable in her that he desired to protect—the warrior in him would have done anything to shield her.
The day he realized he wanted to be with Mary Campbell for the rest of his life was terrifying. Not because the idea of no other women ever made him feel trapped. No, his worry was she might not feel the same way.
Those thoughts tumbled through his mind as he stepped out of the bathroom, complete with his paper mache face adornments, to find Mary standing in the doorway staring at him. Her expression was at first anxious and next wildly amused.
"My, you are a handsome devil, John Winchester," Mary laughed. "You do know how to impress a girl."
"These rugged good looks are natural," he shrugged. "If I don't dress it down with some shaving nicks, then it's just not fair to you."
"I'm glad that at least Sammy got my humble genes," she replied, stepping close and adjusting the collar on his shirt.
"Rule three, Mary," he insisted. "There is no Sammy and no Dean tonight."
Mary nodded, slightly chastised by more worried by the reminder. She shrugged her apology.
"Finish clotting and primping in front of that mirror, lover boy, " she pointed toward the dresser as she strolled toward the shower. "I won't take half as long as you did to get ready."
oOoOoOo
The fire danced and snapped as it ate the kindling and lapped at the logs in the fire pit at the center of the campsite. Bobby cast a wary eye at the small stack of wood he gathered as the night's chill settled over the trio. The pickings for the fire were scarce to keep the blaze going all night. Fire should keep most creatures at bay, but with the sky cloudy and threatening hopes for keeping the flames burning bright were slim. Also on the thin side were Bobby's patience as one of his companions, oblivious to his tense posture and persistently swiveling eyes, continued to pester him.
"Come on!" Sam begged. "Uncle Bobby, please! Just one."
Sam sat on the ground just beyond the stone ring that enclosed their crackling campfire. The sky above was muddled with clouds blotting out the stars but the heavens were quiet. No thunder rolled. No rain was joining them yet, but that didn't mean it would stay dry. Bobby tried to keep the growl brewing in his mind from making it to his lips as he gazed pointedly into the darkness. Of all the things he anticipated for the trip, this was not one of them.
Bobby knew a lot about the scary things in the dark. He spent nearly 15 years hunting those nightmares and (when things went well) annihilating them. While he knew a lot about eradicating them and chronicling those efforts in his journal, it never occurred to him to consider the tales as bedtime stories. Mostly, at that moment, he knew there was a knot at the back of his neck from the worry he felt over not marching the kids out of the woods the second he saw those damn slashes in the bark of that tree. He knew staying put was really the only option. There wasn't enough daylight left to get back down the trail and to safety before the dark came. What pissed him off royally was that he'd done the research and checked in with a few others before taking this trip. There was never even a suspicion of a Wendigo in this area.
Of course, that didn't mean one from another spot wasn't trying to capitalize on the real estate adage of location, location, location. Creatures like that didn't often hit he most populated areas. It was too easy to get caught. Regardless of how many tasty morsels wandered by your cave, even a primitive hunter like a man turned beast knew alive and hungry was better than flat dead. Before settling in front of the fire, Bobby had double checked the warding symbols. He planned to stay awake the whole night of sentry duty. He silently scolded himself for not finding a way to pack a flamethrower. Sure, he had a flare gun, but that was only good a close range. He also had the fixings for a Molotov Cocktail; he cursed the damn evil beast possibly lurking in the dark for possibly depriving him of the preferred rotgut whiskey in his flask.
And, as if having a creepy, nasty, clawed and hungry cannibal with superhuman strength and speed possibly eyeing you as dinner, Bobby now had a crafty and demanding 11-year-old asking him for a ghost story—because for Sam, the deep, dark and dangerous woods weren't scary enough.
"No, I ain't tellin' you a scary story," Bobby groused despite the kid's penetrating, pleading eyes. "If I tell you a creepy campfire story, you're gonna try crawling into my sleeping bag the first time you hear an owl hoot tonight. Then I'll have nightmares."
"You get over Sammy crawling into bed while a shivering like a frozen puppy," Dean said as he reclined on the far side of the fire, with a bored expression scoffed..
The teen lay on the ground a few feet from the fire with his fingers laced behind his head. He had been playing it aloof, basically sulking in Bobby's opinion, ever since the hunter confiscated his backpack based on intel from Sam. Dean was hauling contraband and it was not part of the agreed upon provisions. Bobby figured if he took the kid's M&M's and portable CD player, it would motivate him to be social and do as they planned by helping scare up their meals. Sam had gone all out finding berries along the trail. Dean had simply rolled his eyes and refused to help. Copping that attitude left him with the duty of cleaning the fish Bobby caught and digging the hole to bury the guts to keep critters from joining them in the dark hours. As retaliation, he refused the meal Bobby made. Now, Dean's stomach's would growl occasionally loudly enough to be heard above the crackle of the fire.
"I should warn ya, Bobby," Dean continued. "What really sucks is when he gets his cold feet all tangled in yours or when he digs nails into your skin 'cuz he's all tensed up like a cat afraid of a bath."
"I do not!" Sam snapped. "I don't crawl into your room."
Sam blew his bangs out of his eyes and scowled deeply. He turned his back on his brother to face Bobby hopefully.
"Not lately, you mean," Dean yawned, antagonizing him.
Sam tossed angry look at his brother. His brow furrowed so deep he looked like the lines were carved there. Sam wasn't precisely embarrassed that he used to seek shelter under his brother's arm when he got scared at night. He just didn't think anyone needed to know about that anymore now that he was older.
"At least I'm not the scaredy-cat who sneaks downstairs to check that the door is locked every night," Sam shot back and smirked triumphantly as Dean blanched with shock. "I heard you do it. I told Mom, too."
"Do you practice being a little bitch?" Dean scowled as he sat up from his reclined position and looked warily at the dark.
His shoulders tensed as it struck him there were no doors with locks out in the woods. Sure, he knew that already, but hearing Sam remind him just drove the point home. He knew he wouldn't be sleeping that night. Bobby might be there and have a gun, but there was just a canvas tent and a sleeping bag protecting his little brother from bears or mountain lions or genetically enhanced mosquitoes (he saw that one on TV around 1 a.m. when he couldn't sleep before the trip that brought them into the middle of nowhere).
"Something wrong, Dean?" Bobby asked, sensing the boy's sudden alertness.
"No," he said dismissively as he heaved himself off the dirt. "Gotta take a leak."
"Stay inside the perim… uh, don't get more than a few trees back from this fire," Bobby said cautiously. "There's tree roots and holes dug by rodents all around here. You'll twist your ankle in the dark if you get too far from the firelight. I ain't carrying your sorry ass out of here tomorrow."
"Tomorrow?" Sam piped up quickly. "We're supposed to be here for two more days."
"Well, we're gonna find a new camping spot tomorrow," Bobby lied smoothly, deciding he would march them out of the woods along a better worn trail and deal with the kid's sulking on a long but safe drive back to South Dakota.
As long as they made it back, that is.
oOoOoOo
Divorce.
The echoed loudly in Mary's head. To say her dinner date was a bust was an understatement. She and John stared at each other, then at others in the diner and finally just at their plates as no conversation topic took root. Both were busy at work. John didn't like his boss. Mary was the only one at the library most of the day so she spent her time checking the book inventory. After that, there was nothing to say.
She held back a sob as she changed out of her clothing into the highly unsexy cut off sweatpants and paint-stained T-shirt she normally slept in. She was surprised at how much the word made her cringe. There was a time when remembering she was ever married and had a family seemed too distant of a memory to be real. The only thing that let her know that part of her life wasn't a dream was the tarnished silver-plated locket she wore around her neck. It was a gift from John, given to for her birthday the year Dean was born. It was heart-shaped and folded open into a four-leaf clover, allowing a small picture in each leaf. She opened the clasp. It protested initially, having spent most of the last decade closed. As it sprung open, she was greeted with the familiar faces.
There tiny pictures of Sam and Dean, each taken the day they were each brought home from the hospital as infants. There was a picture of John, taken not long after they started dating, and finally there was a picture of she and John on their wedding day. Together, they looked like a happy family. For so long, they couldn't be because someone stole the children and that tore she and John apart. Now, it seemed having the boys back was doing the same thing. That thought raised fat, hot tears in her eyes.
"Hey," John said from the doorway. "Crying? Really? It wasn't that bad. I mean, it was a little quiet, but we didn't fight. To me that's a good sign."
"A good sign?" she repeated and gaped at him. "John, we have nothing in common. Nothing to talk about. No reason to stay together!"
"You mean other than two kids, a shared residence and family plans," he noted. "Mary, I wasn't expecting us to while away a few hours finding each other new and fascinating. I mean, I'm the same guy you married and knew for 20 years. My hair is starting to go gray in a few spots, and I've got wrinkles under my eyes—just like you."
"Excuse me?" Mary snapped, turning a sharp eye on him. John recoiled slightly at her dagger expression then his face broke into a grin.
"Yeah, newsflash: We're getting old, Mary," he laughed. "Considering the alternative, it's a blessing. Look, I went into tonight's date hoping the best case scenario that we wouldn't end up shouting at each other and you wouldn't take off. After all, that's what happened the last time it was just the two of us together."
Mary sat on the bed and stared at him with a mystified expression, vaguely recalling the fight they had in West Texas more than five years earlier when she agreed to meet with her husband—back when he kept insisting he would find their children himself and she listened with cold silence as she believed the boys were dead.
The mere fact that John viewed their disastrous date this evening as acceptable only drove home her worry even more. It was as if they were from two different worlds. She could hear Dean's fears for their relationship, attributed to his younger brother, in her head. The ache in her heart was for what the destruction of the marriage would mean to her boys but also to herself. She felt genuine heartache, a sad longing that surprised her, in her chest. How John could not see the wasteland of their relationship only flared her anger more. Rather than fight about it, she shook her head and stalked down the hallway.
"Where are you going?" John asked.
"I'm sleeping in Sam's room tonight," she answered tersely.
The more typical reaction would be to kick him out of their room for the night—that's how it usually played out after a fight when they lived in Lawrence. Only, this wasn't precisely a fight. She figured it was her mind that needed space so it was only proper she vacate their room for now. She also doubted she would be able to sleep without the boys in the house. She hoped sleeping in Sam's room, surrounded by his scent, might help her settle down. Dean's room was not an option. He was a teenager and would be offended if she entered his room without permission. Sam, however, was not yet territorial about his room. He didn't like Dean going in there to mess with him and his stuff, but that was a sibling that was part of their squabbling, tussling and perpetual bonding routine. She did not precisely understand it and did not like the decibels it sometimes reached, but it made them happy so she rarely intervened beyond calling their names when the scuffles dragged.
She entered the 11-year-olds room and was instantly greeted by the precise and hushed atmosphere. There were model airplanes he built over the winter hanging from fishing line from the ceiling. There was a small soccer trophy that he received when his team came in second place in the local league sat on his dust-free dresser. She took in the sight of the room, just as she did when she dropped off his clean laundry every few days. It was a small room with bright orange walls, dark blue curtains with a matching bed comforter but mostly it was a little boy's room—her little boy. Being in there drove home the point that he was not home harder, and left Mary curled up on the bed, pressing his pillow into her face to muffle her weeping while inhaling the scent of her son.
The light from her room ceased spilling into the hallway signifying John had closed the door. Mary got out of the bed and looked across the darkened yard to see the lights at the salvage yard, the ones that stayed all night every night to deter uninvited visitors, burned brightly and made her grimace. She sighed and ran her hands through her hair as she realized she had forgotten to check Bobby's answering machine for mayday calls. Her shoulders drooped as she looked at the clock. It was nearing 8 p.m. She decided there was no reason not to go check. She walked to her room to retrieve her shoes, finding John laying on the bed staring at the ceiling with an unsettled expression. He looked up as she entered.
"I have to leave," she announced.
"What?" John said sitting up. "Why?"
"Bobby," Mary barked more loudly than she intended in her anger and frustration.
"Okay, of the many things I never want to hear yelled while I'm in bed, Bobby's name tops the list," John said.
"His phones," she snarled as she jammed her feet into her sneakers. "We said we'd check his calls."
"It's kind of late," John noted with a yawn. "They know he's away. Can't you just check in the morning?"
"When the boys were missing, Bobby answered his phone at any hour of the day that I called or left word of where I could find him if he wasn't answering," Mary said coldly. "Hunters don't keep regular hours, John. They need each other if they're going to do the job and help innocent civilians survive. Some of the hunters who might reach out to Bobby helped me from time-to-time. I have a home and a bed to go home to—most of them don't. So, I'll buy a little good karma and help out because I can."
oOoOoOo
More walking. Awesome, Dean snorted his disapproval at Bobby's announcement they would packing up and leaving in the morning. He scowled as he stared into the deep shadows.
He wasn't more than 20 feet from the camp, but he was little unnerved by how dark it was away from the fire. Dean was not afraid of the dark, but there was dark and then there was DARK. It took him a while to get used to how little light there was Sioux Falls after the sun set. It got dark in Chicago, where he spent most of his childhood bouncing from one foster home and orphanage to another with his little brother. But dark in Chicago meant streetlights (in nicer spots) and a general dim glow from the rest of the city. When night fell in South Dakota, it was like someone painted over the landscape with black paint. There in the forest, so far from pavement of any kind, the darkness shadows swallowed everything, including sound.
Dean noticed it as he zipped up his jeans having just watered some tree he couldn't identify but Sam probably could. He froze in place at the absolute stillness. Home in South Dakota, the nights were quiet but not still. In the warm weather, there were bugs and birds and a general hum of life through the evenings. He figured the woods would be similarly not-quite-quiet, but this was like graveyard quiet (which he admittedly didn't know about having never been to one, but he figured dead residents didn't make noise). He peered more directly into the shadows when his breath caught in his chest as he swore he saw a pair of yellow eyes, staring pointedly back at him.
A strangled noise somewhere between a gasp and a choke rattled up Dean's throat as he staggered backward. His heel caught on a tree root, one of the ground protrusions Bobby feared. Dean toppled over backward. His head soundly collided with the trunk of a thick and unyielding sapling sending stars popping before his eyes brighter and more plentiful than those in the sky. He struggled to his feet, scrambling for balance by gripping the trees around him as he spun his head to look around again. He regretted the movement. His heart hammered against his ribs as his legs tensed on the verge of sprinting when Dean was grabbed around the shoulders.
"What are you doing?" Bobby asked.
"What?" Dean fumbled to keep his legs under him. "There was a… I saw…"
Bobby gripped Dean's arm tightly and hustled him back toward the fire.
"Did you get lost?" Sam laughed as they approached.
Dean scowled briefly then turned his bewildered expression back to Bobby. The urge to tell him what he saw, or what he thought he saw, was strong. But he couldn't. Not with Sam there. The kid was enjoying this farce of a vacation. Even though he was just asking for a scary story, there was no reason to freak the kid out. Besides, Dean reminded himself as his heart started to settle, he couldn't have seen what he thought he did. There was no one in the woods with them. Bobby would have heard their voices. And yellow eyes? And at that height? They must have been nearly 8 feet in the air. Unless they were being quietly and secretly stalked by some NBA player wearing large, glowing contacts… Dean shook his head and let his knees slowly buckle so he could sit near the fire.
"Maybe it's time to turn in," Bobby suggested as he remained standing on the edge of the firelight. "You both turn in for the night. Do yourselves a favor, sleep in your clothes and keep your shoes on."
"Where are you going?" Sam asked.
"Just getting a few more sticks to keep the fire going," Bobby replied cautiously. "It'll keep the bugs away."
"Bugs?" Dean murmured then swallowed hard as Sam scurried past him to crawl to the back of their tent. He cast wary eyes into the darkness surrounding them. "Sure. Keep the bugs away."
oOoOoOo
Mary opened the back door to Bobby's house, listening to the shrieking protest of the rusty hinges. She gritted her teeth as John held the heavy door back as she fiddled with the key. She was not pleased when her husband pulled up alongside her as she walked angrily down the road from their home to the salvage yard. She only got into the Impala when he promised he would keep at a slow, rolling speed just behind her the whole way if she did not take the ride. Now, they were at Bobby's to listen to phone messages and pretend their marriage was not in a shambles.
"Didn't he used to booby trap the house?" John asked as they entered the kitchen. "I seem to recall a warning that he put spring-loaded shotguns at the doors so if you opened it…"
"That's just what he tells people he doesn't want visiting," Mary grumbled, recalling with a small smirk how much John and Bobby used to rile each other.
The hunter never liked the Marine much. The only reason they had forged a civil relationship in the first place was because of the boys. Now that Dean was interested in cars, the two alpha males were no longer staking territory. Instead, they were acting as co-teachers to the teenager. In doing so, they had found common ground that had slowly grown into and obtuse (and at times) tenses friendship.
John crossed the room and hit play on the first answering machine. Mary joined him and did the same on the other beside it. Most simply logged hang ups. There was a message from Travis stating Bobby was right about some hunt and his case wasn't a Rugaru but rather a rabid poodle.
"What about this one?" John asked, noting his wife had yet to meet his eyes and was only responding to him with cold shrugs and terse one-word answers.
"That's his business phone," Mary said dismissively. "Only people looking to drop off a wreck or buy car parts call that."
John's was about to simply walk away. His keys were in hand and his wife was heading to the door, but the blinking light bothered him. Maybe one single blink would be normal, but this one was multiple blinks signaling there was more than one message. The chances more than one person called on a Friday for a wrecked car or spare parts and left a message seemed odd. Sure, Bobby might do more business than John knew, but the salvage yard was not precisely a bustling business. A sudden flood of calls on the day Bobby was away didn't sit right with him.
He hit the play button and felt his knees quake as the soft words of warning about his sons' safety spoken by a voice he did not recognize hit him in the gut like a sucker punch. Mary raced across the room, shoving him roughly to the side as she dived toward the desk where the junkman kept his rolodex. She flipped through the listings until she located the right one. She grabbed the phone and dialed frantically.
Mary ran her trembling hand through her hair, cursing under her breath with each unanswered ring. When finally a machine on the other end received the call, she spoke with a quaking voice.
"This is Mary Winchester, a friend of Bobby's," she said in a commanding tone. "Our sons are with him in the woods. Whatever you are tracking, I am going to join you. I'll be at Hardy Station by sunrise. Please meet me…"
The receiver at the other end crackled to life as the whispering voice from the phone messages responded.
"Mary Winchester, I have only recently returned," Summer Proudfoot said. "The danger in the big woods is too great when the sun rests. I located remains of a young hiker. I was unable to recover them. I am returning to the woods tomorrow."
"I'll go with you," she said then asked with a tight throat. "How old was the victim?"
"He was a man," Summer replied calmly, relieving her immediate fears. "I would say he was no more than 20. His arms showed signs he was bound. It appears he freed himself from captivity and fell in his escape. He impaled himself on a broken branch and bled to death. I notified the rangers at Hardy Station of his location. They are retrieving the remains tomorrow."
For all her years digging up graves and viewing the carnage wrought by monsters and ghosts, hearing a dead body referred to as remains never bothered her previous. Only now, she allowed herself (couldn't prevent herself) from hearing the words first as a mother rather than only as a hunter. Those remains were someone's child. That acknowledgement drove an icy spike of fear into her heart as her children, her babies, were out there and perched precariously on the cusp of being a discovery some other hunter might dub simply as remains.
"Do you know what it is?" she asked with a cold and dispassionate tone.
"A forest demon," Summer replied.
"Can you narrow that down?" Mary asked, realizing the man used 'demon' as a synonym for supernatural rather than referring to a tortured hell spawn . "An arachane? A bugbear? A strix? A black dog? What?"
"This demon was once a man," Summer explained in calm, placid tones that grated on her.
Mary breathed the word Wendigo as the icy chill in heart fanned across her body and spurred tears to rise in her eyes.
"I'll meet you at Hardy Station," she said in a tense voice thick with emotion. "We have to find my sons."
She disconnected before waiting for another word from him. Her mind was on the rucksack she had stashed in the attic, the one she hoped she would never need to pull out but that she kept packed anyway. It contained everything she would need on a moment's notice to take off on a hunting trip. It did not have the collection of weapons and IDs she had when she hunted full-time. It had a few weapons and the bare essentials: Her grandfather's silver Zippo lighter, her father's old journal, her mother's crucifix for creating holy water, a silver knife, a container of salt and a nickel-plated .45 loaded with silver bullets. Only the lighter would help kill a Wendigo, but the other stuff could be put to good use for distractions if needed.
Mary was doing that inventory and planning in her head when she realized John was on her heels rattling off a list of supplies of his own.
"What?" she asked, returning her attention to the moment. "John, I'm going to Wyoming and I don't have time to…"
"We have enough time to pack the car and at least put on boots for trekking through the damn woods, Mary," he said and caught her puzzled glare. "You're not going alone. They're my boys, too. I heard you say Wendigo. I've hunted one before, with Caleb in Minnesota maybe four years ago. You need to torch the bastards to kill 'em. I can do that. So help me, if one has gotten within a hundred feet of my boys, I will burn the damn thing into a lump of charcoal."
There was such determination in his voice and such a look of conviction on his face that Mary saw again the intense 20-something who returned from Vietnam in 1973 to sweep Mary off her feet and away from the detestable life of hunting.
"The more people looking for them, the better chance we have of getting them home quicker," he said climbing into the Impala and sending the engine roaring to life. "We just got them back. No damn Big Foot wanna be is gonna take them away from us."
Mary nodded slowly as John pounded his hand on the steering wheel. In that instant, the image of a little boy with nearly too large green eyes asking him of monsters were real flashed before his eyes. John gripped the wheel tighter as the tires sent a spray of gravel into the air as the Impala squealed out of the salvage yard.
"Bobby is with them," Mary said, trying to convince herself as much as comfort her husband. "If there is anything near them, he knows what to do. He's one of the best hunters alive."
John grunted as they tore into their own driveway.
"I actually have some faith in Sammy in the woods," she continued. "He doesn't know a thing about Wendigos, but he's read at lot about survival skills. I know Bobby will protect them, but Sammy will listen and do precisely what he says, exactly the way he says to do it. That's a good thing."
John surprised her by agreeing.
"I know," John growled. "Dean on the other hand… He's Jedi-level street smart but willfully wilderness stupid. He's allergic to poison oak and still picked it up twice last fall after I told him to be careful around it."
"That's just because he wasn't paying attention," Mary said defending the boy.
"My point exactly," John replied, sounding more like a Marine than usual. "Put Dean where there is pavement, traffic and street gangs, then he's on his A-game. Put him anywhere in nature and it's like he checks right out of his mind. He doesn't respect the outdoors or the elements or what you'll find in the woods. To him it's about as dangerous as a Disney movie."
The problem was that Disney usually got it wrong, Mary knew. In reality, hunters were not the danger and the woodland creatures were not all cute and cuddly. The one they feared at that moment was anything but; it was a perfect stalking machine, faster than any human, stronger than any, too. It could track and climb and kill with the ferocity of a great white shark in the ocean. It did not care whether someone was just a child. Or, more to the point, it might not care much. There was a chance it might view something like Sammy as not worth it's effort. He was still small, mostly skin and bones so hardly worth the effort to capture and skin. Dean, however, was (despite all Mary's protests to the contrary) a man. He was young still, just 15, but he was nearly full grown and athletic. Muscles meant meat. Bobby, too, was a savory target. The only thing going for her sons, she realized, was the hope that the hunter with them realized they were in a danger zone before it was too late.
"I actually told Sam to watch Dean's back on this trip," John confessed and kicked himself viciously inside for ever letting his children leave without him.
oOoOoOo
A/N: More to come.