Staring At The Sun, part 6
A/N: God looks like James Earl Jones did in The Sandlot.
Disclaimer: Don't own Dean, Sam or Bobby. Eric's letting me play with them.
Dean steps outside Trotter's Bar and onto the observation deck of the Grand Canyon in one smooth, seamless motion. All that driving he did, all over the country, and he never got to see the damn place. The job came first. It was always the job, and they'd never had one at the Grand Canyon.
He arrives at midday, right in the middle of a group of tourists with cameras. People nearby see him when he fades in. Dean doesn't even think about hiding. Why the hell should he?
Dean hears a camera phone click and casually lashes out in that direction. He fuses the camera into molten slag and instantly vaporizes the tourist, one Calvin Donahue from Atlantic City. There's a moment of stunned silence. No real panic, because they're still not sure exactly what the hell happened. The gawkers and bystanders move away from him in a group, whispering and staring. Right now Dean doesn't give a damn about any of them. He could go medieval on the entire state if he wanted to. All he has to do is think about seeing the red rocks below run red with blood.
They have families. They have what he lost.
All it would take to trigger more carnage would be the sound of another camera shutter going off, a dirty look, a whispered curse word. Fortunately, none of that happens and Dean doesn't pay any more attention to the tourists.
He leans against the railing, and he can actually feel the earth move underneath his feet, hear the rush of the clouds overhead. Dean stares upward into the clear blue sky and sees everything and nothing. The bright sunlight warms his skin, stokes the fires inside him.
Being around Casey made him feel off balance. He felt…he felt almost human around her, and that was a damn laugh. She's a demon wearing a meatsuit. And he's….
Hell, Dean doesn't know what the hell he is now.
They know he's going after Dad next.
Like it or not, and he doesn't, he has limits. Disposing of Tessa and those Reapers very nearly ended it all. They almost had him.
Dean cocks his head to one side, listens to that faint echo inside his head before he's even aware of it.
Someone's calling him.
It's faint and familiar. He knows that voice as well as he knows his own. Dean closes his eyes and smells chili. Dusty books. Dried herbs. Motor oil. It was the only house other than the one in Lawrence, Kansas that he could ever call home. He felt safe, comfortable behind those walls.
He allows himself to be pulled in that direction and he's gone in the blink of an eye. After all, what's the harm?
Hell will keep. It's not like it's going anywhere.
000
Sam sits there blinking in the sunlight. He decides he can toss all that stuff he read in Pastor Jim's books about Heaven. Sam glances sideways at God and despite himself actually grins a little.
They're sitting on dusty wooden benches, sparse green grass everywhere, with a crude baseball diamond scratched into the dusty earth. Kids are everywhere, all shapes and sizes and colors, and they're not playing with regulation equipment and nobody seems to give a damn because they're all having too good a time out here.
Not what he expected. Not at all.
God's traded in the navy blue sweater vest, light blue shirt and jeans. He's kept the rimless silver sunglasses, and now He's wearing a long sleeved blue and white checkered shirt and blue overalls and work boots, screaming his head off at the umpire.
"Come on, what are you, blind?" God yells in that deep rich voice of his. "He was safe!"
Being Creator of the Universe doesn't seem to pull much weight with the twelve year old umpire. The kid's unimpressed. He's tall, rangy, with a head full of coal black hair. The kid stares at God and shakes his head no.
God doesn't strike the kid stone dead or turn him into a frog. God laughs.
Sam stares at Him, and it suddenly dawns on him where he's seen this before. "Uh, you wouldn't happen to have a big dog named Hercules, would you?"
God quirks an eyebrow at him. "Yeah, I do. He's around here somewhere. You like dogs, don't you Sam?"
"Yeah."
"I remember when you were eight. Down in Shreveport, Louisiana, wasn't it? You wanted a dog, but your Dad wouldn't let you have one. Dean borrowed that collie shepherd from one of the neighbors, just so you'd have one for a little while at least."
Sam stiffens at the mention of Dean and John.
God shrugs. "Life is all about living, Sam. The pain that you feel sometimes is all a part of it."
"That's it?" Sam wonders out loud. That's your pitch?"
The fat kid strikes out, and his team mates groan. So does God.
"But if you're expecting me to explain everything that's happened to your family," God continues as the fat kid walks slowly to the sidelines, shoulders slumped, "well, I can't do that either."
Sam juts his chin out angrily. "I've had enough of this. I'm leaving."
Sam expects the skies to darken, open up in a torrent of rain. He braces himself for the lightning strike that will fry him to a blackened crisp.
None of that happens.
God leans forward as he watches the game. "Free will. I told you that before, didn't I?" he says softly as Sam gets up to leave.
As soon as he thinks about it, Sam finds himself back in the library. He gathers up his laptop, and his books, everything right where he left it. He has to say goodbye to Jess. He owes her that much, at least.
Sam's surprised it's that easy. It really isn't.
000
If Dean has become what Bobby suspects he has, only a damn fool would invite him into his own house. The hell of it was, Bobby couldn't ask anyone else to shoulder this burden. Wouldn't have been fair, or right.
A warm wind comes up, ruffling the curtains and the pages of books stacked nearby, even though the doors and windows are shut. A chill crawls over Bobby's skin despite the increase in temperature.
Dean Winchester steps out of thin air, right in the middle of the chalk sigil in Bobby Singer's living room. Dean glances up at the sigil of St. Anthony chalked onto the ceiling directly above.
He hasn't changed. Not one bit, Bobby thinks to himself. Got the collar of his leather jacket turned up, same as always. Faded jeans with holes in the knees, black tee, denim overshirt. Bobby can still see the kid in Dean, the freckle faced boy who showed up on his doorstep one day, standing quietly behind John Winchester, the skinny kid who shielded his little brother Sammy from the rain that poured down that day.
Bobby can still see the young man the boy became, a damn fine hunter who cared for other people even to the point of putting his own life at risk.
Yet this is the same man who'd destroyed an entire city that very same morning. They were one and the same. Everything's changed, and nothing has. Bobby expected something, a big monstrous change --
Horns and a tail? Would that make you feel any better? Dean says quietly inside Bobby's head.
"No," Bobby says out loud.
Dean laughs as he stares at the possessions on the floor around him. Bobby's been busy, apparently. Must have made the trip to Dad's lock-up in Black Rock. There's the first sawed-off shot-gun Dean ever made, in sixth grade. That metal protection amulet Dad made Dean wear when they hunted that fae. A photo of John holding three year old Sam and seven year old Dean sitting by a lake somewhere. The clothes they wear are worn and obviously second hand, but John's smiling, fiercely proud of his boys.
Nice. Dean tilts his head to one side, slowly, as he takes it all in. St. Anthony, St. Anthony, please come down. Something is lost and can't be found.
He sounds genuinely amused by the rhyme, pleased that he was able to remember it from his childhood.
The corners of his mouth twitch upwards into a smile that somehow makes Bobby's skin crawl. You got it all wrong, Bobby. I'm not lost. Dean spreads his arms wide. Here I am.
"I've been worried about you, Dean. You and Sam."
Sam's dead, Bobby.
Bobby nods. "I know. Son, what happened?"
Dean blinks. They hunted us. Caught us in Las Vegas.
Bobby keeps his face still and his thoughts quiet. Vegas. There was one hell of a fire there the day before…
"Who?"
Hunters. From the Vatican. Dean's expression is calm, serene.
Bobby feels his shoulders sag. All that death and destruction... he can taste the ash in his throat. "Dean…you…you're a decent man."
I was.
"Kid, you're breaking my heart."
I couldn't keep him safe. Dean's thought voice wavers. The air vibrates between them, and Bobby flinches painfully. A small drop of blood trickles from his ear, down his neck, onto the collar of his shirt.
Do you want to see what they did? To me? To Sam? There's a slight tremor in that thought voice, a crack in the calm that Bobby doesn't miss.
"Dean--"
Dean steps over the sigil lines easily, with no effort on his part at all. Bobby's vision blurs painfully, and he feels Dean's presence right next to him. Dean grips Bobby's wrist before the older man can even react or pull away.
Dean's touch is light. His skin is warm, slightly calloused. Images from that damn room snap and spark behind Bobby's eyes. He tastes blood in his mouth. Those wide leather restraint straps chafe his wrists, hold him upright in that damn chair, tightly, unable to move. Bobby's jaw aches as that bitch in the grey suit slaps him in the face, over and over again.
You will not talk to each other. You will talk only to me. Confession is good for the soul.
Bobby's light-headed from the drugs, faint and weak from near-starvation. He nearly groans aloud as one of the men steps forward and breaks the two middle fingers of his right hand.
Bobby sees Dean, bruised, bloody and defiant. He sees Sam, pale, silent and dying.
When the vision shorts out Bobby's on his knees and he can't remember how he got there. He can't catch his breath. His skin is chilled, cold to the touch. He doesn't even realize that he's not speaking out loud. What…what are you going to do now?
I'm going to collect my family. Sam. Dad. My mom.
You were supposed to cross over. Dean, it was your time to cross over, and you didn't.
"All we wanted was to be left alone. That was all," Dean whispers softly out loud. "They wouldn't leave us alone."
Bobby kneels there, caught in a white hot haze of pain and confusion. Dean's hand tightens slightly on his shoulder. Bobby groans as the pain in his body flares up all over.
"Dean, you're…you're killing me," Bobby croaks out loud.
Dean doesn't answer.
The bones in Bobby's fingers knit back together. The injuries melt away. He's healing me, Bobby thinks wildly, but this isn't a gentle, healing touch. It's the opposite, violent, brutal.
Bobby stares up at Dean just as the younger man's eyes turn dark gold.
My God, Bobby thinks to himself, and that's the last thing he remembers for quite a while.
000
TBC