WARNINGS: Self-Mutilation, Language; Insults not intended to offend anyone personally.
Disclaimer: Winchesters are not mine. Let's all be sad together. I think that this may be one of the harder chapters to read. I know it was for me when I wrote it. Just think for a moment, they're just kids and he really can't handle all the responsibilities and promises.
Departing Thoughts
(FB) The werewolf tore him apart pretty bad, at least Dad will think he did it...
Scars
By: chocolate rules
They lied on the wet grass and watched as John made a slow and steady progress towards the infected woods. They hid behind the bushes and were hidden away with their dark clothes unless you looked directly at them, and even then you might not notice unless you knew they were there. Camouflage, Winchester survival 101.
The rain was falling pretty hard but the sky was almost barren of clouds. The full moon could easily be seen.
John neared the clearing that was locally infamous for its creepy sounds at night and strange disappearances. During the day and afternoon, however, that same clearing was roamed by many lovebirds and known as the local make out spot.
Sam had done most of the research on this one. This would be his first real hunt and john wanted Sam to know everything before they got there. Sammy had taken to it like bees to honey. He had spent three days in the library, finding nothing really other than the local lore. Dean recons that Sam spent more time looking up other, non-hunting related things, but he can't blame the kid. Sam has heard all about hunting his whole life and it's very unlikely that anything can really surprise him now.
But it is his first hunt.
Dean quizzed Sam almost as much as John does before they left that night. Sam just rolled his eyes and replied with a sigh. Dean was impressed though and ruffled his hair each time he gets something right, which is each time. Sam pushed him away, but it's always nice to get approval.
Dean shifts his rifle and stretches out some. It's barely noticeable but Sam's practically lying on him and can feel the movement. He himself has been shifting constantly.
They've been in the same position for more or less two hours. It almost 1am and they have school in the morning, which they can't miss since in the two months that they've been there, they've already missed eight days. The school board is growing concerned and Dean's growing reckless.
Just last week, Dean decided against going to his English class after gym and took the outdoor exit from the locker room. He walked over to his car and drove away returning four hours later in time to pick Sam up. At sixteen, Dean was in no way allowed to sign himself out, but that rarely stopped him. As usual, Dean's one of the youngest in his grade. He entered Kindergarten while he was still four and turned five the January after Mary died.
John received a call from the school the next day on his cell phone. The next day happened to be a Saturday and the boys were in their room sleeping since John had just come from a hunt and wouldn't be drilling them. He got the call and it turns out that it wasn't even the first time that Dean had done that in this school district. He had been cutting or been absent five days more than Sam.
It was late March, and John had given Dean the Impala only a few months ago. Dean had gotten into all kinds of trouble since and John was getting himself hoarse with threatening to take the thing away.
Unfortunately, even through Dean's fear filled eyes, he'd only shrug and say "Fine, if you must." Now, John had been a teenager himself many ages ago, but he had raised his sons not to question him and to follow orders. It was bad enough that Sammy was starting to question every damn hunt he went on and every moving choice, but having Dean crossing normal boundaries was almost more irritating.
John wasn't one to threaten lightly and he rose from his bed, after having spoken with the assistant principal in charge of discipline and attendance- a mouthful if you ask me- for fifteen minutes. He walked into their room and found them both peacefully sleeping.
Now, John wasn't some kind of evil father on a rampage, he respected that his sons needed rest and was always willing to give them an extra day in a motel room to recuperate. He wasn't the kind of dad however that allowed things to get away from him if he could help it. He knew very well that if he waited until Dean awoke, one- his son would be more alert when forming a lie, two- John would more likely than not be involved into something else and completely forget until the issue would just be pointless, and three- he was mad now and there was no real guarantee he'd be mad later and would probably let Dean get away with it with yet another warning.
Dean felt a hard tap on his leg and barely registered his father saying something. He rolled over some off his stomach and opened an eye. Through it, he could barely make out his father's form through the sleepy haze, but there was no doubt about it that Dad was defiantly made at something.
"Get up," John said softly but firmly. Sammy was still very much asleep and John didn't need to disturb him. Dean noted the tone, but opted to play mildly stupid on this one. If he acted like he had no idea whatsoever what his father was talking about, which he currently didn't, and then maybe he could think of a way out of it.
"Was'rong?" Dean asked as he propped himself up on an elbow.
"Get up, now" John said and he didn't move from where he was as he watched Dean lie there.
"Okay," Dean grumbled and pushed himself into sitting position. "M'up."
"Move it," John said as he started to walk towards the door. Dean stood up, rubbed his eyes awake and followed his father into the hall closing the door behind him.
As soon as they were both in the hall, John turned around and faced Dean. Now Dean could clearly see the fuming smoke radiating off his father and wondered how quickly he could make a run for it. However, it was March and it was still chilly out, especially at around seven in the morning. OH yeah, especially still in his boxers.
"Where the hell where you yesterday?" John said. he wasn't the kind of father that fooled around and tried to get his kids to confess to whatever wrong they'd done. No, he didn't have the time for that; you answered the here and now when he asked.
"School," Dean answers automatically, because he had been in school and his father wasn't really asking much yet. He knew his father liked to get straight to business, but that didn't mean he was about to give himself out that quickly. What if he confessed to more than his father knew about? No, he couldn't have that.
"Dean, does this look like the time to fuck around?" John gritted out through his teeth. He was looking Dean dead in the eye and Dean was trying his best to keep the contact. That was a surefire way to prove you were lying.
"No, sir." He replied. John did not look satisfied.
"Dean, your school just called. Now, I know you weren't there, so where the hell where you?"
"But Dad, I did go." Dean said calmly, like he wasn't lying at all.
"Not the whole day." And not even Dean could really deny that. "Where were you?" John asked again, and John Winchester did not like repeating himself. Dean broke the eye contact then without even realizing it until it was too late. He noticed it though when John took a step towards him and lifted his chin up to lock eyes again.
"I can't stand it there, Dad." Dean said with much truthfulness. He was avoiding the actual question, but it was the truth at least, he really couldn't stand it in that school or in any school really.
"That's not what I asked, Dean." John said, not missing a beat.
"I didn't go anywhere, I just drove around. Got a pizza, went to the park, pissed off a few people there, and left to get Sammy. That's all, honest."
"For four hours?"
"Yeah," Dean replied a little hesitant. He had of course done all of those things, but it wasn't all that he had done.
"Dean…" John started, once again trying to contain his anger.
"Dad, I didn't do anything wrong. Okay, so maybe I left a little early, but I was growing restless and if I had stayed there any longer, then I would have done something."
"That's not a reason, Dean."
"Yes, sir. I know that."
"Then why would you still go and leave? "
"I can't stand it there Dad." Dean repeated.
"That's not an answer." John said defiantly raising his voice on that one. He took a deep breath, remembering that he still had a son that deserved to sleep in, and continued talking.
"I have to know where you and your brother are at all times. That means you go where you're told and you stay there until you're told to do otherwise. That does not mean that you get to wander off any time you please."
"It's not like that…"
"Doesn't matter, Dean. If I send you to school, I expect you to be there. I don't need this added worry on your behalf now. If you want to act like some damn child, then you can be treated like a child. I trust you to do the right thing, for you and for your brother; don't prove me wrong this far in the game, kid."
"This had nothing to do with Sammy!" protested Dean.
"Hm, yeah well as far as I remember, Sam's school knows to call the high first if anything were ever to happen to your brother. If you're not there, then you can't be there for Sammy. And if you're running around and then windup getting hurt, god help you if the police get involved and I have to get your ass out of holding. I sure as hell am not taking Sam to that. Then he'd be defenseless. And there's so many numerous scenarios Ace that I could go on for an hour. Point being, driving around is not where you should have been yesterday, is it?"
"No sir," Dean said. Be this time, John had released his chin and Dean's head hung low and he stared into the odd green carpeting.
"So, where did you go?" John asked again. "What could possibly not have waited till later that night?"
Dean looked to his father's eyes again, but said nothing. There was no way in hell that he was going to tell. His dad was mad, really mad, and there was no way that telling him this could end well for him.
It was a growing pain now. It seemed to progress and seep out at the oddest of times. The need, the despair. It would all get to him all of a sudden. Most of the time, he could quiet it out. He was actually getting really good at that. But then there were all those other times. Those times when his thoughts were crowded with a haze and the pain was so overwhelming that he could barely see right. That he could barely think.
It was those times that scared him the most.
If he was at home or on the road, he could easily slip into a pit stop or the bathroom. He was known to drink too much coffee lately, since only recently had John actually allowed him to do it. And if you've ever had a lot of coffee, you know that that makes you have to go badly.
So Dean would find a way to get to the bathroom and find comfort from the simplest of sharp objects. Luckily, their father always required that they carry around a pocketknife and so it wasn't anything to worry about if Dean would bring it with him to the bathroom, because who knows who or what you can find in those public bathrooms anyway.
Even under Sammy's observing eye, Dean could pass into the bathroom and merely one 'scratch' later he could come back out and be himself again. Sam was still too young to really think that Dean didn't need the night or the privacy of their own bathroom to do such things, and it was better for Dean that way.
He had promised the kid that he wouldn't hurt himself anymore, but after Sammy went to the hospital, he felt so bad. John had really given them both hell, because Dean had been so mad that he had told everything exactly how it happened and didn't leave out any of Sam's faults at all. Some times, the kid deserved punishment and even if Dean did feel like crap about failing the kid, it was Sam who had gotten himself near the damn house in the first place.
So john had been mad and had given them hell for a while, but they were both okay in the end. At least they looked it on the outside.
On the inside, Dean was quickly drowning.
There are times in life that such things catch up to you. They make you feel like you could have done more and it doesn't help to think that the outcome could have been better. Maybe if you thought something further through, you wouldn't jump into things so fast. It's normal to have these down times. But, then you're supposed to buck up and remember that you can do better the next time around. A little failure can still be resolved.
But a failure for a Winchester could always mean the difference between life and death.
It was almost easy when these overwhelming times occurred where he could handle it, but when it had bad timing, say school or ghost hunt, then Dean could say he really had a problem.
When it happened in school, he just left. He left whatever it was that had bothered him and runs to some kind of neutral ground. Like his car or the wide open road. Or, hell, both.
It hadn't yet happened in a hunt.
"Dean," John said not a little irritated now.
"I'm sorry, Dad." Dean replied not chancing looking up from his own feet.
John looked at his eldest son now with worried eyes. Sure, he'd been a teenager before, but he had never been like his son. Dean was so much more different and he knew that. John was always kind of hard and didn't really take things too seriously unless they were a big deal. At Dean's age, his car and his girlfriend were a big deal. School, work, and such things came second.
Now, his family was a big deal and he wasn't that vague that he couldn't tell if something was going on.
"Sorry isn't good enough," John said angrily. However, if Dean had looked up, he would have seen the worry clear in his father's eyes.
"I can't say much more. But I swear I wasn't doing anything bad. It's…its kind of personal though." Dean supplied to his knees.
John watched his sixteen year old shift nervously in front of him. It wasn't the best of thoughts, but seeing as every other scenario was scaring him, John really hoped that Dean was implying sex.
Now, don't get the man wrong. Just because he spent the better part of his days hunting the supernatural and training his boys to do the same didn't mean that John was in any way oblivious to the boys' lives. And God he knew Dean was very keen in the ladies department, but there was no way that he would approve of his son fathering some poor small town girl's baby. Obviously, he would kill Dean if it ever came to that. He knew that Dean was way too young, and let's face it immature, to even be having sex but every other thought about what Dean could be doing scared the demon shit out of John and he would rather think it was something simple like that.
Either way, the car could not be part of his little rebellious fiasco.
"Well then, Dean, I don't know what to do with you. However, you disobeyed me, repeatedly, and now you've been caught." John tipped Dean's chin upwards again, sending threatening waves through the boy. "Go get your keys; I don't want you driving for the better part of the next month which you will spend grounded."
"Look, Dad…" Dean started, but John hadn't let go of his chin and gave him a slight pinch and Dean shut up.
"The only way you'll find yourself behind the wheel of a car, any car, is if your brother's life depends on it. Understood?"
"What if I'm bleeding uncontrollably and the only way to save myself is to drive myself to the hospital?" Dean asked, rebellion darting in and out of his eyes. Once again, it's the normal matters that Dean challenges.
"I don't see any reason that you'd be alone or anywhere near any kind of danger." John supplied him coldly. "Understood?" he asked again, slight venom in his voice.
"Yes sir." Dean supplied automatically.
In the bedroom, the unmistakable sounds of Sammy shifting awake could be heard and John released Dean's face. With a "Get dressed" He went to his own room and waited to start what was sure to be a long day.
"Is that it?" Sammy asked.
"No."
"But, it looks like…"
"For the hundredth time Sammy, no." Dean said through gritted teeth. He hated going a round of twenty questions with the kid. Sure, he was growing anxious too but come on. A cat's meow will never, ever be the same as a werewolf's.
They passed a few more minutes in the silence of the night and then there was a noise from a tree to their right.
"No," Dean answered before Sammy could ask again. Sammy 'humph' and shifted again. He was moving, nonstop and rhythmically, every three or so minutes. For the past two and a half hours. And not only would that be irritating to a normal person, but one so energy driven and angst filled as Dean was right then was going to get the kid hurt.
Again he shifted and Dean just couldn't help it.
"Ow!" Sam whisper-yelled. He punched his brother's arm best he could from above the rifles. He shifted again, but this time only made Dean chuckle some.
"Dad said you couldn't hit me," Sam said.
"Dad's not here," Dean replied. Sam stuck his tongue out but Dean let him because at least the kid would stay still now.
And he did, for the next twenty four minutes.
"That's it," Sam barely registers his brother say as a lone tall creature crept out from the trees that their father had gone after hours before. The boys were perched a little above ground in a kind of mountain slope that rose around thirty feet from the ground. They could easily see anything trying to enter or leave the clearing, except that the amount of trees stopped them from seeing the clearing itself.
Dean was on his feet and running back and down the slope within seconds before Sam moved into action. To get to the bottom, trees covered most of the path. It was actually kind of nice, the sun gleaming through the leaves and branches, at night the stars barley seen from between the leaves but there all the same. Sam really liked the path and had already spent quite some time there while Dean was supposed to be researching the area and looking for any kind of lair. Sam had an entire third of one of his notebooks covered in drawings of those sights.
But, as he ran and tried to catch up to his big brother, Sam could not glance up to them. He could not marvel out how Orion seemed to be shooting an arrow straight to the full moon.
Dean was at least ten feet down when Sammy sprung into action. He made a small mental note to get the kid's reflexes working faster as he dodged a tree. Sure, there was a path, and Sammy better be taking it, but Dean knew cutting through the trees would get him to the beast faster.
Sam could hear his brother running through the trees. He thought about going after him the same way but knew hat Dean and Dad would both be very mad if he did that, so he quickened his progress down the path.
Dean could hear the growl of the werewolf as it smelt his approach. God, Dad would be mad for him for this, but if everything went right, he'd never really know why he was mad.
And with that thought and quick reassurance, Dean shouldered his rifle and continued to run to the beast.
Sammy didn't see anything, and he told his father just so. He didn't see the thing attack his brother; he didn't see how Dean attacked it. He did however hear his brother's pained scream and dashed faster down the path. As he got there, their father emerged from somewhere further down the woods then he had entered. He raised his own rifle and took aim at the beast hovering dangerously close to his son.
Three shots, that's all it took.
John was a dangerous fifty yards away from the boys and could easily hit Dean if he fired. Dean was held, unconsciously, in the damn things arms.
The sight of it brought Sam to a halt. The faint smell made his eyes grow wide. The knowledge of where it was coming from raised his weapon and three shots were fired.
One, Sam provided to the back of its head. This effectively got its attention and the beast turned away from John and to Sam. Velvet red blood was splattered all over Dean's hair and the front of his jacket.
Two, Sam provided dangerously close to Dean at its hip. This time, the damn things shrieked and dropped Dean to the ground, providing an open area to his fatal chest.
And three brought it to its knees in a manner of twelve seconds after Dean's cry out.
John reached them both, emptied his rifle in the damn thing's heart and shouldered his rifle. He then reached down and grabbed his son, lifting him almost effortlessly into his arms. Nodding for Sam to pick up the discarded weapon, John took off towards his truck.
He could hear Sammy running to keep up behind him and right now that was enough. He shifted Dean's weight as he pulled the driver's door open and began placing Dean in the seat. Sam tossed the weapons bag into the truck bed and jumped into the truck, helping pull Dean into it.
They drove back to the hotel room to asses the damages and put the weapons away. Sam held Dean close to his chest and tried really hard not to cry. Later, John would praise him on his marksmanship and quick reflex but now all that mattered was ensuring that Dean got to see another day.
"Ow, quit it!" Dean said slapping his little brother's hands away from his chest.
"I'm trying to clean the damn thing out!" Sam replied. Dean had woken up and had made it pretty clear that he had not been bitten. He said that he had heard the werewolf in front of him but had been suddenly attacked from the side, causing him to drop the rifle.
"Dean," John warned as Sam prepared another swab of peroxide and Dean looked like he was about to feed it to the kid.
"I'm fine!" Dean said. "It's just a few scratches, Dad!"
"Sit still and shut up," Sam gritted as he passed the swab over yet another cut.
"Fuck!" Dean yelled as the strong ointment made its way into his blood stream and cleared away any bacteria.
"Language Dean," John said as he too cleaned up his sons cuts.
"Injured Dad," Dean supplied back.
"Child in the room," said Sam and looked directly at his brother. Dean gave him a glare but kept his mouth shut. He was the one always saying the same thing to their father.
Dean had multiple cuts on his chest, arms and back. Sammy said it looked like the werewolf was playing catch with Dean and a porcupine or something. Once Dean's back and chest were done, John sent Sammy to go take a bath and get ready for bed. He mumbled something about being treated like a child after he had killed himself a werewolf. This of course fell to two pairs of deaf ears as Sam made his slow progress into the bathroom.
John cleaned Dean's arms and wrapped them too in bandage. Only a few needed stitches. John had given Dean some painkillers and Sam had hopped behind Dean and held onto him as John stitched up his chest and sat beside him as he lied on his belly while John stitched the one cut that needed it on his back.
John turned the motel light off sometime around four am. The boys had three hours before they had to get going to reach school in time, half an hour away. Sammy clung as tightly as the stitches allowed. Dean had whined and said that clingy Sammy was getting on his nerves. But no one really took heart into the comment.
As John's soft snoring filled the night air and Sammy's soft breath brushed against his neck, Dean shivered and clung onto Sammy now. Never before had the need arose during a hunt. Never before had he willingly thrown himself at a monster.
Never before had he not thought about how he was going to get out of such a tight spot.
tbc... As soon as I start get some reviews:D Like five, okay :D... you can speed me along w/ a well wish on my college appications, huh huh, PLZ! But thatnks to all of those who have reviewed, you guys rock!
