Author: Mirrordance
Title: Less Traveled By
Summary: High school is hard enough without an absentee father, restless spirits, haunted cars, a missing classmate and a sexual predator on the loose. Then again, the Winchesters never did anything the easy way. Dean is 17 and Sam is 13.
Hi guys!
Oh oh oh, this is posted so incredibly late from what I thought I could do... and it's not in it's best form either, but I've just been out-of-breath lately and I think it's about time I got this up here... thanks to all who read and alert-ed and favorite-d and especially ESPECIALLY all who reviewed the last installment of Less Traveled By. I hope I still have your interest, and I sincerely hope that you'd let me know if I have totally gone off my rocker for good this time with this new chapter. C & c's are hungered for and cherished, and in a couple of days I will be in a better position to respond properly to your thoughts and queries. In the meantime, here is Chapter 10:
Less Traveled By
10: Whiplash
1997
It's theoretically strange, how life shifts back and forth between the natural and the supernatural for them, sometimes as seamlessly as the shift from day to night and back again.
Sam recognized that it was easier for him and his family than it was for most people, for whom he imagined that the sensation would be a lot like whiplash, the sudden change in momentum or direction, this sudden difference in one's understanding of the world even as you are shoved right back into the normal from which you came.
He thinks about this on his first afternoon back in school after Annie talked Linda Carin's ghost 'into the light', as he watched the older girl. Annie was sitting on the outdoor bleachers with a couple of her friends, watching as their other friends practiced cheer leading or playing football. The people around her were laughing, goading each other, and they had a boom box that was playing alternative music at a low volume. She looked amused by the company she was keeping, but also quiet and a little detached.
Annie spotted him and excused herself from her friends, who had waved at Sam enthusiastically in greeting and invitation. They looked so golden sitting there, he thought, all aglow in the late afternoon sun with their nice clothes and their expensive things scattered meaninglessly around them, laughing and calling him over. It made for a hell of a photograph, he thought, and it was tempting in so many ways, but he just smiled at them brightly and shook his head. He waited as Annie jogged toward him.
"Hey Sam," she greeted him breathlessly.
"Annie," he greeted, "You okay?"
She smiled a little at that, and her eyes warmed. "Yeah... you know what? I am. I know Linda Carin's body is still out there, and legally this thing is still wide open, but I find that I can live with that. It's a weird feeling, like I've done my part. Is this how you guys feel all the time?"
"I'm not sure what you mean," Sam confessed.
"Accomplished," she replied, looking exhilarated, "Like you did something right."
Sam frowned. Weirdly enough, he found that the answer was a 'no,' even as he understood why she would feel that way. The strange question though, was, why didn't he?
"Well you've been at it since forever," she said, laughing a little in embarrassment, "This must be like a walk in the park for you, just another day in the life of a hero."
His cheeks warmed at that, "Not really."
She waved at his response flippantly, "Say what you want, but I know better. I know I feel like superman right now. Unless... is this me being an idiot? Should I be scared instead? You and your brother said, that there are other things out there."
"There are," Sam conceded, "And in some instances, after you've been exposed to the supernatural once, you'll be more sensitive to other occurrences, like an opened eye, you know? But for most people, one exposure to supernatural activity is a lot in a lifetime. As a matter of fact, most people live and die never knowing something else is going on out there. The likelihood of you going through another paranormal experience is so low, that people like me and my family? We actually have to actively research, track, and hunt these instances down to put a stop to them. So statistically speaking, you shouldn't be too scared."
"Once in a lifetime is enough," she commented, "Although I don't know. This is your dad's real job, and what you and Dean do when you're not at school. I don't know how you do it."
"We try," Sam said wryly, "It doesn't always pan out. We've had to move around a lot, me and Dean have to do without our dad a lot, and we fight harder than anyone else to get the grades we get. Or scratch that; at least... well I do. Dean just coasts."
They both laughed a little at that.
"It's not easy," Sam went on, "We miss school, we miss connections with people, we miss extracurriculars, we miss... a lot."
"But it must be rewarding," she pointed out.
"Are you telling me this is a valid career option?" Sam joked.
"I can raise it with our guidance councilor, Mrs. Medina," she laughed, "What college course do I have to take to get to do this?"
"Are my SAT scores high enough?" Sam joined in, before he turned somber, looking out at the sun-drenched school field and thinking about how alien it all felt, even as he stood right in the middle of it.
"We got into this because of mom," he said quietly, "We'll keep at it until we kill what got her. Dad says that's when we'll stop. But... but I don't think he can stop. And Dean... well, I'm not sure he thinks he's good at anything else."
"He'd be wrong," Annie said with absolute certainty, "He's amazing, your brother."
Her conviction caught Sam a little off-guard, and he looked at her contemplatively before saying, "Don't tell him. He's vain enough already. Speaking of... I went out here 'cos he left a note at my locker saying that he's running a little late this afternoon. Have you seen him?"
"If what I've been hearing is true," she said wryly, "Janitor's closet by the gym. I wouldn't be surprised if he lost track of time in there."
"Gross," Sam moaned, knowing perfectly well about Dean's affinity for any school's janitor's closet and whatever else went on in there.
"Why don't you hang out with us for a bit?" she asked.
"I guess I can," he said, looking at the pretty sunset picture again. It looked like an advertisement for a pricey American sportswear company: Be one of us.
"So there's just one more thing I have to ask," Annie told him as they walked toward their friends, "What does happen in your house, when the door closes? What part of the story am I missing?"
"My dad gets home from work," Sam told her simply, "My brother cooks us dinner and helps me with my homework. We eat together. When we're not on a hunt, that's it."
"Weird," she murmured thoughtfully, making him laugh.
"So my mom's being embarrassing again," Annie says to Dean over lunch one day in school, "And she's nagging me about having your family over for dinner. She wants to discuss plans for this party she's throwing for you and Sam."
Dean groaned, "Man, I remember she was talking about it when I was in the hospital. I thought that was just a nightmare."
"Margie throws the best parties," Ashley commented as she munched on a celery stick, "And she makes sure that only the right people come."
"As opposed to the wrong people," Dean snorted, "Who would be...?"
"I got an internship last summer after I met Congressman Reedley at one of Mrs. Huntington's parties," Cherry said brightly.
"You got an internship with a Congressman?" Dean asked her in surprise, before he could check the judgment and stop himself.
"What?" she asked, blinking at him. It was all... not so much innocence but emptiness in her eyes sometimes, and god knew he was interested in her for... well, not necessarily for traditional smarts although she had her own brand of intelligence after all.
"Yeah Dean, what?" Annie asked, her eyes dancing, daring him to say that Cherry wasn't particularly known for her brains.
"I happen to have the IQ of a genius," Cherry said over people's chortling laughter, "I just save using it for the important stuff. Like... congress stuff."
"Atta-girl," Dean said magnanimously, "You go get them."
"It's really not a bad idea," Ashley resumed her case, "And you know, we're applying for college now and everything so it's good to know the type of people that the Huntingtons know. Not just for you, but for all of us. I mean we're invited too, right?"
"Of course you are," Annie said, "Dean, come on, I just need her off my back. Have dinner with us, and tell her 'no' yourself."
"Good luck with that," Mick snorted at him, "I don't think Margie even knows what that means, for a smart lady."
"Can't you just do it for me?" Dean asked, "I don't do parents very well."
"My dad wants to marry you," Annie countered, "Go figure. Come on, it's just dinner. You, Sam, your dad, and me and my folks. Please, Dean. Please get her off my back."
"And on mine?" Dean whined.
"Exactly," she brightened.
"I mean you never turn down free food anyway," Cherry said nonchalantly, pursing her lips and studying her nails, speaking of being judgmental. Maybe she is as smart as she claims, Dean thought darkly, Karma is a bitch.
"I do too," Dean scowled, "Fine."
"Saturday night?" Annie asked.
"My party's on Saturday," Mal complained, indignant.
"Our party, sister," Mick corrected her, "Our party."
"We'll have an early dinner and then you, Sam and I can go to the twins' party together," Annie resolved, pressing, "You wouldn't even have to drive there so it makes sense, right, Dean? I'll bring you and Sam home after."
"Why did I have to be twins," Mal sighed.
"I ask myself the same thing every-"
"Yes, yes," Dean said over the unproductive din of usually useless lunchtime conversation, "Dad might not go for it but god, if I have to suffer, he'd better come with."
"All this hero-worship must be so tedious," Annie mocked him, slighted by the harshness of his resignation, "I mean, really, how hard could it be to show some thanks around here?"
"It's not that," he said, embarrassed and a little bit more contrite as he chewed at his food, "And you know it. We're kind of private."
"What?" Mick guffawed, "Got bodies in the basement and monsters in the closet, Winchester?"
Dean choked on his food, and felt Annie's hands pounding his back half-heartedly.
"Get your nose out of that book and eat with your old man, will ya?"
Sam ignores him for a full minute, and his gaze traveled quick from left to right before doing as instructed, as if he just really really needed to finish a sentence before turning to his father.
"No thanks, dad, I'm full."
John had come home late from working a contract job at an auto shop so the boys had already eaten by the time he got back. Dean reheated some of the food for him, and sat down and munched on some chocolate to keep him company. Sam did the same in his own way, moving his reading from the bed to the table.
The youngest Winchester lowered the book and looked at his father attentively, expecting him to initiate the conversation. It seemed inhumanly rational in the sense that it was the silent version of You told me to drop the book, so now – amuse me.
"So dad," Dean rescues them both, consciously or not, "I was talking to Annie today, and her mom and dad are inviting us over for dinner at their house. You down? It's this Saturday, pretty low-key, just their family and ours. I told her it's not really your thing but I gotta ask, you know?"
John's eyes narrowed at his eldest in consideration. The kid was already waiting for a 'no' even as he was asking, and this is what gave John some pause, the negative preemption.
"I could go."
"That's what I told—" Dean was saying, before realizing what his father said and cutting himself off, "Wait, what? You'd go?"
John watched Dean's resignation shift to wary optimism. Dean's reaction made John feel a little strange, like he'd been... underestimated. The word felt foul in his mind; he didn't like being underestimated, least of all by Dean who's shiny-eyed admiration was something he was more used to. He realized that the kid may admire him generally as a hunter and a father, but he seldom complained about domestic issues partly because he grew to expect less of John in that arena. He didn't know what hurt more, Sam's open antagonism for his failures to do what is expected of him, or Dean's not expecting anything of him at all.
"Yeah, I'd go," John said, as nonchalantly as he could, trying not to make a big deal of things because it was just a matter of time before one of his two perceptive sons picked up on him being upset by it.
"You sick or something, dad?" Sam asked him, only half-in-jest.
"It'll be great," Dean brightened, "Oh, and Sam and I have this party to go to after dinner. We'll ride with Annie, and she'll just drop us off at home after that."
"Decent hour," John insisted.
"Always," Dean told his father indignantly, making him snort in response.
"No funny business," John reminded him, "You got your brother along."
"When did that ever stop him," Sam sighed melodramatically.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Dean said, grinning cheekily.
Come Saturday, Dean is the first one dressed, already feeling the pull of what he imagined would be one heck of a dinner. He thought about the Huntington's insanely long table, lined end to end to end with food as he tied his shoelaces. He felt consumed by the idea, and realized he hasn't really been eating well since being hospitalized. Tonight was going to be fantastic-
"Huh," Sam sounded impressed, so Dean lifted his head up to look at their father, who just stepped out of the shower. His jaw dropped.
"That's what you look like under all that," Sam said, "I almost forgot."
John threw his son a rakish grin, and he looked like he lost ten years off of his face when he shaved cleanly.
"Geez, dad," Dean breathed, "You look good."
"Don't sound so surprised," John told him, "I'm not a complete Neanderthal. These good people invite you to their house, you show up decent."
"Like a vampire," Dean smirked, "You have to look attractive like that, otherwise they won't ask you in."
"Vampires aren't real," Sam corrected him.
"It's a joke, geek-boy," Dean snapped, looking over at his father and Sam, who was wearing a pressed, collared shirt. "You two look like you're going to a Sunday service. You two... look like you're in costume for a job. I didn't get the memo. Should I change? Should I bring my 'bikini inspector' badge?"
"You look fine, Dean," Sam told him, looking over the weathered flannels and the graphic band shirt, "Even if you didn't, Annie knows who we are, she won't care. You can come in a dress if you wanted, it won't matter."
"Yeah well I don't wanna look like the family doofus," Dean said, already shaking off the flannel button-down and ransacking his duffel, "That's your spot."
Sam laughed at him, straightened his posture and his collar. His younger brother was looking up at their father with something Dean hasn't seen in awhile, like being around him made the kid stand taller. This made Dean feel something he hasn't felt in awhile too – jealousy.
Yeah right! he thought indignantly, before he... didn't. Wasn't it fair, that he should covet his kid brother's admiration? He sure as hell worked harder on it than their father.
He changed to a collared cotton shirt, tucked it in neatly and wore a belt and everything. He looked like a caricature of himself, but then again so did the rest of his family, which is ultimately what mattered, that he had a sense of solidarity and confidence standing with them. He had a sneaking suspicion he'd still feel good wearing a banana-costume if it was what his father and brother were wearing, and anyway these decent-people-clothes came pretty damn close.
Banana, his mind drifted, making his stomach growl. Bananas were awesome in pies with worked-up, puffy cream and with bits of graham and brown sugar...
"I'm hungry," he growled at his family, "Let's go."
There were a lot of mirrors in Annie's house, Sam thought, and he sure found himself looking at them and liking what he saw, anytime he passed by with his father and brother alongside of him.
The Huntingtons welcomed them right at the door, Jed with his violent warmth, Margie with her semi-deluded grace and Annie for all of her embarrassed pleasure.
His father surprised him by actually bringing along a bottle of wine for their hosts, and of course his first instinct was to wonder why John Winchester would find the need to bring along a Molotov cocktail and if he should have brought along a weapon too. On second thought though, of all the things one can fault their dad for, it wasn't for lack of commitment in the things he dropped his word onto. Apparently, this extended past vengeance for his wife and hunts and the marine code to dinner parties.
"Oh John, vino," Margie said delightedly, "How wonderful. And I do not know how open-minded you are about all of this, but I don't mind sharing a bit with the kids, minors they may be. It's good for the health, and we are celebrating."
"No, I don't mind," he told her with an easy smile. Sam could have answered that for him though, as he thought of the much-harder liquor he and Dean have taken down once in awhile all these years as painkillers or as applied on wounds in the course of hunting. If the lady only knew...
They walked on toward the dining room, John flanked by the two adults and Annie walking with Sam and Dean. He heard his older brother release a bit of a squawking sound at the sight of the formal table all decked out, like maybe there were fifty more people coming in for dinner.
Dean's eyes rove over everything and his gaze wore that dreamy sheen that Sam had seen applied only when he was caught with an issue of Busty Asian Beauties. Sam then transferred his attention to Annie, who was looking at Dean's face with this goofy grin on, her eyes all crinkly and warm and open and... oh god, he realized with a sinking stomach. He's seen that look from a girl on his brother before.
He's amazing, your brother...
Annie felt Sam looking at her and so their eyes met, before she quickly (and guiltily) averted her gaze. Her cheeks went flush-red, and she could not look at Sam all throughout dinner, knowing she'd been discovered.
Along the course of the meal, the Huntingtons realized the Winchester fascination for weaponry, and brought them along on a loose tour of some of the collections in the house. John trailed after Jed and Margie patiently, and Dean trailed their father with equal interest. Sam lagged a little, more interested in the pieces of art and books that they passed.
Annie fell into step beside him.
Sam groaned inwardly, feeling embarrassed for her and not necessarily wanting to be here dealing with it.
"I won't make this any weirder than it has to be," she told him, voice low to keep from being heard by anyone else but Sam, "I guess you know... not that I hide it very well... but I think your brother is-"
"-amazing," Sam finished for her, "I know, Annie, I got it."
"I mean, how couldn't I?" she murmured, "Everyone thinks so."
Sam rolled back his eyes tried to make it a joke, "Even he thinks so."
"Even you think so," she pointed out honestly, keeping things serious.
"Annie," he exhaled heavily, "What are you telling me this for? What do you want?"
Sam wasn't unused to girls asking him things about his brother, or saying no to them asking for his help to win him. It was Don Juan's kid-brother's lot in life, he was told. But for some reason he could not explain, he had hoped Annie would be exempt from that, to be more than just another girl who liked Dean. She had grown to become a friend, and someone who actually knew what they were and respected them for it. Sam really didn't want things to change.
"That's just it," she said fondly, eyes warming again, "I don't want anything. Please don't say anything to him, don't do anything. He'd have done something by now if he felt the same way. I'm smart enough to know I'm crushing on him – bad – and I know when I'm out of my league."
Sam thought it was strange, how they were standing in her museum of a house and she thought she was out of Dean's league.
She laughed nervously, pushed her hair back behind her ears, "I don't want anything from either of you more than what you've already given. No one can give me more, you know? Right now I like him just 'cos I can't not. I don't expect anything, I don't want anything. I'm just standing around, admiring the show. I'm a teenage girl," she smirked at him, "I'll get over it."
"You're a teenage girl," he echoed with a grin of his own, "You won't."
She laughed, and this Dean did hear. From paces in front of them, he turned to look their way, brow already raising at his younger brother in pointed inquiry.
Sam just shook his head at him and waved him away.
While Dean never thought he'd ever fallen short on admiring his father, there were a couple of things about him that Dean realized he'd never had a chance to aspire to until now.
It was how John Winchester looked in decent clothes and with a clean-shaven face. It was how he'd thought to bring good wine for their hosts, and god how he made it look so easy to return Margie Huntington's air-kisses when she greeted them at the door. He did clever conversation, wary but undoubtedly engaged. He seemed so relaxed and urbane, smiling that small smile of his with the shining eyes.
Their occasionally ogre-rific father, Dean belatedly realized, had been normal once, had once had all these things come to him like second-nature, like it was so easy, things he never had to think about. Their father lived a normal life before he lived this one, in the dark.
Dean thought about all these things as they ate, and then again as he trailed his father who politely bore their eager hosts' impromptu weapons tour and even pretended not to know some of the things they were telling him about. He was still thinking it when they all ended up in the Huntingtons' library, and his father had a cigar clamped between his teeth that Jed was lighting it up, with Margie handing them glasses of gleaming, amber brandy. Dean wondered if he'd look that cool when he grew older-
"Hey, Dean?" Annie called, breaking into his thoughts, "We gotta go to the Tannery twins' thing now."
He blinked at her, before remembering, "Oh. Right. Party, I almost forgot." he turned to his father, "You good here, dad?"
His father's eyes crinkled and he smiled, like he thought the question was crazy. Dean blushed, catching himself. He just didn't like leaving his family behind, plushy though the circumstances may be.
"Be good, kids," he said.
"Thank you so much for the wonderful dinner, Mr. And Mrs. Huntington," Sam told them.
"It was awesome!" Dean said more effusively.
Jed gave the boys hearty handshakes, and Margie gave her regulation air-kisses which Dean thought he was quite frankly really getting better at.
"Daniel should be right up front by now," Annie said, leading the way out the room. The three teenagers walked side by side to the main hall, leaving the adults in the room behind them.
"No kidding, Annie, dinner was great," Dean told her, "Thanks for having us."
She smiled brightly at him, "And it was nice watching my mom and your dad tango around this party-idea of hers. I've never seen anyone who can say 'no' to her and not piss her off. Your dad is something."
"Yeah," Dean grinned, glancing behind him at the closed door of the study, as if he could still see the man inside, all cool with his cigar and his brandy.
Sam pulled the doors open for them and sure enough, the BMW was on the rotunda with the motor running.
"I can get used to this," Dean smirked, as the three teenagers stepped out of the house. Annie locked the door behind her, as Dean pulled open the one for the backseat of the car. Sam was going to step inside, fairly used to Dean's service, until Dean yanked him back by the collar.
He yelped, "Dean!"
"Ladies' first, kiddo," he teased Sam, even as he looked like he knew Sam would be taking the bait, "Didn't I ever teach you anything?"
"You're a bully!" Sam exclaimed, "Mark my word, Dean – next witch we come across gets amnesty if she can make it so that every inch of height I grow she'll take from you."
Annie laughed as she lowered herself into the car and settled on the far end to make room for the two boys.
"Dream on, Sammy!" Dean told his brother, plying his arm around the kid's neck and pulling him close, ruffling his hair. Sam growled at him, struggled some but otherwise let him do what he wanted. They were all in good spirits, and if Sam had been more serious about wanting freedom, he'd have kicked Dean in the shin-
"Ow!" Dean cried out when Sam gave him a little 'love-tap.' He started hopping around to diffuse the sting, heard Sam hooting triumphantly in the background.
It's in the middle of all this – and life really can just be random like that sometimes – that he notices something anomalous.
The tinting of the car windows were heavy, and the lights on the outside pretty much meant that one would see more of one's reflection on the glass than through to the interior of the car. But Dean spotted enough of the driver to know that – intricate forearm tattoo and gloved hands on the wheel and all –
It wasn't Daniel, the family chauffeur, in there.
His older brother's tone changed, and there was no doubt in Sam's head that there was something going on because it takes a lifetime of instinct enriched by practice for him to realize that Dean had picked up on something.
"Hey squirt," Dean said, "I forgot to grab some money from dad. You think you can hop on over there and ask the old man for a twenty?"
Sam blinked at him, and picked up how Dean had stayed outside the car and turned his back on the driver's side, raising an eyebrow and nodding at the direction behind him.
"I'd need the keys to the house," Sam told him warily.
"Annie, would you get out here and-" Dean was saying, until he saw the keys take to the air, Annie having tossed it at them. Sam caught the keys by instinct, looking a little stunned.
"You can go on in and just come back out," she said from inside the car, "Let me just call Mal and say we're running a little late. I'm telling you though; you won't need to bring any money there."
Go, Sam watched Dean mouth at him, and he gave his older brother a quick nod, turning his back on them and heading for the door. His hands didn't shake as he put the key in the lock. He kept the doors wide open behind him and speed-walked back into the study where the adults were. If Dean wanted to pretend they didn't know anything was going on, he would play along.
He started running once he felt he was sufficiently out of view. But god, the house didn't feel this damned huge when they were walking through it earlier. Why the hell did everything have to be so far?
Dean wracked his brain about this one. So someone was still trying to kidnap Annie... did it mean that Marcus Tenet has an accomplice after all? Or did it mean he was innocent? But what about the Linda Carin connection? What did one have to do with the other...?
He shook off the thoughts; the answers will come later. The only thing he had to bother with now was how to keep Annie safe. As far as he knew, the driver – whoever the hell he was – didn't know just yet that Dean had been alerted to the fact that he wasn't Daniel. He had to keep that up as long as possible, especially since Annie was obliviously inside the goddamn car with that nameless, faceless bastard.
Sam had left the door to the house open behind him, and for a fleeting moment Dean allowed himself the luxury of remembering that his kid brother really was whip-smart. The unlocked house was now a place they could run to for safety. What he had to figure out now was how to get Annie out of the car. That they started with this problem and were now back here again, was a sucky part of his life that he had no current or future plans of further contemplating.
He glanced back at the house, hoping against hope that their father was on his way, or that someone had already called the cops. Sam was fast running toward the adults, Dean knew, but the goddamn house was too big and everything too far. If the guy behind the wheel felt impatient, or even remotely suspected that Dean was onto him, he could just rev the engine and hit the gas and spirit Annie Huntington away from all of them.
Sure enough, the car purred a little, almost as if the guy inside was warming up-
Waitaminute, Dean suddenly thought, If I can't get Annie off the car, maybe I can pull the guy out and away from her.
He discreetly glanced at the driver's window again; unlocked, as he had hoped. It was either the man was careless, or – and this one would be bad – he thought like a professional and always had an exit strategy.
That's okay, Dean told himself, he was a pro too, after all. He gripped the hilt of his trusty hunter's knife, hidden but never inaccessible in the folds of his clothes, always near, always close to his skin. He steeled himself carefully, finding the proper posture, the proper timing...
He wrenched open the car door with his left hand, and dragged the driver outside with his right. The would-be kidnapper fell to a mess of arms and legs on the ground. Dean's knife was pressed against his neck before the guy knew up from down.
"Dean!" Annie exclaimed, leaning out from inside the car, "What do you think you're-"
"Get back in the house!" Dean told her, steady gaze not leaving the man he was holding.
"Th-that's not-" she stammered.
"Now, Annie!" Dean bellowed, before turning to the man on the ground, who was looking up at Dean venomously, "Who are you?"
It wasn't surprising that Annie would stick around and listen for an answer to that one. Dean could feel her standing behind him.
The man tilted his head at Dean in curiosity. "You've been getting in my way a lot, kid."
"Who are you?" Dean pressed, "What do you want?"
"Was it you who killed Linda Carin?" Annie added, moving forward, "Where is she? What did you do to her?" Dean used his shoulder to push her back, never tearing his eyes away from the man on the ground or releasing the pressure of his knife against the man's neck.
"Annie, for god's sake-" he muttered at her.
"And what did you do to Daniel?" Annie went on, "Where is he?"
The man just smiled at them sickly, and Dean had a feeling he knew what that meant; so did Annie. She ran to the car trunk.
"Annie, you don't know what's back th-" Dean told her, instinctively turning in her direction before he could stop himself. It was just a glance away, one blink in an eternity of them, one moment, one mistake.
But one moment is the world.
It's the random lottery pick the guy in front of you in line yesterday won the million dollars today for, it's love at first sight, it's the plane you missed that crashed... or the one you caught. It's the bell that saves you, or the bite of the bullet that finds and sinks into your flesh, so small and so terrible, meeting its mark, missing others, a blip in the world but tearing into time and space and flesh, leaving large impressions in its wake.
He'd glanced away, that was all, and that was also all it took for the man on the ground to find his gun and his aim and, unquestionably... Dean.
The young hunter fell with a graceless grunt to the ground, open-mouth, surprised, disappointed, because it struck him how arrogant he'd been that he could be exempt from all this, all the random cruelties of the world.
He'd been a hunter since childhood, and this meant he was a warrior. He had purpose, he had plans, and those that came after him and his family tended to be the same. There was a larger picture that went beyond crime and kidnapping and perversion and all the other sick things people did to each other. Within that larger picture, he had a kid brother to protect, a father to back up, a mother to avenge, monsters to slay, the restless to bring to peace. The natural world as most people knew and understood it was not his battleground, so in many ways, he supposed he'd forgotten that he lived in it. The rules here - where they existed - weren't as clear to him.
You cannot tell the good from the bad by how they reacted to light, or silver, or iron, or salt, or holy water, or holy words, or wards, or spells. You cannot banish evil with the same. You cannot just lay a line you know with certainty that evil cannot cross, and you cannot have predictable safe shelters. Some people were good, others evil, but most fell in the indistinguishable in-between.
In the supernatural world, he was a hero; he owned the moonlight and the long roads and went into all the dark places no one else dared go. In the light of the natural world, he was a kid with more scars than money, no past, no future. In the natural world, he was just a stupid idiot with a hero-complex who'd brought a knife to a gunfight and lost.
He laid on the ground, body twitching. He felt like someone had whacked him on the chest with lightning, but that was the closest he could get to some estimation of where he'd been hit and how baldy. What he knew for certain was that he was trying to get up but could not. He was trying to breathe but could not. He was trying to swing at who had harmed him but could not. Could not. Could not-
Because he was on fire; all her angry licks taking him from his chest going out, the vile spread of her eating him alive.
There was a fire, and it had taken his mother, and it was going to take him too.
It was a deep, angry burn on his chest, and he never thought he could tell the shape of his heart by how that sensation of heat surrounded it, went around it, shaped it. He tried to move, but everything outward of his chest felt barely-attached, like they've long already turned to ash, crumbling away from the rest of him with every jerk of his body. The crumbling started from his feet, where he knew he'd kicked and then suddenly they felt cold and the sensation of them kind of just splintered away, and he could no longer feel them. The same had become of his hands, he'd fucking lost them. And then from there the cold and the turning into ash crawled up his legs and up his arms. He could feel himself returning to the cold, cold earth, just like the dead, becoming a part of the ground.
He stared up at the moon, all stoic like it's his business seeing sad shit like this everyday; one more kid on the ground, dying from every conceivable direction because he was burning from within and freezing from without. His chest burned, his limbs turned to ice. His lips felt thick but also numb, and he cussed at the moon, staring down at him-
A shadow blocked his view, and even in his most un-lucid, it was in the shape of a man.
"Keep getting in the goddamned way," the man muttered at Dean, raising the shadow of one more thing that Dean recognized even in his most dim awareness. It was a goddamned gun, and though he'd always been around them, this was strangely enough, the first time he'd ever looked down along it's business-end.
Speaking of inanimate things staring at you... that barrel sure had a cold, dead eye. It'd win a staring game by a mile-
I don't wanna d-ie-!
One panicked but lucid thought. Again, he really could just be a normal kid scared and bleeding on the ground even if sometimes he forgot he lived in this world.
"No!" someone yelled.
The man pulled the trigger, but Dean did not feel a bullet's bite, this time.
What he felt was a warm body over his own, because yeah, one moment is the world, the bite of the bullet that finds and sinks into your flesh... or someone else's.
So small and so terrible, meeting its mark (her), missing others (me), a blip in the world tearing into time and space and flesh, and - goddamnitt, his soul - leaving large impressions in its wake.
Annie had jumped in the way, he knew that much and that was all, and that was also all it took for her to die and for Dean to live. She slumped heavily over him, head on his chest and face turned toward his. The gaze that met his was like that gun barrel, cold and dead. It'd win a staring game by a mile.
Because she'd left him in the dust and she was far, far gone.
Sam pushed the doors to the library open and yelled - "Dad, there's someone outside trying to kidnap Annie!"
"Call the cops!" John barked to Annie and Jed, as he started running purposefully the way Sam had come. He'd grabbed a gun from one of the displays the Huntingtons had showed them earlier, and Sam remembered rather inanely that it was one of the ones his dad had pretended to know nothing about. Sam trailed his father, and Jed Huntington drifted on beside them as his wife went for the phone in the library.
"Sam, wait in the room with-"
John didn't get to finish the sentence. When Sam heard the unmistakable sound of gunfire, he went running, blindly, running toward his brother.
"Sam, no!" John exclaimed as his youngest shot forward, like a dog or a horse at the races, sprinting like he would not be fed without winning. His kids had never been taught to run the other way in instances of danger, no, and sometimes, he himself really deserved to be shot for not instilling that instinct.
"Damnitt," he growled, running forward himself. But damn if that kid's legs didn't grow twice as long overnight, or John didn't just age ten years in the last ten seconds. Sam ran ran ran, and John bellowed at him to stop as he followed.
Sam reached the open main doors a beat before John, and he came to a sudden stop and just froze, yelling, "Dean, no!"
John didn't know what his youngest had seen - and god, he didn't want to... but instinct took over, and he knew enough to encase Sam in his arms and pull the both of them behind one of the pillars lining the open doors of the house, taking cover. A gunshot splintered the wood by the door where Sam had just been standing.
"Jed, stay inside!" John hollered to their host, who had lagged behind Sam and John and then stayed back, as instructed.
John held Sam in his arms, trying to get a better handle on the situation. His youngest was shaking violently, and John had to shut out his own fears - what the hell did you see? - had to get them out of this alive first. He craned his neck past the door to get a better look at the gunman, cautiously. He couldn't see the assailant, couldn't see much from where he was standing, really, except all the damned blood on the ground, going down on rivulets because there was a slight incline to the rotunda.
So much goddamned blood that he wasn't sure if he could really smell it or could just imagine smelling it.
"Dean," Sam said, voice trembling and low, and though his eyes were haunted he wasn't crying. He looked fucking terrifying. "Dean's on the ground, dad. He's on the ground."
And then John's fears stopped, and so did his apprehensions. Choices can be so easy at the junctions when life was the most hard.
"How many are there, Sam?"
"Just one, I think," came the small reply.
"Okay," he said. He gave Sam a squeeze, before letting him go. He gripped the rifle in his hands at the ready, pressed the long barrel to his temple as if in salute.
He leaned against the door and let out a seemingly-reckless, high shot in roughly the direction where he thought the gunman would be. The retaliation of their attacker was swift and professional, just over John's head, where he expected John would be. But the former US Marine and the experienced hunter had moved off cover and crouched low when the gunman let out his shot. John spotted the man and took careful aim, knew it rang true when the man yelled in pain and his gun fell to a clatter on the ground.
John ran forward right away, and god, he would never know what he had inside him that allowed him to walk right past Dean and that girl on the ground, blood all over them. He spitefully kicked the gun away from the fallen kidnapper's reach. He crouched over the man and hit him on the face twice, rendering him barely-conscious before patting him down for other weapons. When John felt the blood on the ground soaking his jeans and diffusing past the fabric to kiss his skin, he picked the man up again and hit him twice more to knock him out, and then twice more just because it was Dean's blood mixed up in there.
Certain that the threat had been neutralized, he raised his eyes to the gut-wrenching sight of Dean on the ground, and Sam on his knees beside him. There was a sea of blood pooled around them, black under the silver light of the moon. The blood was leaving Dean and getting all over Sam; the kid's hands where he pressed at the wound on his older brother's chest, Sam's pants wherever they hit the soaked ground, Sam's lowered face when Dean coughed out a thin spritz of the precious liquid. John stared at them and for a breathless moment, he couldn't move.
Reality and the need for action seeped into him gradually; Margie Huntington's keening wails as she and Jed held their unmoving daughter, the sound of Dean's air-hungry rasping, and Sam saying over and over and over, "Eyes on me, Dean. Come on, you jerk, eyes right on me."
The cops and paramedics came to the scene with three cabs for the two injured teenagers and the chauffeur, who was decidedly quite dead in the trunk where the kidnapper had shoved him. There was nothing they could do for Annie Huntington on the scene, and they just packaged her out of there and spirited her away in one of the ambulances with her hysterical mother. Jed had to be left behind because there was no room, and he was in a calmer disposition for driving to the hospital himself.
For Dean, on the other hand, the EMTs got busy right there on the ground. John's eldest son looked long-beyond pain, his waxy face just flatly calm, expressionless as his eyes rolled around emptily, looking at nothing, or maybe looking at the shitloads of something that only those dead and near-dead could see. His limbs had stopped twitching, had stopped resisting, and they looked like limp pieces of meat the people around him could just shift around this way, that way, this way, that...
The paramedics tore at Dean's clothes to treat him. The good pants, the one decent shirt... all lost, because they just cut at his clothes and it was inexplicably offensive to John. Because Dean had changed for the night, hadn't he? He'd gone from his ratty band shirt and hand-me-down flannels to these better frocks, looking like he belonged in this borrowed life, and John had allowed him, had allowed them all this one night to let their guard down. And god, they've been unmasked and here they swam in blood all over again, paid handsomely for the delusion that they can rest for a night, they can be like everyone else for a night. God did they pay.
The EMTs allowed John into the ambulance but not Sam; there was no room, they needed to work, and there was barely space enough for the father whom they needed to keep around so that he could make key decisions for his critically-injured minor son. Sam surprised John by backing off, but he looked shit-scared and stunned, like he'd have let them leave him in the middle of the desert if it meant he was standing out of the way of the people who could save his brother. Jed Huntington stood beside Sam and told John he would drive with the youngest Winchester to the hospital.
The ambulance doors closed on the sight of Sam standing beside the burly man.
The next time John lays his eyes on his youngest son, Sam is sitting on the far end of a long, lonely waiting hall lined by empty chairs. He was in the same bloodied clothes, wearing the same stunned expression. Someone had provided a blanket for him, but it had slipped off of his shoulders and pooled on his back and sides. His body was tightly-wrought, like frayed nerves standing on end, as he sat ramrod straight at the edge of the chair, like he was ready to spring up at any second. He looked like a gargoyle there, grotesque and hyper-aware, just-returned to its perch after having killed some poor bastard.
John sat beside him, exhaling long and carefully.
"A doctor came over," Sam blurted out into the silence, "He said Mr. Huntington had to go with him because Annie wasn't going to make it, and he should say goodbye. He kind of forgot about me, but that's all right."
John pressed his lips together, and nodded. "They're still working on Dean."
"I thought so," Sam said quietly, "That's good, that... that they can work on... on something."
"We should get you cleaned up," John told him.
Sam just shook his head, "I don't wanna miss anything. What if they come looking for us, and we'd have to go with them, and-"
"They won't be done for hours," John coaxed him, getting to his feet and expecting Sam to follow, "But I'll leave word with someone, and they'd know exactly where to look for us, I promise. We should clean you up."
Sam looked up at him, and for the life of him, John could not tell what the kid could have thought, before making his decision to stand up and follow his father.
What would things be like, if there was just the two of us left...
Sam could donate blood and keep someone alive if he just squeezed all of Dean's away from his clothes. He got to his feet and followed wherever the hell his father led; John spoke to a nurse on duty and took Sam into a bathroom.
Once there, he unbuttoned Sam's shirt carefully, and Sam just let him, watching the adroit but careful hands, his father's calloused fingers working. John peeled the soggy clothes away from Sam, ordered him to start washing his face.
Numbly, Sam shoved his hands into the sink and let the water run over his skin. He watched the red streaks go down the white porcelain, stared at the swirly splotches as they went from dark to light.
"Too hot," John muttered at him, and he hadn't noticed the temperature of the water until his father adjusted the knobs. Sam washed the blood from his hands, and then worked up to his forearms. He felt his father work on his back and arms with wet paper towels.
Sam started to work on his neck, and then up to his face. He stared at himself in the mirror and decided he still looked like a glorious mess, and he hadn't even gotten to his soaked pants. He closed his eyes and rubbed aggressively at his face, imagining he was making himself cleaner and also more aware. He rubbed and rubbed and rubbed, like he could wake himself up from a bad dream.
He felt his father's hands push down his own, and he looked up at his father's reflection in the mirror.
We kind of look alike, he thought inanely, Dean's the one who must look like mom.
"I got this," John told him quietly, going on one knee in front of Sam and using the wet paper towels again to wipe at his youngest son's face and neck.
"Thanks," Sam mumbled at him.
"You're not hurt or anything like that, right?" John asked.
"No dad," Sam replied, gulping, because his father being gentle like this was paradoxically breaking him down, chipping at the control he'd been trying to build up since the paramedics took his brother away.
"D-dad..." Sam stammered, before he felt his face crumple, and the tears leak from his eyes. John just grabbed him close, held him as he cried.
"I don't..." Sam tried to say, voice muffled by his father's embrace, "I don't understand any of this."
"You and me both, kiddo," John told him, "You and me both."
It's Bobby Singer who sheds some light into things, hours later.
He, John and Sam were sitting in with Dean in the ICU, television set on low with news that following the arrest of Annie Huntington's attempted-kidnapper and now-murderer, Marcus Tenet is being released from prison.
"Anytime a cop hears hoofbeats, he thinks horse," Bobby said, "And anytime a hunter hears 'em, he thinks-"
"Minotaur," John said absently, as he listened to Marcus Tenet talking about his innocence and being grateful to his supporters in an impromptu press conference outside of jail.
"The common adage goes to 'zebra,'" Bobby said wryly, "But whatever. The point is: something bad happens and cop thinks: common criminal. Hunter, on the other hand, thinks it's something more exotic, like a ghost. Other times... it's the goddamned unholy spawn of both. Like now."
"What do you mean?" John asked.
"I'm thinking Marcus Tenet killed Linda Carin years ago when she went missing," Bobby explained, "He got away with it scott-free. A couple of weeks ago, he needed money so he sold his car. A common criminal like Duane Viner wants a burner vehicle he can use so he wouldn't get traced on a kidnapping, so he buys it. Kidnapped girl meets ghost in the trunk, and you have two crimes years apart, committed by two different men, colliding. It happens 'cos shit happens. Murphy's Law, you know – if it can go wrong, it sure as hell will."
"Or it's my piss-poor luck," John growled.
"Doesn't have to be that," Bobby soothed him, "It makes sense in it's own way...think about it like this: crazy bastard who needs money and wants to finally get rid of a car he did all sorts of crap in, meets a two-bit criminal who wants a burner car on the cheap. Supply and demand."
Sam was still staring up at the TV when he broke in, "So he's just getting away, isn't he? Because Annie told the cops Linda had been with her inside the trunk, they'll just assume it was this new guy who kidnapped both girls. Marcus Tenet is just gonna get away again."
"It's not our job, Sam," John told him mildly.
"Whose is it?" Sam snapped at him, "Cos it sure looks to me like he's just walking away from all of this."
"When's sleeping beauty here gonna grace us with her presence?" Bobby cut in, nodding in the direction of Dean.
"Not for another few days," John replied, "He's gonna be pretty weak from this for awhile, but he's gonna be okay."
TO BE CONCLUDED in an Epilogue, which will be posted soon with an Author's Afterword, and a Preview of my next project, Angel of God. Thanks for reading, and 'til the next post!