Looking For Space

Author: Cheryl W.

Disclaimer: I do not own Dean, Sam or any rights to Supernatural, nor am I making any profit from this story.

Author's note: Ok, this was going to be a bigger chapter but since it's taking me so long to get it all together, I decided to split it up and give you the part I have ready.

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CHAPTER 14: Seeing is Believing

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In wrath, remember mercy.

~Habakkuk 3:2

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When James Lositros entered the motel room with his weapon bag slung over his shoulder, Caleb feared for a moment that he was there to blame Dean for his own son's recklessness the past few days. It left Caleb torn between protectively stepping in front of Dean or telling the kid to make a run for it. As it turned out, Dean wisely darted out the door, joined Jason outside, where both teenagers could readily make an escape if Lositros' dad went on a killing rampage.

As if reading his son's over-dramatic take on things, Mac caught Caleb's eyes and rolled his eyes, knew he had eased his son's tension when Caleb held back a shamed smirk. But Mac chided himself the next second when he had the urge to step in front of Caleb when Lositros slung his bag off his shoulder, dropped it onto the nearest bed, zipped it open and dug in its depths. Was braced to disarm Lositros from whatever weapon he drew from his cache…..felt nine ways more foolish than Caleb when his fellow hunter pulled out a video camera. He shot Caleb a relieved, if embarrassed look, which Caleb nervously returned.

John didn't seem to be fazed by any of it. "Caleb told me the hunt went by the book. I don't need a video recap," John gruffly tried to cut off the show and tell, hated looking at trip and hunting pictures and really didn't need to see it in some shaky amateur video more likely to make him hurl than smile.

Probably used to Winchester being a jerk, Lositros didn't even dignify John's words with a reply. He kept tinkering with the camera until he had it right and then he handed it off to John with a grim, "I think you should see this."

Red flags were going on in Caleb's head. He didn't know what Lositros had on the video but his gut and his psychic instincts were telling him that Dean wasn't the only one who should have run the second Lositros knocked on their door. But, instead of running, Caleb's curiosity had him sidling up to John's side to see the video that had Lositros acting so morose.

With a frustrated glare at Lositros, John hit the play button and the little camera screen came to life. And yup, the video was shaky like he knew it would be but that didn't matter when he recognized the subject matter in the home movie: his son…on a motorcycle, the backdrop a mountain range. John's gut instinctively dropped to his boots and his hold on the video camera turned white knuckled as he watched Dean maneuver the bike onto a trail…no, scratch that, a train track.

Though John could hear Dean revving the bike's engine, he missed the words exchanged by Lositros's son and his own. Then the camera view pulled back, showed that the train tracks ran through a suspended train bridge and the camera man was kind enough to show the sickening distance from the bridge to the rushing river water below. For the next few moments, the camera got a boring view of the camera man's feet until a shrill train whistle came through the speakers, caused the video to wildly swing up from the ground to sight on a train coming around a bend in the forest. Tracked the locomotive as it headed for the bridge…and subsequently, directly toward John Winchester's son's location.

The scene that animated the small screen filled John with dread: the train relentlessly advancing toward the bridge's west side, Dean on the bike on the east side, immobile yet, but the revving engine predicted that wouldn't last. John nearly jumped when the speakers erupted with a shout of his son's name, Caleb heard seconds before he was seen climbing up the embankment on the west side of the bridge.

Undeterred by Caleb's appearance or the train's looming approach, Dean gunned the motorcycle, expertly kept the bike's wheels on the train tracks as he sped it into the bridge…directly toward a head-on collision course with the train. A train that was unstoppable at that point, what with its tonnage of freight cars following the engine.

Though he knew Dean was alive and well, John found himself unable to draw in a breath, felt utterly horrified as Dean raced through the bridge, drew closer to the train's unforgiving nose. Was mentally calculating Dean's options, trying to predict the outcome: was Dean going to clear the bridge before the train entered it? Would his son be forced to ditch the bike and dive to the edge of the bridge to be out of the train's murderous path. But painfully slow second after second crept by and Dean didn't deviate from his plan, resolutely continued to aim himself for the train.

If there were more than inches to spare when Dean cleared the bridge, yanked the bike hard to the right, dodged a death by train obituary, John wouldn't believe it. He almost startled when Lositros reached out and stabbed the pause button.

"I don't think your boy should see the rest of it," Lositros announced, nodding to Sam, who had resourcefully stood on the bed behind his dad so he could watch the video between his father and Caleb's shoulders.

Turning around, John found a Sam that was almost as pale as the time he had had strep throat. "Sam…" he began but Sam leaped off the bed and bolted for the door. John knew exactly who Sam was running to, always ran to whenever he was scared: His big brother.

Watching Sam's departure, Caleb contemplated going after him, though, admittedly, his desire to leave the room wasn't just about seeing to Sam's well-being, would partly be for his own preservation, because, unlike John and Sam, he knew what the video would show next. Feared that his relationship with John Winchester would never be the same once John knew he had struck Dean.

'Nothing less than I deserve,' Caleb bitterly decreed, caught James Lositros eyeing him up. Nodding to the other hunter, he gave Lositros his blessing to ruin his life for a mistake he couldn't take back, but oh how he wished that he could.

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From his position on his dad's car hood, Jason looked to Dean, who was calmly leaning against the bumper. But Winchester's eyes gave away his cool façade, were fixed on his motel room door, as if Dean feared his dad would burst out of it any second. "Sorry to get you busted by your old man. Will his reaction be worse than Reaves'?" Jason asked as he unconsciously fingered the knife in his pocket, wondered if anything short of a tank would give John Winchester pause if he meant to do Dean harm.

Dean shrugged, was still thinking his Dad wouldn't care about some chicken game he played with a train as long as he was still in shape to hunt, which he was. Because his ankle, it wasn't anything, would be good as new in a day or two and he could hunt with it the way it was if he needed to. But he looked to Jason, hadn't missed the way the kid's dad was acting when he showed up on their doorstep. "Your dad seemed wound up about the bike thing and that wasn't even you."

Jason gave a ballsy smirk. "Yeah, well, the tape had some of my earlier exploits on it."

"So your dad was pretty pissed?" Dean asked, was studying Jason for what he wouldn't say, was giving the older boy a visual once over for evidence that the elder Lositros had displayed his anger at his son in a physical manner.

Though Jason's front of amusement faded, it didn't shift to fear but to shame. "It would have been easier if he was mad," his voice breaking a little on the words.

Dean felt his mouth go dry, hoarsely guessed, "So…he didn't care?" hated that Jason was right about his dad, that maybe he was right about his own. That they were both first born sons: expendable, replaceable.

Jason slid off the hood, turned his back on Dean, kicked a loose stone across the parking lot before he turned back to Dean, eyes welling. "No, he did care. Got all….broken up. Said…" Here Jason rubbed his eyes, inhaled sharply, got himself locked down before he said the rest. "He said our family lost my mom….wouldn't survive losing me too. I never…I didn't think he'd care if I got myself killed."

"He loves you," Dean declared, was happy for Jason, gave a small smile to prove it.

"Yeah, guess he does," Jason concluded, knew then and there what kind of good guy Dean really was, that Winchester had the knack to be happy for others when something good came to them, even when they got something he wanted and didn't have. "Maybe your dad…." He began to offer hope, which Dean shot down.

"He used to…before my mom was killed. Now," Dean shook his head. "He doesn't get broken up, he gets mad and even, shows his love by not sparing the proverbial rod, exacts punishments on me for things I do…or Sam does."

Instantly, Jason put the pieces together. "Like Sam running away?"

Dean gave a self-depreciating laugh. "Being the oldest sucks."

Before he could make a comeback, Jason saw Sam come out of the motel room, muttered under his breath to Dean, "Speaking of little brothers."

Without turning around, Dean ordered, "Sam, go back inside."

Fearlessly stepping between the two older boys, Sam faced off with his brother. "No. I saw what you did, Dean."

"Good for you," Dean dismissed, spoke to Jason over Sam's head, "Bet your two Spielberg jonsing friends got in trouble for the video too."

Jason gave a smile that was in no way repentant. "How do you think my Dad got the video. One of their mom's saw the tape and flipped out, ground her kid and got on the phone to the other kid's mom and my Dad."

"Ah, so there is a silver lining in this," Dean joked.

"And they think getting grounded is like….horrible," Jason chuckled at the tame mellow dramas of a normal kid's life compared to what he and Dean dealt with on a daily basis.

"They should go on a hunt. Then they'd know true punishment," Dean countered, imagined the two kids wetting their pants just being in a dark forest and that was before the fugly made an appearance and tried to eat them.

"Especially a hunt led by Reaves," Jason drawled with contempt.

"Yeah," Dean quietly agreed because the hurt from Caleb's betrayal wasn't going to fade away overnight.

"Why? What's so bad about Caleb heading up the hunt?" Sam piped in, hanging on every word his brother and his friend uttered.

Dean shook his head slightly at Jason, didn't want Sam privy to what went down. Finally acknowledging Sam's presence, Dean dropped his gaze to his brother, snidely drawled, "You're still here. Don't you have a dog in Arizona to get back to?"

Face colored with shame, Sam stomped off but not before he heard Jason.

"He makes my little brothers' grumblings look like a good time. Can't believe you get in trouble if he does something your dad doesn't like. No wonder you weren't looking forward to either of them coming back into town."

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However badly Caleb thought John would take seeing him hit Dean, it was worse. Even as the video kept playing, John tossed the camera onto the bed, latched onto Caleb's shirt and slammed him hard enough into the wall to put a Caleb shaped hole in the plaster. "I trusted you to keep him safe and you hit him?!" John growled in Caleb's face, one hand coiling around Caleb's throat in a choke hold.

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TBC

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Thanks for reading and reviewing!

Have a great day!

Cheryl W.