Dean watched Sam's form fade into the dark mist. It took everything he had to refrain from running after him. To let him go. He had to let him go. Had to let him leave.
He felt hollow.
He stood in the middle of the street like a jilted lover and scrubbed his hand over his face to rid himself of the tears that spilled down his cheeks in weary paths. Dean didn't have any sense of how long he'd stood there, immobile, until a car came through, startling him with the intensity of its headlights. He stepped to the side, his boots sinking into the soft grass of the next door neighbor's lawn.
He stood in the same spot for another several minutes until he managed to pull the frayed pieces of his psyche together. The last thing he wanted to do was face his father, but he'd left the keys to the Impala inside his leather jacket in his urgency to follow Sam. The leather jacket that was hanging in the hallway.
Dean drew a breath and walked back inside, closing the door with a soft click.
His father was sitting back at the table hunched over the map. There was a rounded tension to his shoulders that hadn't been there before.
He didn't look up when the door shut. "Is your shit packed? We are still leaving in the AM. "
Dean paused. He wanted to protest. What if Sam changed his mind? What if he came back and they were gone and he didn't know where they'd left for? It was against every instinct he had to not wait for Sammy. He left all his fears unspoken and answered with a soft, "No sir."
John pushed his chair away from the table and stood up. He had a bottle of Jack Daniels resting on the kitchen counter. He moved over to pour a glass, finally turned around to look at his eldest. He held out the glass to Dean. "Want a drink?"
Want a drink? He wanted the whole fucking bottle. He wanted to drink himself into a blackout. He wanted to open the Impala up on a back road somewhere until she shuddered underneath him like a straining racehorse. He wanted to bury himself in a woman and thrust until he couldn't think of anything else but the rhythm of their bodies.
He brought himself back to present and walked over to take the glass his father was offering. "Thanks."
John poured himself a glass and peered into the amber liquid like there were answers lingering there. "You leaving too?" He asked gruffly.
Dean stopped, the cool glass resting against his lower lip. He pulled it back with wide eyes. "What?"
" You gonna take a page from your bother's book and take off?"
He couldn't believe his dad was seriously asking him that question. "No."
"Why not?"
Dean stood stunned, recovered himself. "I'm with you, Dad. You need me, I'm not walking away." A grin tugged at the corner of his lip. "Besides, where would I go? It's not exactly like I have Harvard foaming at the mouth over my GED."
John winced visibly before he took a swallow of whiskey. "You're not my dog Dean. You have your own mind. You can make your own choices."
Dean smirked. "Well Sam was a Golden Retriever that shit in your shoes, so I guess I can be your guard dog."
John made an amused sound in the back of his throat. "I'm afraid he took that analogy wrong."
"You think?"
"He takes everything wrong that comes from my mouth."
Dean couldn't argue. He brought his glass back up to his lips and took a swallow, felt the burn crawl down his esophagus. His hand was shaking, he noted with dismay.
He closed his eyes against a wave of emotion and breathed through his nose. He had to calm down, find his center. Couldn't fall apart like a bitch in front of his father. Even though that was all he wanted to do right now. Cry or explode or kill something. He felt the left side of his face twitch until he stilled it.
When he opened his eyes, his father was scrutinizing him. He said nothing. Then "This coven is big."
"I'm so sick of witches." Dean lamented. "I hated 'em before and I really hate 'em now."
Oh god he wanted to fall apart. How was his father not bleeding over Sammy?
John's brows raised and the lines around his mouth softened. "You're a good kid, Dean."
Dean couldn't stand to hear it. He choked down another swallow of whiskey and turned his head. "Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Just don't. Please." He drained the glass and set it down on the table with a clink against the wood and stared at it for a moment, the way the light refracted off of the thick bottom catching his attention. Anything to not look at his father. "Did you mean that about Sam?"
"Mean what?"
"When you told him not to come back."
John's jaw tightened. "Sam chose to leave this family."
Dean closed his eyes, his hands were clenched into fists on the table. He leaned his weight into them, his head down. He could feel the fine tremble in his biceps as they supported his upper body.
"Your relationship with your brother is your business. Mine is done."
"Don't say that."
"You don't give the orders here, Dean."
Dean swallowed hard, still not looking up. Fighting the tears that wanted to leak out the corners of his closed eye lids. "Yes sir," he said tightly. "Where are we headed next?"
"New Orleans."
A million miles from California. "Oh good. Hoodoo central." He still hadn't opened his eyes.
He felt like the fucking lump in his throat was going to suffocate him. "You know," he said, trying to fill up the silence "The witch that we dealt with a few months ago spewed all over my favorite shirt. So freaking gross. I had to burn it."
He could sense, could hear his father drawing closer.
He tensed. Oh god. Don't touch me. Don't touch me.
John's hand was on his shoulder, pulling him up and turning him around. He felt the amulet Sam had given him swing with the motion.
"Look at me, son."
Dean opened his eyes and looked at John. His father raised a dark eyebrow. "You going to be a man about this or are you going to fall apart?" His voice was not unkind.
Dean clenched his jaw and didn't say anything.
He tried to evade the touch by backing up slightly. John moved with him, encroaching on his space.
"I'm going to go get wasted," Dean replied.
John snorted. "We're leaving in about 7 hours. That certainly cuts in on your time to be wasted."
"Can't we just take a day, Dad?"
John's expression turned hard. "No. We've wasted enough time on Sam."
"Wasted? He's my brother. He's your son!"
"He's not going to get in the way of saving people. We waste time, more people get hurt. You know that."
Dean turned with a vicious sweep of his arm and knocked the whiskey glass, the markers and the map off of the table. They clattered to the ground with a satisfying cacophony. The glass shattered.
John watched Dean impassively. "That answers my question. Fall apart. Now you get to clean that mess up before you pack."
Dean leaned against the table again, breathing heavily. "Am I still a good kid, huh?" He heard the challenge in his own voice.
John crossed his arms and cocked his head appraisingly. "Yes, you are."
Dean snorted, shook his head.
John grabbed his bicep and Dean tensed, putting his arm up to shield himself from a blow that never came. Instead his Dad whirled him around and swept him into a rough embrace, his big hand pushing Dean's head against his neck. Dean leaned into him, wrapping his arms around John's bulk and clinging to his father: solid and calm and true like he always was. The only thing he had left.
Dean's face twisted and he briefly lost his battle with his emotions, his breaths hitching on a few sobs.
John thumped his back. "I know, son." He held him a second longer, gave him a squeeze that said: I know you're hurting. Then John pushed him away, holding him at arm's length, both of his hands on Dean's upper arms. The grip hurt a little. There was an intensity to his gaze that made Dean squirm inwardly. He stood pliable at the other end of his father's attentions, head cocked, eyes lowered guiltily.
"Now get it together." His Dad's voice was firm. "You got that? Clean up this mess, and then get your ass in that room and pack your stuff."
"Yes, sir." Dean felt dazed. Follow orders. He knew how to do that. That made sense in his world gone sideways.
He bent to pick up the map and gather the markers. It made him remember the days of borrowing Dad's supplies to scrawl cartoons of women with enormous breasts in the margins of Sam's school notebooks.
He put the markers on the table, knelt back down and crunched his knee into a shard of glass on the floor. He hissed and stood up, brushing at his injured leg.
"That's what you get for breaking things, Dean... You okay?"
"I'm fine." Dean said mechanically, grabbing the broom near the fridge. He swept up the rest, dumped it in the garbage.
His father was watching him as he limped to the bedroom, closing the door. Dean sat down on the edge of the bed, toed off his boots and pulled off his jeans. His knee only had a small scrape that was barely bleeding. He almost wished it had been deeper so the physical pain could override the emotional. No such luck.
Dean crouched and started to cram his belongings into his duffel bag. Just him and Dad now.
He absently touched the heavy brass of his necklace and sighed. After a moment, he sat heavily on the floor and leaned his back against the edge of the bed, clad in his boxer briefs and t-shirt. He drew his legs up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, laying his head on his knees.
One thing was certain. He and his father would have that bottle of Jack gone before the morning.