I tried to think of a reason why Sam didn't call his brother other than the fight and what is in this chapter is what came to me. I thought it fitted, interested to see what you think! I also tried to weave in the Bobby with the shotgun and Dean's keychain, although I know that he didn't have it all the way through the seasons, just wanted to use it here.
Next chapter should be the last one and it too is mostly written, just needs a few things changed so it should be up fairly soon. *hopes*
Lonely Is The Man
Dean pulled the car off to the side of the road and got out, finding a spot where he could watch his brother's bus leave but that Sam wouldn't see him from. He rested against the trunk lid, hands at his side and watched.
The vehicle backed up from the stance and circled out to the main entrance, pausing for passing traffic and then it was rolling, moving past him in a blur of motion as it picked up speed and headed off with what felt like his only reason for being safely tucked on board.
He felt as if someone had ripped a hole inside him. His whole life had been about taking care of and protecting his brother, what was he supposed to do now?
He walked back round the car, resting one hand on the top and the other gripping the door handle as his body started shaking violently from the sobs that sought their release. Turning, he let himself slide down the door, elbows on knees as he slid his hands through his hair, clasping them as they met on his crown. A low sound escaped him.
He brought his head back hard against the door before letting it drop again and letting the tears fall.
Dean thought that he finally got it now, after all these years of trying to understand, to get inside his father's head; he got it.
Got what it felt like to have the thing that you love and care for most in the whole entire world taken from you.
Got what it felt like to be left to watch helplessly, not having the means to fight against the force that ripped them from your grasp.
And then what? Then came the moment when you had to somehow try to move on.
Yeah, finally he understood. He found a new admiration for his dad's ability to have done just that, maybe he hadn't done it well, but still John had managed to get up and get on with each day.
Find a purpose to his life again. A reason to keep going.
Dean had only one problem with doing that.
He didn't have something to blame that he could channel his grief against. Didn't have something or someone that he could hunt down and destroy for taking his brother from him.
Without Sam his life counted for nothing.
He was screwed and he knew it.
----
Bobby was standing on the porch, shotgun across his arms as Dean pulled into the salvage yard. His father was loading the last of his stuff into the truck.
As he exited the car Dean's eyes fell to his own duffle sitting at Bobby's feet. He looked between the two men and then shot Bobby a quizzical look, not really wanting to venture nearer, afraid of the look on the older hunter's face and not wanting the man to see the tear stains that still marked the skin of his face. "What's going on?"
"We're leaving," John growled at him. "Seems we've outstayed our welcome. Grab your shit and let's go." Without checking that Dean was following his order John climbed into the cab and gunned the engine.
"You're daddy and I had words. Well I had words and he…..listened." Bobby had shouldered the gun and was walking towards Dean with his duffle in his free hand. The younger man stepped forward and relieved him of the burden, tossing it into the back of the car.
Bobby's eyes were full of concern as they looked at Dean. "Sam get off ok?"
A nod was his only response.
"Son, I am madder than hell at your daddy at the moment and I want him gone, unfortunately that probably means that you are gonna get gone too. It's only his welcome that's revoked, you can stay if you want?"
Dean shook his head, not trusting his voice again.
The older man stepped in close beside him. "I want you to know that if you need me for anything, you call me. I mean anything at all Dean. If you don't and I have to come rescue your ass it will not be pretty and I won't be responsible for my actions. You hear me?"
A faint little smile broke cover on Dean's face for a brief instant and he nodded again.
"Take care of yourself Dean…and that father of yours. I hate the man, doesn't mean that I wish ill on him." He grinned. "Well maybe just a little."
John hit the horn and Dean turned, acknowledged him with a hand and then jumped in the car. With one final wave at Bobby he expertly swung her round in the tight space and followed his father out onto the road.
Bobby spared one final curse for his pigheaded friend, for what he had just done to his little family and then he headed back indoors.
---
Dean almost groaned with relief when John finally pulled over and into a motel parking lot. They had been driving for hours and he was flagging, the upset of the day coupled with the long drive had sapped almost all of his energy. He waited in the car until John came back out of the reception and held up three fingers, pointing to the far end of the run of rooms.
Backing the big Chevy up he drove over and parked in a spare space, leaving the one at the door empty for the truck. He tried not to look at the empty seat next to him as he slid out, grabbed his duffle and headed inside.
John was still in a foul mood and Dean was tempted just to turn tail and head to the nearest bar but he was dead on his feet. Instead he took his duffle, waved off the offer of food and headed across to the beds as his father headed out.
Dean had already dropped the bag down on the bed nearest the door when he realised his mistake. It wasn't Sam that would be sleeping in the room with him tonight it would be John, so Dean knew that he would be automatically relegated to the other bed. He tossed the duffle over and sighed as he sat down and just upended it, spilling the contents on the floor. Kicking at it he saw what he was looking for. Bending he picked up the t-shirt and the shorts that he slept in, pausing as he realised that there was something tucked inside the shirt. It was a little black box. He opened it. Inside was a folded piece of paper and a keychain. Taking the keychain out he let it dangle from his hand. On it was a single silver bullet.
He dropped it back into the box and opened the paper. Sam's scrawl was on it.
You won't have me there to save your sorry ass when you screw up on a hunt so I figured a spare round would have to be the next best thing. Sam.
Dean chuckled but it was a dry sound in his ears. "As if bitch!" Digging in his pocket he switched the Impala's key onto the keychain and laid it down on the table, his gun and his phone following. He gave the phone one look and dismissed it as a bad idea. Sam had already sent a text to say he'd got there safely, he would think that Dean was just checking up on him.
Dean washed and changed and then collapsed back onto the bed. With one last look at his phone he killed the lights. Despite thinking that he wouldn't sleep that night he was sound by the time John came in to check on him. The older hunter changed quietly and then lowered himself down on the opposite bed, the strains of the day beginning to catch up on him too.
Looking over his sleeping child John noted that despite stopping for food and gas Dean hadn't spoken a word to him since they'd left Bobby's and that made him uneasy, little memories of a silent five year old sitting in the motel room all those years ago surfacing to torment him.
This time, he swore, was not going to be like that . Tomorrow would be better John hoped. It sure as hell couldn't get any worse.
---
Two weeks later Sam
"You need me, you call me." Dean's words circled round Sam's head as he sat on the little balcony outside his apartment, turning his phone in his hand as he debated making the call. Two weeks in and he was already doubting himself.
It wasn't as if there was anything wrong. He liked it here.
He had money that he had actually earned The people at his job were nice. The apartment was nice. The weather was nice. Everything was nice.
And that he knew, was the problem.
Everything was just too nice and he wasn't sure that he could handle so much nice in such a short space of time. Ordinary. Safe. Dull. Boring. Lonely. He stood on that thought and ground it down.
He turned the phone in his hand again. The apartment was huge compared to what he had been used to and he felt like he was rattling around in it. He missed fighting for the hot water. He missed arguing over the last slice of pizza. He missed Dean's snoring keeping him awake.
He missed Dean.
He looked down at the leather journal that was resting on his knee, the one that he had found in his duffle. Dean had put it there with a note.
Sam
Journals are a Winchester tradition, you can keep this one so that I can laugh one day at all the lame shit you did at college while everyone else was at the frat parties.
Dean.
"Jerk." The word fell fondly from his lips and he wondered if his brother was missing him too.
Standing he slid the phone into his pocket and went inside.
The pen set that his brother had given him was sitting on the table and next to it was the Taurus 92 9mm, that John had left for him on his bed at Bobby's the day after his birthday. No note, no card just the weapon. Just typical John. Sam ran a hand over the mother of pearl grips and then lifted the gun aside to give himself room to lay down and open the journal.
Picking up one of the pens he started to write……Maybe it'll be different when college starts….
----
John and Dean
John stood in the middle of the motel room floor and wondered, not for the first time in the last two weeks just who the man in front of him was. He knew his name, hell he'd given him his name, but this wasn't the Dean Winchester that he had raised and in his own way, loved. Dean had changed into a stranger that John could no longer read and if the truth be told…reach.
His son, one of only two things left in this world that he truly loved, was standing with his back to him less than a foot away and yet John felt that if he reached over his arms still wouldn't be long enough to breach the gap between them.
John almost couldn't stand it any more, the strain of the silence between them, the per functionary handling of the hunts and the injuries. They still worked as a team and a damned good one at that, still able to tell what the other would do, how they would react to a situation but there was a want in his son that John knew he could never fill.
Dean never seemed to take any down time. John knew why. It was the same reason he moved them on from hunt to hunt, town to town at a gruelling pace. A pace that at some point would take it toll, at some point would end in the serious injury or death of one of them. Neither of them could stop though, because to stop turned their thoughts to the person that was missing – from the car, from the room; from their lives.
And neither could handle the ache that Sam's absence had caused.
And they sure as hell couldn't talk about.
So they had pushed on.
Alone together.
----
John sighed as he looked at the caller ID and started for the door of the motel room. "I'm going to take this outside," he called back to Dean, not waiting for the reply that he knew wouldn't come. "Hey Agnes."
"Don't you hey me, John Winchester."
John rubbed his forehead, sensing that this wasn't a social call. "What can I do for you?"
"I want to know what going on?"
"What rattled your cage woman?" John braced himself for the reply.
"One word – Dean! What is up with your boy John? He sent Julie-Anne a message, a message John, saying not to call or contact him again. No explanation, not even a bad excuse. After all she's done, I think that she deserved a little better brush off than that!"
He was getting a headache. "You're mad at Dean, so you're shouting at me why?"
"The son of a bitch has switched his damn phone off, so you're the next best thing. Go give him a kick up the backside from me. Better still tell me were you are and I'll come deliver it myself. What the hell has gotten into him?"
John sighed. "You know that Sam left two weeks ago?"
"Yes." Agnes' tone was softer when she spoke again. "How's he doing?"
"Don't know, he hasn't called. Not even Dean."
Agnes huffed her frustration. "Is Dean alright?"
Stealing a glance at his son through the motel window John shook his head. "It feels like someone died."
She snorted at him. "Just a little bit over dramatic there I think John. Sam isn't dead, he just went to college."
" Didn't say that it was him that died." John looked at Dean slumped over a sawn off that he was starting to clean.
There was a little pause before Agnes spoke again. "He'll get through it. Dean's tough."
John wiped at his face and frowned. "No, I don't think he will. Last time I saw him like this, well it was when Mary…..he's just withdrawn inside and I can't reach him."
"Keep trying John. He'll come round. He did the last time, didn't he?" Agnes sounded much more sure than John felt.
There was a long silence, neither knowing what to say next. "Yeah, maybe. Listen Agnes I gotta go, got some things to take care of."
"Ok John. Look after that boy of yours."
"I will. Take care Agnes, tell Julie-Anne I'm sorry."
"Yeah, I will. Bye John."
"Bye."
He closed the phone and walked back into the room stopping at the foot of the bed that Dean was sitting on. "You hungry? I was going to go grab something to eat at that excuse for a diner down the road."
Dean didn't looked up, just shook his head and went back to his task.
John snapped. "Cat got your tongue there Dean?"
Empty eyes came up to meet his. "I'm not hungry." Then he was back to cleaning the gun.
"Agnes tells me you and Julie-Anne broke up then?" John tried for a conversation but Dean just shut him down.
"So? Not like it would have gone anywhere anyway. Better not to just keep her hang on for something that ain't never gonna happen." He stood and lay the gun down on the bed, grabbing his jacket. "Don't wait up, I don't know when I'll be back."
"Where are you going?"
Dean stopped and stared at his father. "Nowhere."
The door slammed behind him and John slumped into the chair at the table behind him.
He had to do something to sort this, he just didn't know what.
----
One month later John and Dean
John couldn't do it anymore.
He couldn't take the silence but then the strained, limited conversation was worse. He decided maybe what his son needed to snap out of the funk that he was in was a short, sharp shock. Either that or his brother to call but since that didn't look likely to be happening anytime soon John took the only option he had left.
That's when he had broken the news to his son, finally getting a reaction for the first time in weeks.
"You're leaving me behind?" There was so much hurt in his voice yet Dean's face was blank. John could see the emotions though that were swirling deep behind his son's eyes.
"I don't need you on this hunt, I want you to stay and finish up here. I'll call you and you can come get me when you're done here." John slung the duffle onto his shoulder and turned, no longer able to look as the hurt threatened to break out of the restraints that Dean had lashed it in.
John wondered as he reached for the door handle if Dean would go seek out Sam, maybe John's abandonment of him would push him back to his brother and then maybe Sam could reach the part inside that Dean had closed off to the rest of the world. The part of his son that had died when his brother had left. God knows he had tried but it was just too deep.
He knew now that he had already lost Dean. Lost the son he knew when Sam had gone, it had just taken John too long to realise it.
"But Dad….." Dean's hand was on his arm but John didn't, couldn't turn.
"I've given you an order Dean." With that he walked out the room and left his son standing opened mouthed in the centre of the floor.
Dean spun round, reaching for his jacket to follow John but he stopped when he saw what was sitting on the table.
His dad's journal was lying in front of him.
It was like finding Jesus had left him with the Holy Grail. Such a plain looking, ordinary journal that said more to him than his father ever would.
This was it then, the moment he'd dreaded since Sam waved goodbye and got on the bus.
Dean was getting ditched, being kicked to the curb like the roadkill he was. He was just surprised that it had actually taken this long. He knew that it had been coming, hell he was even partly the cause, but still it stung like a slap to the face.
Sam had ditched him and now his Dad had too. He snatched the book up and slumped to the floor, falling against the bed, drawing his knees up tight to his chest, encircling them with one arm. The laugh chortled up inside him, small bubbles of mirth escaping him as he ran his hand over the smooth leather of the book in front of him. Grabbing it as the laughter took hold he threw head back against the bed and pulled the precious journal tight to his chest. The laughter tailed off into choking sobs of grief as he let himself slip to the side, curling on the floor like a kicked dog.
It had finally happened.
The day he'd dreaded since he was a child waiting for his mother not to be dead, not to have left him in this new and horrid existence. His family didn't need him anymore. Despite all that he'd done for them they'd left him.
Discarded him.
Sam was gone.
Dad was gone.
He was alone.
Still a little sliver of hope ran through him at the fact that the journal was here with him. Perhaps he hadn't been abandoned completely. John needed the journal. Dean knew that and what it meant. His father would be back for it. Back for him.
----
Sam
He wanted to call Dean. He had so much news that he wanted to share with his brother but that was the thing that was stopping him.
He felt more settled now. School had started and it was taking up most of his time and he loved it. Every single minute of it. He had fell in almost immediately with a little group of people, three other guys and six girls and for the first time he had friends that he wasn't going to have to say goodbye to in a few weeks time. People that shared his interests and his goals. He had a girlfriend of sorts too and he wanted to call his brother, let Dean tease him about it all, ask him rude and invasive questions about his relationship.
He wanted to let Dean know that he was happy but another part of him just saw that as rubbing his brother's face in it. Look what I've got Dean, what have you got? He had all of this because of his brother's love and support and Sam didn't think that he could call and flaunt his escape from hunting when Dean himself was still a hostage to the life. It wouldn't be fair.
Instead he pulled out the journal and wrote down everything he was feeling and wanted to but couldn't say in it, hoping that one day Dean would get to see it. Would get to know just what he had done for him.
---
October /November
Dean
He had been hunting on his own now for weeks without a word from his father. It wasn't the solo hunting that got to him, or even the sad looks as he ate alone in the diner or even sitting in a bar on his own; 'cos the latter two usually ended with him getting laid and hell it's not like it was first time that he'd ate or drank alone. No, what really got to him was opening the door to the motel room and having the silence that lived in there as his only welcome home. The bottle and the canned laughter from the TV his only relief from it. The knowledge that there would be no one coming to break it, no other company except his own. Just the silence and nothing to break him away from his own thoughts.
So he set up a little reward scheme to help him try and cope.
Find a hunt = Pizza and some late night porn.
Killing an evil SOB = a night in the local bar.
Save someone doing it = A night in someone's bed.
He tried not to think about why most of his hook ups where red heads or why at least two of them wore the same perfume as Julie-Anne.
Soon the rewards though were outnumbering the hunts that should have triggered them. He spent too much time in the bars and in someone else's bed, too much time easing his pain to be fit enough to hunt properly, starting to pick up injuries that hindered him even more.
He was in the latest motel, finishing attending to a gash on his side. Looking in the bathroom mirror at his bruised and battered torso he realised that the last little bit of who he was had started to slip away.
If he wasn't a hunter then what was he?
The answer to that was like the room around him. Empty. If he wasn't a hunter then he really was nothing. He picked up his gun from the bathroom shelf and let the weight lie heavy in his hand. Use it or get your shit together Dean, his little inner voice scolded him and just for a moment he was tempted. It would be so quick, so easy, one pull and lights out.
"Too easy."
His voice sounded odd and too loud in the absolute quiet of the room, almost as if the walls themselves had been holding their breath as he debated his future. "Too damn easy for me, too damn hard for my brother."
He checked the clip, then the safety before stuffing it into the back waistband of his jeans and switching out the bathroom light. Grabbing his stuff he rammed it into his duffle, pulled on a t-shirt and his jacket, turned off the TV and hit the road running. He side stepped the bars and the women, most nights, and threw himself headfirst into the hunt. Town after town, miles of road passing under the Impala's wheels, hunting anything that he could find, barely stopping again anymore to rest or eat, the car his home for more nights than it wasn't. The hip flask and the heater his only companions.
And all the time, he was heading west.
----
John
John had been watching over him the whole time. A little army of favours pulled from other hunters. Hunters that had occasionally bumped into Dean in the bars or happened to stop at the same motels. John frowned at the tales of his son's drinking and the never ending stream of women that Dean seemed to be able to bend to his will and charm his way into their beds.
Then suddenly it has stopped.
Almost overnight and despite the occasional slip, Dean was back on track. John had him tailed to Salt Lake City and then he called them off, not needing them anymore. He knew where Dean was heading next.
---
December
Dean knew where he was heading now, didn't try to stop it. He spent a week in Salt Lake City trying to rustle up some funds, knowing that Vegas would have been easier pickings but not being able to bear driving along the strip passed the hotel they had stayed in.
Eventually he decided to roll with what he had and finally set the car in the direction that he had been heading along.
