Thanks for reading and a special thanks to those who have reviewed with nice words of encouragement for my return to writing. It means a lot to me...bambers:)
Chapter Nineteen
Sam hadn't spoke a single word on the fifteen minute drive to Roosevelt High School, and although John made a few unanswered comments here and there, he silently admitted to himself that he was grateful that his youngest son had chosen not to respond to the stupid comments he made about the weather and the nice neighborhoods they drove through. Those were easy conversations, the kind of small talk that wouldn't lead to an argument about his failure to protect his sons, and his stomach churned with sickness for having mentioned anything about how nice the day was or how he liked the layout of a house. It was the kind of conversation that normal people endured on a daily basis and the meaningless observations felt and sounded strange coming from his lips.
He was used to giving orders to his sons, and they were trained to follow those orders without question. He couldn't do that now, he couldn't order Sam to stop feeling so damn helpless, afraid, and heartbroken. Nor could he make demands of Dean to open up and tell him what happened to him the night he went to watch Driscoll. It would only make matters worse, and that left him floundering and gutted like a fish.
As they drew closer to the school, John noticed how Sam sank further and further down on the leather seat, and it took every bit of sheer willpower he had in him not to turn the truck around and head back to the cottage. To admit he was wrong in making Sam return to school so soon after the assault was something he was more than willing to do, but Sam needed to speak up first. It had to be his decision, and that was definitely something John wasn't used to. Offer him an out. Give him the opportunity to come back another day a month or two from now. Those two thoughts played over and over inside his head as he pulled into the parking lot of the school and found a spot to park between two cars. He cleared his throat and Sam looked at him as if waiting for the offer he ached to give. No, if I say it, he'll get angry and bring up all the reasons why I'm a terrible father. If he wants to go back home then he has to say it first.
"You don't have to start school today," he said as he gathered up the file containing Sam's school transcripts, not quite an offer to put off going to school indefinitely, more like a lifeline for Sam to latch onto if he decided he wasn't ready to return to a place that would likely bring about flashbacks of what had happened to him. "I'm sure they'll need time to get your class schedule in order and that could take a day or two. So if you want we could take a tour of the school then go fishing or to the movies and stop to get dinner to bring home afterwards."
"If I can't start today I'd rather go home and study," Sam said, and he had to know it was like a kick to the gut to choose studying over spending time with him, and John couldn't find it within himself not to take it personally. Since he'd returned home, he'd been nothing but a punching bag slamming back and forth between Sam and Dean, and even if they did have a right to be angry at him, he had feelings, too, and they both didn't seem to care if they hurt him as much as possible. "Let's get this over with," he added, and pushing open the door to the truck, he got out and slammed it shut.
John followed him to the front entrance of the school, lagging behind as he tried to bury the hurt and anger tightening in his chest. I need to let it go. He's been through enough, and doesn't need me to yell at him for acting so cold toward me. Easier said than done, and John had never been one to hold his tongue when someone angered him. Nonetheless, he plastered on his best smile for the receptionist in the main office as he handed her Sam's transcripts, and kept that pleasant smile locked in place as she looked over the papers in the file.
"Everything looks to be in order," she said, tracing her manicured fingernail down the last page of Sam's transcript. "I see you are in advance placement classes, Sam," she added, glancing from John to Sam, and he shifted uncomfortably. His eyes darted around the office, taking in the two other receptionists and the male teacher who was getting his mail from the rows of shelves against the wall. "It just happens that Mr. Sullivan," she gestured to the man looking over the papers that were in his mail slot, "will be your AP English teacher."
Hearing his name being spoken, Mr. Sullivan turned and made his way over to where Sam and John were standing. Sam backed away as he lifted an arm to shake John's hand, and John couldn't be certain if it was the man's muscular build, the spicy, musky scent of his cologne or the way he smiled at Sam that had his son glancing toward the door as if he wanted to bolt from the office.
"This is Sam," John said, cautiously resting a hand on Sam's shoulder in what he hoped would be a comforting gesture, and kept his face impassive as Sam jerked away from him as if he feared John would strike him. "And I'm John." Of course they noticed, and a look passed between them, one he'd seen many times before when Sam or Dean showed up at school with bruises from a hunt or training. "Sam's grandfather is very ill so we transferred here so I could take care of him." He bobbed his head at his son, and continued, "Sammy's very close to his grandfather since he and his brother spent a lot of time with him while I was in the Marines. I'm telling you this because there might be days when Sam needs to leave early or might be absent due to his grandfather's worsening condition, and any help you could provide would be greatly appreciated."
"Sure," Mr. Sullivan said, giving Sam a sympathetic smile, pushing up his dark-framed glasses over the bridge of his slightly crook nose. "If he can't make it to class just let me know and I'll send his homework to the office so he doesn't get behind." His blue-eyed gaze shifted to Sam. "We're halfway through reading To Kill a Mockingbird in class right now if you want –"
"I've already read it," Sam mumbled, his hazel eyes lingering on the door to the office, and at that moment a pretty brunette walked through the door.
Her warm brown eyes lit up at the sight of Sam. He didn't notice. Maybe she was a bit on the heavy side, but he never thought of his son as shallow in regards to the opposite sex. John wasn't above giving his son a little push in the right direction, and as the girl was giving the receptionist a note, he took the opportunity to give Sam a look and nudge his head at the girl. Sam's eyes widened slightly and he gave a subtle shake of his head.
"Mary, this is Sam," the receptionist said, gesturing to Sam, and if John ever believed in signs, which being a hunter he did, this was one. "Could you give him a tour of the school while his father and I go over some paperwork for his enrollment?"
"Sure, I'll show him around," Mary answered sweetly.
"Okay," the receptionist said, handing Mary a piece of paper. "His locker number is 432 and it's in the science wing."
"All right," she said, tucking the piece of paper into the pocket of her jeans. "Come on, Sam. I'll show you the cafeteria first then take you to your locker."
"Dad…." Sam gritted out, and John fleetingly wondered if going fishing with his old man was starting to sound a little more enticing to Sam.
"Go on ahead, Sammy," he said, bobbing his head toward the door. It was spiteful no doubt about it, but Sam couldn't have it both ways. He couldn't continuously treat John as if he wanted him gone and then abruptly shift to wanting to be joined at his hip when something felt a little frightening. He wanted to do everything right and be the supportive father his son needed – Sam didn't want that, or at least he didn't want that unless it benefited him in some small way, and this moment was a prime example of how screw up their relationship was at its very core. "I'll wait for you here," he added as a way of showing his son that he didn't plan on going anywhere, and Sam's answering scowl before he walked out the door with Mary was enough for John to realize that his youngest son hated him.
XxXxXxX
Sam should have listened to Dean when he voiced his objections about going back to school, and realized how wrong he'd been about trying to regain the life he once had before Driscoll the second his father had pulled into the school parking lot. He couldn't tell his father that though. Winchesters didn't run away from their fears, they confronted them head-on and kept on going through the blood and pain. The problem was that he couldn't kill his feelings with a gun or crossbow, and he couldn't stake and cut off the head of his own fears and pain. He couldn't fight himself and win, and because of his family's secrets the man who'd violated him would go free. Not that he wanted anyone to know about what the coach did to him, but the choice of whether or not to keep it a secret was never up to him from the start. His father had made that very clear when he decided that they had to move right away.
His father made for an easy target for all the pain and the rage building inside of him with each passing day. He was trying, Sam could see how hard he was trying, and that was a first. Yet there was such a thing as too little too late, and John Winchester was the king of always failing to be there when it mattered. No, he couldn't rely on his father, not when every time he walked out the door, Sam figured he wouldn't come back. It was what he did best; leaving for weeks and sometimes months at a time, and Sam couldn't find it within himself to forgive his father for that. It had cost him and Dean too much, and the sad thing was that his father didn't seem to realize how screwed up their family was.
"Where ya from, Sam?" Mary asked as they walked down the hallway toward what he assumed must be the cafeteria, her finger twirling through her chestnut curls.
"Nowhere," he mumbled, eyeing three boys in varsity jackets heading toward them, and his hands curled into tight fists. "Everywhere," he added as one of the boys playfully nudged one of the others into the lockers, and the three of them laughed. "We move around a lot."
"Hey, Mary," the tallest of the three called out to her as they were passing by.
"Hey, Mark," she replied, and thankfully she didn't stop to chat with him or Sam would've turned right around to head back to the office. "Mark lives next door to me. His mom and mine are best friends, and they've always…sorry, you were saying you move around a lot? That must be interesting. I've lived in Blue Ridge all my life – we even vacation in Minnesota. My parents like to go camping at Gooseberry Falls State Park. Do you like camping, Sam?"
"Nope." He glanced over his shoulder and watched as the three boys rounded the corner to head down another hallway. "The last time I went camping I broke my arm, and the time before that I ended up needing stitches," he said truthfully, or at the very least as truthful as a hunter could be. Not that he did much hunting yet, but his father felt it was important to get him and Dean out there in the fight whenever possible. He called it training, but even if he was there with them, no kid should have ever had to face a full-grown werewolf before he even hit puberty.
"Oh…I'm sorry to hear that." She paused in her steps and pointed at a set of double doors. "Well, this is the cafeteria," she added as he looked in through the glass windows at the tables filled with students eating lunch, and his stomach rumbled uncomfortably. It wasn't as large as the cafeteria at his previous school and instead of rows of long tables, there were round tables scattered about the room. "Come on, I'll show you where your locker." She touched his arm, and he immediately jerked it back away from her. "Sorry, I didn't mean to –"
The bell rang and Sam jumped startled, his heartbeat thundering in his ears. Within a few seconds the hallways filled with students pushing past them to get to their next class. Not only students but teachers as well, and he caught sight of a man wearing a baseball cap, his eyes glued to the sight of him walking away through the crowd. He caught glimpses of a lion on the back of the man's blue jacket. Body trembling, his vision started to blur.
"Not bad, Sam, not bad at all," Coach Driscoll said as Sam smiled and held out a hand to help Danny Feldman up off the mat after pinning him. Driscoll came up behind him, and placed his hands on Sam's waist. "You just have to shift your body a little to distribute your weight, like this," he added, his warm breath breezing past Sam's ear. "You see," with his leg he nudged Sam's leg forward a bit, "now lean your body forward on this leg," his hand smoothed down Sam's leg, "And push off on your back leg as the buzzer sounds. It'll give you a stronger start at the beginning of the match. Good…that's good. You've got it."
"Thanks, Coach," Sam said, grinning as Driscoll moved off to the side of the ring, and stuffed his hands in the pockets of his wrestling jacket.
"No need to thank me, Sammy," he said, motioning for Danny to get down on all fours. "Okay, Sam, get behind him and we'll practice top and bottom moves…."
With the memory of Driscoll playing out vividly in his mind, Sam turned on his heel and took off running, barreling into people in his overwhelming need to escape. Arms pumping, his feet pounded hard against the ugly green linoleum, and he could hear people shouting at him to slow down or calling him names for running into them. He hit the metal bar on the main entrance door at a dead run, it flew open and raced outside heading for the parking lot.
"Sam…Sammy!" his father shouted from somewhere behind him as he wove his way through the parked cars. "Sam, stop!" he called out again, and this time his voice sounded closer. "Please, stop…." Legs trembling, he slowed to a stop a few rows away from where his father parked his truck, and leaning against someone's car, he bent forward to catch his breath and wait for his father. John came up alongside him, and leaned against the car as well. "It's okay, Sammy," he whispered breathlessly, and out of the corner of his eye, Sam saw his father lift a hand as if to rest it on his shoulder, thought better of it, and his arm fell loosely to his side. "I shouldn't have let you go on the tour alone. It was wrong, I know that, and I'm sorry." He paused and blew out a heavy breath. "I was angry…no, I was – it hurt when you said you'd rather study than spend the day with me. An' I know I'm the very last person in the world who should ever have the right to feel hurt for something as trivial as my kids not wanting to spend time with me, but there ya have it. I left you to face this on your own because I was upset."
"Can we just go home…I wanna go home," he muttered, his chest constricting painfully with the weight of his father's admission and also at the thought of having to return to school again after the scene he'd made in his attempt to get away from the memory of Driscoll.
"Can you tell me what happened?" John asked as he pushed away from the car and started heading toward the truck with Sam following close behind.
"I dunno what happened," Sam whispered, hugging his arms around his stomach. He didn't want to tell anyone why he ran out of the school, but the more he thought about it the more he realized that it couldn't have been easy for his father to admit that he was upset with how he and Dean had been treating him. "I was fine, I really was, and then I wasn't. The bell rang and all the kids were coming out of the lunchroom, and in the crowd I saw this guy wearing a baseball cap and a school jacket, and then it was like I was back in my old school and the coach was there an' he was showing me wrestling moves."
"You had a flashback," John said, unlocking and opening the passenger side door. "That's not uncommon for someone dealing with trauma. We just have to figure out a way to help you recognize potential triggers, and find a way for you to get through them without panicking or shutting down."
"How do you know about this stuff?" Sam said as he climbed up onto the bench seat.
"When I'm hunting, I spend most of my days doing research, Sammy." He shrugged a shoulder. "So when I saw my son was struggling because of what a monster did to him, I decided to do some research. I got some books from the library and pamphlets from a crisis center and I've been studying them at night."
Sam swallowed hard around the thick know forming in his throat. "Y-you're doing that for me?" He swallowed again, and blinked back the tears welling in his eyes. "Why would you do that?"
"You're my son, Sam, and I know that most of the time you probably think I don't care about you or Dean at all, but I love you boys with every breath I take."
"I didn't - thanks, Dad..." Sam reached out and shut the door without saying what he really wanted to tell his father, and John moved around to the other side of the truck with shoulders slumped as it was something he needed to hear. I love you, Dad...The words came to him easily in his mind, but refused to slip past his lips, and as his father got into the truck, Sam shifted to look out the window.