Disclaimer: Right. Because, if I owned them, I'd be wasting time writing about them rather than...well, you know.
He can't do this.
He never could. It's getting harder and harder, now, and there's a thousand miles between them. Dean can see him, staring at him from the corner of his eye, even when he's supposed to be sleeping. He's never asked for any of this, really, and the general unfairness leaves a lot to be desired, and, while Sam may be the only thing keeping him from going kamikaze and outright loony on half their misadventures, he's the reason for Dean's loss of sanity everywhere in between.
---
"Hey, man," Sam says, deep, and worry taints his tone. "You okay?"
Dean flinches slightly at the voice and hopes to whatever fucked up god that's left that Sam didn't see him falter. His grip is tired, his eyes are shot, and his little brother's—little brother's—voice is grating his nerves in all the wrong ways.
" 'S'nothing. I'm fine."
Sam snorts, rolling his eyes, jaw sticking out and looking twelve kinds of defiant.
"It's fine," Sam says, trying for nonchalance but coming off as impatiently young.
Dean's eyes flicker across the car and Sam's looking at the blur of foliage and buildings. Sam may be more grown up in some ways now than he was before, older in his soul and manner, but some things you only every really get by going through them.
Dean understands that now.
"More like I'm fine, Sam, my boy," Dean says, smirking like an idiot. "But I understand why you would be jealous."
Sam rolls his eyes again, even laughs, but underneath Dean's shit-eating grin, his mask is cracking from the pressure of it all.
He thinks he finally understands his father.
---
The first time Dean leaves John a message, it's four days after their rendezvous and all he gets is his voicemail acting up before telling him to leave a message.
Dean doesn't, figuring that he'll just call back later, and that there was probably nothing to worry about.
The second time Dean calls, is two weeks after that, when he went down all the way to New Orleans and dealt with an entire clan of Succubi and came back without so much a word from their father. He's worried, fingers cold as he dials in the warm September air, and when he gets the voicemail again, he slams his phone so hard he fears he may need a new one, which starts off an entire litany of colorful swear words and foul language all on its own.
The third, fourth, fifth, and sixth times he's called his father are exactly two hours and each increasing hour after that. He gets nothing and, in true Dean form, he trashes his motel room, then feels supremely guilty and childish afterward. Embarrassed, Dean leaves the keys and some money on the bed before high-tailing it out of there.
Even so, he doesn't know where he's going.
---
"So why are we here, again?" Sam's been sleeping more lately, but he's never really had time to catch up on all the sleep he should have a while ago and it's begun to affect his short term memory a little bit. Dean would point it out to him, but he doesn't want to risk another fight, not now, not here.
"A family was killed in there house four days ago and no one can tell how it happened," Dean says, already half-dressed and anxious in the Arkansas air. "Police seem to think that it could have been a local gang, but there doesn't seem to have been any way for—"
"Hey," Sam grunts, turning and peeling off the covers and Dean has to look away. "Isn't this where dad disa—"
"Yeah," Dean finishes, jaw and throat suddenly tight as he finishes putting on his shoes and crosses the room. "I'll see you in the car."
---
The seventh, eighth, and ninth times Dean calls, he's already halfway to California and he's praying, hope against hope, that maybe—just maybe—John's there, with, possibly, thirty broken bones, or a severe case of amnesia, or maybe even both, just anything, really, anything but please, please, please don't let him be—
Dean's already lost his mother, and Sam's already left him, so he'll be damned if he lets the only person still in his life just go, too.
---
"Damn, dude!" Dean hoots once he gets into the car, thankful for only a couple of shallow cuts. "I can't believe that, for a second there, you thought it was a werewolf!"
Sam's eyes narrow, but a smile tugs at his lips nonetheless and Dean thinks he's done his job.
At least until Sam looks at him. Then the smile is gone, the creases in his forehead appear, and Dean's never liked being studied.
"Hey, um," Sam says hesitantly, and Dean is sure he's going to ask something stupid like—
"Are you okay?"
Dean laughs, but it's humorless. Just turns to Sam and smiles, and he knows that it doesn't quite reach his eyes.
"Yeah, dude," he says, voice clear and even. "Great."
---
By the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth times Dean calls him, the voicemail has changed, and Dean is a thousand times thankful for that not-small relief, recycling the same thought over and over in his head.
he's not dead, he's not dead, he's not dead
The moment doesn't really fade, but it's soon accompanied by a twinge of sadness and bitter disappointment. Dean feels himself drowning and thinks that drowning his sorrows seems like a fitting way to end them.
At least for a night.
What sucks is, through all of it, the same thing haunts him.
why doesn't he trust me?
---
Dean stares at his hands in the cold night air. He's panting and hyperventilating and he if doesn't stop, he's going to wake up Sam and this is so not an image that he wants him to see, not with Dean at this state.
Dean hates his dreams, too, and with them coming back more and more often now, staying up and keeping an eye on Sam isn't his only motivation to be watchful in the shadows of the dark. He hates it, pressing on him, weighing him down, but he's learned that he just has to bear it, because, when it enshrouds something, it doesn't just let things go.
He should have learned that a long time before.
He risks a glance at Sam's bed, but all he catches is a glimpse of skin, of flesh, before he's assaulted by another vision, another memory, from his dream.
He's thankful that he made it to the bathroom in time, heaving, and, at least, his frantic breathing has stopped.
---
Dean awakens to a heavy arm over his side, ghosting over his chest, his stomach, and a sharp stab of fear flits through his brain.
It's not there for long, because, even with his sleep-induced brain, he can still make out the ring on that finger and the fear and anger quickly evaporates, and Dean relaxes, closing his eyes again.
"D—dad?" he says softly, throat still dry from barely waking. So softly, he doesn't even know if he really said it out loud.
It's a split second after, almost like an answer, but Dean doesn't think that that's an answer that any father should ever give their child.
"You look so much like your mother..."
His eyes snap open, his vision blurry, and Dean's suddenly aware of John's heat all along his back. John's leg is around one of his, his lips brushing across Dean's neck as he breathes, the breath seeming cold throwing shivers down Dean's spine, and a new kind of fear makes its way through Dean's sleep-addled brain.
"D—dad?" Dean says, more clearly, but his voice still scratchy.
John recoils, backing away so fast that it's like he's been burned, like a demon suddenly doused with holy water.
"Dad?" Dean says, trying to turn, but his father's shaking but strong hand burns the cold skin of his shoulder. "Da—"
"Listen, Dean," he starts and Deans far too out of it to think of this as anything but a dream, let alone analyze. "I've got something I need to take care of—up north—and I need you to stay here, look after and check out some stuffwhile I'm gone."
That really wakes Dean up and he moves to sit up, but John's heated grasp keeps him in place. "You mean like…like going out? On my own? Taking the journal with me?"
Dean's looking for anything to lighten up the moment and he expects his Dad to laugh at that. To John Winchester, his Journal is his Bible, and to deny him that, is to know pain, so Dean's more surprised than anyone when—
"Sure," John says, turning around, picking it up, and handing it to him, with unsure hands. It's just a second, but when Dean looks away from the journal and meets his father's eyes over his shoulder, Dean thinks he could almost read something there, but it was gone before he could even begin.
"I don't think I'll be needing this where I'm going," John says, before climbing out of bed. "That's all I wanted to—" he says, but something gets caught in his throat and it's like someone's suddenly pressing down on Dean's chest.
"That's it. I just wanted to tell you before I left," John says, and he's back to being apathetic and nearly cold, but not dismissive, just distant. "Go back to sleep."
Then he's asleep and Dean's just laying there thinking,trying to figure what exactly happened.
An hour later, he gets out of bed, carefully packs the journal at the bottom of his dad's gym bag, and thinks, then, that there's at least some insurance that John Winchester would come back.
---
Dean spends the better part of the morning unconscious after trying not to go to sleep at all. He wakes up to the taste of stomach acid and last night's pizza and the only thing worse is the voice that follows.
"Oh, hey," Sam says, and it sounds suspiciously like a joking tone. "Look who's up."
"Screw you," Dean says, and his breath is robbed from him for a second time.
He still can't face Sam.
"Whatever," Sam says, dismissing Dean's attitude. "And, hey, what happened to you last night?"
"What?" Dean asks, already making his way out of bed. "A guy can't get sick after some bad sushi?"
Sam looks at him like he has a third head. "Um…we had pizza last night.
Dean shrugs and this part of the job seems as natural to him as the weight he carries. "I went out after you slept."
"Oh," Sam says, and there's a look of annoyance that passes across his face, "Serves you right then." Sam takes one more look at him before he turns away to type on their laptop, and sighs. "Are you at least okay? No poisoning of any kind?"
Dean stares at him for a moment. Wonders how many ways he could answer that, how many answers he has for that.
Dean smiles, and he can taste the bile in the back of his throat and his smile nearly cracks.
"Yeah. I'm fine."
---
The thirteenth time and it's only the fifth message he's tried to leave behind. He's learned a long time ago that John Winchester must not check his voicemail, so there's no point in leaving a message anyway.
Still.
He plans to leave a message. He does. But, on that final ring before the automated voice kicks in, it picks up to complete silence, and no matter how many times Dean says "hello" or "John" or "dad", the only thing he can hear is breathing.
Dean gets frustrated, just keeps on saying "dad" over an over again all angry and heated,and he wants to say plenty of things, especially how everyone in their family is severely fucked up—but he doesn't. Eventually he just hears a pained gasp on the other end of the line and that stops him mid-yell and his face goes white and pained, too, and he says, "John?"
The glaring, beeping dial tone's the one to answer him.
---
"So…what? Do we just go?" Sam asks and Dean doesn't really feel like answering him.
"Um…as opposed to staying?" Dean says, faking ignorance and he has to hide his wince.
"God, Dean, can't you just—" Sam says, but he cuts himself off. "Isn't—isn't this where dad disappeared?"
Dean's jaw is tight and defiance is burning under his skin. His reply is shallow and cool, walls perfectly raised.
"Yeah? So…"
Sam rolls his eyes and looks at him like an idiot. "So? Don't you think we should look for clues?"
Dean's jaw tightens, but it's barely noticeable. "Not really. Dad also left us the book back in California. Just because he disappeared here, doesn't mean that something got him."
"Yeah, but he could have left that there a long time ago. I mean, you said so yourself, you weren't with him when—"
It's times like these that Dean wishes Sam did know. About everything. About the journal, about their father, about Dean's dreams, about Dean's—
"Just—trust me," he says, and Dean looks at him with his best, most convincing smile, and he thinks he's going to implode with all this outward pressure pushing in. "I just know."
Dean forgets sometimes how much Sam looks like their father. Tall. Dark hair.
Emptied eyes.
When Sam stares at him then, Dean's unnerved by the worry he sees there, the concern, but mostly…mostly he's unnerved by the fire he sees in Sam's eyes, and he has to look away before he gets burned.
"Uh…okay," Sam says, after thirty more excruciating seconds of intense study. "Whatever you say," falling back, relaxing into his seat.
"Damn right, whatever I say," Dean says, all mock serious, and it pains his face to smile like he does. "And don't you forget it."
Sam just chuckles slightly before staring out his window, and Dean turns up AC/DC and hopes that that'll serve as enough of a deterrent.
He doesn't think he can do this, he never has. The weight of it is crushing him; these secrets, these shadows, are getting heavier everyday and he's been using his façade far too much for it to do anything else but fade, even if it's only him that can see the path to his self-destruction.
So, no, he doesn't think he can do this. Not at all.
But he has to.
(First time in this fandom. Hoped you liked.)