Chapter 8

Dean had frequented a number of dives in his time, but this place was a total pit. The neon sign on the front wall was missing half its letters. The name of the place was either the Lucky Star or the Leaky Seat, though the five, now four, pointed star rusting on the door gave some weight to the former.

The windows looked to have all been broken long ago, their yawning cavities covered over with cardboard and duck tape. The neighborhood around it was as run down if not more so than the bar. With a gun and three knives, he still felt under protected. At least it was daytime. If there was a place where bad things might decide to prowl for victims, this would be it. He'd have to come back and check it out again when he had more hardware on him.

His father never came home the night before. Dean had already been to five other places looking for him. Seemed his Dad got himself kicked out of each one and been told never to show his face there again and all that in just a handful of days -- and now this. Enough was enough, even if it was John Winchester.

The aroma of stale vomit and cheap whiskey greeted him as Dean pushed open the front door. He spotted a handful of costumers, most off in different areas by themselves, sitting in rickety chairs and barely standing tables. Loud snoring echoed from the right, overriding the whining jukebox and speaker feedback from the other side.

A beat up bar, gouged and carved over by customers from top to bottom took up the back. The frame of what once might have held a large mirror sat held up on the wall. Draped over the bar, with a partially empty bottle of some no name hooch, was his father.

As Dean approached, his Dad moved just enough to kick back a filled shot glass.

Knowing better than to approach him unannounced, Dean stopped six feet from him. "Dad."

He got no reaction.

"Dad!"

His father threw a slow look over his shoulder in his direction. He looked bad. Eyes were totally bloodshot, his beard more unkempt than usual, the color of his face was off. Worse, his left eye was almost totally swollen shut and there was a dripping gash over his cheek.

"Dad, it's time to come home." Dean spoke slowly and without inflection, not sure how his father would take the pronouncement in his current state.

The red-eyed stare lasted a moment longer then his father turned away and poured himself another drink.

Dean hoped to heck the stuff he was drinking was watered down. The last thing any of them needed was to have to deal with a case of alcohol poisoning. Getting his father home was going to be hard enough as it was. He took a step closer. "Dad, please, let's go home. You're going to kill yourself if you keep going like this."

He might as well have been talking to the floor for all the reaction he got. What his father didn't like he either ignored or blew apart. When he wasn't in total control, he ran hot or cold with nothing in between. Could come as quite a shock if you didn't know him, and sometimes even when you did.

Still, the fact he was being ignored worried Dean on a level deeper than anything before. He'd partly suspected this, but had hoped otherwise. There really wasn't any room for doubt anymore though. Loosing Sammy was destroying his father and he more than happily was helping it along.

Anger flared inside Dean even as another part of him wept. All he'd ever done was try to keep their family healthy and together, yet neither his father nor his brother seemed to care that it was falling apart, even less that they'd be leaving him alone because of it.

For a moment he was tempted to just turn around and leave his father to his self imposed fate. Guilt and shame snuffed out the feeling almost immediately. His father wasn't wrong on many things, but with regards to Sammy and this he couldn't have been more mistaken. Dean couldn't give up on him now, not after everything they'd been through, not after all the sacrifices, the training, the hardships, not after what had happened to Mom. They still had things to do, people to save, monsters to kill. And there was always the chance things could be made right between all of them again...somehow…

He stepped forward and placed his hand on his father's shoulder. "Dad, we're going home." He squeezed. "Now. Please."

"I'm not finished here." His father's words slurred together but there was no mistaking the irritated tone of impatience.

He wasn't leaving Dean much choice. He might have to remove his father bodily, something he wouldn't take to kindly and would likely have painful consequences. Dean knew he was good, but against his father, even inebriated, it could be chancy. Luckily he had one ace up his sleeve. One he'd kept close just in case of something like this.

"Dad…I've heard from Sammy."

His father turned around so fast he almost tripped and fell to the floor. "What did you say?"

The look of burning need in his face made Dean want to turn away and hide from it, it was so desperate and vulnerable.

"I've heard from Sammy." He pulled out two postcards from the pocket of his jacket. "He's at the college. I have an address for him."

"He's all right?"

Dean nodded, recognizing the hopeful tone, the grasped lifeline, which meant he could pull his father once more away from the abyss. "Yeah, Dad, Sammy's all right."

When Dean reached for his arm to put over his shoulder, his father didn't resist.