Author: Mirrordance
Title: Crossing
Summary: 3 versions of the final hunt that could have pushed Sam to leave for Stanford... The lines blur between good and evil on (1)a job that forces John to choose between his sons; (2)a mission to kill another hunter; and (3)a job that requires Sam to kill a child to save his brother.
hi gang!
Thanks to all who read, alerted, favorited and especially all who reviewed the first intsllment of Crossing I know I owe a lot of responses, but RL has been taxing lately in all possible avenues and like a whole bunch of people, I caught the flu bug that's going around on top of work and classes :( Nevertheless, it has been awhile since I updated this story, and I figured to show my thanks, here's another installment and I hope you enjoy it.
The last installment of Crossing will be much longer, and I'm debating whether or not I should just chop it into parts, haha, but I am a fan of symmetry so it might just be a long one-shot. Anyway, C&Cs always welcome if you can spare 'em... I know so few of us have a lot of time, but your thoughts are always inspiring and enlightening :) Without further ado, Dead Man Walking:
" " "
2: Dead Man Walking
The lines blur between good and evil
on a mission to kill another hunter
Late Spring 2001
" " "
He always felt he was a little bit on the outside, looking in.
When he was younger, it was the backseat of the Impala, watching his father and his older brother up front. He got a little bit older and it was his dad and his teenage brother and their hushed conversations quieting, the moment he got even just a little bit into earshot. Older than that, and it was dad and his Dean talking about a hunt, or recovering from one. Even after he found out about their lives and got immersed in the hunt himself, there was an externality to it that he could not shake off; he did not have his father's single-mindedness, and he did not share Dean's passion.
Today, therefore, could have been just like any other day.
He stood stock still inside the closet, and he felt merged with the dark. A sliver of light came from a disjointed slat from which he, once again, looked from the outside-in.
"Where's your brother, Dean?" the hunter asked his brother. The two men sat across from each other in the living room.
"Out," Dean lied, "He just finished high school a couple of days ago, you know. He's going crazy with some friends of his."
"Yeah?" the other hunter asked. Sam knew his name, of course. The other hunter was Mike Florini - Uncle Mike for crying out loud- but people lost their endearments the moment he wanted any one of the Winchesters dead and at the moment, it seemed like he had his sights set on Sam.
"Yup," Dean said, "We'd be moving out of this town soon, so you know... he's just out there. Probably won't be back for awhile."
"He graduated top of his class, didn't he?" Mike asked.
"You betcha."
"You must be proud."
"You know I am," Dean said, and the tone of the conversation went from light to loaded, just with his one statement - "I'd do anything for that kid."
Silence, so long and all at once too short. Mike Florini got the message: if he wanted to do anything to Sam, he'd have to go through Dean first.
"I know," Mike said simply.
"I'm kind of like Uncle Jerry that way--" Dean began.
"Don't you be talking about him," Mike snapped, cutting him off.
Uncle Jerry, Sam remembered. Mike's late older brother. He had been the outsider looking in on that death too...
... The viewing room was hushed and tight; it felt like a small, concrete box with no air and no light; lifeless, and all at once quite bursting with nervous energy, like the fuse of a bomb running on death.
He was Sam Brown today, rookie reporter for the Indie Gazette. He was about to watch the execution of a notorious serial killer for the very first time.
He sat next to a gruff man named John Winchester, who at any other time would have been either 'dad' or 'sir;' today, they pretended to be nothing but strangers incidentally sitting together, waiting to watch a macabre show. John Winchester was in the gallery to watch the lethal injection of a friend, Jerry Florini. He was the only friend or relative of Florini to watch. Everyone else in the gallery were either relatives of those Florini had victimized or government officials including those who caught him and those who prosecuted his case, his defense attorney, and a smattering of reporters.
They sat quietly most of them, except for those murmuring to themselves that the day they've long waited for justice to be brought forth had finally come, but that it still did not feel right. That nothing can bring back those they loved and lost. That this was still too good for that crazy sonofabitch.
They all settled down in their seats, facing a large glass pane that was covered from the other side by a dried-blood-dull-red curtain. There was a large clock in the room, and at the very second the clock struck the hour of 4 pm, the red curtains were parted by a uniformed prison officer, offering the a view of the execution room beyond. It was a sickeningly flat gray space, just walls and machines around a leather bed and the man of the hour himself, Jerry Florini, standing in his prison jumpsuit, ready to be strapped in for his too-soon trip to the after-life.
Sam felt his father stiffen up beside him. Their father knew a bevy of hunters, trusted a scant few of them, and of that scant few, genuinely liked maybe just one or two. One of them was Jerry Florini, who was now scheduled for execution for a host of crimes he did not commit. But what else can you say, really, when a werewolf turns back to human form after you shoot it? Or when you lose a person in the middle of an exorcism? If you stab a human-like thing in the heart? If you desecrate graves? If you're so poor you use fake credit? Florini did what any other hunter does on a regular basis, except he got caught. Open and shut case, pat a copper on the back, maybe give him a promotion for getting one more sicko off the streets. There was no way to justify Florini's actions short of insanity, but that didn't fly so well, especially since at the start his pride was too high to play it up. Now all the possible routes provided by the legal system were exhausted, and here they all were: Florini at the very front of death row, John watching because he had his own code of honor for his friends like that, and Sam beside him pretending none of this monumentally mattered to him.
Florini was handsome once, Sam mused. Sandy, dark-blond hair, clear eyes, reckless grin. His voice was rich and humorous, his wit quick and sharp. Florini was 'Uncle Jerry' for a long time, he remembered. Dean's first few old-school rock n' roll cassette tapes came from him, and the mix tapes were gleaned from the older hunter's collection. The first editions of Busty Asian Beauties that Dean had ever set eyes upon were found in odd corners in Florini's library. While these were admittedly banes that Sam now had to live with, the one great thing about Jerry Florini was that he was a big brother to another hunter, Uncle Mike. Uncle Jerry made it cool to be a big brother to somebody, and a young Dean duly took notice. Sam reflected that their father seldom exposed his two sons to the underworld of hunting subculture and limited their interactions with other hunters, but the brother-thing, coupled with the fact that John had served with Jerry when they were in the Service in the 70s, made the Florinis a good point of reference for the Winchester boys. They lost touch after Jerry was arrested and summarily put on death row. Sam did not think watching his execution would hit him quite so hard after all that time, except his stomach had knotted in ways he did not expect.
The reason became glaringly clear minutes after the curtains parted. Dean Winchester – Dean Auden today, rookie jailer in the prison– stepped inside the execution room and started helping strapping Jerry Florini in. They had the same height, Sam noted in numbing realization when Dean stood next to Florini and ushered him to lie down. The same color of hair, the same clear eyes.
The older hunter was shaking, afraid now as anyone would be despite a lifetime of bravery and heroism, eyes haunted and lonely and latched onto Dean as if looking for one sympathy. Dean gave it subtly, and only Sam and his father would have noticed. Sam imagined Dean's hands, warm and steady and reassuring in that room, even as he laid the older hunter on his death bed, even as he helped tie him down. Sam watched Dean wind the straps to the man's wrists, and discreetly gave him a reassuring squeeze, before letting go.
Their father could not have done it, to have been in there with Florini. Logistically, because he was older and did not fit the rookie-jailer-transfer cover, and he was also known to the jail because he visited Florini once in awhile. Sam was relieved for the existence of the practical limitations because he felt his father would not have been psychologically prepared for it either; he might have gone crazy and done something in there, which would not have helped anybody.
Settled in for the ride, Florini was asked if he had any final words. He hesitated, said he was at peace with his God and with himself. He said that he did not want to die and that he felt he did not deserve it, but that he hoped his death would fix something for somebody. He ended the short speech with one sentence in Latin, something he knew the hunters in the room would understand. Tell my brother I love him, and that I'm sorry it all came down to this.
They dosed him. He closed his eyes. He breathed in, then out, again and again until he didn't anymore. It was both uneventful and unbearable.
"I'm sorry," Dean said quickly, "I guess it still hurts, huh? Even after all this time? To lose your brother. It'll never go away."
"Shut up," Mike growled, and the cool veneer he had gone into the room with was vanishing quickly.
They stared at each other for a long moment.
"Where's your brother, Dean?" Mike asked, all casual pretensions gone now, replaced by the low, dangerous tone.
"I told you he went out," Dean lied.
It was not the first lie they ever told Uncle Mike, and it also wasn't the first one he did not believe...
"...How did my brother die?" Mike Florini asked the Winchesters, hours after they sat through Jerry's execution.
"Peacefully," John said without hesitation, "Like he just went to sleep."
But it was a lie. There was nothing peaceful about it and they all knew that, It was just cold. That kind of death did not carefully lift a man from one life to another, it just plainly ended him. It was the difference between jumping off a cliff with arms wide open and flying, and being thrown off of it. It was that much different.
Then again... a man asks you how his brother died and he does not ask the question, not really. He's asking you to lie.
"Thank you John" Mike said quietly, "For being there for him when I couldn't."
Mike was a wanted man on the run himself, Sam noted, for the same crimes as his older brother whom he had hunted with. It was why the only safe place they could meet and tell him about what happened was a seedy bar out in the middle of nowhere.
"You asked me to," John said, "He'd have wanted it too, and I wanted to be there. He said to tell you he loves you, and that he's sorry it all came down to this."
Mike nodded, turned glassy eyes away from John and looked at Sam and Dean, as if looking for anything else to think or talk about.
"Boys," he said as he cleared his throat, "You're all grown up. Who'd have thought anything coming from your father would come out so damn good-looking."
"You kidding?" John asked, "Sam looks like me."
Sam's brows rose. He observed that too, but had never heard his father say it and never imagined it would be said quite like that.
"I'm sorry for your loss, Uncle Mike," Sam told him quietly.
"Not like this hasn't been on the calendar for years, huh, Sammy?" Mike asked.
"It's just 'Sam' now," Sam corrected him, "It's just Dean who—"
Florini's eyes actually crinkled in muted humor, "He finally conned you into believing he can do that, huh?"
"Crap, you're right," Sam's eyes narrowed in irritation, "Damn it."
Mike turned to Dean, "Good job on that, by the way. You pick that up from Jerry or something? How to turn stupid, impressionable kid brothers from a very macho Mike to a lame-ass 'Mikey?'"
Dean smiled at him slightly, almost shyly, "Yeah."
Mike pursed his lips together, "Your daddy said you were on the inside."
Dean gave him a short nod. Sam noted that a cat caught his older brother's tongue today, but then again Dean just did not do grief very well and being 'on the inside' could not have been easy. He did not speak about Jerry Florini on the car ride away from the execution site at all.
Mike stared at him for a long time, waiting to be told something it seemed, anything at all. He was searching for something new to know about his brother, as if he was not dead, as if there could still be news, instead of just memories.
"Was he scared?" Mike asked, finally realizing the younger hunter was not going to give up anything freely, "What was he thinking? What was he..." he stared at Dean, caught the glazed look in his eyes.
"He was as macho as always," Dean finally said, taking pity on him. His eyes streaked sad, then was masked in that adroit, casual manner of his, "You know him."
"Yeah," Mike echoed quietly, "To the very end, huh. Well. He's in a better place now." He picked up his glass, raised it, "Let's just drink to my brother, all right? Greatest damn hunter in the world, probably having a romp with the angels up there, 'cos he sure as hell wasn't scoring on them Victoria's Secret ones down here."
The three Winchesters raised their glasses, downed the drink all in a gulp. Sam watched his brother let the lip of the glass linger on his lips a little bit longer, as if he wished there were more.
"What are you gonna do now, Mike?" John asked.
"I'm hitting Jerry's burial site for saltin and burnin," Mike replied, "Then it's business as usual. I got a lot more ax to grind, now. Jerry died for this job so I can't stop, I can't.... I can't not think this is the right thing to do."
"You need some help?" John asked, "Want some company?"
Mike paused, honestly thought about it, "Nah. Wanna be alone for a little while, John. Gotta let this thing marinade. I'm not gonna go do anything reckless or crazy, I guarantee you that. Jerry won't have any of that shit from me. But I just gotta be alone for a little while. You get that, don't you?"
"I get that," John said softly, "But you know all you gotta do is holler, right?"
"I know," Mike said, "Thanks."
And Uncle Mike hollered all right. Called up their father months later about help with a hunt. John dropped everything and went. He dropped the downtime he had planned with his sons so soon after Sam's triumphant graduation. He dropped looking after Dean, who was ill with a bad case of the flu. Normally the brothers turned antsy whenever their father took on a job and left them behind, but it was with Uncle Mike for crying out loud, and just a few miles from the tiny, rundown single-bedroom house they've been calling home for the last few months. There seemed no reason not to let him go.
Which was a mistake, apparently.
"I know you're lying, Dean."
"Then you also know I won't be giving you a decent answer," Dean snapped.
"Where's your brother?" Mike barked at him.
"He's out," Dean growled, "And it's gonna do you good to do the same."
Sam watched his brother, marveling at the show of strength, and the unquestionable conviction. Dean has been sick as a dog for almost two weeks, was barely well enough to attend Sam's graduation days ago, but it was one he dared not miss. Sam still remembered him sitting out back, even if he had reserved seats by virtue of Sam's honorable achievements up front, ashamed because he looked unquestionably ill. He sat hunched and huddled in his clothes, their father beside him. He looked sick and weary, but proud of Sam and that pride sent waves across the room. Sam wondered if Dean left any of that pride to himself; Sam's graduation was his achievement too. Dean had taught him how to read, and the first things he'd ever written, he'd written with Dean's small, warm hands wrapped around his fingers – You hold the pen like this, Sammy. Right up to his very last finals test in high school a couple of weeks ago, Dean was helping him...
"...Dean stop breathin' on me," Sam growled when he felt his brother stand behind him, looking over his shoulder as he worked. He was using the small dining table as a desk, and the entire thing was strewn over with paper and books. The only thing that wasn't related to school that was on the table was a steaming cup of coffee, because it was going to be a long night of studying.
"I'm serious, man, stop breathin' on me," Sam insisted when Dean didn't move, "I don't wanna get sick too. I'm on the last stretch of high school, for crying out loud. Go infect me later."
"I'm not breathin' on you," Dean snapped indignantly, "Just checking on the work, genius. You've been on that one thing for hours and you look like you're pissed and when you're pissed you piss me off, all right? So lemme look. See? You just missed an 'x' there."
"Yeah right," Sam snorted, but he checked the equation anyway. Dean had not done any of this in years, but he did not discount the fact that his brother had lazed and aced his way through some of the subjects somehow. He felt Dean walk away, and did not bother telling the older man that he had been right. Dean probably already knew that anyway.
Dean coughed into his sleeve; that cough was beginning to sound rougher than a standard cold. "Dinner?" he asked Sam.
"Not from you," Sam said in a sing-song tone.
"You're bitchy when you're stressed," Dean said.
"I gotta get this done," Sam said simply.
"But you're already sure you're finishing high school," Dean pointed out, "This is that test for all those people who need a final shot to make it. What's with the bitching stress levels?"
"I told you I got accepted to college," Sam said impatiently as he worked, "But if my transcripts are perfect? I'm looking to get that free ride too, not just a partial grant."
Dean quieted a moment, muffled another cough that racked his body.
"You should get that checked out--" Sam began.
"So you've made up your mind, huh?" Dean asked, "You're leaving me and dad."
"I didn't say that," Sam said patiently, looking up from his work and at his brother with careful earnestness, because he knew this was important to Dean, "I haven't made up my mind yet. But I need to do well here, you know. Just in case I do decide to go to college."
"Just in case," Dean muttered.
"I'm not gonna get more into this with you right now," Sam said, "I gotta study."
"But for the record--"
"I know," Sam said wearily, "It's not gonna fit in with our life, and dad's gonna piss bricks when he finds out. I know the drill, Dean. But now I gotta work."
"You gotta eat that's what you gotta do," Dean said, "You get pissy when you're hungry too, you know? Growing kid like you."
"At least I'm still growing."
"Bitch!"
"Jerk."
That cough had turned into bronchitis days later, and then bronchial pneumonia not long after that. The test Sam had aced, and then college acceptance turned into full-ride to Stanford. Dean got steadily more miserable as Sam began to climb the rungs of the world. It was as if there was just a steady source of happiness in the world, such that where one took, he had to take it from somebody. Sam succeeds and Dean gets sick. Sam leaves and Dean stays. Sam gets shoved into the relative safety of a closet and his brother – ill to begin with – gets stuck on the outside with a homicidal maniac.
"I don't want to hurt you, Dean," Mike said.
"Sure you do," Dean told him, "'Cos anyone who wants to get ahold of Sammy has no choice. What happened to you, Uncle Mike? What the hell happened to you?"
"I'm like I've always been," Mike told him grimly, "A little bit dented, a little bit scarred, whatever. But I'm still a hunter and I'm still doing the job, kid. And your brother... he's the job this time around."
"You've lost your goddamn mind--"
"Have I?" Mike countered, peering closely at Dean, "Have I really, Dean?"
"Yeah," Dean said, "I'd fucking say so."
Mike pursed his lips, "You know Dean... when Sam was a kid, he asked me something funny. I figured there were some things he couldn't ask you or your daddy, so he went to me. He said he knew his mommy died in a fire and that he was just a baby then, but could he remember the things he saw? Could he remember things he saw when he was just six months old? Because he could see a woman burning on the ceiling."
Sam's heart pounded in his chest, vaguely remembering that he did ask that of Mike Florini once, because there were some things he just didn't get to ask Dean and their dad about his mom.
"Hours later," Mike said, "Somewhere else, I get wind of a fire like the one your mom died in. I think Sam made it happen, Dean. Just by his mind. Either that, or he saw it before it happened--"
"This is ridiculous," Dean said, "He was just a kid for crying out loud. That was just him, having nightmares about the things he just found out about hunting."
"He was six when he asked me this, Dean," Mike said, "I thought nothing about it; he was cute as a button, you know, this poor kid having nightmares about his dead mother, right? But then I hear snatches here and there over the years: weird kids, more dead mothers... and it comes together."
"You're full of shit, you know that?" Dean erupted at him, and his voice broke into a cough that Sam knew he'd been trying to hold back to make a show of being strong, of being able to handle Florini. That facade was gone now as he doubled over.
"You all right there, Dean-o?" Mike asked.
"Shut up," Dean gasped, "Goddamnit."
"I'm sorry this has to happen Dean," Mike said, "You have to know that. But Sam has to die. You'll protect him as much as you can, but I'm telling you right now, I'll keep coming at him 'til I'm dead. It's just the job, Dean. You're a hunter, you understand. I'll always be willing to die for the hunt. My brother died for the hunt too. It's for the best."
Mike stood up, and Sam could have sworn the older hunter was looking straight through the broken slat of the closet at him, from the inside looking out at him, ready to drag him in.
Dean and Sam sat next to each other in the living room, watching a rerun of, of all things, Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Dean found one of Sabrina's aunts sexy for a witch and all that. He was wrapped up in a blanket, looking miserable-ill but finally recovering. He was supposed to be in bed, but their father out on a hunt without him meant that he was waiting in the living room until John got back from his hunt with Mike Florini.
Sam just snickered at the commentary, and was about to say something scathing when they heard Dean's cellphone ring from the next room, which was the one the boys slept in.
"Get it for me Sam," Dean whined as he half-faked a cough, "I'm sick."
"You're abusive, that's what you are," Sam pointed out, but he predictably stood up. He walked toward the room, even as the phone rang a few times and then quieted. "Probably already missed it anyway," he called out as he stepped inside the bedroom, "Where the hell did you put that damn thing?"
Sam heard the house phone start to ring. It was perched on a wall in the living room, and he also heard Dean groaned but get up and made a grab for it, "'Ello."
It was quiet for a moment as Dean listened to whoever was on the other line. It was probably their dad, because no one could shut Dean up quite that effectively--
"Do you need me to come get you?" Dean asked urgently, which made Sam's own heart stop. Sam heard a car pulling up in front of their house, and he glanced out the bedroom window. It was Mike Florini's old truck.
"Why aren't you with Uncle Mike?" Sam heard Dean ask as he snatched up Dean's cellphone and stepped out into the living room. Florini knocked at the door, saying, "Open up, Dean, I can hear you in there!"
Sam headed for the door, ready to open it for the other hunter. Dean looked up at Sam, alarm in his eyes. He dropped the phone he was holding, and intercepted his younger brother. He hasn't moved this much and this quickly in days, and he already looked pale and winded.
"Dean--" Sam began, only to be cut off by Dean's warm hand – but that fever had already broken! - over his mouth.
"Trust me and shut up."
Sam knew that tone, and the trust was never questionable. He blinked and nodded.
"Hold yer horses, Mike!" Dean called out, and he gulped at a cough, "I'm coming from the can!"
He turned Sam around the living room, looked to be struggling with his options.
He lowered his voice to a whisper, explaining, "I don't know what's going on, but Mike Florini's gone off the deep end and wants something from you. That was dad on the phone; said Mike trapped him somewhere, took his cel, slashed at the tires of the car. He's coming soon but I gotta keep Mike away from you, try to get you outta here."
"But the car's with dad," Sam argued, also in a whisper, "Mike carries the keys to his car so we can't grab that and I doubt we can snatch those or hotwire that car fast enough before he catches up to us. Maybe we can hop out the window and make a run for it?"
"This house is in the middle of the nowhere, Sammy," Dean said, "And Mike's a great tracker. We run out there and we're on his turf. 'Sides... I can't..." he was breathless and struggling, "I can't protect you out there, like this. You get me?"
"Dean come on!" Mike insisted from the other side of the door.
"I'm there, I'm there!" Dean called out, coughing again. To Sam, he said, "We gotta improvise. Mike doesn't know we know he turned on us, I just need a little bit of time to figure this out, and 'til dad gets here."
"The two of us can take him--" Sam began to argue, 'til he noticed Dean was weaving. Dean wasn't going to be taking anybody down, and as long as Sam had his brother to worry about during a fight on top of trying to knock out one of the best hunters out there, their options felt remarkably slim.
Dean shoved Sam inside the storage closet in the living room; it was almost funny, this six-foot-plus guy shoved in a closet like he was six years old instead.
"Seriously?" Sam asked his brother.
The tension eased from Dean for the briefest of moments, "Tough guy like you, Sammy? This'll be the last place he looks."
"What about you?" Sam asked.
"He knows I'm in here, he doesn't know you are," Dean replied, "I'll take care of this but for god's sake, Sam: don't go out."
"What?! Why would he--No--!"
"I don't have time to argue this," Dean snapped, "Now's not the time. You trust me?"
"'Course I d--"
Dean shut the closet door on his face.
"Wait," Dean said to Mike, grabbing at the older hunter's forearm forcefully, even as he was still doubled over from coughing, "No, please."
Mike tried to shake off his grip, but Dean was resolute and clung tight, pressed himself against the other hunter insistently. "I'm sorry, Dean."
"No--"
Mike backhanded him across the face, sending him to the floor, the seat he had been on toppling down with him. It took all of Sam's self-control not to jump out to help his brother. But Dean tossed him a warning glare from the floor, keeping him rooted to where he was inside the storage closet.
"Sammy!" Mike called out as he walked past the closet, went deeper into the house, "Come out come out wherever you are!"
Mike walked into the kitchen, his gun held ready in front of him. He walked down the hall, toward the two bedrooms in the small house.
Dean bolted to his feet, opened the closet to let Sam out. He shoved the keys he had snatched from Mike's coats during the minor tussle into Sam's hands.
"Run for his car, lock the doors, drive away, don't look back," he said as he shoved his brother toward the door, "Now, Sam!"
"I won't go without you," Sam told him, knowing that anytime Dean said Don't look back it meant he wasn't sure he could follow.
"He doesn't want to hurt me," Dean promised him, "He's after you. Now go. Go!"
"Dean--"
"I promise," Dean insisted, "Please."
Sam gave him a short nod, then ran. His booted feet pounded on the hard ground, pounded with his heart, pounded with the sound of the bullet that went from gun to torn air through to the torn flesh at his back.
"Sam, no!" Dean yelled.
He hit the ground senseless.
" " "
"Sammy?"
He moaned, struggled against the hands on his shoulders, shaking him awake. The movement caused fiery pain to course up and down his body, emanating from his back, just by his right shoulder.
"Don't try to move," came the low voice of his father, "You got shot in the shoulder. Just stay still, all right?"
Sam gasped to greater awareness, fought to get up from the ground he was lying by the stomach on, "Dean-- Dean's still in there--"
John patted him reassuringly on the uninjured shoulder, ordering, "Don't move," as the older Winchester ran back into the house. It wasn't the first order Sam had ever defied.
Growling and cussing and letting the bull-headedness that rang strong in his veins drive him, he pressed against the ground and struggled to his feet. He staggered, swayed, but let his determination carry him forward.
"Dean, no!" his father cried out, and damn but did that make Sam twice as strong. Sam stagger-ran to the door, all caution and pain out the window in fear for his older brother. What he saw as he stood by the door, however, was one he did not expect at all.
Mike Florini was lying on the floor, unconscious and limp and so bloodied that he seemed faceless-unrecognizable. His older brother was pale, shaking and bruised, straddling the older hunter with fists torn and messy and unquestionably overused. He trembled violently, and his eyes looked both manic and lost. Their father was trying to hold him back.
"Dean, it's all right!" John said as he held his son from beating up Florini all the more, "Stand down, son!"
Dean's breaths were heaving and ragged and there was no indication whatsoever that he even heard his father's commands. He looked like a mad dog, sick and rabid and hideously bloodthirsty.
"Stand down!" John barked again, and he held his son in a wrestler's grip, trying to calm him down, get him to submit. Dean kept squirming, fists and elbows making frustrated movements at escape. He was turning purple, and soon the fight bled out of him. He succumbed to his father's grip, sagged against him.
"He g-got," Dean gasped and stammered, breaths coming in hard and broken by coughing. His eyes were fever-bright again, tears streaming down his cheeks from sickness and grief, "He got S-s-sam."
"No he didn't," Sam said, stepping inside the room. Dean looked up at him with eyes clouded with illness, fatigue and breathtaking hope. The naked vulnerability was disarming, and it terrified Sam. He fell to his knees in front of his father and brother, hesitant, like he did not know what to do with all that love and with all that fear.
But Dean did. He grabbed his brother forward, pressed his younger brother against his chest. Sam felt the strength of Dean's grip at the back of his neck, felt Dean's fingers twine and tug and tangle at his hair. He held back just as fiercely. From Sam's place, he could hear Dean's heart thud a mile a minute, felt his burning skin, felt the deprived rise and fall of his chest, felt the crackling cough and the incessant shaking. He could smell Dean's sweat and beneath it, the medicine he'd been taking, the ointment he used for pain relief, the soft soap from the sponge bath he had hours ago. The smell of Mike Florini's blood underwrote them all, stuck on Dean's clothes and his swollen fists and his psyche.
Their father extricated himself from his sons, walked over to Mike's body. Mike looked broken and very much beat to death, but Sam didn't know for sure until his father pressed fingers to Mike's throat for a heartbeat, and then he shot Sam a look of fear before he hid it.
Outside-looking in...
"Is he alive?" Dean asked.
"Yeah," John said, but Sam knew it to be a lie. Dean had been fever-blind and enraged when he pounded into Mike Florini; he'd thought this man had killed his brother. But killing Uncle Mike still would have hurt him even now, and he didn't need that right now.
"What was that about?" Dean gasped. His chest heaved beneath Sam's ear, a struggle up and then a fast down, again and again, shorter each time.
"Just stand down now Dean," John said, "I'm calling 911."
" " "
John had no choice but to report what happened to the cops when they got saddled with Mike Florini's dead body in their house and a bullet was lodged in his younger son's shoulder. It made the news that the famous fugitive - the last of the Florini brothers- was finally off the streets when he came after an innocent family that fought back. Once the story reached the cops and hit the news, there was no more lying to Dean. The cops took his statement from his hospital bed, while he was still hooked up to machines that helped him breathe and tanked up on drugs to help him heal. His younger brother, also hospitalized, corroborated his statement expertly – Mike Florini was a friend of the family before he turned fugitive. He returned and tried to kill us, Dean killed him in self-defense – and then they turned away the reporters and the families of the 'victims' of the Florini brothers who wanted to meet them.
Sam had a number of visitors from school; friends, classmates, teachers. Hours of his mornings were occupied with them, and at night he sat with his older brother, who had just their dad visiting him. The older Winchesters were in the middle of another one of their hushed talks when Sam stood by the door.
"Should you be walking around so much?" Dean asked, and his voice was still breezy.
"It's my shoulder that's injured," Sam replied, "Not m'legs." He stepped forward, dragging his IV pole with him as he went. Their father vacated the seat by Dean's bed, and Sam thanked him and took over.
"You good?" Dean asked, when Sam settled.
"Yup," Sam said, "You?"
"Always."
Sam snorted. He paused, bit his lip before asking, "So do we know what Florini was talking about?"
No more Uncle Mike; the personalization would have hurt Dean. Just let Florini be some stranger they didn't know.
"He just lost his mind, that's all," John said, "Ran into some demons, they dicked around with how he thought. He's been off since his brother died."
Sam heard him, but he watched Dean's face instead. "What do you think?"
"Like he said," Dean replied after a beat.
"So there's nothing--"
"There's nothing wrong with you Sam," Dean sighed, "All right? I mean, do you even remember what he was talking about in there?"
Yes.
"No," Sam lied, "I don't."
Dean sighed again, ran a weary hand over his face. His knuckles were swollen and bruised and cut up something fierce. He looked at them, and Sam knew what he was thinking.
"You had no choice, Dean."
Dean blinked at his hands, "First person I ever--"
--killed.
"--hurt," he said at last, "First person I ever hurt."
And it had been for me, Sam thought. His brother had killed for him, even as Sam was lying to him right this very moment about what he knew. He had seen a woman burning on the ceiling. He had asked Mike Florini about it and someone did die like that shortly afterward. Maybe there was something wrong with him. Maybe Mike was right to kill him, which meant that maybe Dean was wrong to murder him. Sam's stomach clenched, and he felt sick. He felt like he wanted to get out of here.
"You had no choice, Dean," John repeated what Sam had said. Sam knew that saying it over and over didn't make it any more or less right.
They were neck-deep in this life, now, Sam knew, for more than his father's obsession with his mother's killer, more than their usual lies and petty crimes. This was blood on Dean's hands now, and he was tainted and dirtied by it. Dean had killed for him, and he wasn't even sure he was worth it.
I'd rather be outside looking in, he thought, rather than drowning.
Dean shuddered, started shivering again. The relapse was hard on him, and coupled with the emotional roller-coaster of having thought Sam was dead to murdering Sam's killer with his bare hands, Dean was a long way from regaining full-strength. Sam pulled the blankets up to Dean's shoulders, and his older brother growled at him in annoyance.
Let me take care of you, he implored silently, Because I'll only get to do it for a little while more. I've made up my mind.
I'm getting out.
I don't want you dying for me, and I don't want you killing for me; I'm just a nobody. You do what you have to do in this life, Dean, and if you fall, I'll be on the outside and I'll catch you. We won't be two Florini brothers on death row, one a little bit ahead but both walking down the same path headed for the same end.
I'm getting out.
I'm getting out, I'm staying out and when you need someone to pull you free from all of this, that's where I'll be.
The End
November 8, 2009
Thanks for reading, and 'til the next post!