Wow, thank you so much for the lovely response I have had back for this. It is so unlike anything I have ever tried before, your kind words mean the world, and really encourage me, so thank you.
Just a quick note to say firstly that dates and chronology are taken from John's journal on the official site, and secondly, that though he may seem a little OC now, he is more grieving husband than Obi-Wan monster hunter. As for those of you who wanted to know how John takes the news of Sam's identity, I am going to be an awful tease and say that not everyone in this story comes to know the truth. You'll have to read on to see which ones do. So I hope you enjoy this next part, and remember, I work in a job that thrives on communication so please speak up and let me know what you think!
Make his fight on the hill in the early day
Constant chill deep inside
Shouting gun, on they run through the endless grey
On the fight, for they are right, yes, by who's to say?
For a hill men would kill, why? They do not know
Suffered wounds test there their pride
Men of five, still alive through the raging glow
Gone insane from the pain that they surely know
For whom the bell tolls
Time marches on
For whom the bell tolls
-Metallica.
The ground slowly stopped shaking beneath Sam's knees. It looked bad, he knew, John's unconscious son lay bloody and beaten in his arms. He half expected his father to shoot him on principle. What he had failed to realise was that the man before him, trained killer though he was, had not spent years being forged into the hardened hunter he would become. He had lost his wife-probably only months before, Sam realised, sick to his stomach.
Now Sam held the life of John's son in his clawed to hell arms.
Fucking ghouls.
His first instinct was to seize his father, hug him, apologise, yell, to do anything that would bring him another second with the man he had loved so much. And he did love his father, fiercely. Sam had many friends, and twice as many acquaintances- he had never had difficulty forming relationships. His love, however, he kept carefully boxed away.
Perhaps that was the true Winchester curse. Their love, though rarely bestowed, would last beyond death to the ruin of those left behind. His father still loved his mother, always had, but even though John's attention was focused solely on the now, Sam could feel the grief radiating from his very skin.
The sound of a bullet sliding into the chamber of John's gun - a nine shot S&W Sam himself had fired on many occasions, and the soft whimpers of a stirring child broke the spell that had settled momentarily on the cemetery.
Any question as to the boy's identity was negated the moment Sam broke the cardinal rule of hunting and looked down into the small face.
God almighty…Dean.
"Gonna have to ask you to back off, friend." Somehow, John managed to keep his voice civil, a skill he learned in the Marines, perhaps, because Sam knows he would have freaked if some stranger had been caught with his hands all over his baby boy.
And that was before they got to the things that went bump in the night.
Not willing to test his father's famously short temper, and adamant to go at least five minutes without fighting with the man, Sam carefully lay his big…little…Christ…Dean on the softest looking patch of dirt he could spot. Then it was simply a matter of sliding back on his knees, ignoring the pull at one of many bleeding wounds, and raising his hands in the universal symbol of Unarmed, please don't shoot me. I'm having a bad enough day as it is.
"It's okay," he ventured, treating his father like he would a wild horse, especially if said horse was armed, pissed, and looking to make something hurt. "I'm a friend." More than a friend. He wanted to say that, that and so much more, but if Sam were avoiding the subject of his sudden, not to mention abrupt change in location, John might just have a heart attack at the Back to the Future situation.
Dean moaned again, and if the shattering sound made Sam want to tear out his own heart, then it was entirely understandable when John shouldered the gun and dropped to his knees besides his son, Sam and the ghoul forgotten.
What followed threatened to break the young hunter in two.
Barely conscious, and hurting in ways no child should understand, Dean responded to the familiar touch of his father in a way that made both adults bleed inside.
He called for his mother.
Over and over. The whispers becoming louder and louder until the pain brought about full consciousness, and Dean was screaming for Mary with as much volume as his small lungs would allow.
Watching from the outside, Sam wasn't sure how his father coped. Just the knowledge that this was Dean, his Dean, who was hurting and scared and missing their mom so damn much…Sam had never been faced with anything like it. Dean sucked up pain like a sponge. Sometimes Sam thought his brother actually welcomed it. Extreme circumstances had seen the escape of a treacherous tear or two, but this desperate wail…
It was so unDean like that Sam was convinced there was some kind of mistake. Wherever he was, be it some spell, some paralleled universe, the past, or possibly even Hell, the mastermind behind the details had a few facts wrong.
This wasn't Dean.
"Shush, baby, I got ya. It's okay, Dean, daddy's here." John was crying, and yes, that settled things in Sam's mind.
He was in Hell.
The shapeshifter had wasted him, and this was his eternal punishment for being some part of the demon's evil scheme.
He swallowed, licked his lips and tasted the salt there. His own tears began to burn. God, if only Dean could see him now, he'd call him a pussy and roll his eyes, then sneak the last of the M&Ms into Sam's bag and refuse to eat them because they were 'tainted'.
"He needs a hospital." Sam found his voice, rescued it from drowning in the confusion and sorrow deep inside himself. Dean still screamed, sobbing and twitching, John holding him and rocking them both. "Now," Sam barked in the tone he had learned from the broken man at his knees.
The order penetrated his father's terrified mind. Orders meant combat. Combat meant death. He followed the voice of authority without question, climbing to his knees and lifting Dean with him. The shift must have nudged some injury in Dean, because the cries fell silent and so did he.
The Impala, dusty and in need of a good wash, was parked at the entrance to the cemetery, and after a second harsh command from Sam, John climbed into the passenger's seat, Dean in his lap. Though he was taken aback by the obedience of the most obstinate man on the planet, Sam figured that John would rather let a stranger drive his car than let go of Dean.
It was a twenty-minute drive to Lawrence Memorial Hospital, but the roads were empty, and Sam made it in less than fifteen.
When the doctors rushed Dean away, John attached to the gurney as it speed down the corridor, Sam collared a nurse.
"He's allergic to codeine." He said softly, not knowing if the allergy that made his brother so ill had been diagnosed, and unwilling to even risk the possibility that it hadn't.
It wasn't until the controlled chaos of the emergency room had settled to a relative calmness that Sam let his knees sag, and he fell awkwardly against the magazine rack. A young nurse asked after his health, her eyes warm and compassionate. Sam could only nod mutely and stare in shock at the newspaper on top of the pile.
December 15th. 1983.
Twenty-three years. He'd lost twenty-three years. They were misplaced, or rather he was.
It was funny. The foundations of his entire life had quite literally vanished beneath him, and all Sam could think was how he wished all this had happened just a month earlier.
God, Mary, I'm so damned sorry…
John thought he must have been Nero in a past life. Or maybe Genghis Khan. What else could explain the thundercloud of torment that hovered above head, pregnant with thunder and rain that threatened to wash away everything he loved?
First his beautiful wife.
Now his precious son.
Dean was sleeping, just sleeping, though he checked with the nurses every time they passed by, just in case. He wanted to rest his hand on the small chest, feel it rise and fall with every breath, but the doctors had put seven stitches in place to hold together torn flesh.
John couldn't even think about it without wanting to vomit again.
He'd made it to the bathroom the first time, but there was no way he was leaving Dean's side again, even though he should probably call Mike. He and Kate would be worried sick, but it was her fault Dean was here, John had only away from him for a half hour, answering more police questions- as if he hadn't done so a hundred times already. Half an hour, and that thing…that devil, it stole his son just as the fire had stolen Mary.
Two of the most precious beings in the world, and he had failed them both in less than a month.
His son's pleas for his mother still echoed in John's ears. He hated them, not only because in his mind, they embodied the sounds of ultimate suffering, the very sounds his soul echoed, but because in that terrifying twenty seconds, Dean had spoken more than in the past twenty-three days and seven hours combined.
Yes, he kept count.
The smell of lukewarm coffee flooded his overwrought senses as a plastic cup was pressed into his trembling hands.
He looked up, the stranger from the graveyard shuffled awkwardly from foot to foot, as if he didn't know what to say. Someone had patched him up, washed away the blood to reveal a young face and ridiculously long dark hair.
This man, no, boy- he had to be five or six years younger than John, had saved Dean's life. John would have been too late, Dean would have ended up just another name on the list of missing children burned into the hearts of parents across the country.
"Thank you." He said, his voice thick, and he wasn't talking about the coffee.
Nodding, as though saving children from monsters was a day-to-day occurrence, the kid took a seat in the red plastic chair besides John. They both sat in silence, long minutes passing as they watched the blond haired boy lost in the bed breath in and out, in and out. Finally, a hand was thrust awkwardly towards him.
"Sam." The kid said softly. His eyes were bright, and he dropped John's hand almost on contact, as if the touch burned him.
"John." He offered. Sam nodded, looking pleased with the answer.
"I spoke to his doctors. They said he should be alright."
This kid saved Dean. John had to remind himself that as the suspicion rose and fell within his chest. Sam looked harmless, but- oh god, he didn't know. He needed Mary. Everything inside of him screamed out for someone to listen, to believe, to understand, but at the same time, he had to protect his boys, keep them safe. Sam had practically torn a monster's head off, not blinked an eye.
He might understand.
But he sure as hell wasn't safe.
"I know what happened to your wife." The words were blurted out quickly, as if Sam was afraid that if he didn't get them out, he might never speak them. John sighed, resigned to more looks of distrust, sympathy and sadness. Instead, Sam looked eager, like a puppy, full of nervous energy and twitchy limbs. He was excited, afraid and caught somewhere between the two. It was an odd thing to witness.
And then the word that sealed the lid on a fire that would grow stronger than the one that stole his world; John's avenging flames.
"I know what you saw, I saw it too. I believe you. I want to help."
TBC