Looking For Space

Author: Cheryl W.

Disclaimer: I do not own Dean, Sam or any rights to Supernatural, nor am I making any profit from this story.

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CHAPTER 5: All the Wrong Moves

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The Lord is near onto those who are of a broken heart, and saved such as be of a contrite spirit.

~ Psalms 34: 18

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At Dean's sob, Jason looked over his shoulder, saw that Dean's douchebag "friend" had already left so he steered Dean to the side of the tracks, sat them both down on the edge of the bridge, their legs dangling over the five story drop. Wasn't surprised when Dean scooted out of his hold, looked away from him, ashamed maybe of breaking down. But Jason didn't leave his side.

Nodding good bye to his two friends as they retrieved their bike and headed back toward the trail in the woods, Jason watched them leave. Looked to Dean and saw the flush to his friend's cheeks, the blood dripping from his lip, the tears still silently slipping down his face. And he knew Dean's backstory, listened to the hunter's talk, even when he wasn't supposed to. Understood Dean's pain better than he wanted anyone to know he did because it was pain akin to his own.

"My Mom died to save me," Jason declared, watched as Dean's head sharply came up, as the red eyes met his. "We were….attacked and…" but Jason couldn't recount the story, not if he didn't want to break down like Winchester already had. Inhaling, he reigned in his emotions, focused on why he had started talking in the first place. But he couldn't look at Dean, not when he confessed this, so he looked down, to the gully and rushing water so far below them. "But I don't want to die avenging her," he quietly bared his dirty little secret, didn't look to Dean, didn't want to see disgust in his fellow hunter's expression. "I know that makes me the worst gutless son ever. And I keep thinking..if I could get over it, you know, that fear of dying. If I could get past it, then I could do whatever I have to do for her…like she did for me."

And Dean didn't know what to say, felt Jason's pain and knew the unbearable weight of loss, of trying to avenge that loss. Couldn't imagine knowing that loss was to save him, that his mother died saving him. It would…make everything so much worse, the hunt so much more….important. And that felt like a betrayal of his Mom, thinking that her dying what's enough to make it important, that she had to die saving him. 'She might have saved Sam,' and that only twisted things worse, because Sam …he wasn't into avenging her death, at all. Felt like Jason did..but wasn't even trying to step up to the plate, to hunt, to find the strength to be the one to give everything for his mother, to honor her sacrifice.

And it made him hate Sam in that moment, that his brother shrugged off that duty and Dean had taken it up, Dean who his mother hadn't died for. "You haven't run away," Dean declared to Jason, knew that was something, was everything. "No matter how afraid you are, you haven't run away. You hunt, have tried to honor her memory, to avenge her death. What difference does it make if you don't want to die doing it. None of us want to die."

Jason nodded, wiped an errant tear away but then posed, "Even if it means freedom? From hunting…from the guilt …the pain?"

Dean honestly couldn't answer that one, knew he should be able to, that dying was bad. But when living was nothing but pain…what was so horrifying about it ending? All of it. So he joined Jason in his silent inspection of the river below them, wished that the current could sweep him away, take him somewhere else, make him into someone else. Fiercely wanted, in that moment, for Dean Winchester to cease to exist.

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Caleb headed back to his motel, couldn't think of where else to go…what else to do. But it wasn't Josh there to ambush him in the lobby this time but Mac.

"Dad, what are you doing here?" grateful and surprised by the man's unexpected presence.

Taking one look at his son, Mackland Ames sensed the edge Caleb was on, that something worse had happened not something better since their talk on the phone. "Let's go to your room, son," Mackland gently suggested, nodding his head toward the bank of elevators. And contrary to his habits, Caleb said nothing on the way there, not in the elevator, not down the hallway and not even in the room after Mac had shut the door and turned to him.

"I take it your talk today with Dean didn't go well," Mackland carefully broached the subject he knew was tearing his son up inside.

That was such an understatement that Caleb's exhale was more hitching sob than anything. And he backed away when Mac worriedly advanced toward him, knew he didn't deserve comfort from his father, not after what he had done. Putting his hand up to ward off his father's approach again, he shook his head, felt like the room was closing in on him. "I can't…."

"Ok, ok," Mackland soothingly conceded. "We don't have to talk about it. I'll order room service and we'll…."

But Caleb couldn't accept the normalcy Mac was offering to him. "Eat dinner and pretend nothing's wrong?" he scathingly charged, angry that Mac thought a dinner, like a good night's sleep, could wipe it all away, his guilt, how badly he had acted.

Mackland had dealt with a Caleb this defensive, this broken before…when he first met him, invited him into his home, left him ransack his heart. So he said what he had then. "You can tell me anything and it won't change how I feel about you, Caleb."

"Wanna bet," Caleb snidely shot back.

"I'll take those odds," Mackland evenly returned, holding his son's gaze. "Just tell me what happened, Caleb. Please."

Caleb's eyes welled and when he spoke, his voice sounded like he had been gargling with broken glass, "I hit Dean."

Mackland's first instinct was to deny Caleb's confession, to tell Caleb whatever injury he inflicted on Dean was by accident, not intent. But something dark and broken in his son's gaze shattered that belief.

"He….he….he was …." Caleb ran a hand through his hair, began pacing the room. "He was playing chicken…on a bike …against a train and…." He shook his head, raised his eyes to his father. "I thought the train hit him. I …when the cars finally passed and I saw him….he was…" Anger flared in him and he wanted to smash something. "He was acting like he won the freaking Grand Prix! And I…it made me so angry. That he thought risking his life…." But Caleb's lips pressed together, held back saying more, continuing.

Understanding how things might have progressed from there, Mackland said without condemnation, "And you argued and you lost your temper."

Caleb didn't agree, explained instead, "I was angry yeah but …he said I wouldn't get a reward if he died and we weren't on a hunt. That if I was smart….or…or…lucky, I could stall on the next hunt, let him get…..killed. Then he wouldn't be anyone's burden. And I…." again his voice went out on him.

"Struck Dean," Mackland finished the story his son couldn't, didn't need Caleb's nod a few moments later to know he was right. Then it was Mac running his hand through his own hair as he realized that he had two distraught boys on his hands, both were his sons, one through legal adoption and the other through heart adoption. Then his legal son abandoned his withdrawn stance, instead came right up to him and asked him to make everything better.

"You have to talk to Dean, tell him how….how sorry I am, that I …I screwed up but it was only because I was terrified. That I almost watched him die and then he's talking about dying on a hunt…" Caleb desperately rambled. "I can plead temporary insanity, something. You can get him to listen to me."

Mackland suddenly felt unequipped to deal with the situation, to live up to his son's opinion of him, to heal Caleb's hurts. "Caleb, I don't know. Dean's not sought me out lately, has always listened to you more than me."

"You're great with kids," Caleb came back with.

Mackland snorted. "Since when? Last time we were at that steakhouse and those kids at the other table…"

"You got through to me," Caleb declared, faith shining in his eyes.

Macklaid said his usually comeback when Caleb thanked him for saving him, adopting him, making him his son. "You were worth it…"

"And so is Dean," Caleb ardently decreed and Mackland knew that Caleb had him, dead to rights, and they both knew it. "Ok, I'll go talk to him but you're coming to."

Instead of a protest, Caleb nodded his head. If Mac got Dean to want to see him, let alone talk to him, he'd forget all about his aversion of emotional scenes and hug his Dad right there on the spot.

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Whatever success Mackland felt when Dean actually opened the door to his entreaties evaporated into thin air at the boy's glare, and that was with Caleb sitting in the car. He felt himself wince internally at the cut lip the 15 year old was sporting, proof he didn't need that Caleb hadn't been exaggerating the confrontation between the two young men.

"Dean, can I come in?" Mackland asked, knew it was important to give a traumatized kid as much power as he could. But he should have recalled that he was dealing with Dean here, who might be just a kid but was a maverick at outthinking opponents, even those with medical degrees.

"No, my mom said she broke up with you and she doesn't want to see you anymore," Dean delivered that statement loud and with force and like it wasn't just nine types of crazy as he put his hand on the doorframe, barring Mac's entrance into the room.

"Your….mom…." Mac stuttered, feared that Dean was more injured than he looked, had suffered memory trauma, until Dean winked at him before tilting his head to the right.

Following the teenager's gesture, Mackland saw that there were two senior citizens about to walk past him and they were warily watching him, probably had their hearts set on calling 911 on their Ladybug cellphones as soon as they reached their room. Leveling a warning look at Dean with that his tone matched, Mackland began, "Dean…"

But Dean called over his shoulder, into the empty motel room. "Mom, your boyfriend's stalking you again. Apparently the restraining order isn't scaring him off."

Gritting his teeth and feeling foolish for being manipulated by a 15 year old kid, Mac saw that another younger couple had now paused in loading their car for a day of hiking to watch the scene unfolding. "Dean, I'm just here to help."

Lowly, so no one else heard and it destroyed the scene he was acting out for his audience, Dean hissed, "I coulda used your help when you son used me for bait." He bit out a low curse when he saw, behind Mac's back, that Caleb was getting out of the car, stalking forward to join them. He really didn't want to look at Caleb, let alone talk to the jerk.

Having heard Dean's playacting even from his position in the car, Caleb knew his father was out of his league with handling a pissed off, emotionally withdrawing Dean. But when Dean's hate filled gaze slammed into him, he almost retreated too, would have if what he told his dad wasn't true: that Dean was worth whatever war wounds he came away with.

"Dean, we're coming in so suck it up and move aside," Caleb briskly said, knew he had to take off the kid gloves. 'Right, kid gloves, that's what you call backhanding the kid. The 15 year old kid?!,' he chided and it stopped his head long pace, made it impossible for him to push past Dean, to even touch the kid, in gentleness or otherwise.

But Dean's jaw went up in defiance and he stepped more fully into the doorway. "All I need to do is yell 'help' and the cops and Child Protection Services will get involved," he predicted with quiet menace, knowing how even the mention of CPS freaked Caleb, who had been through that scene with brutalizing affects. "Kid alone, no parents or guardians in the residence, it's just the kinda thing that gets a kid tossed into an orphanage. Course I probably will get put into one of those clinics for abused kids…. when they see the scars and bruises." To prove his point, he lifted his shirt to expose his ribs, still black and blue from the hunt, from playing bait for something that liked to play with its food before it ate it. He took some sick pleasure when all the color drained from Caleb's face as his threat sunk in. Mac didn't look too well either when he saw the bruises.

Seizing the winning hand he had dealt for himself, Dean growled, "Now stay away from me." Then he closed the motel door, threw the bolt and put the chain on for good measures. But he stayed by the door, his breath amping up as he waited, hoped that Caleb and Mac would leave, that he could just be left alone.

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It was a sober ride back to the motel, the unmitigated failure with Dean weighing heavily on father and son. "I have to call John, don't I?" Caleb dolefully asked, staring out the side window.

"If you think Dean's endangering his life doing dares and he won't listen to you or I…." Mackland let the rest unsaid, yearned for Caleb to reply with something hopeful.

"The train was….so close to hitting him today and that river stunt…he could have drown," Caleb's voice showcasing how badly both occurrences had shaken him up. But it despaired him, thinking of betraying Dean's trust by getting John involved.

"Do you want me to call John?"

Though Caleb appreciated his father's offer, he silently shook his head. This was his mess, he had to clean it up, make sure Dean came out on the other end of it ok. 'Even if that means Dean wants me out of his life for good.' And that thought made him want to do his own death defying stunt….right off a bridge like the one Dean had played chicken across that day.

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TBC

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Thanks for reading & reviewing! I'm really loving hearing your thoughts!

Have a great day!

Cheryl W.