Author Notes in Chapter One.
CHAPTER FIVE
Sioux Falls, South Dakota
"You ever meet your granddad?"
"No, Dad hasn't really ever…I mean, he wasn't in the picture. That's about it. Why d'you ask?"
"Well, I can't speak from my own experience, but I figure if I wanted to know the kind of man John was before he had you, before your mother was taken, I'd just have to look at Sam."
It stings in a way he wishes it didn't, in a way only the truth can. Sam's always been the one more like Dad, no matter how many mannerisms or styles Dean tried to copy. He drums his fingers on the tabletop. "Won't ever know, I guess. Time only goes one way, Bobby."
Bobby leans on the table, lowers his face and forces Dean to meet his eyes. "I didn't mean to offend you, kid."
Dean shakes his head. "You didn't."
"All the same. Didn't mean any offense."
Everyone wants to hear a story with a hero and a villain, and Dean's tale has neither. In simplest terms, Dad was an ass and Sam was a prick and they were both so stubborn and frustratingly similar things never could have ended any other way. But no one wants to hear that story, not even Bobby.
Dean is used to drawing the good versus evil line in the sand when it comes to hunting. Dad's trained him well enough to see the supernatural in terms of black and white. He's just not accustomed to having to draw that line in his family.
On the other hand, this is what he's been waiting for, what he's needed for weeks. Someone to hear his side, maybe TAKE his side if need be. It's been just him and Dad too long already; the line is there, acknowledged but never mentioned. Dean can't pretend he doesn't have issues with his father. Sam's abrupt departure was just the beginning. The past month has been nonstop lies, secrets, and runaround. Shit, why stop at a month? Who's to say it hasn't been this way his entire life, and he's simply been too distracted, kept too happy and compliant to notice?
With the opportunity to make that metaphorical line in the sand a reality, something inside is tugging at Dean, begging him to keep quiet, be it love or loyalty or the fear of thinking, what happens next?
Bobby has refilled his glass while Dean was thinking, only a splash, but encouragement nonetheless. He slides it across the table, and he has a funny look in his eyes. "Wanna talk about it?"
Dean grasps the glass with both hands and shrugs, like a child would. Once the flood gates open there will be no going back to the way things were before this was put into words and given life. This is Bobby, and he won't keep quiet. "Is it time?" he asks with the bite that's expected of him, trying to buy more time. "Is this the talk? I haven't had time to practice my speech."
Bobby's not one to coddle or sugarcoat or splash around in conversational bullshit. "Dean, your daddy could be back anytime. You got somethin' you wanna get off your chest, I suggest you do it now."
Dean scratches behind his ear. "Yeah, I don't know, Bobby. I don't know what happened." Then he gives in. The alcohol gets credit for the assist. "Just the…never-ending carousel of bullshit fights and Sam never bein' happy with what he's got. I don't…I just feel like there's more I should have done or said. Shouldn't have waited so long to chase him down to the bus stop, should've hauled his overgrown ass back to the house. I let my baby brother run off, Bobby. The kid I'm supposed to…that I'm responsible for." He laughs, a harsh bark that hurts sharply somewhere inside. "And now…" Dean raises his eyes suddenly, realizes he let the floodwaters roll out. He swallows and lifts a shoulder. "Bobby…"
Bobby is staring intently. "You think it's okay for you to feel this way, Dean? You think it's right? Sam was not, and is not, your responsibility. You're just a kid, yourself."
Dean smiles, fingering his glass. "I'm a lot of things, Bobby. Kid ain't one of them. Haven't been in a long time." He drains the rest of his drink and lets the glass fall back to the table with a hollow thunk.
Bobby squints. "No, I s'pose not." He's got that look all of Dad's friends have had at some point over the past eighteen years, when he's dropping his boys off with someone else to go out alone and play monster hunter.
Dean attempts to intercept, wags a finger. "Don't. I don't…don't blame anything on him. That was Sammy." Almost like saying it will make it true.
"Well, Dean," Bobby sighs. "Your brother always was a smart kid."
Dean's hand falls heavily to the table. He stares at Bobby, unable to separate and focus on one thought in his racing, whiskey-addled mind. This is what he wanted, right? Justification? Vindication? The pit in his stomach would beg to disagree.
John Winchester chooses this moment to come banging back into the house. Dean startles as the screened door smacks the side of the house.
Bobby looks out to the front room. "In here, John." And back to Dean, his eyes darker and sadder than before.
John lopes into the kitchen, loosening his tie. He grabs a beer from the refrigerator and twists off the top, leaning against the counter and rubbing at his shoulder. He takes a pull from the bottle, frowning and gesturing at Dean with the drink. "This is resting?" His tone is light, a brand new fucking day.
Bobby chimes in before Dean can answer. "My fault, John. Told Dean to buck up and finish having that drink with me." He stands and moves to the counter, collects the things to make a pot of coffee.
"Yeah?" John takes another drink, thirstily draining nearly half of the bottle. "Hope that means you're up for a fight. I've sure got a feeling about this one."
Dean folds his hands in front of him on the table, squinting up at his father, of whom he's actively working on not seeing double. "Field trip panned out?"
"Oh, yeah." John sets the bottle on the counter and tucks his hands under his arms with a slight wince. "There is definitely somethin' going on out there. Five-year-old whacked his dad."
"Maybe he deserved it." The whiskey lets the words slip out but Dean would be lying if he said he put up a good fight against them.
John tilts his head, the only movement he makes. Bobby looks back and forth between them like a tennis match spectator.
"Stabbed him twelve times with a kitchen knife," John finally says.
"Ouch," Dean replies. His insides feel hot, a trail of fire, lava spilling from his mouth.
"There was something else."
"What's that?"
"Housekeeper says she saw a pale boy in the kid's room two nights before the murder."
Bobby perks up, eyebrows raised. "Spirit?"
"S'what I'm thinking, but it's too early to know for sure. And that always brings up the question of whose spirit? We have some work to do."
"We?" Dean challenges, muscles on stand-by, his entire body coiled like a spring just ready to go.
John straightens in a meaning-business kind of way and Bobby pushes up from the table, keeping himself between the two. "Well, now, I think everyone's a little tired and tempers are runnin' a little high, and maybe the whiskey wasn't such a good idea after all. What do you say we get some sleep and talk shop in the morning?"
Dean points a finger Bobby's way. "Fantastic idea. Great strategy meeting, Bobby." He slaps a palm on the table and stands shakily, tucking his elbow into his side. "Thanks for the drinks."
As he weaves his way to the bathroom he catches the beginning of a conversation he's happy to miss but will surely experience the consequences of in the morning.
Lennox, South Dakota
"Mr. Wade was a very sad man."
John follows a petite Hispanic housekeeper through the spacious marble foyer, ignoring the lingering aches in his body and striding past a pair of uniformed officers with an authoritative nod. Like he owns the place. He adjusts the knot of his solid gray necktie. He'd been in such a hurry to get out of Bobby's, to escape those prying eyes, he'd had to change into the suit at the corner fill-up joint.
"Coming a little late to the party, aren't you?" one of the officers comments as John flashes a badge.
"Get 'em as they cross my desk," he coolly returns.
From what he's sussed out, the housekeeper had come in to work the previous morning to discover her employer in a pool of blood on an expensive Oriental area rug. Wade's five-year-old son was sitting next to the body, quiet as a church mouse, covered in his father's blood and clutching a knife from the block in the kitchen.
John has a strong stomach but the residual coppery tang in the living room is overwhelming. The thick fibers of the ornate rug have absorbed a body's worth of blood and that won't be quick to dry. He focuses on breathing through his mouth. "Any particular reason why?"
"Mrs. Wade." The housekeeper, Rosa – wearin' a goddamned nametag, for cryin' out loud, this world we live in – stops at the island counter in the kitchen and pours a glass of lemonade from a crystal pitcher. The house is filled with finer things than he's ever hoped to own, the kind of things Mary had always admired on television programs.
John waves off the beverage offer. "She died?"
"She left. In the middle of the night, with one of her students."
Ouch. "How did Mr. Wade take that?"
Rosa's eyes narrow and she seems confused for a moment, almost like she's not sure what she's allowed to say next. "He never hit the boy."
John's having a hard time believing that, given the nature of the man's demise. Wade may never have struck his son but that certainly doesn't mean he was a candidate for Father of the Year. "Did Mr. Wade have a temper?"
"Mr. Wade never hurt him," Rosa insists.
"Did he shout?"
She doesn't respond, but her hands twitch on the countertop. She steps away from the island and begins wiping the granite with a clean towel. Her compulsive cleaning is a tell, a show of anxiety.
"I'll take that as a 'yes.'"
"I did not say – "
"You didn't have to, ma'am. You have any idea why…" He checks his notes. "Dylan, would do such a thing."
A dark look comes over the woman's features and her hand goes to her apron pocket. There's something spooky in her eyes, a loyalty he wouldn't expect in such a situation. Like Stockholm Syndrome, maybe. Or like she's been threatened to keep quiet. The whole thing stinks of abuse, but his gut keeps nagging, telling him there's something more going on here, something more sinister.
Rosa's hand comes away from her pocket clutching a worn wooden rosary. She suddenly looks terrified.
John shifts his weight, leans conspiratorially across the cool granite countertop. "What did you see that night, Rosa?"
"Dylan, was…" she pauses, trying to think of the right words, maybe. She works her mouth. "Wrong," she says finally, harshly. "Dark."
Dark. John frowns. Demon? But it's concerning, this new pattern. He hasn't crossed paths with a demon in almost three years and now everything is coming up demons. The experience he does have says they don't traditionally kill for sport, they have an agenda. John fails to see how this investment banker fits into ANY kind of demonic plan.
Rosa worries the beads, doesn't look like she's said all she has to say.
"Rosa?" he prods.
"There is more," she says, almost a whisper. She studies John's face, deciding whether or not to trust him.
He makes a conscious effort to soften his expression but this is not a strength of his.
She swallows. "There was another boy. A pale boy, in Dylan's room. I saw him one night."
Maybe not a demon, after all. John tilts his head back. Knew this was our kind of thing.
"I told Mr. Wade, but he did not believe me." Her shoulders fall. "You do not believe me."
"S'not personal, ma'am. I'm not trained to believe." John flips closed his notepad. "I'll be in touch."
Sioux Falls
Bobby pauses on the threshold of the kitchen just a moment, taking in the slumped frame of the boy in front of him. Dean can play like a man all he wants, but he's still a boy in Bobby's eyes. The same one over which Bobby caught high hell for throwing a ball with instead of shooting cans or studying Latin.
The past few times John dropped the kids at the house Dean's been of an age Bobby'd figured it was okay to give him a beer or two, but kept him away from the hard stuff. The last time he'd seen the kid had been just after his twenty-first birthday, and Bobby'd offered to buy him a stiff drink he'd declined with a glance at his little brother. He'd do anything for that kid.
He doesn't know what these two idiots are thinking; Sam's always held the power in the Winchester family.
"Busted ribs?" Bobby pries gently from the doorway. He's not surprised; both men look more or less like shit. Dean's forehead and cheek are a patchwork quilt of contusion hues and he's holding himself in an awkward and familiar manner. John had appeared exhausted and sore all over on the porch, rotating his left arm at the shoulder discretely, but not discretely enough.
Dean flushes, straightens in his chair, though it must be paining him to do so. "Just the one. It's nothing, really."
Bobby doesn't like the way Dean's looking at that bottle on the table. He recognizes the look, has seen it in John's eyes more than once; like he's rekindled with an old friend. Bobby's felt that feeling before, himself. FEELS it. It's not a good road to start down, and not one you can always find your way back from.
"Always knew John'd pass down that stubborn nature of his," Bobby says, grabbing a second glass from the cabinet. He leans against the counter and wipes out the inside of the glass with a dish towel. "You inherit his drinking habit, too?"
"Seems easier this way."
"What seems easier?"
"Everything." Dean's voice is hollow. The whiskey's already taken the edge off of the pain.
Bobby frowns, wants to derail this train of thought. "Well, I wish I'd known you fellas were comin' by," he says, keeping a good distance at the counter. "I'da tidied the place up a bit."
Dean shakes his head. "No, you wouldn't, Bobby."
"You're right. Housekeepin' wasn't really ever my thing."
"You know whose thing it was?" Dean refills his glass. "Sammy's."
As soon as the bottle hits the table Bobby moves close enough to snatch it up, pulls it to his side of the table, along with a chair. "What the hell happened, Dean? Where's Sam?" He's only human, wants to hear the story here. He slides into the chair across from the kid.
Dean doesn't seem quite ready to spill, is visibly biting his tongue. Bobby pours a bit of whiskey into his own glass. "Boy, he's saved my ass more'n I can count, but your daddy is one stubborn son of a bitch."
"Yeah, well, my brother's not much better." Dean tries to keep his tone flat, careful not to agree or disagree. Careful to stay in the middle, where he feels needed. It breaks Bobby's heart to see him watering down his opinions and emotions for the sake of keeping his family together. Fat lot of good it seems to have done him. Maybe the kid should have leapt into the fray more often.
"The two of 'em." Bobby shakes his head and snorts. "Two stubborn asses, buttin' heads." He pauses to take a sip. "Good for Sam, though."
"Yeah, I guess. Guess I just never thought about him not bein' around."
"Your brother's not you, Dean."
Dean looks up, his expression hurt, betrayed. But not wanting to hear it doesn't mean it doesn't need said. Bobby knows he's hearing He's not one to tow the line, when it's really more like, he's not one to make the tough choice.
"Huntin's not for everyone, son. I don't know that your brother ever really had him in him."
Dean shrugs noncommittally.
Bobby frowns. "Tell me you're happy for him, at least."
Dean's face hardens, staring into his glass, avoiding Bobby's eyes.
Yes, he lied. Over the years John's told countless lies to many, many people. He's pissed off folks, lost friends, burned bridges – some very, very recently, and been a downright son of a bitch on more than one occasion. But never unless it's been necessary. Never unless it was the right move at the time. Dean's been so damned caught up in blaming John for Sam without actually coming out and saying it, not to mention hurting, he's not in the right frame of mind to take on the size of what's coming. It's still not time to bring Dean in on this, to tell him what really happened in that bar and John needs Bobby, in more ways than one. Needs him for back up on whatever this new case turns out to be, needs his sizeable brain and library to dig up some useful information regarding demons and their activity. Their patterns and motives. Kid should be resting, anyhow, made that abundantly clear back in Missouri. Could've gotten the both of them killed.
John props open the creaky screened door with his boot, allowing Dean to enter without the added effort. The action seems to piss off his son even more. He stomps past his father with a look he wouldn't dare have tried before Sammy took off, dropping his bag to the hardwood floor and strides directly to where Bobby is waiting in the kitchen. Bobby's not one known to require a liquid boost of courage to speak his mind, but there's an open bottle of whiskey on the table amongst books and papers, a tumbler next door with a light ring of amber circling the bottom of the glass.
He's a sight for sore eyes, that's for damn sure. A lot of things change but Bob Singer isn't one of those things. Any more than nature taking its course, seen in graying hair and a deepening of the creases in his face. Same as John, himself. John's not one for fashion advice but Singer could sure use some. A new hat, at least. His cover is ratty and faded with dirty, gray mesh, probably as old as Sam. He'd excuse the outdated outfit on an afternoon spent working in the garage if he didn't know better. This is just Bobby, and Bobby's always had a thing for the sort of screen-printed sweatshirts Mary put Dean in for Christmas pictures. This particular navy number is adorned with a group of ducks taking flights, complete with splashing water and swaying cattails. The hideous thing should be salted and burned.
Singer's leaning much too casually against the high back of a kitchen chair. John knows what's coming next, also knows there's not a damned thing he can do to stop it. The wheel's already spinning in Bobby's head.
"To what do I owe the honor of this very unexpected visit," he opens deliberately. "Not that you aren't always welcome, a'course."
Anyone else might accuse Bobby of being ignorant to the fact he might as well be rubbing salt in an open wound. Not John. Singer knows exactly what he's doing, has already gone 'round this carousel before. Dean has yards and yards of respect for his father – or so John would like to think – but it's clear he feels he's been done wrong. He might not know just how close to the mark he's hitting, but he knows there's something important he's been out of the loop on. His alliances are shifting, anger loosens his lips, and Bobby is a teddy bear next to himself. Singer has that look already in his beady little eyes, like he not only wants to know what's going on, but WILL KNOW.
Dean looks away, and John knows he'll spill. Maybe today, maybe tomorrow. But he'll definitely tell a story. And maybe that's what John really wants; to not have to tell it, himself. He leans in the doorway as Dean sits down stiffly across from Bobby, anger and injury straightening his naturally slack posture.
John is a creature of habit, and much more self-aware than he's been given credit for in the past. He knows he will soon find himself itchin' to be anywhere but a part of the conversation these two are about to be in the middle of.
He'll bolt.
But first, he has to put the bug in Singer's ear, preoccupy his expansive mind with things that MATTER. "Can I get a beer or something, Bobby?"
Bobby bobs his head and moves to the fridge. "Sure thing. Dean?"
Dean grabs Bobby's empty tumbler and thunks the thick glass bottom on the tabletop. "Yeah, sure. Hit me."
"You drinkin' hard liquor now, kid?" Bobby asks, turning with a hand on the door handle. He almost sounds surprised, and his eyes go straight to John.
Dean stares into the bottom of the glass in his hand. A corner of his mouth pulls upward. "Looks like."
John swallows. This has been a long time coming, if he's honest with himself. It's not like he's set the best example for his sons. He's hit the bottle plenty heavy in the darker days of his distant past, and in the not-so-distant past, as well. He doesn't want his boy to find himself relying on that false relief. It's not what he wanted Dean to inherit.
Never taking his eyes off John's face, Bobby splashes a bit of whiskey into the glass. A sip, a harmless taste for a curious boy half his age, and pulls the bottle back.
Dean glances up sharply. "Come on, Bobby. I said 'hit me.'"
John stays on the threshold, not really entering the room but not removed from the situation. Bobby fills Dean's glass a full three fingers and quickly caps the bottle.
Dean grips his arm like a lifeline. "Leave it," he grunts, and tips back the drink.
"Sure thing, kid." Bobby fixes Dean with a lingering look as John turns and heads back to the front porch. He can't bear watching this. Probably because he's the cause of it.
He leans on the porch railing, looking out over the road. A mostly still afternoon, warmed by plenty of sunshine, the tall grass along the cracked pavement swaying gently. Rumsfeld raises his head as the door opens and closes behind him with a 'creak' of worn wood and a gentle 'smack' against the frame. His tail wags but he doesn't move from the hood of the busted truck at the top of the drive.
Singer puts a cold bottle in John's hand, and he takes a refreshing swig of the beer as Bobby's eyes dart side to side, winding up the pitch.
He braces both hands on the railing next to John. "What the hell is goin' on, John? I've got people from one coast to the other callin' me, askin' if you've dropped by yet."
"Why would they do that?"
"Don't you think you should be tellin' me? You show up here after more'n a year without a call. Sam's MIA and Dean's in there drinkin' whiskey like it's milk."
"Sam's gone." John's never been one for words.
It isn't much of a stretch for Bobby to assume the worst. Hunters do. "Damn it, John. I'm sorry. How?"
John gives him a sidelong glance, tipping back another mouthful of cold beer. "Gone to school, Bobby."
Singer shakes his head. "Then don't say it like that, John. Son of a bitch." He recovers, eyes narrowing. "Gone with your blessing gone, or run off gone?"
John gives him the easiest possible answer to a question he doesn't want to answer. A long, silent pause.
"I'm sorry, John, but damn it, I told you."
He did, many times, and he's hardly the only one, but that is neither here nor there. "I'm here for help with a job, Bobby. Don't need a scolding."
"Well, you do, but that's not the point, is it?" Singer spares the time for one last solemn shake of the head before putting on his game face. "All right. What's the job?"
Finally. This, he's comfortable with. "There was a murder last night, few miles over." They've wasted enough time already to small talk. John loves the feel at the onset of a new hunt, a fresh lead, the adrenaline rush. He wants to take Bobby and the car and drive two towns over to where the murder took place in Lennox.
"What makes this murder our kind?"
"Young boy stabbed his father to death, but more'n anything else?" John squints. "My gut."
Bobby smiles, head bobbing. "Well, those're almost always the best leads, aren't they?"
John can't help but smile, himself. "What do you say, Bobby? You up for a ride?"
The smile fades, and with a perfectly expressionless face, Bobby shakes his head. "Maybe tomorrow. Back's been givin' me hell the past couple of days."
And Round One goes to Dean. Singer has to get the story from someone, and life doesn't stop. "Fine," John says coolly. "No big deal. I'll go ahead and see what I can see. Why don't you try to dig up more info?" He pulls a slip of folded paper from his pocket and hands over the name and address of the victim to a nodding Bobby.
John clears his throat and pulls open the screened door. "Rest, Dean," he call into the house. "Don't aggravate that busted rib."
That oughta do it. Singer is a natural worrier and cares a lot about the boys; John hopes he'll force Dean to take his advice rather than let him talk himself hoarse. He tips back his bottle, finishing off the beer. "Back in a bit."
It's just as well, really. He does his best work alone.
After another caffeine and rock music-laden all-nighter in the car, it's late morning when they turn down the long driveway covered with a crooked sign marked "Singer's Auto," and the house isn't quite what Dean remembered. Since they first met Bobby when he was eight, the farmhouse has been gradually but noticeably deteriorating with each stop and this time is no exception. The porch roof is sagging, the exterior paint peeling, the yard overgrown with untrimmed bushes and branches, all a touch more than the last time he was here. It's unsettling to see Bobby letting the place go, but nice nonetheless to be somewhere familiar for the time being. Bobby being there to act the buffer between he and his father is a bonus. Dean had never realized he needed such a thing until the first night Sammy wasn't there.
Dean unfolds himself from the car and resists the instinct to stretch his spine, knowing the pain the movement will cause in other places. He does his best to hurry up the drive after his father, his feet catching in the gravel two or three times. To his credit, his father does turn to see what's taking him so long.
John hesitates on the porch. Dean climbs the steps carefully and lays a hand on the railing, steadying himself without being obvious about it. "Something wrong?"
"No." John moves forward and pounds lightly on the door, twice.
Dean frowns. His father doesn't do anything lightly. The door opens after a moment and on the threshold Bobby is a wide-eyed sight for sore eyes. Dean would assume he's surprised not to see Sammy with them, but as low as his jaw is dropped it could easily be from seeing Winchesters at all.
"John," he says slowly in greeting. "S'been a while."
"Hey, Bobby," John returns.
As he moves aside to allow them to enter and gives a pointed look to the empty car in the driveway, Bobby's ball cap-covered head dips in Dean's direction with a much warmer expression. "Dean." Looks like the house isn't the only thing he's been letting go; his hair is long in back and unwashed, his beard untrimmed, his clothes dirty and smelling stale, of sweat, whiskey and engine oil.
Dean subconsciously puts a hand over the bruises on his face as he passes. Bobby's eyes say we'll talk later, and Dean's been wondering when this moment would finally come, and how many times in the near future he's going to have to do this dance. The one where he gives the "Sammy done run off" speech to everyone who gives him that look. THIS look.
Dean bobs his head, once, careful not to make direct eye contact and give away the farm. "Bobby."
The three of them stand awkwardly in the dark entryway, Bobby not exactly wearing the expression of someone who was expecting guests. John's actively avoiding Dean's gaze and Dean stays silent, won't bail him out this time.
"Sniffed out a hunt not too far from here," John says finally. "In Lennox. Could use an extra set of hands."
"Well, then, why didn't you just say so?"
Yeah, Dad. Dean bites his tongue to keep the words inside. Why didn't you say so?
"Well, you know you men are welcome here anytime." Bobby shoots a glance between the two. "You, uh, need any help with your bags."
John jerks his head. "S'okay, Bobby. We'll handle it."
Bobby nods. "Sure. Sure, I'll just be in the kitchen," he says, holding up greasy hands for them to see.
John's clomping back down the porch steps in no time, and Bobby grabs Dean's arm before he can follow John outside, frowns. "Your dad do that to you?" he asks with disgust, gesturing to Dean's face. Specifically, the bruises still healing.
"What? No. Jesus, Bobby, no." Dean matches his disgust, turns his head away and wrangles out of his grasp.
"Am I so out of line for askin'? You've both thrown a punch or two. It was only a matter of time before they were at each other."
He's referencing Dad and Sammy but they never truly swung at each other. There was one night, a few weeks before takeoff, when Sammy shoved Dad and Dad shoved him back and Dean stepped between them and lit up the both of them, earning a shoulder check from his sprouting little brother that left a mark on his chest for a week.
Dean narrows his eyes at Bobby, swallows but doesn't speak, and Bobby wordlessly back away to the kitchen.
As he gimps after his father to retrieve the bags from the car, Dean can't help but think of the pointlessness of the first jaunt up the drive, fuming and hurting and finally finished with biting his tongue. "Can't help but notice Bobby seems surprised to see us."
John grunts in response but doesn't seem to see any use for the English language.
"Though you said he called us about a gig," Dean persists. "Like, last night."
John pulls his bag from the trunk. "Maybe he didn't think we'd show up so fast."
"Huh." Dean gently pulls up his own duffel, letting it lay a moment in the gravel. He hurts too badly not to call him out.
"Huh, what?"
"Just 'huh.'"
John slings his duffel over his shoulder and faces Dean. His eye twitches. "Almost starting to seem like your brother left his attitude behind." He bumps Dean's shoulder on his way into the house. Not forcefully, not meant to hurt, just to punctuate his statement.
And we're back to our regularly scheduled program. Dean is both his father's good little soldier and his replacement Sammy; the seesawing is making him queasy. He's not one to whine but the way he continues to be treated isn't fair. He's never done less than EVERYTHING for the man. Not to say Dean has ever had a healthy grasp of the idea of "fair."
He moves to close the car door and pauses, catching sight of a folded newspaper on the floor mat, the paper his father had been reading the night before in the gas station. Something causes him to bend, hissing as that damned rib protests, and extricate the pages. It's the kind of feeling he gets when they're on a hunt and he think he may have picked up on something that his dad missed, but God help him if he brings it up. He scans the headlines but nothing jumps out at him. The words are blurring together, and it's not hard to remember that his head's been quite recently treated like a volleyball.
But something must have jumped out to Dad. Something that caused him to lie, because Bobby had no idea they were coming. Dad found a job in that damned gas station and decided to drop in on Bobby for a place to stay without even checking in with him.
A small lie, but a lie. Dad lied. Again. Right when he was starting to let his guard down. One step forward and two steps back. Same old song and dance.
And maybe that's all there is to fair in this life.
The previous night
Interstate 96
John is watching the yellow dashes splitting the road pass by, and next to him Dean appears thoughtful, in a dangerous way that reminds John of Sam. Like he's convinced himself he already knows the answer to what he's about to ask. "Have you been out to California?"
John takes a moment. Despite the manner in which he's handled Dean's latest pile-on of injures, he doesn't often lie outright. He doesn't see anything villainously dishonest with withholding some information, but if caught has a history of conceding his defeat and confirming what he's been confronted with. He can't undone what's already been done, has never seen a point in pretending otherwise. Wants more than anything to always be working towards the period at the end of a conversation such as this, and to get there are quickly as possible. "Yes."
Dean nods once: Okay, now we're playing ball. "When?" He doesn't bother settling his features into any one emotion. Anger, confusion and resentment pass by as quickly as children on a merry-go-round.
"After your bar brawl. When you were out." With more force than Dean deserves, hoping he'll take the cue to shut up. "S'no wonder you don't remember."
"Yeah." Seems he's picked an emotion, after all. A wash of betrayed hurt falls like a curtain, washes him out. If he was believing any of this, he'd be embarrassed.
John needs to pull the plug, finds his fingers inching in the direction of the radio knobs. He flicks on the volume and begins the search for a viable station within range.
"You talk to him?"
"No, just checking in."
"What made you decide to do that?"
"No reason in particular. You were sleepin' it off." He can understand Dean's recoil, the way he presses his back against the door of the car. The words sound harsh as they're passing through his lips. Sleepin' it off? He'd been skewered.
It's not often he lies outright.
"If you're not going to let me sleep then I'm gonna need some caffeine," Dean says in a low, even tone as the clock flicks past midnight and the Impala rumbles toward a cloverleaf exit in Northern Wisconsin.
John glances over to his son on the passenger side of the bench seat. Dean's eyes are purposefully focused on the road, jaw clenched tightly, betraying the pain he so desperately wants to hide.
John isn't at all angry with Dean, doesn't like that it's coming across in such a way. Doesn't approve of the tone he's using, but can't fault him for his resentfulness. John deserves it. "Sure thing, son." He takes the next exit and pulls into the first gas station he sees.
Standing slumped and holding himself awkwardly, Dean lingers at the beverage bar, staring blearily at a percolator dripping a fresh pot of the station's boldest roast much too slowly for either of their likings. John settles for lukewarm decaf, pours a Styrofoam cup full and wanders to the newspaper stand at the counter, eyes roaming over the local headlines out of habit.
A stroke of luck, of good timing and better proximity, he spots the Lennox Independent on the lowermost rack, a city he recognizes from innumerable journeys to this part of the country, and stoops to grab a copy.
The kid at the counter leans around a plastic display of lottery tickets. "Uh, mister, those're yesterday's papers. You want newer, the guy comes around four."
"Just lookin' for something to line the cage," John mumbles, scanning the front page articles.
"High School Teacher Hits it Big in Powerball Drawing." "Art Museum to Reopen This Week." "Six Year-Old Only Suspect in Local Man's Murder."
There we go. John glances up. "This'll do, thanks." He sees Dean moving towards the front of the store. "The coffees, too."
Lennox is only a twenty miles outside of Sioux Falls, if he's remembering right, and he knows he is. Knows this country like the back of his hand. He couldn't have asked for better. A job, and a perfectly legitimate reason to drop in on one Bobby Singer. The one person who just might know more about demons than anyone else.
Dean appears next to John, and he tucks the newspaper under his arm, but his son's attention is directed at the clerk. "Restrooms?"
"Around back."
Dean gives him a salute with his coffee and breezes right past John. The automatic sliding double doors open with a chime as he digs into his wallet and hands over a ten to the counter kid.
He exits the convenience mart and waits for Dean by the car, sipping absently from the quickly cooling cup of coffee and getting into the meat of the article he's found, a murdered investment banker.
He hears the restroom door bang closed and hastily tosses the newspaper to the floor mat behind the driver's seat.
Beneath the harsh fluorescent soffit lights, Dean appears almost ghost-like. This next stop could be a good thing for both of them. A familiar, friendly face and an actual home to sleep in for a few days might do the kid a world of good.
John makes a snap decision as Dean's boot catches in a crack of the sidewalk. "Singer called while I was waitin' on you. Heard we weren't too far out of Sioux Falls and said he might have something for us."
Dean pauses. "It's the middle of the night."
It's quite a change from the "Yes, sir" he's grown used to. He indulges Dean, continues playing nice in a show of restraint he's never exhibited with Sam. "Bobby's always been a bit of a night owl. Don't you remember?"
God help him if the kid doesn't actually grin. "Yeah, I guess." Dean's eyebrows come together and all of a sudden he reminds John once again of Mary. Always worried. "We're taking another job already?"
"This is what we do, Dean," he says patiently.
"Yeah," Dean responds solemnly, but can't seem to lose that smile.
That morning
Clinton, Missouri
Standing up to John has never been a talent of Dean's. He's not really feeling up to packing himself into the car again, physically or mentally, but boys never stop trying to impress their daddies. Maybe that's the reason Sam's in California. Look what I did, Dad. Dean did it with a sawed-off shotgun at six years old. Sam did it with a sneer and a crisp piece of paper with an Ivy League letterhead. Dear Mr. Winchester, we are pleased to inform you…
"You ready to roll?"
Once he's completely upright, the cracked rib doesn't really bother him too badly. So he figures that means they're road-bound, though there isn't much he can do to detour his father's plans at this point. He gingerly pulls on his jacket and nods.
John appraises him a long moment. "You tell me if you feel those stitches pull. No blood on the leather this week."
It's like a hug with words. "Yes, sir."
John loads the Impala while Dean locks the room and returns the keys to the manager's office – the easy stuff. The manager not-so-subtly points out the bruises on Dean's face that have really come to color overnight. As if he could have forgotten. "Ran into a door."
"Sure," the manager mumbles in a way used to hearing excuses for a variety of facial bruising. Dean doesn't like the look he's being given.
John's fidgety by the time Dean returns to the car, antsy, anxious, ready to get in the car and go. It makes Dean nervous for some reason, probably in the same way it always made Sam nervous.
John's cell phone trills loudly as he's tossing the last bag into the truck, and he moves quickly to answer it, to silence the ring before Dean hears, checks the caller ID as he snaps the phone open and, yeah, he knows that number. "Yeah, Marcus."
"You tell that boy the truth yet?"
John looks around for any sight of his son, but with the may Dean's moving around right now, he's got time if he can keep this call short. "They don't want him. They want me."
"And that's why you're the one with a cut runnin' across you like a fault line."
"It wasn't that bad, and it wasn't about him."
"Got it all figured out, don'tcha? The great, all-knowing John Winchester."
"Not all." An angry heat swells in John's belly. "Just monsters."
"John, I hope to high hell I'm not there the day you ARE wrong."
John chuckles, a low one that unequivocally means fuck you. When his acquaintances hear this chuckle, it's usually the last they hear of him. "Don't worry. You won't be." He snaps the phone shut, burning yet another bridge, and throws the phone with force through the open window of the Impala.
The previous night
Dean's fingers are wrapped around the slim neck of the beer out of comfort and habit, too tired and sore to do much more than hold it. The bottle is still full, and his hand has long since warmed the contents. Sweat beads run slowly down the contours of the glass to collect around the base, staining a ring into the already worn wood of the bedside table. Down the road, his father probably has a drink of his own in hand. Or two, or three. Something stiff, something to really take the edge off.
John's done all he can patching Dean up, taped a small bandage over the cut on his head and resewn a couple of stitches to replace what he'd managed to pop when the Momo slammed into him, not an easy task due to the fact Dean was fighting him off every second of it, out of principle, out of not wanting for another moment to be on the receiving end of this false pretense of caring. Nothing to do for the cracked rib. He's pretty sure it's only the one, but certainly uncomfortable enough on its own, stabbing him with every breath.
John had awkwardly swiped at the scratches on his own shoulder blades with antiseptic wipes and changed into a clean shirt, put the beer in Dean's hand on the way out of the door, already walking crooked before he got to the bar.
Dean lowers his other arm, stiff from holding an ice pack to the bruised, aching side of his head. He lets out a breath, wincing, and glances at the clock next to the beer. Still early, for them. John won't be home for hours, even looking and feeling like shit, not when the alternative is sitting here for another painfully silent evening with Dean. The opening riffs of a late-night talk show start up. He doesn't recognize the host, gingerly reaches for the remote control and puts a stop to it.
A sudden striking chill cut through the room like a knife and Dean can't help but shiver. He exhales and the puff of breath is a visible cloud in front of his face. Shit. He flattens his palms on the mattress and pushes upright, biting his lip against the pain.
He drags himself somewhat upright, drawing a hiss from between his teeth, and his well-trained eyes scan the motel room, find it empty. Doesn't feel that way, though, but it never does. He exhales heavily, purposefully, and focuses on the space directly in front of him. Nothing.
Get a grip, Dean tells himself. He's becoming his father, taking every insecure or negative feeling and turning it into something he can hunt. Something to be warded off, something he can shoot, stab, and kill. There's nothing to hunt here, only pain both physical and not and a very empty motel room.
Dean's suddenly missing Sammy more than ever, wants to tell him "hi," wants to show off these latest battle wounds, wants to tell him that he understands. He doesn't want to understand, he's never wanted to, but he does. He stares down at his cell phone, discarded in a pile with the emptied contents of his jacket pockets on the far side of the bedside table next to the alarm clock. It's eight-thirty in California, and Dad won't be back for hours.
He releases his death grip on the beer bottle and presses his hand gingerly against the sore spot at his side. He braces himself, reaching for the phone, grunting as his fingers brush the plastic casing and nudge the phone farther away. He falls back against his pillows, holding his side tighter and glances at the door. John's never exactly told Dean that he CAN'T call Sam, only shown more than once that he doesn't approve. He doesn't need a working number for a direct line; he can figure something out.
Dean gathers momentum and throws himself to the side just as the door bangs open. Startled, he falls back, fresh stitches tugging, teeth digging into his bottom lip.
John hangs onto the doorknob and plants the other hand on the opposite side of the door frame, supporting his weight. "Feelin' okay?"
The truth doesn't have much bearing in their relationship anymore. "Yeah." Dean glances around the room, wincing as he rotates his body. "Yeah."
John squints, clearly attempting to focus. He shuts the door and weaves his way to the other bed, sitting heavily. He pulls off his boots, tossing them aside with a sigh. He rubs at his forehead, wincing as his fingers make contact with the bruises there. "I don't know why you bother, kid."
"What do you mean?" Not playing dumb, just asking.
"He doesn't want to talk to us, Dean. Doesn't want anything to do with us."
Dean shifts against his pillows, trying to get comfortable while causing himself the least amount of pain possible. "I think you're wrong."
John watches him struggle a moment before getting up with a sigh and adjusting the pillows for him. "Maybe. But if I was, wouldn't your brother be here right now?"
Dean, without an answer, leans back, but doesn't entirely return to his much more comfortable reclined position.
His father rolls his eyes at Dean, now attempting to stand, and pushes him back into bed. "We'll move on in the morning."
Dean quirks an eyebrow. The motion causes him a moment's flare of pain but it's worth it to see the look in his father's eyes as he winces. There's nothing fabricated or exaggerated there. It's genuine concern, and it's a sick feeling for Dean to have, the relief flooding through him in seeing it.
John sinks onto the bed next to Dean and helps him get comfortable once more. "In the morning," he says much more gently.
Dean nods, eyes already falling closed now that John's home. Home is more of an idea now than a physical place. It's a feeling. The blow to his head is also a factor in the suddenly sleepy feeling. The mattress shifts beneath him as John stands. He catches a breathy mumble just as he starts to drift off.
"I don't know why you bother, kid."
Kennet, Missouri
They stay a week while Dean convalesces, and he feels about as worthless as he ever has, on the bench, relegated to Geekboy duties until his father decides he can be useful again. John has Dean propped up in bed with a stack of local newspapers and continues hunting, never more than an hour or two away. Every time he limps back into the room Dean can't help feeling responsible, because he wasn't there.
They're waiting out the arrival of a new batch of cards in the P.O. Box John rented in town, dipping into emergency cash reserves and once the grogginess from his concussion clears up Dean sees the motel room for what it really is, a shithole even by Spartan Winchester standards. The faux wood paneling the walls is peeling off in strips, the ceiling is water-stained and buckling, and the short Berber carpeting was filthy long before their blood and mud dripped onto it.
Winchesters learn from their mistakes, but that's not to say Dean doesn't sometimes feel they're doomed to repeat them. He's not so much bedridden any more than his is guilt-ridden, can't spend another night left behind in this room because he managed to get the shit kicked out of him in a bar fight, watching his father return from a hunt Dean was forced to find for him, dead on his feet, limping or bleeding or nearly falling down or all of the above. He spends the daytime hours walking up and down the sidewalk outside the motel room, and after three afternoons he doesn't need the support of the railing to stand completely upright. He figures that means he's ready to give it a shot, backing up his father in the field. The pain in his side has been reduced to a dull throb he only feels when he completely rotates or bends at the waist. It's time to saddle up.
John catches something on the police scanner, reports coming into dispatch four nights in a row regarding several canines and one teenager gone missing only to be found mostly in pieces. Dean's feeling good, almost as good as he tells his father he does as John is loading assorted goodies into a weapons bag. The journal is open on the table, notes about the calls and the so-called Missouri Monster freshly scrawled on a new page.
"You're not at one hundred percent. You'd slow me down, Dean. You know that. This thing moves fast."
"Then I'll stay in the car with a gun," Dean argues. He leans heavily against the bureau in their room, hoping it appears intentional. The pain is tolerable, the thought of Dad being torn to pieces because Dean was jackass enough to get himself sidelined is not. "Just let me watch your back."
John relents, for whatever reason, and Dean soon finds himself in the passenger seat of the Impala parked at the edge of a field in the middle of the night. John's been out in the tall grass at least half an hour, and while Dean began the night with an alert, watchful eye and a tense finger on the trigger, he's now drowsy and drifting, listing more and more until he spills to his uninjured side on the bench seat.
The sudden, familiar crack of a shotgun causes Dean to jackknife in the seat with a cry both startled and pained, slamming his right knee into the dash in a way that would seem trivial if he wasn't already falling apart. He draws in deep breaths, trying to calm his racing heart and the heat tearing through his side. Reinvigorated by the sudden movement, Dean's not sure whether the shot was real or a dream or just a physical manifestation of his guilt until he hears his father's shout.
"Dean! Dean, damn it. Could use that back up right now!"
And suddenly John is bursting through the brush, not quite moving right or as quickly as he should be, and Dean fumbles awkwardly for the shotgun that's fallen to the floor mat.
The Momo leaps from the grass with a piercing scream that chills Dean to the bone. It latches onto John's back, driving him to the dirt with claws he can see reflecting in the moonlight as they snare his father's shirt. A cloud of dust envelopes hunter and hunted, though at the moment Dean's not certain which part is played by his father. He throws open the car door and rolls out to his knees as gracefully as he can manage. Graceful, maybe, but not quite quietly enough.
He's bringing up his shotgun – standard rounds only – but before he can line up a clean shot the grody son of a bitch is launching from his father and in the blink of an eye is on Dean instead. The thing is four feet tall, maybe, but thick and muscular, and the weight of it would be enough to knock him off-balance on his best day. Dean's weakened body folds like a cheap card table, hit in the middle with a furry, beefy wrecking ball.
Fresh, sharp pain blossoms in his chest and the side of his head clips the edge of the open car door. Everything goes black for a moment and when his vision returns he's flat on his ass with a wriggly creature on his chest, driving the air out of his lungs while trying to eat his face. He's eye-to-eye with sharp teeth, lots of them, and reeking breath to boot, like something died in its mouth.
Then that gnarly, pointy mouth explodes in a shower of bone, blood, and gristle raining down on Dean and the exposed side of the car. He winces away and shoves up on his elbows and out of the way, flush up against the car. John thunders to his side and falls to his knees, unceremoniously shoving what's left of the Momo out of his way.
He grasps Dean's face with both hands, forcing him to meet his eyes. "Dean! Dean? You okay? Look at me, son."
Dean swallows and nods, feeling small, stupid, and worthless. He shakes off the feeling and attempts to stand. "I'm okay. I'm good." He makes it about two inches up off the ground and yelps as a lightning bolt of pain shoots through his chest. He sucks in a breath and falls back to the ground.
John's eyebrows come together and he tsks, the pad of his thumb grazing gently over the tender spot on Dean's temple where he connected with the car door. The skin there feels hot, a small fire erupts in the short hair over his ear. He maintains eye contact with his father, who looks much older than he did just a few short weeks ago.
"What do you say we get the hell out of here?"
Dean nods and moves to stand, both very bad ideas. Everything spins around him and grays out at the edges. John is there for the assist, grabs him under the arms and holds on firmly, won't let Dean shake him off. There is a fine spray of monster gore on the edge of the leather bench seat, blood glistening on the rear frame and door. Dean notices as John helps him fold into the Impala. "Sorry about the car," he mumbles.
"Worry about the car tomorrow, kid." Where you should have been the entire time, his tired eyes add.
Dean's grateful his father doesn't feel the need to say it out loud, but HE does. It's an unbearably silent ride back to the motel until he finally speaks up. "I should have stayed behind," he says, chewing the inside of his cheek, trying to stick to shallow breaths. "You told me to, and I should've stayed behind."
John is quiet a long moment. Dean can only assume he's silently agreeing with him, keeping the thought to himself out of pity, just as he did the previous one.
"If you learn one thing from me, Dean, and I'm not talking weapons or tracking," his father says in a low tone, "let it be this. You only get one shot. No do-overs. No regrets, Dean."
Bullshit. Dean stares out the window, rubbing his sore temple. He tries to decide on the most respectful alternate to the word 'hypocrite' as he studies the blood on his fingertips. His father lives for regret, uses the emotion like fuel to keep the machine running.
John chuckles, almost as if he knows what Dean's thinking. "Call it a lesson learned the hard way."
Dean's frown quickly becomes a wince, a sharp pull of drying blood at his hairline. His father should be ripping him a new asshole, not smiling and attempting to impart nuggets of wisdom. "Why aren't you yelling at me?"
"Should I be?"
"You could have been torn apart by that fucking thing because I made you bring me with you."
"Language. And you didn't make me do anything."
Dean gapes, and that's when he realizes he's forgotten to be angry. In all of the pain and painkillers of the past week, he's forgotten to be angry with his father. Which could explain how uncharacteristically gentle the man has been; he's keeping him that way, keeping him happy and docile. Complacent. Sammy's gone and John can't bear the thought of Dean following, so here he is, fetching him food, drink, literally fluffing his pillows. Of course, there's always the possibility his actions are motivated by something less selfish, by genuine care and concern.
Should've known, Dean thinks bitterly, tracing a finger along the thin ridge of the scar along his jaw. Should've fucking known. A month ago John was giving him hell for popping a single pain pill and since the bar incident he's been force-feeding them to Dean. Something clearly happened that night that he can't remember, something more than he's been told, and John's using every available opportunity to keep Dean happy. Apparently he should save himself some time and disappointment and just assume any act of kindness on his father's part is just another move in the game.
Fucking Sammy. There is very little in this world Dean hates more than his brother being right about their father. Dean presses the spot on the side of his head tightly and swallows. Swallows again. "Dad – "
John glances over and exhales aggressively, as if to tell Dean "not in the car." He jerks the wheel, sending the Impala to the side of the road.
The bump of the car over the rough gravel berm flips Dean's stomach in a serious way and he paws at the door handle. The door swings open as John stomps the brakes and Dean falls from the bench seat to his knees in the tall grass just as he starts heaving.
He doesn't hear the Impala's door open or his father come up behind him, so the hands on his back are heavy, uncomfortable, and unexpected. He tries to pull away, yelps as his obviously cracked ribs protest and can't manage anything more graceful than face-planting into the grass a foot from where he's just been sick.
John gets a hand under his arm, pulling him gently upright. "I know you've got a hard head, dude, but that doesn't mean you gotta knock it against everything you can find."
Dean ducks away, both his father's assistance and joke missing the mark. He holds his breath while heaving himself to his feet. Black spots dance across his vision but he makes it to the car, lets himself fall onto the bench seat. At the moment his entire relationship with his father feels like a lie. His stomach roils, and it's safe to say he's reconnected with his anger. The guilt he was feeling before has definitely gone fishin', and Dean hopes the claw marks on his father's shoulders hurt HALF as badly as the steady throb in his skull.
A week before
John's keeping his distance, physically planting himself on the other side of the room, deliberately unpacking clothing into the bureau drawers so that Dean knows there's no rush to get moving again. His instincts are screaming for him to run to Dean's side, to comfort his son, a man now but looking very much like a boy, propped up in his bed like that, like an invalid. Too vulnerable. And that makes John vulnerable.
"Maybe, uh," he actually chokes on the words, his throat constricting in an attempt to stop them from escaping. "Maybe you should stop and think before you next decide to get blackout drunk and pick a fight in a bar."
Dean raises up off of his pillow, hisses and gives up quickly on the idea of sitting upright, lays his head against the headboard in a position that appears mighty uncomfortable. His brow is wrinkled in layers of pain and confusion. "I started it?"
John swallows, turns it into a chuckle, and then forces it into a reprimand. "Threw a haymaker at a guy the size of a house. Don't know what the hell you were thinkin.'"
"I don't even know what a haymaker is."
John brings a fist around in an arc to demonstrate. "Well, you sure made a go of it." He drags the first aid kit across the table, sifts through half-full pill bottles before finding something that will both take the edge off of the pain and help him sleep.
Dean looks down quizzically at the puffy, gauzy bandage covering most of his abdomen. "And…"
"He had a switchblade. Nobody could…I didn't see it in time." The guilt rings true, even if the words aren't.
"I don't remember."
"I'm not surprised." John tips two pills into his palm and gestures with his other to the back of his head. "Took quite a knock on the way down."
Dean winces. "Yeah. Figured as much. S'like I got bricks in here. There was a girl?"
John nods tightly, lips pressed together. "The house's girl. Maybe you should try thinking a little more with your upstairs brain."
Dean ducks his head, and while it's nice to see a little color returning to the kid's face, John feels like a piece of shit that it's embarrassment he's brought crossing his son's flushed face.
To be continued...