So I'm going to go ahead and put a bow on this posting thing. Between some FB I've gotten and my own intimate knowledge of the challenges presented with this format, I know it's not a quick read, and not necessarily a story that's benefited from the one chapter at a time type of posting. So I'm going to throw Chapters Seven and Eight up now!
Additional Author Notes in Chapter One.
CHAPTER SEVEN
On the road
Dean pounces on John the moment his father returns from an unspecified trip into town. "What the hell?" he demands, cell phone in hand. Not the most intelligent of questions, but the first that comes to mind. A row of empty bottles stands at attention on the counter, but that doesn't entirely inform the outburst.
John, who at least brought food back with him, quirks an unamused eyebrow at the line of bottles and lets the brown greasy-bottomed bag slide to the table. "Excuse me?"
This is already the most honest conversation they've had in weeks. Dean holds up his cell phone. Exhibit A, Dad. "Sam's number is disconnected."
John nods knowingly, as though he's been waiting for this confrontation. "And why exactly should I go on paying for it?" He goes about unpacking dinner, shaking his head in a frustrated way usually only brought about by Sam. "He's the one who pitched a fit and demanded we get the damn things in the first place, remember? And now he's too good to use it."
Dean is taken aback. Dad almost makes it sound like he's also tried calling Sammy. He's had such a cavalier, good riddance attitude. Even now, he can't just come out and tell Dean that he misses the kid just as much as he does. "That's not fair," is what slips out of Dean's mouth.
"No? How so?"
Dean doesn't have an answer that won't be immediately refuted and feels his ground falling away. "You should've told me, at least."
John coolly pops the top of a beer from a fresh six-pack and slides it across the table to Dean, adding the cap to the growing collection on the counter. "Tell me something. All these calls you've been making, your brother ever once pick up? Ever bother to call you back?"
He always knows. Dean rests a hip against the back of a chair, refusing to sit. He stares at the label on his bottle, picking at the corner of the paper. "That's not the point."
John opens his own beer and settles into a chair. He leans back, casual posture juxtaposed with his hostile tone. "And what is the point, Dean? When are you going to stop treating me like I'm the one who left him?"
As much as Dean hates to admit it, his father has a point. His stomach growls as John unwraps a massive bacon cheeseburger – diner takeout, not drive-thru – and he somewhat reluctantly slides into a chair. His father knows all of his weaknesses, and he gives in embarrassingly easy.
A new pattern is born as Dean concedes. It's just the two of them now, and he surrenders because John never will. An otherwise hostile moment repressed, one John better hope never comes back to bite the both of them in the ass.
John lifts his bottle. "Eat up and get some rest. We're on the road again first thing in the morning."
He feels lost. He's always been strong because that's what they needed him to be, Dad and Sammy. He's no longer relevant to what EITHER of them needs, and his role in this family is becoming fuzzier by the day. But he will fight for this family. Up until the moment when there's no one left but him.
Dean's gotten used to falling asleep to the sound of the police scanner. Crackles of static, radio beeps, and urgent calls to action. It startles him awake every couple of nights, at absurd hours. But no matter the time, his father is always there, chin in one hand, tumbler in the other, filled with the contents of whatever seemed appealing on the other side of the liquor store counter. Once or twice there's been a lingering scent of cigarettes, like he'd just stepped out for a smoke. An old habit, kicked once or twice already at the urging of his sons but, whatever it takes, Dean thinks.
Every so often, something John hears will catch his attention, and Dean fully wakes in the morning to an otherwise empty room, a half-shot bottle of bourbon, gin, or tequila still open and coming to room temperature, sweating a ring onto the table next to the now-quiet scanner.
They eat takeout meals standing at the sink, and don't really speak to each other anymore. John doesn't put in the effort and Dean's given up trying. Sam obviously meant more than he ever thought possible. Maybe he and Dad only ever fought but at least that was something.
When they do talk, it's all shop. Sam hasn't come up as a topic of conversation in weeks, since Dean was last drunk enough to bring him up, and they've found a way to spend small blocks of time together in relative companionable comfort, in which Dean is almost tricked into thinking it's always been just the two of them. They spend a muggy afternoon in southern Indiana reorganizing the trunk into a more optimal arrangement. The stash of silver has been depleted for a few months and they're down to just a few clips, so it's time to find a pawn shop while they're cruising through Iowa. The longest, most in depth conversation they have in a month on any one subject is regarding spirit repellent.
John's always had an array of contacts scattered like buckshot across the country, and has managed to nab a couple of paying gigs since they left Abilene, usually families with small children and peckish poltergeists. Angry spooks aren't generally keen on standing idly by while a pair of hunters burn their bones and send them on into that bright beautiful light, and they've each spent their fair share of time playing decoy and running interference in small town graveyards while the other lights the fire. Iron has always been the most tried and true offense, and salt a much more effective defense. A well-placed shot can grant a hunter anywhere from five minutes to twenty, depending on the strength of the spirit. One only recently able to corporealize will take up to half an hour before gathering the strength to return. And never in Dean's experience hunting has a spirit ever crossed a salt line under its own power. But bullets run out, and a strong gust of wind or unfortunate scuffle of a boot breaks that salt line too easily and too often.
A spirit in Omaha, one of the paying jobs and tougher than they'd been led to believe, takes an iron shot through its chest and reanimates in a matter of seconds, flings John aside just as he's loosing a match into its shallow grave. This all happens before Dean, drawing from a tapped well after weeks of this, can react properly. The lit match thrown from John's grip catches a dry brush pile and they end up nearly igniting the whole damned cemetery.
John's sore and not happy, and Dean is somewhat passive aggressively punished that night, set down to another long night of weapons cleaning, the entire, freshly optimally organized cache from the trunk. His father lectures from across the room in a low, rough rumble with a stiff drink in his hand and an ice pack on his shoulder.
"You gotta be more careful, Dean. Eyes in the back of your head, aware of your surroundings at all times."
This is quite possibly the longest string of words his father has spoken to him since Sam left, so he pushes down the retort threatening to escape his mouth: "And when exactly does all of the alcohol come into play?" Dean bites his lip and ejects a leftover cartridge from the shotgun. It rolls across the carpet to rest against a dented old salt can next to the oak bureau, the one from which his dad's been pouring protective lines when he thinks Dean's asleep.
"Gotta stay sharp, 'cause it's my ass on the line if you blink just a moment too long."
Dean wearily straightens from the bed and crosses the room. He stoops to recover the cartridge and his fingers brush the salt can. After a pause, he grabs that, as well, isn't at all surprised by how empty it feels. He crouches in the corner for a moment, studying the items in his hands. Huh. "Dad?"
John has his back to Dean, pouring a refill, right on the heels of his first drink. "Thing could've killed us both tonight."
"Dad – "
The glass thunks on the countertop. "I know you think you don't need to hear this, kid, but you – "
"DAD." Dean bounces on the balls of his feet, turning to face his father. He raises the cartridge, the salt, and his eyebrows.
John leans back against the counter, appraising Dean. He nods slowly. "Worth a shot, I guess."
"Pun intended?"
John smiles, the first real smile in what seems like a lifetime. He sips from his glass. "Pun intended."
In the days before
Something changed while they were in New York, some catalyst Dean hasn't been able to identify. A bell sounded that Dean never heard because he wasn't by his father's side, was dumped at a shithole, shoved to the sidelines, and John is off to the races, ready to hunt. Ready to kill something. Maybe everything.
They embark upon a string of hunts, one right after another. More than coincidence or hunter's luck. There's no stopping now that they're going. John is a different version of the man than Dean's ever experienced. Dangerous, predatory, dispatching monsters and spirits as swiftly and violently as possible. Obscure creatures Dean's never heard of before, things John doesn't waste time teaching him about.
His silence is verging on frightening, his ferocity concerning. Or it would be, if such things were open to discussion. Dean's just along for the ride, just set dressing. John doesn't seem at all concerned for Dean's safety, and even less so for his own.
They're careless in their hunting in ways Winchesters have never been before, and more than a little lucky. They're missing an integral piece: the voice of reason, the preacher of caution. More than once Dean is mere seconds, inches away from being put down for good. He's sporting bruises that won't fade that draw pitiful looks from his father, in all of the visible places, and a few more discrete discolorations he's been able to hide.
Dean continues to drop clues for Sam like breadcrumbs as they move. Notes left in motel managers' offices, the margins of phone books at corner payphones; the way they've been trained. For all he knows, John is right behind him, collecting the messages and tearing out pages, but the optimist in him hopes not.
They don't stay in any town for more than a couple of days. Dean is running on fumes, little sleep and a lot caffeine. John is running on something else entirely. Something Dean is too tired and sore to attempt to define. He's losing track of the days, lost in an endless sequence of hunt, kill, rinse and repeat. He smells constantly of gun oil, blood and peroxide, rapidly losing his appetite for food, more and more understanding his father's need for a fair amount of alcohol to make it to the end of the day.
He's rundown, and not nearly as quick as he should be, and Dean takes a swat from a stocky no-name creature with razor sharp claws and nearly leaves half of his face behind in a parking lot in the middle of Ohio. It's bloody and serious enough that Dad doesn't trust himself to sew Dean's face back into place, lets a credit card go to ruin in a four-hour long emergency room visit.
"Kid dropped a glass of water and damn it all if he didn't slip and fall right onto the pieces," John wearily cheeses the nursing staff, playing through his own aches and exhaustion while Dean, hurting and embarrassed, bleeds through a crazy amount of gauze as they stitch him up. "And to think his mother would've named him Grace, he was a girl."
Stacking humiliation on top of pain, and then thankfully some pain killers on top of that. Dad unloads him into bed back at the motel and makes like he's leaving the room as soon as possible.
Before he gets to the door Dean calls his father out, slurred and sloppy with his left eye obscured by a sizeable swath of bandage. Tells him maybe Sammy was onto something, was right to leave like he did, and promptly passes out before having to face the immediate consequences, leaving John to whatever he has to do that's more important than caring for a child who'd nearly undergone a facial transplant.
Dean awakens the next morning to a face feeling very much on fire, but the way John clucks his tongue disapprovingly when he reaches for the amber pill bottle filled with doctor's best orders, it's clear he blames the medication for Dean's loose lips the night before.
At least he's willing to let it appear that way, and Dean figures it's better to go along with the play. If Sam was around he'd stomp his foot and pitch a fit and make sure Dean took every tablet as needed and prescribed. But life's a bitch, Sammy ain't here, and the pills swirl around the toilet bowl like a school of small fish and go for a swim in the sewer.
Somewhere in the flat fields of the Midwest Dean gives up paying attention to where they are. He couldn't care less; the towns, the jobs, they're all beginning to blur together anyway. John says this next job might take a week, maybe two. It's just a line, one he's been hearing since he was a kid. He makes no comment in return, just cleans the guns and sharpens the knives and locks the door but not the deadbolt when his father goes out for "a day or so" to chase a lead.
Another week goes by and they check into a seedy motel on the outskirts of Philadelphia. John drops his belongings to the narrow tabletop and Dean tosses his bag to the bedspread. The rattle of the frame against the thin wall knocks a picture from its hook, falling to the dirty floor with a crash of broken glass that reverberates in his still-pounding head. A crazed, exhausted bark of a laugh escapes him. "Dad…"
John turns, eyes dark, a mix of sadness and anger. A dare, a plea – call me on it again, son. Tell me what sort of life I've given you.
But Dean is all his father has left and he knows it, and so he loses his nerve.
"I'm just a little tired. I'll, uh, clean this up."
John's expression softens. "We'll take a couple nights. We'll rest. Okay?"
"Yeah, thanks. I'm…just a little tired." Tired doesn't begin to touch it.
"Your face still hurt?"
Nope. Feels fanFUCKINGtastic. "A little, I guess." Dean blinks, sending a line of fire from the corner of his eye all the way to his chin.
John nods without direct eye contact. "Rest." He starts for the door but pauses in the middle of the room. He walks back to the table to collect his journal before going out. The door shakes in its frame as it closes and Dean finds himself frozen in front of the mirror that hangs on the back. He nearly looks like something that needs hunted, himself. Ghostly pale face, sunken eyes framed with dark smudges, stitches along his hairline hanging black and loose, a purpling bruise on his forehead. An extra from one of the zombie movies he used to use to scare Sammy. Night of the Living Dead Dean.
He washes up in the sink, pulls out of his soiled attire and rifles unsuccessfully through his bag for something clean to change into. He settles on a black t-shirt turned inside out and the least bloody of his two pairs of jeans, reloads the rest of his ripe clothing into the duffel and heads out of the room. The Impala is still parked outside, so wherever his father's gone to, it's within walking distance.
Dean shuffles down the sidewalk to the manager's office and the man points him to a laundry room around the corner, a utility closet-sized space with a pair of washing machines and a single dryer. A startlingly bright bare bulb hangs in the middle of the room. One of the washers has a handwritten sign affixed with a strip of masking tape. Out of order – managment. School may not have been Dean's forte, but even he knows that's wrong.
He'd hoped the late hour would guarantee anonymity and an otherwise empty room, but it's just not been that kind of day. A rail-thin middle-aged woman is sloppily unloading the contents of the dryer into a faded blue plastic laundry basket. She appears hardly as a real human being, more a caricature. An inch or two of her emaciated midriff is visible between a wrinkled gray ribbed tank and shredded denim cutoffs. A lit cigarette rests precariously between her pale lips and a litter of smoked butts are strewn across the pock-marked concrete floor like confetti.
As Dean leans on the glass of the half-open door, he contemplates turning back to the room, living with the dirty clothing until their next stop. Maybe he can leave the reeking bag in the bushes outside just to keep from being cooped up with the cumulative rancid smell of the past few weeks, but the woman glances up.
"Don't be shy, handsome," she mumbles, cigarette bouncing between her lips as she speaks. "Washer's free." Her eyes narrow predatorily.
Acid roils in Dean's stomach. He bobs his head and takes the four steps into the room necessary to reach the working washer. He turns his back, squares up to the machine to conceal the state of the clothing he's unloading. He can feel her cougar-y eyes burning holes in his back and ass as he shoves down a handful of bloodstained shirts, rotates his head to confirm. "I'm a hunter," he says by way of explanation, his tone lifeless. "S'animal." He swallows. "Deer."
She's eyeing the sizeable spots of blood, some of it creature, some his own. Her tan bony hand swiftly removes the cigarette as she shakes her head, the look of disgust on her face a perfect representation of his current state of mind.
But he's not supposed to feel this way. He loves his life, loves the bond he has with his father, that he's a part of a world most people have no idea exists.
"That's adrenaline," Sam had said matter-of-factly, lip curled in that arrogant manner he'd taken to taking when his feathers were ruffled, but Dad wasn't home this particular time to indulge him. "You don't LOVE any of this. No sane person could. You're just an adrenaline junkie." He's jealous, Dean would tell himself.
"I'm a hunter." Words he used to take pride in, since he was, what, eight? Since he first took on the role of Dad's trusty, loyal sidekick, his Tonto. There for comic relief but also for reassurance, support. They were a team, not on equal footing but it was never the burden Sam made it out to be. He was happy to be and do whatever Dad needed, because they had the coolest Dad in the world.
Like a superhero, he'd once told Sammy, as a young, naïve, utterly stupid boy.
He's watched enough movies, read enough comics as a kid. All superheroes have a dark side, and secrets, and most importantly, a villain. An archenemy whose very existence both threatens and validates the choices he makes.
If Dad is a hero, then he has an archenemy, too.
He sees it in every monster, every angry spirit. Now that he's grown up in the world a bit, Dean understands that Dad sees his nemesis in the mirror, too.
Over the course of the next several nights, while Dean sleeps fitfully on the other side of the room, John matches every city, every stop to somewhere they've passed through since leaving Abilene, a loaded shotgun on the table next to the lamp and a salt line on the threshold and windowsill, everything done after Dean had departed the world of the waking.
All points heading East, when Sam is fleeing the opposite direction. According to Cam's research, the westernmost states seem clean of demonic activity for now, meaning Sam should be safe. Yet, somehow this information does nothing to ease the dread in John's heart. There is also to take into account the fact all of this information is coming from a supposed clairvoyant. A friend of a friend is not a solid source in John's book.
He can't make heads or tails of these so-called omens Wiseman tipped him off about. He's never entertained the notion of tracking any single paranormal or supernatural creature for any prolonged amount of time, so it's nothing he's familiar with. Three days hunting a Wendigo, a week and a half on a chupacabra, sure, but he wouldn't consider himself much of a hunter if he allowed any breed of nasty mother to live long enough to be tracked beyond a couple of weeks.
He doesn't like people knowing his business, hasn't gone to any hunters to cash in any of the numerous favors he's been sworn to be on the owed end of, hasn't asked for any help. Only a few guys have been introduced to the boys, become a part of their lives. Not to say there aren't options, avenues he could take. But there are also doors he's not looking to open again anytime soon. Places he wouldn't be welcome, calls that would go unanswered. It's unfortunate, because he knows he's cut himself off from some valuable resources, burned bridges on which he should have been doing regular maintenance.
Now that he has these baseline reports to work with, the freak lightning storms and such, John's been spending small pockets of time at the local public libraries, giving it a go at digging up more, but he can't figure out the world wide interweb or whatever the hell it is, and he'll be damned if he's been reduced to the kind of sorry son of a bitch that asks for help from some nutty librarian in a cat hair-covered sweater. Sam was always the researcher of the family, and would be able to make quick work of this, suss out whether there were any other cities experiencing these weather fluctuations with the snap of a finger. Dean may not be as quick as Sam at the keyboard but would be able to put the computer to good use, but John still isn't ready for that. Not just yet.
He doesn't stop sniffing out jobs in the meantime, doesn't stop hunting. The job keeps his hands, and his mind, busy. It keeps his son busy, too.
Dean's starting to get lippy, whether due to some inappropriate homage to his absent smartmouth brother or the emergence of some personality defect he's been politely squashing until now. It's manifesting in bursts of smartass, argumentative comments regarding their sleeping arrangements, the constant hunting, John's drinking, lately even the volume of the radio.
He'd had something of an attitude not too many years back, not unlike any typical teenage boy, had been a regular little shit for an unseemly amount of time and done his own bouts of sneaking out or failing to come home all together. But selective memory kicks in, and after he'd given up on school and focused fully on hunting with John he'd more than made up for all of it, told Sammy to cool his jets when he started to get mouthy in all the same ways he had only a few short years earlier.
Just as Sam will one day make up for all of it. Of that, he's sure.
Camden, New York
Dad doesn't leave him alone at Cam's for long. Not really, considering how long Dean had prepared for him to be gone. He's back before Dean's had time to pass out that night, stretched on top of his coat on a dusty burgundy couch that smells like stale cigarettes and the unwashed human male. Is in the house, actually, making a hell of a racket.
The wide sweep of John's arms along the counter knocks a stack of dirty plates and mugs into the sink, a line of empty beer bottles into the trash can with a crash; Dad's patented take on cleaning, as well as a wake-up call.
Dean shoots upright at the clatter of porcelain dishes in the sink, his arm coming out from under the flattened accent pillow in a sweep of its own, knife in hand. His manners are slow in catching up, or maybe he left them back in Red Lion the way Dad left him here. "Jesus Christ, Dad."
John flattens his palms on the countertop. His shoulders are tight and tense. "You wanna try that again?"
Blinking, Dean sets the knife down on the cushion next to him and rotates his stiff body into a seated position. "Sorry. Meant 'hi.'"
"Don't get smartass with me."
"No, sir." Dean frowns. Something obviously happened while he was with Cam. He's as tightly wound as Sam's been the past few months. "What's going on? What happened with the job?"
"Nothing you need to concern yourself with." John curls his lip and pulls away from the counter, takes in the state of the house. "You responsible for this mess? Jesus."
No, but thanks, Dad. Except for the line of dead soldiers; those had been him, and the reason for the current pounding state of his head. "Of course not, it's only been a few hours, Dad." Dean can't fight both his headache and curiosity at the same time, and lets it slip out. "Is there something you're not telling me? We're supposed to be a team."
John still hasn't truly looked at him, and Dean's not an expert in much, but he knows that's a sure way to spot a damn liar. "No, I'm your father, and you are my son, and there are a lot of things I don't tell you."
Dean swallows the sting, and the truth of it, the verbal gut punch. "Is it Sam?" Things having to deal with Sammy are the only time John his father gets this worked up.
"No."
"Are we safe?" Dean persists, annoyed with being left here like he was and emboldened by that annoyance.
"As much as we ever are." John's eyes finally rise to meet Dean's, and Dean can't identify what exactly he's seeing there. Fear, anger, determination. Maybe the ever-present cocktail of all three.
"Okay."
"Okay. We're moving. In the car in five."
Earlier that night
John didn't plan on dropping Dean at Cam's before meeting up with him, not really. He'd been working up to it for hours, the whole damned way. Telling Dean, bringing him in on this like he deserves to be. He wants to. The midnight caller, the tip from Cameron, the fact he or his brother or heaven forbid the both of them are in some sort of danger.
Oh, he wants to tell Dean, wants to know he's not losing his goddamn mind here. He's going out of his head with worry, too much so to remember that Dean is the one stabilizing force in their little family. The hopeful smile, the steady hand, the "it'll be okay, Dad." This isn't yet a danger he can confront, just whisper of a threat on a breeze, and there's no point in worrying Dean, unless he selfishly wants to draw a "it'll be okay, Dad" from his son. He does, but he doesn't deserve it, surely doesn't want to send Dean half-cocked and ill-informed across the country after his brother. Because he'll do it before John can tug on the reigns.
His boy, a formidable hunter in his own right, has every right to know there's something going on. What stops him from speaking every time is the something. He needs details. Devil's in the detail, and he can't work on a battle plan without them. So he hadn't been set on ditching Dean, but it seemed like the right thing to do at the time, not knowing exactly what his old friend has to tell him. He's not naturally insensitive, but can't seem to escape such accusations and perception. It's an evolved trait that's become circumstantially necessary over the past two decades.
John was as innocent and go-lucky a boy as there ever was, before life started happening, all of the things that cause you to give up hope of the future you spend your entire childhood constructing in your imagination. He quickly realized there's no such thing as luck. Not good luck, anyway. There's been a hole inside since he was young, since well before he and Mary were married. A wide, yawning hole, a canyon, and he'd thought it was family he was missing. The father who'd left for work one night and never come home. The quiet and emotionally distant mother who never recovered. The siblings who were never to be any more than an overheard conversation between his parents. Thought it was the idea of life without Mary, without a family.
Things were different after her parents were killed, the mugging that left him paranoid and wary and Mary guarded and scarred on the inside in ways he couldn't understand until she was taken from him just as much without warning. That was just the first time he'd been left feeling helpless, unable to protect her, sucker-punched by a mugger Mary wasn't ever able to properly identify for the police.
There was never closure for that incident and strangely, he never truly felt welcome anywhere after that, like he was crashing the party, and the party was simply existing in this world. That horror ultimately brought them closer, the connection made by experiences they're unable to explain to anyone else. Two bruised souls who were meant to be together. Shattered halves of one whole. She was sweet, and she smiled, and she was a wonderful mother to two perfect baby boys, but there was something sad about her that she never came back from after that night.
He was always struck with a guilty feeling, responsible for her emotional state, forever unable to cheer her for longer than a couple of minutes. Then she was gone, without any chance for goodbye, and left him the boys. Everything since has been about protecting them. They're all he has left in the world. Everything he's ever done, every decision made, every road driven has been a strategic move to keep them safe. He doesn't often feel the need to justify his actions or choices and this is no different. There's a threat out there, and he's not traditionally been a man of the kind of luck for this to be of the small or insignificant variety.
He guides the car away from Cameron's and back towards town, such as it is, and easily finds a spot to park the Impala at the curb outside The Bar. John shakes his head as he pushes his way inside, where he hopes it's easier to find a cold beer than a bright idea.
Cam Wiseman is easy enough to spot in the sparsely populated tavern, looking just as John remembers him. Aluminum-rimmed glasses perched on his long, pointed nose and a scruff of graying facial hair on his cheeks and chin that gives him a dusty and unkempt appearance. Squirrelly, shifty eyes. Surely, no one has ever accused him of being a handsome man.
The hunter sees John hovering in the doorway of the smoky bar and raises a hand, straightens halfway and settles back quickly at his booth, anxious not to draw attention of anyone other than his friend.
Snakelike, John weaves his way through cigarette smoke, high tables, and bar patrons to the dark booth in the back corner. "Cameron." He nods a greeting, offering his hand.
The man grips John's hand in his own meaty, sweaty one and gives it two firm pumps. "Good to see ya again, Winchester." The jacket his wears is a conversation piece, scuffed black leather with a split in the seam over the right shoulder. An old battle scar to match is concealed by the layers of fabric, a slash like a knife that had come from a razor-sharp claw.
He's just as much a physical nervous wreck as when they worked that shifter job in Anaheim six years ago. The guy is a mess of anxieties, most of which are nonsensical. He's constantly worrying about the most mundane things: tapped phones, teenagers in black clothing with lip piercings, low doorways. He wrings his hands, jiggles his leg. A thick gold band adorns his left ring finger. John doesn't know the story there; the two hunters have shared every tale but that first nightmare, the one that threw them into hunting in the first place. Cam plays with the ring constantly, rotating it on his finger, missing the wife that had worn the mate.
John subtly wipes the transferred sweat from his palm onto the thigh of his jeans as he slides uncomfortably into the booth opposite his old friend. An unspoken but universally known rule: it's first come, first serve for seating during all meet-ups, and everyone wants eyes on the door. Even though John knew he'd be coming in on the losing end, he can't help feeling uneasy, unguarded with his back to the room of strangers.
Cam's eyes narrow behind his thick lenses as he searches the aisleway John left empty as he took a seat. "I know you wanted to meet alone, but did you really leave the kids at the old house? It's a small town, small bar, they wouldn't mind the boys being here. Doesn't mean they'd serve 'em."
John watches Cam spin the gold ring, resists the temptation to do the same with his own gold band. Resists the even stronger temptation to smack the man's hand and tell him to stop fidgeting. Resists the swell of fatherly pride to correct Cam's calculation of the boys' ages, that Dean's entered the bracket of legal drinking. Not that his age had ever stopped him before. "Don't worry about the boys. If you have something serious enough to tell me to drag my ass clear across the country, then you tell me. S'no need for them to be a part of this discussion."
Cameron chuckles. "Anyone ever tell you what a sparkling ray of sunshine you are? Or a sour son of a bitch?"
"More of the latter," John answers honestly. "House looked dark."
"Yeah, s'more of a safe house than anything, these days."
"Where're you staying now?" John asks matter-of-factly, because he isn't surprised. The house is from his previous life, when it was shared by Cam and the wife he's never spoken of.
"Here and there. Motels, rentals, such is the life. Couldn't stomach staying in the house my family died, not like that lush Singer did."
"But you stay close to town?"
Cam grins his trademark nervous smile, revealing a chipped tooth, and lifts a shoulder. He motions over John's head with two fingers to the bartender. "Yeah, I'm wacky that way."
John raps his knuckles on the tabletop. "All right, Cam. You called me, set this all up, and you know how I hate suspense almost as much as I hate wasting time. We're doing a bit of both now. What exactly is it that you have to tell me?"
Cam sniffs, adjusts the bill of his well-worn Cincinnati Reds cap, once vibrantly hued but now a faded dark pink and ringed with salty sweat stains. "Why didn't you bring the boys? I'd love to see 'em. Last time I did they were only about yea-big." He holds a hand out level with the flat surface of the table. "You at least got a picture of 'em?"
John sighs and indulges the man for a moment only because he doesn't yet have a stiff drink to distract him. He lifts off of the seat and drags his wallet from his back pocket, pulls out a folded picture taken earlier in the spring.
"They've grown up nice, John. Some real good looking boys you've got there." Cam smiles fondly and nostalgically taps Sam's grimacing face in the photo. "Gonna look just like his daddy."
Yeah, over his dead body. John pulls the photo away, folds it reverently and tucks it back into his wallet.
"And the little one, what's his name?"
There are things he regrets saying and people he regrets saying them to, and Cam is currently making a strong case for both. He'd been a lost, low place when he met Cam, not long after he found out he had a third son. John swallows, can't help the dip in his volume as he grits out, "Adam."
"He must be almost ten by now."
"Just turned eleven." Sometimes the only way to shut up a man like Cam is to give him what he wants with as few words as possible.
Cam whistles, low and long. "You make it out there yet?"
John squints, feels his fingers curling into a fist without a glass yet between them. "I mean it, Wiseman. Forget about the boys, and tell me what you know."
The other man smiles, crooked and without humor. "Yeah, okay. So, like I said on the phone, I had some concerning information cross my table. Got a psychic in town, Rita, helps me on cases every now and then." He slings a casual arm over the back of the booth.
Not John; he's tense, eyes scanning the bar in a constant loop. Outside of the expected neuroses, the other man's lack of awareness of their surroundings is setting him further on edge. "Town's only got one gas station but it has a psychic?"
"How long you gonna nitpick and insult before you let me tell you what you want to know?"
John ducks his head, obliges. "What about her?"
"She was chatting with the spirit world a few days ago, and your name came up."
"How's some backwoods psychic know my name?"
"Ouch, thank you, there you go again. She doesn't, you paranoid son of a bitch." Cam pauses and shakes his head as a busty and not completely unattractive waitress with a wild frizz of auburn hair sets two bottles and a pair of frosty mugs on the tabletop. "Thank you, sweetheart." He pauses long enough for the girl to move on. "She called me with a tip, like she always does, name of some poor schmuck needing our kind of help. Just so happens, this time you were the schmuck." He expertly pours the beer into the canted glass and takes a sip. "I was the one recognized your name, not her."
John opts for the bottle, takes a long pull before speaking. "What'd she have to say about me? What kind of help am I supposed to be needin'?"
"That the spirit world, whoever it was she was talkin' to, was concerned about you, said you'd appreciate a heads-up about what you should be hunting. Wanted her to get some information to you." Cam reaches into the inner pocket of his corduroy jacket and pulls out a handful of folded pages, offering them to John.
The spirit world? Mary? John quirks a dubious eyebrow and drags the pages across the water-stained table. "What's all this, then?"
"Weather reports, specifically of recent unseasonable temperature fluctuations and lightning storms in areas not prone to things like lightning storms. And these," he continues, sliding over another few sheets of loose paper. "Are police reports and newspaper clippings, livestock mutilations and a handful of unnatural human deaths."
John raises his eyebrows. "I'm not following."
"These, my very green friend, are telltale signs of demonic activity, all over the good 'ol US of A."
John stares at the papers, working to process both what he's looking at and what Cam's saying. "These dates…"
"Yep. All over the past few weeks." The other man is eyeing him carefully, gauging his reaction. "Anything about this standing out to you? Any reason you can think of you'd be connected to demons popping up all over the country?" Cam sets a wrinkled map on the table next, thick red marker bleeding through the spots he's marked. He runs his fingers along the map. "Almost like a trail, huh?"
John rubs his chin, points to the spread of information, feeling the itch to order a stronger drink. "This…all of this, you're tellin' me this means there's been a demon in these cities?"
"'Least one," Cameron nods. "There isn't a huge archive of examples to compare these to, took me a couple of days, but it does match some that I've read about. Heard about."
"We've been here. All of these places." John stands abruptly, collecting the papers and shoving them into his journal.
"What? Who? John, wait – "
John leans back over the table, gets right in Cam's face. "There's no waiting. If these are signs of a demon, then it's been following me," he says in a low, harsh tone. Following us. "You should have told me immediately, not dicked around like this."
Cam's eyes harden. "How'm I supposed to know where you've been and where you haven't? Shit, John, people go months without hearing from you. You damn near dropped off the face of the world after what happened to Bill."
"You could have called me."
"I did call you, John, and I'm just lucky you decided to answer this time. When I call you, I never know if you're going to answer. And if you don't, I got no clue whether you're just a jackass or if you're dead." His lip curls. "The way I hear it, those boys of yours don't have any better luck than the rest of us."
John taps the folder on the tabletop and straightens. "We're done here, Cam."
Cam throws himself roughly against the booth's seatback and brings his beer to his lips. "Yeah, John, I figure we are."
John makes his way out of the smoky as quickly as possible without also doing so suspiciously, and he won't waste time mourning the friendship lost here. He now has two sources telling him of a seemingly imminent threat, and it doesn't seem to be against him alone, but at least one of his sons, as well. He doesn't know much about demons, but if the reports he's been handed detail a demonic travel plan, then it's on the same trajectory as theirs.
On the road
East. They're moving east again, obviously, but Dean doesn't have a clue as to the final destination Dad must have in mind. They'd packed up the car and hit the road, another nonspecific "tip" from another nameless "friend" and this time Dean didn't even bother prying for more information, knows it's pointless. Since they left Red Lion, John has barely said two words outside of "Keep an eye for state troopers" and to bark clipped directions. His eyes have been down, focused entirely on the journal open on his lap, cover flipped over just enough to discourage Dean from sneaking peeks. He flips through pages covered in familiar scrawls, sketches, and newspaper clippings by a flashlight tucked under his armpit as the sun disappears, very intent on studying these years and years of notes without telling Dean what it is he's studying.
John seems to have shut down for the moment, closed the conversational door and thrown away the key. Dean can't break through, not that he's really giving it his best try. Hasn't convinced himself that he wants to. He's the reason Sammy's gone, after all.
Dean can only hope his father doesn't eventually slink off into the night without him.
Or maybe Dean hopes he does.
"What are you writing about?" Dean bravely ventures, figuring he's owed at least one explanation from his father, but also interested to see if his voice still works after hours of disuse.
He figures wrong; John shoots him a glare, grunts, closes the book and tucks it and the flashlight back into the glove box. "Nothin' you need to worry about."
Maybe you want to leave, too, his eyes seem to dare. Maybe you should. Maybe I won't stop you. I didn't stop him.
Dean shakes his head, tells himself it's just his imagination.
They don't venture off of the road to grab the sleep that's much needed by both of them, but drive through the night. Dean doesn't mind the long shifts at the wheel; the car is not only something he's always admired, but maybe the only thing in his life that he can control right now, even if he has no say in their heading. John takes over so Dean can doze sporadically and stiffly in the passenger seat until they arrive finally in New York, a quaint little Main Street posing as an entire town surrounded by forest, a row of storefronts and offices with paint peeling from the clapboard siding lining either side of the two-lane road. Two streetlights, a gas station on the corner. A bar, of course, is the telltale sign that they've gotten to where they're going. A road sign points the direction of some backwoods school, presumably one-room.
John directs the car through the town's center, farther upstate, well off of the beaten path. To one-way streets made of gravel, rundown and abandoned buildings. Not a soul in sight. Eventually even the gravel fades away, and John guides the Impala down a narrow, rutted dirt road, and Dean's spirits sink as they draw farther and farther away from the sights and sounds of what little civilization was back in that town.
"Cam's place is up here on the left."
Dean startles, turns to his father, who hasn't spoken in what feels like days but has maybe been an hour. Cam? He recognizes the name: an old, old friend of his father's. He can't be sure but he doesn't think they've spoken in ages.
John tries to smile. At least, that's what Dean interprets the pitiful grimace on his face to be. "We reconnected a few days ago. The, uh, tip. The job. He's out of town for a few days, huntin' somethin' or other but said we could use the place." Long pauses between each word, like it's taking copious amounts of effort to even speak to Dean. Like it's probably a lie. The maybe-a-smile widens. "We'll be okay," he adds.
"Yeah." Dean's not convinced, wonders if the reassurance has sounded this pathetic every time he's uttered it over the years. It must show in his face because John immediately returns his attention to the road before him.
What John failed to supplement was his plan to deposit Dean at Cam's empty, raccoon-infested house like a bag of frozen groceries needing to be unpacked before spoiling and meet up with his old friend on whatever this hunt is. The car jerks to a stop in front of the dark house and John throws it into 'park'. "Spare key's under the potted plant."
Or a cracked pot that maybe once was home to a living plant of some kind but is now a tangle of dried, unidentifiable roots and stems. Dean's hardly through the front door before the tires are kicking up a dirt cloud in their haste to get off of the property.
Shocker, he thinks bitterly, dropping his bag with a hollow thud to the dusty hardwood floor of a dark and unfamiliar home. Looks like Dad wasn't too keen on being cooped up again so immediately with Dean, not that the last week hasn't been a blast. It's interesting, really, that he hasn't picked up on all of the facial cues to give him the hint that he's being so obviously fucking lied to, considering how similar his father and brother's faces have become as Sammy's grown. Not to mention their habits, patterns.
He had this coming, he guesses. Dad's blame, his resentment. There's a way to think about this where it's entirely Dean's fault. He replays it all in his mind on a constant loop, keeps thinking, maybe hoping, it's all been a very vivid dream; there's no way in hell this has actually happened because there's no way in hell he would ever have allowed it to.
But he had. Dad told him to go get Sam, and he'd hesitated. The angel on his shoulder had said to go and the devil had said why bother? And the little horned fucker had put up enough of a fight that by the time Dean finally made it to the bus stop, Sam was gone.
His eyes sweep the small, simple room with disappointment and disdain. The house is old, not rustic but wearing down, dilapidated, long-abandoned and practically held together with masking tape and zip-ties. It's dusty, drafty, and it's difficult to believe someone lives here, besides whatever four-legged critter is making that skittering sound in the attic over his head. He can do little more than assume his father will be back at some point to collect him. It's a pattern of disdain and assumption he's grown accustomed to. Dean has always hated this part.
The house Sam walked out of had been an affordable rental in a not-so-good part of town, small and without the least bit of luxury, needing exterior and structural work they weren't really bothered by and would never bother with. It had done little more than serve as a roof over their heads while Sam finished high school, but it was a HOUSE, and for all its faults it had been a substitute, however poor, for the home Dean had once known. The home he still dreams about, but Sam couldn't remember.
He should have told Dad, should have told him a lot of things. He knows that now. With enough warning, Dad could have stopped Sam.
Red Lion, Pennsylvania
Another week passes, and still without so much as a single word from Sam, they've momentarily settled someplace slightly more long-term, and slightly more civilized, a two thousand population town in western Pennsylvania. Something mildly claustrophobic, a motel with water-stained ceilings next to a biker bar with a blinking neon sign next to a liquor store with a pitiful selection of craft beers and appalling prices.
John's waiting to gather the nerve to go after his son, who's too smart for his own good. Even if they don't know where Sam might be at the moment they know where he'll be eventually, come mid-August. There won't be a new identity, he'll be Samuel Winchester, and he'll be almost too easy to find. Even as he considers it, he knows that will never happen. They're both far too proud for that. But he can keep an eye out, an ear to the ground, and do everything in his power to continue to ensure his boy is living his new life as safely as possible.
He's tried to straighten this all out in his head the only way he knows how; running from his problems and drinking enough to sleep a few hours at night and avoiding the son who's spent his life in his shadow, and none of that makes him particularly happy with or proud of himself. But John is who he is, and that is not a young man anymore, and he can't change who he is now. At the same time, he's tried to give Dean the space to do the same, to find a way to get over this anger, the silent seething he's so keen on. So uncharacteristic of the son who has always managed to point out the rational explanation for everything, always talked down the rest of his temperamental family. Dean's given up on them. That's what's making this time different. The hole he feels, the piece that's missing isn't Sam's presence, it's Dean faith.
"We won't stay here long," John assures his son, voice rough from disuse.
"Whatever." Dean is crouched in front of the room's mini-fridge with his back to his father, staring at its sparse contents. He hasn't moved in ten minutes. "I mean, yeah, okay, sure." He tenses but doesn't turn around, expecting to be head-slapped, expecting to be yelled at.
If he really thinks it through, this is deserved, wholly, the attitude from his son. John had hoped maybe with a couple of days and a couple hundred miles behind them Dean would start to forgive him for letting Sammy go and for much worse. For telling him to stay gone. Maybe then he can try to start forgiving himself, too. Wishful thinking, clearly.
There isn't much good he can do here, crammed with Dean like sardines in a can in this dismal motel room, his guilt mingling in the stale air with his son's anger, confusion hanging like a dark cloud over both of their heads.
Dean is John's boy, but he isn't a boy, really, and he isn't a civilian. He's a hunter, trained by his father, and even in this newly discovered rock-bottom in which the two have found themselves Dean's scrutinizing, studying, and interpreting every word and every facial tick. He can't help searching for some shred of evidence that John knows more than he's saying. That something more is going on here than fleeing in the opposite direction as Sam. Whether he's right or wrong, John's not yet ready to reveal his hand.
Dean continues to crouch in front of the fridge, fidgety on the balls of his feet, presumably deciding whether John will disapprove if he starts drinking before noon. He won't, not today or most likely many of the following days, and excuses himself, leaves the motel room to take a walk a block down to the bar, where he knows Dean won't follow. He has things to think about that he can't properly attend to with his boy in the room.
For the moment, John has lost Sam to a battle of time and place, and he's not going to lose Dean in a much worse way.
John settles onto a stool at the otherwise empty counter and orders a whiskey neat, double. Slaps two twenties on the smooth oak surface to let the barkeep know he means business and this is only the first drink of several. There's a Phillies day game on the TV behind the counter and big bass-fishing on a second monitor mounted in the corner, fuzzy pictures, muted sound. His gruff demeanor and haggard appearance draw judgmental stares from the handful of local patrons seated in groups of two or three at round tables around the room, or maybe that's just the guilt talking. Anyone found in a bar this time of day in the middle of the week with a judgmental bone in his body is probably throwing stones from a glass house.
With crow's feet and a salt-and-pepper beard, leaning on an elbow facing the televisions, the portly man tending bar is maybe John's age. Or maybe John just feels older than he is. "Y'want the sound?" he asks when he notices John's attention drifting to the baseball game, accent crisp and Eastern Coastal.
"S'no bother," John responds, sipping from his glass.
The man squares up to the bar top. "Not from around here, are you?"
John's in as much a mood for small talk as he ever has been. "What gave me away?" he deadpans, sipping lazily from his glass. "Fact I walked over from the motel next door?"
The man stares a moment and squints, deepening the handful of lines to the corners of his gray eyes, then moves on to the next customer down with a huff and a curse released under his breath.
Might make it difficult to get that second whiskey in a timely manner, but the last thing he wants is to trade words with a stranger. He's been on the receiving end of more than enough unsolicited advice from people calling themselves his friends for years.
John takes in the whole of the bar with a quick, looping scan and confirms that his appearance as an obvious outsider and curt interaction with the well-meaning bartender has shed any attention he may have otherwise drawn from his fellow patrons. He still pauses before pulling out his journal. There's withholding information, and there's blatantly hiding it, and the line between the two is blurring as John persists in keeping Dean out of the loop, justifying his son's anger. Blame.
Dean is seeking answers to questions he'll never ask aloud, out of a respect John has also spent a comfortable stretch of years growing accustomed to.
Dean's of an age where he should want to ditch his old man and take off on his own for a while, or in the very least be okay with spending some time apart but that's not Dean. He doesn't do well with being left behind, not now and not ever. Sam's always been independent, but not Dean. Both boys lost a mother, but Sam never really knew what it was to have one. It hasn't been fair to Dean, running out on him like this, but it's the only way John knows to deal with things, and he will understand. Eventually. He always understands.
In the meantime he'll cling to John until the very end, like he did as a toddler. Dean has grown up to be everything Mary was, everything he lost and can't get back and it's killing John to be alone with him.
There's something familiar and uncomfortable about the way he's acting lately, going out and it's almost as though he's daring his father to do something about it. He always comes back, and it worries John more when Dean gets in late and hasn't been drinking than when he has, because that means clear-headed sulking, which leads to the kind of bullshit Sam always pulled. Like when John would say "leaving at six on the dot" and Sam would saunter into the house at six-fifteen, smirking, knowing they would be there waiting for him.
Dean knows something is up, but this isn't something he wants to bring Dean in on, not yet. The kid is a natural, great backup, on par with hunters that have been in the game since he was in diapers, but John's never had Dean by his side unless he was confident he knew the score up and down and every which way. Knew his boy was trained up and armed to the gills and well-protected. Accidents still happened. Surprises, slip-ups, leading to emergency room visits and days of missed school and bouts of heavy drinking and suffocating guilt and "It's okay, Dad." But it never was. Isn't still. Sam preferred to be left behind in the room or in the car, but, truth be told, sometimes that was the way John preferred it, too. He was safe there, out of harm's immediate way.
Dean isn't a boy anymore, but that doesn't change the basic structure of John's clinging paternal instinct. He doesn't remotely consider himself an expert in the field of demonic possessions, or the possibilities of demonic presences outside of possessions. He doesn't think himself a formidable match, so maybe it's possible that might be a touch of embarrassment keeping him quiet, too. Dean idolizes John, and that ain't ego talking.
There are days John hates himself for turning Dean into this. There was never any hope for himself after Mary was taken, but Sammy was just a baby and Dean was young enough. They could have had it different, better. Mary's brother, maybe. Just because John had never made a fraternal connection with the man doesn't mean he wouldn't have taken good care of his nephews, wouldn't have raised them as well as his own sons.
He spreads the pages out on the polished bar top, opens to the newest section of entries, to the page headed with the date of the mysterious midnight call. Unidentified caller. D and/or S = danger? A? A few pages of notes and theories but nothing concrete; a list from memory of everything he knows about demons. A solid page and a half.
"Whatcha got there, friend?"
"My business," John says pointedly, slamming an elbow down on the pages. "And I'm not your friend." He rotates on the bar stool to drive home his words with a glare but there's no one there. The seat is unoccupied. A couple of middle-aged housewives not entirely hard on the eyes frown at him from a table across the room. He sniffs, swallows, and gathers the papers, hands shaking slightly with an unfamiliar and unsettling tremble.
His head is spinning, and the whiskey isn't doing its job, isn't slowing the world down and allowing him to focus on the task at hand. It's because of Sammy. The fight, weeks old but still feeling like a fresh wound, is weighing on his mind, his son's absence is influencing his train of thought and attitude. What he did, what they both said, and the look of seemingly perpetual betrayal and frustration in Dean's eyes ever since. Like Sam's prone to bouts of jackassery but that's okay because he's still just a kid and this was John's responsibility. HIS play to make and he dropped the ball. He blew it, and he did so with gusto. These are things he's not used to seeing there staring back at him, never has before this week. He's been spoiled with twenty years of those green eyes gazing up at him with awe and admiration, loyalty and respect, and nothing less. Like he's some sort of goddamned hero. Maybe that's John's fault, too.
The cell phone in his pocket chimes, startling John to the point he drops the journal back to the bar top as he digs into his jacket pocket. He's still not used to the damned thing, takes a long sip as he brings the phone to his ear. "Yeah."
"John?"
"You were expectin' someone else?"
"Heh. Charming as ever, Winchester."
"Cam? Well, damn. How've you been?" So off-kilter and working a comfortable buzz from the double whiskey, hell, he initiates small talk. He almost can't help himself; it's been a damn long time since anyone's sounded this happy to hear John's voice.
"Listen, John, I know it's been a long time, but this isn't exactly a social call." All of a sudden, Cam's not so much friendly as urgent. "I've had some information cross my table. Information concerning you and yours."
John's fingers tighten around his empty glass as he settles back onto the bar stool. This is starting to feel a little too familiar. "What are you talking about?"
"Not over the phone. We need to meet. I'll send you my location. Your cell phone do text messaging?"
"What messaging?"
"Text? You serious you don't…it's like little bursts of email from one mobile to another. Join us in the new world, Winchester."
"Now you sound like my son." And sunuvabitch if that doesn't move him to motion for the barkeep to refill the glass immediately. "Doesn't anyone just talk on the telephone anymore?"
"You know I don't like making long calls. Fuck, I'm antsy already with this one. Government's got tabs on all that shit."
"You that paranoid, Wiseman? You think these email text messages of yours don't leave a record of some kind somewhere?" John takes a long sip, reveling in the trail of heat cutting a path down his throat.
Cam chuckles. "Now there's the John Winchester I've known ten years. Maybe I'm not the only one who's paranoid."
Well, Winchester, he ain't wrong about that. "Yeah."
"I'll see you and the boys soon."
John swallows, eyes what's left in the glass and pulls another twenty from his wallet. "Yeah. We'll see you."
This is for their protection. This is all for their protection and Dean could give a rat's ass. Just wants his brother by his side. John can understand that. He's used to being left. Dean isn't.
If this call from Cam has anything to do with the warning he's already received, then maybe Sam is safer on the other side of the country, after all.
He can't explain this new threat to Dean. Doesn't have nearly enough information to being him in on this, can't gauge the severity, the reality of it. He'd spook him, probably drive him to some half-cocked race across the country to his brother's side. And then John wouldn't be able to protect either of them.
Sam's gone, and he's not looking to make a comeback anytime soon. Gone because he wants to be, and if it's what he wants then John will leave him to it. The door will always be open for him, but John's not about to go traipsing after the disrespectful shit. Dean's just going to have to get over it, or at least learn to live with it. A distracted hunter turns into a dead one real quick.
John loves his boys, no question, and neither more than the other. Sam for his strength and spirit, Dean for his heart and sense of duty to his family. Both for the way they've made him smile and laugh, for anchoring him through his darkest days and giving him two very good reasons to press on. He's not angry with Sammy. Not in the way he's expected to be.
Regardless of the cryptic call from Cameron, and the apparent direness of the situation looming over their heads, they stay in that crap motel in Pennsylvania two days longer than John's instincts want him to, because if Sammy happens to saunter in, smirking, they'll be there waiting for him.
Dean couldn't have thrown a dart blindfolded at a map of the continental U.S. and hit such a backwoods shithole of a town and he can't help thinking it's intentional on his father's part, a little "Fuck you, Samuel. Just try to find us." Not that he will.
He's nervous at the prospect of being holed up alone with his father. He has his comfort zone, same as anyone. Loves his father, obviously, but hasn't ever really spent time with him without Sam. But Sam hadn't given any consideration to what Dean said or thought or wanted, so maybe it's better this way.
Just because Dean didn't think Sam would ever walk away from them doesn't mean he never suspected the kid had it in him. Stubborn little son of a bitch had been making threats and packing bags since he was eleven years old. Dean just thought family and duty meant more than freedom. Thought he'd make his way back to them by now.
His father seems to have thought so, too, from the look of it. His initial short-tempered anger has become a less intense, quiet brooding. It's something Dean recognizes in the shadow of his eyes, in the way his head jerks at every rustle outside of every crappy motel room: regret. A muscle in his neck tightens, readying his speech for when Sam finally catches up. But he never will, and though they won't yet admit it out loud, they both know it.
The big brother in Dean, the one John created purpose for, appreciates his father's regret but sees no reason to offer comfort or understanding, instead lets him stew in his guilt and seemingly endless supply of liquor. The whiskey puts a temporary lid on John's lingering anger, leaves it to simmer and turns instead to feed his pride, steel his resolve. He's keeping to himself even more than is characteristically typical, coming and going at all hours without mention of any legitimate job being taken.
John is falling back into all of his old patterns, every behavior Dean remembers from those roughest years as a boy. The weekly disappearing act, the drinking in the middle of the day. Long stretches of not speaking, too distraught and withdrawn to console his young son the way a father should. Sam couldn't remember those days, which Dean figures made the whole disrespectful shit thing easier to pull off.
In the past, every time John's taken to this type of behavior, Dean's hung back, played housemaid, babysitter, made sure Sammy did all of his homework and had something of a substantial meal at dinnertime, silent and sullen but putting on a front like everything's okay. Spaghetti-O's on a chipped plastic plate. It'll be okay, Sammy. A sturdy hand on a shaky shoulder. It'll be okay, Dad.
But Sammy isn't in the room this time to anchor Dean, and without that weight on his ankles, Dean finds it's easier than he'd ever thought possible to make his own way out into town to find new ways to lose forget his troubles and lose himself. He lingers nightly in the back corners of small bars, getting the kind of reputation Dad's always warned against, downs four tall draft beers in a respectable amount of time and surprises himself when he turns down the advances of a pretty barfly. He wouldn't mind the companionship, he's just not looking to take anything home with him.
Dean also keeps a small stash in the room, nothing compared to the portable liquor store Dad travels with, but a six-pack or two everywhere they stop kept separate from his father's bottles. Alcohol has always made him loose and warm, and with the boost of liquid courage he starts to stealthily call Sam from those corner booths, every chance he gets. There's never an answer on the other end, which he really feels he deserves, and he leaves a handful of slurred voicemail messages ranging from saddened to furious to desperate.
"Sam, man. I'm not lookin' for an excuse or an explanation or a goddamned reason. Just gimme a call and let me know you got to where you were goin'. You owe me that much."
"Fine, Sammy, you don't owe me anything. Is that what you wanna hear? But you answer when I call you. If you had any idea…what…get your head out of your ass and call me. Now."
"M'not mad, Sammy. It's m'job to watch out for you, and I can't…if you're not…m'not mad."
He disconnects the call and goes home with the barfly.
To be concluded...