WBY NGE part 5
Not Good Enough Part 5
A half hour from home and JR called his dad. No there was no real trouble but could he meet them at the Winchester's place?
Then River called the house. Gramps answered the phone. River barely stifled the "Oh shit," before he started talking to his grandfather.
"Hey Gramps we're coming home. I s Dad there?"
"He's in the head."
"How about Uncle Dean?"
"Outside…why do you wanna talk to everyone but me?" Gramps asked suddenly suspicious.
"I uh, I…just."
"Spit it out."
River pulled himself a little straighter in the car, that was definitely and order. His grandfather wanted the lowdown and he wanted it now. "Gramps - first - we are all right. All of us. Remember that - okay? Secondly - we'll be home in twenty minutes, Mr. Jeff is gonna swing by so we can talk to you all together. Just…just get Dad out of the bathroom and Uncle Dean up at the house so we only have to go through it once."
"Are you ignoring an order from me?"
"Uh, no, sir. Not ignoring. Just momentarily delaying."
There was silence on the other line.
"There better be a real good reason for this momentary delay."
"Yes, sir. – Like I said – it would be best if we talked to you all at once."
Gramps growled low, "And by 'we'- I expect you mean, you, Jamie and JR."
"Yes, sir."
"Don't think this is gonna happen again, River. Next time I tell you to do something you do it."
River rolled his eyes at Jamie, "Yes, sir."
"And if I catch you rolling those eyes at me, I'll smack you so hard your teeth'll rattle."
"Yes, sir." Because really between the eye rolling and teeth rattling, that was the only thing that River could say without getting in more trouble.
"I'll see you in a few, okay Gramps?" River tapped the off button on his phone.
He leaned over the front seat, "We are so dead."
XXX
They pulled up to the farmhouse twenty minutes later. Sheriff Banner's squad car was in the driveway and the door was already open.
JR put the Jeep in park and turned the key off. It shuddered a moment and then stopped. JR patted the steering wheel. "Even the old girl is worried." JR motioned toward the open front door of the farm house. "Is than an invitation for positive conversation and an open line of communication or is it a trap?"
Jamie and River both answered at once. "A trap."
The boys got out of the Jeep. River glanced quickly at the abandoned fishing gear. They had done so many stupid things on this trip, the least of which was probably lying about their whereabouts. That in itself was a concern, considering lying was a huge no-no in the Winchester family, and that was just one of the rules that they had broke.
There were too many for River to even formulate them.
But it was his idea in the first place and he was going to stand up and take most of the blame.
River walked in first, closely followed by Jamie and JR. River couldn't believe how relieved he felt that his field medic, Jamie, had been so damn good. If he'd have walked in with blood all over himself he might have avoided an instant ass whipping but it would be because his family might have had a communal heart attack. He briefly wondered if Jeff Banner would be able to CPR on three men.
All four men were all standing in the living room- just waiting quietly for the boys to walk in.
"Hey Dad." River spoke quietly and felt the instant assessment of his family as they did a quick visual over each boy.
"You alright?" Sam asked managing to sound both pissed and concerned at the same time.
"Yes, sir. Mostly."
"Do you want to explain that?" It wasn't a surprise that his father was going to continue with this line of questioning.
"Yes, but I need to start at the beginning."
"Always a good place to start, " That was Gramps. His grandfather was casually leaning in the doorway. So casual it was not casual at all.
River had been rehearsing what to say for the past two hours, but none of it sounded right. Finally and spontaneously he decided to just spurt it out. It turned out that two hours of rehearsing was moot when faced with his family.
"We went on a hunt, Dad. It was my idea. I wanted to prove to you I could do it. I convinced Jamie to help me out and I convinced JR to back us up. I thought we had it all covered but didn't." River saw how his father cut his eyes to both Jamie and JR. "We researched it carefully and thought we had it under control – we almost pulled it off. We ganked it, I think…but maybe not the whole thing. I don't know."
Sam moved up a bit, stepping toward River, "You don't know?"
"Well it wasn't exactly what we thought it was."
"And not exactly where we thought it would be." Jamie interjected helpfully.
"Why don't you tell us what happened?" That was Uncle Dean. His voice a little rough but actually less stressed than his father's sounded.
And River did – from beginning to end. He glossed over the kill as quickly as he could trying to minimize his part in it as well as his injury. Which was odd, because he wanted to prove he could hunt and what better way to prove it than to tell them how solid the kill was.
But it didn't feel solid to River. It felt scared and unprepared and it felt like he'd only manage to kill the donkey by the seat of his pants. That was not the impression he wanted to leave with his family.
He took a deep breath and waited for the storm to hit. Instead Uncle Dean kind of chuckled, "You got your ass kicked by an ass?" He was rewarded for his remarks by a quick cuff from Gramps and a scowl from his brother.
Dean took the slap without a rub but looked a little hurt, "What? It had to be said. You just can't pass that shit up, no matter how serious the situation."
"Shut up, Dean." Sam said tersely pulling his eyes back to River, "So let's take a look at that bite." His father moved over to River's right arm and River pulled his shirt up to reveal the donkey bite. Jamie had done a great job with it but Sam had to take it off the dressing to see it with his own two eyes.
He looked at it critically. River winced as his father pushed on the edges of the wound. River knew he was looking for a possible infection or anything that looked bad supernatural or otherwise. He carefully replaced the bandages. "It looks like it'll heal okay. You're gonna be bruised for a while and sore as shit but Jamie did a good job cleaning it out. You both made the right call with the hospital too. There 's not much anyone can do about this as long as there is no residual supernatural donkey goo in there."
Jamie nodded, a small blush on his face. It was obvious that he didn't expect even that attaboy from his uncle.
"So how are you boys going to justify this?" That was Gramps again.
"We are not going to justify anything, Gramps. I'm just going to try to explain to you why I felt I needed to do this."
Sam stepped into River's space a little bit, "I, for one, would like some kind of justification regarding something. Because right now, it just seems to me like you boys went off half cocked and almost got yourselves killed. "
"We didn't go off half-cocked, Dad. Just a little misinformed about the lore." River continued with the verbal volley.
"That's just semantics River and you know it." Uncle Dean stated suddenly deciding to jump on the "I really am an adult" bandwagon.
Jamie tried to rally to his cousin's defense. "We found all the lore we could, Dad. We knew it might be a witch with a familiar, we knew it might be a ghost. We were ready for that. We knew about the bridge and the river, we just weren't expecting an attack from the woods."
Uncle Dean really growled now, "So you were unprepared."
"No, sir. Not really. It was just unexpected."
"Jesus, Jamie, shit is always unexpected. That's why we brief and debrief over and over. That's why the fucking senior hunter needs to be older than fucking sixteen! Not to mention we don't bring in civilians as 'back up'".
"Hey, I resent that Mr. Dean. I'm not a civilian, just because I haven't really hunted before doesn't mean I'm shark chum." JR interjected. River could see that JR's dander was up but he didn't know how to stop it from escalating to a really bad situation. Fortunately, or unfortunately, Jeff Banner stepped in right then.
"You're right, JR – you are not a damn civilian. You are the Sherriff's son. You know what the Winchesters hunt. You should know better. "
"Awe c'mon, Dad. We did a good job. For the most part. We just need to fine tune things, that's all."
"Fine tune? FINE TUNE? One of your best friends has a fucking whole in his shoulder due to a demonic donkey!" Jeff ran a hand through his salt and pepper hair."
JR shrugged, "We don't know for sure if it was demonic, dad. It looked more rabid to me."
Jeff rounded on JR. "And you are the begin all and end all when it comes to demon verses rabid?"
"No, sir. I just…"
"Exactly. You just decided to go along with Tweedledee and Tweedledum regardless of the consequences."
"Not really, Dad. We considered the consequences but figured the benefits outweighed them."
"Well you figured wrong." With that Jeff Banner grabbed his son roughly by his t-shirt.
"Me and JR are leaving now. He and I are going to have a heart to heart regarding benefits and the ensuing consequences. You boys better make sure you have everything you need from that Jeep 'cause JR's not going to be driving it for a while."
"Don't worry, Jeff. " Uncle Dean said. "Our boys won't be needing and fishing equipment or camping gear for quite a while either." He opened the door with his arm and River couldn't help but grimace when Jeff Banner pulled JR out the door with him.
"Seeya later, boys." JR tried to grin.
"Don't count on it." Came Jeff Banner's reply.
Then it was just the Winchesters.
XXX