A/N: Over 600 reviews! Dang. Thank you, everyone, for all the reviews and the recc's! This story was already complete, but I added more sections to these last three chapters, so this story will run past the 31 chapters I said it would. I want to include all the comfort I promised the boys would get and deserve, and those loose ends will get tied up. *Grins evilly* Well, most of 'em.
Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural. This is for entertainment, and not for profit.
Chapter 28 – the in-between place
They were in his house.
They were in his damn house with that fucking boy.
Abraham stood in the brush and watched the place with narrowed eyes. Wind lashed through the trees overhead. He didn't move, not even when Jerry appeared out of the darkness. The boy stayed at a safe distance.
He could feel his father's rage, and even he wasn't that stupid to come any closer.
"Must have been her cop car I saw on at the back gate," Bobby added solemnly. "Ellen says Hudak's throat was slashed."
Missy, Sam thought. That lump in his throat got bigger and harder. He forced air down his throat, willed his chest not to hitch or stutter. Sam saw Kathleen Hudak as she was the last time he'd seen her. There was something warm and sad about her, despite the gun at her hip and the deputy's uniform she wore, like she'd gone through the same thing in her family, but she never would come out and say what it was.
Sam stared at Dean's pale, sleeping face. Dean was here, alive, and Hudak was gone. He'd prayed to whoever, whatever was listening for the first outcome; never even imagined the second part, and that sent his nerves vibrating with guilt. If he hadn't called her days ago, she'd still be alive. If he hadn't called her, she wouldn't have gone out to Sweetbriar in the first place, because when he saw her in the parking lot, it was obvious she'd been inside. He could tell by the look she gave him sad, silent (Go on now. He's inside) that she'd seen Dean in his padded room.
What was in his mind showed on his face, raw, open, and wounded.
"Don't do that to yourself, Sam," John said gently. Bobby nodded.
"I'm just…I'm just tired, Dad. That's all. Tired of losing people." That was as good an answer as any. He couldn't tell them the rest. They wouldn't understand. Hell, half the time he didn't understand it himself. Sometimes he got so angry about losing people his throat closed up and he left like he was going to strangle.
Sam thought about Missy back there in the clearing, how easily he'd killed her. Sam thought about it, he wanted her dead in the worst way, so when everything around him went yellow it seemed the most natural thing in the world to push all that anger out, direct it down the handle, into the head of the axe.
It was all for Dean. It. Felt. Right.
Dean groaned out loud, pushed his way halfway out of the brown blanket towards Sam and John, Even after everything he'd said outside about being damaged goods and deserving to be abandoned, he still gravitated toward his family, his real family, in his sleep. The sight of his wrists duct taped together chilled Sam inside, and he knew that underneath the blanket Dean's ankles were taped together too.
Dean looked young, defenseless. If I hadn't fucked up back at the cabin you wouldn't be like this. Sam pulled the blanket back up and around Dean's shoulders; Dean didn't react.
"All right." John huffed wearily. "If we're gonna be here for a while, we gotta secure this place."
Sam stood up, moved away from the chair. "Dad, you shouldn't be moving around much. Bobby, you shouldn't either."
Bobby grunted. "All I did was lose a toe. Just a lil' flap of skin." He nodded toward John. "This idjit should sit his ass down for a while."
John narrowed his eyes. "Idjit, huh?"
"Yep. A whipped dog will holler, Winchester."
Sam stared at his father's face. He looked pale and tired, and beat halfway to hell, and Sam was pretty damn sure that party favor sticking up out of his right shoulder wasn't doing him any big favors either. "Okay. Stay with Dean, Dad. Me and Bobby got this."
John sat down in Sam's chair with a barely audible grunt.
First thing Bobby did in the kitchen was to pick up his right little toe from the floor.
Sam tried to block Bobby's view of the damn thing. Bobby made a disgusted sound in his throat and bulled his way past the boy. He bent down and picked the little toe up.
Hell. It didn't look real, just a little nub of flesh, pinkish grey, slightly shriveled at the end. He'd cut his toenails straight across a couple of days before, so aside from the blood caked underneath his nail, the damn thing looked clean, at least. His foot was at a low throb now, and the sight of his missing toe didn't provoke any further reaction. It was almost like his body knew that toe was a lost cause and decided to cut its losses.
Bobby huffed a laugh, and Sam stared at him in amazement. "What?" the older man shrugged. "Looks like a peanut."
Sam stared at him.
"Well, it does, junior. Anyway, it's mine. Still is." Bobby slipped it into his vest pocket. "I can say and do anything I want with it, so don't get all girly on me now." Bobby smirked. "Might put it on a key chain when I get back home."
Sam groaned.
Bobby looked down at Jerry's body and shrugged. "You gonna help me get this bastard out of here, or you gonna need another moment with your lady parts?"
"Nope," Sam knelt down and grabbed Jerry by the wrists. "I'm done."
John shivered.
He reached up to massage that ache in his left shoulder, and he stopped himself when he realized the knife was still in there, anchored securely with duct tape. John wearily dropped his hand back down to his lap.
Dean fidgeted in his sleep. His long dark eyelashes fluttered, his eyes moved frantically behind his eyelids. His fingers jerked and moved, relaxed and then went claw-like. He seemed to be trying to grab on to something.
John hoped the dreams Dean was having were good ones. Playing ball out in the backyard back in Kansas. Quiet moments like that. That was what John hoped, but privately he kind of doubted that.
Another shiver worked its way up John's spine.
He looks just like his mother with all that hair.
That sandy blond color was Gabriel's, and as soon as he could John knew Dean was going to get rid of it.
Getting' kinda shaggy there, kiddo.
John sat heavily back in the chair. His eyelids were too heavy to keep open. God, he was tired. Beat down, used up. After this he could sleep for a week, and he just might.
Took all this trouble to get him back.
John blinked.
Look at him. More trouble than he was worth.
He stared down at Dean and his fingers itched with the idea of punching Dean in the face.
Fucking bastard. Damn kid.
There was no salt anywhere in the kitchen. Not even in the pantry.
"Huh." Bobby scratched his chin. "So hillbilly cannibals believe in low or no sodium. Freaks. Who knew?"
Sam tossed the empty box of salt back into the trashcan. "Apparently they just ran out." He straightened up, ignored the loud crack in his back when he stood up. "Yeah, we're batting a thousand here."
"Could be worse," the older man said. "It can always get worse."
This is my land, John thought. My house. He looked around the living room with new eyes. He and his boys found that bookcase over there in the town dump. Brought it back in the truck.
Lee, Jerry and Missy were good kids, the best.
He tried not to think of Gabriel. Brother Gabe was lost again, and this time he was pretty sure Gabriel wouldn't be coming back.
John stared at Dean, and he didn't notice the chill in the air all around him. John's skin had taken on a slightly grayish blue tinge to it, and his breath was a lacy white pattern in the air.
He stared at the boy sleeping on the couch, and by God, he got so damn angry.
I took you in that night. Took you in, and now my family's fucked up, because of you.
John's fingers clenched. He could imagine reaching out, wrapping his broad strong fingers around the boy's throat. He'd enjoy that, seeing those hazy green eyes pop open, all confused and bewildered, enjoy watching the fear in those eyes as the damn kid struggled and wondered why his dear ol' daddy was killing him, watching the life and the light slowly go out.
It was a beautiful thing, but he had other ideas.
John felt his fingers pick at the duct tape wound around the knife handle.
Jerry had already gone stiff by the time Bobby and Sam lugged him down the back porch stairs. A few feet away from the bottom steps Bobby stepped over to the side and nodded. "Right here's good. They're bringing salt and enough flammables to do the job. Remember we still got those other two in the woods to take care of."
"What else did Ellen say?" Sam let go of his end; he was glad to let go of that cold, dead flesh.
"She's bringing Rufus. And a doctor. Told her that we had Dean back."
Sam grinned a little. "And?"
"She said we'd have some words later. I'm really lookin' forward to that." Bobby straightened up. "You remember seeing any salt in that barn of theirs?" He jerked his thumb backwards at the outbuilding.
Sam shook his head. "No. Nothing in there but those cages."
"Damn. Well, let's go look in the basement, then."
John pulled the knife out of his shoulder.
He ignored the trickle of blood that soaked his clothing as soon as the tip of the blade worked itself free of his flesh. That deep ache he felt, all the way down to his bones, didn't matter. None of it did. He had some carving to do.
John stared hard at that pale, bruised face. The sleeping boy twitched, almost like he knew what was about to happen, and John grinned to himself.
He leaned down, put his lips to the kid's ear as he fisted his jacket collar. "Want you awake for this, you lil' bastard."
Dean jerked back. He was in the in-between place, not fully awake, but not sound asleep, either.
Bad, he thought wildly. Gonna be bad. He tried to push backwards, but there was something wrong with his hands and he couldn't move his feet. He was pulled forwards with a jerk.
"…went to all this fucking trouble…"
Dad sounded mad.
…'m sorry, 'm sorry 'm like this…
"…this is the thanks I get from you?"
Abraham sounded mad.
…sorry I fucked everything up like this…
"Wake up, you sumbitch!"
Dean jerked his head up and stared right into the eyes of John Winchester.
Dad smiled. Abraham smiled. Dean stared wide-eyed at the bloody tip of the knife that was inches away from his left eye.
"D-Dad?"
John didn't blink.
"A-Abraham? Please, no…"
"You're no kin of mine, boy. Not anymore." Dad tightened his grip on Dean's shirt and his jacket, flipped him over on his back and straddled him on the couch. "Gabe's gone, and you're still here."
"N-not r-real," Dean stuttered. "N-None of t-this is r-real."
Abraham laughed using John's mouth. "You keep thinkin' that, boy. Maybe that'll bring you some comfort while I carve you up."
The left side of John's shirt and jacket was slick with blood. Dean stared at it. Wasn't his, not yet, anyway.
I deserve this, Dean thought as the knife descended on him, as the bloody silver blade filled his vision. I fucked up, fucked it all up ---
"Hey!"
Sam was in front. Bobby caught a glimpse of John pressing Dean down on the couch, and the hair on the back of Bobby's neck stood up, stiff and painful. Then Sam charged forward, and that was when Bobby noticed how cold the air in the room was, he could see his breath, he could see Sam's breath, even saw frost on the bloody knife blade as John lifted it up again, and hell, that wasn't right, that wasn't right at all.
Sam used his height and weight to barrel into John and knock him off balance. He grabbed John by the wrists, pulled his arms out to the sides as he bulled him away from the couch. John bared his teeth as they turned around. He kicked out with both legs. Sam held on despite it all and slammed back first into the wall.
For a moment Bobby saw someone else, a ghost image superimposed over John's face: eyes gone to slits, a thick, grizzled grey beard.
Abraham Bender.
Bobby also saw something else: Sam Winchester's eyes flashed yellow.
Bender's eyes widened, his mouth formed an O of surprise and shock. The image dissolved into thin air. John stiffened; his face went slack and his fingers hooked into claws. The knife clattered onto the floor as John went limp.
The left side of John's shirt and jacket was soaked with blood, and Bobby knew right away where Bender had gotten the knife from.
Bobby lunged forward, landed on his knees awkwardly by the couch and jammed his fingers into the pulse point right underneath Dean's jaw. Dean lay limp, unconscious. His pulse was slow and sluggish but the kid was still breathing. Bobby hiked up his shirt, pulled open his jacket, and then sat back in disbelief at the bare, freckled, unmarked skin. The only sign of damage to Dean was that thin six inch long cut that started just above his left eyebrow then onto his cheek. THe top of the cut on Dean's cheek was deeper than the rest; apparently the tip of the knife skipped Dean's skin like a pebble over the surface of a pond as Sam tackled John. Aside from the bruises Dean already had there on his face there was nothing else, no stab wounds, no cuts other than the one down his face.
Sam slid slowly down the wall with John cradled in his arms. The eldest Winchester's head hung forward. He was out of it, but his color was slowly returning to normal. John was breathing; Bobby could see his chest rise and fall.
Sam wasn't looking too well, by comparison.
A single tear ran out of his left eye, then his right. His jaws clenched tight and he bit down on his lips. He looked like he wanted to scream. Bobby stared at him, a mixture of fear, sadness and revulsion rising up in his gut.
Yellow eyes. No, I didn't see that. I couldn't have.
Bobby got up, limped over, knelt down and pulled John's shirt away from his skin. There was a purplish bruise right where the knife had gone in and come out. A large blood stain appeared on the left side of Sam's shirt, in the same exact spot where John's wound was.
Sam flinched. Bobby's hands shook as he pulled Sam's shirt open just in time to see a two inch gaping wound open up in the boy's skin, and then the skin knit back together before Bobby's horrified eyes.
Sam stared up at him, silently searched the older man's face for some hint of understanding.
Please, that look said, I did it all for my family. Please…
God Almighty, Bobby thought. What a mess.
A/N: Next post Friday.
