SPN fic: Fire in the Hole 5/9, Part One
Hello! Short updates before we get to the meat of it:
NitGirl is doing fine, thanks everyone. She’s back at school, minus superfluous body parts.
Our house now has a ‘SOLD’ sign in front of it.
I’m heading off to BC on Sunday for our Glorious Month-Long Vacation.
So it might be awhile before you see the next chapter.
We’ll be doing the Bear Hunt 2 while we’re out there (Sasquashme, Lemmypie and maybe, just maybe if we’re really, really lucky: kimonkey7), so look for that before end of August, in all its crackalicious glory. Locations, locations, locations.
Otherwise….
Fire in the Hole, 5/9
Chapter Five/Full Fathom Five (Part One)
Summary: After Sam leaves for Stanford, Dean falls hard and John doesn’t catch him. Their long bloody year comes to an abrupt end in the silver mining district of western Nevada, where both father and son must face their worst fears.
Rating: PG-13. Swearing! One good Ramones joke! Really, really loooong. Gen, WIP.
Fall on my knees: Sasquashme (a.k.a. jmm0001) and Lemmypie read this HUGE thing several times, for which I owe them much alcohol. I probably would also buy Kripke a beer.
Read previous chapters
--
Sam, I don’t know what you’re doing. One day you’re gonna come back and we won’t be speaking the same language. Need a fucking translator. You’re probably studying some shit I’ll never understand and I’ll pretend I don’t care what the fuck quantum physics are, but I do. You’re right though; it’s not as if I ever understood any of that crap. Not as if I’d ever fit in at college.
Guess you’ve got better things to do than pick up the phone. Don’t know what I’d say, even if you called. Just ignoring us, as usual, blocking us out like we don’t matter.
Maybe we don’t. I don’t know anymore.
You’re right about Dad. You are. He’s chasing around this obsession of his, this idea about evil and he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know what he’s chasing. Some days I think it’s his own tail. As if I’d say that to him. Like that fucked-up captain with the peg leg, just hunting that fucking whale and doesn’t really care if the whole ship goes down with him.
Yeah. So maybe you’re right about everything. But...but. It doesn’t give you the excuse, you know? To not call back. Even your college buddies, I bet they phone home once in a while. What if…what if something was wrong? What if something was really wrong? Would you call back then?
Fuck you, Sam.
Well, yeah. So that’s all I wanted to say.
--
Die of hypothermia, or burn the cabin down: not much of a choice, but John had a well-founded aversion to fire, so before falling asleep, he’d put on an extra sweater and huddled into the sleeping bag. He woke up cold, knowing he’d have to get up to light the kerosene heater. He had to be awake enough so he didn’t blow them up.
He sat up in the sagging cot, a relic from the Depression, felt his neck and chest with cautious fingers. Tender, but not burning. Okay. He was going to be okay.
He hadn’t wanted to worry Dean, but he hadn’t been sure if the vodka and salt was going to work. As usual, all he’d had to go on was rumor and conjecture. And this time, like times before, it had been enough. Barely.
The day had dawned cloudless, sun blasting blowtorch bright from the ridiculous amount of snow; it had snowed the entire time they’d been here. What a fucking place, a land out of time, cut off from everything, floating between two Great Lakes, not quite Canada, but certainly not part of twenty-first century America.
As John got up, a piece of paper drifted from his bed to the floor. He automatically stooped to get it, dizziness hitting him. A week flat out, more or less. Not good to move too fast. A paper bag from the liquor store, flattened, Dean’s pencil markings on one side. Read the message and shook his head. Found a New Year’s Eve party, had he?
Still wrapped in the sleeping bag, he shuffled over to the heater, bent and lit the disreputable thing, and it clicked and popped before starting to glow and grudgingly throw off heat.
He didn’t knock on the bedroom door, mostly because there was no door: only a piece of unraveling fabric separated the rooms. Must have been one hell of a party, because Dean was still in his clothes, was sprawled on the bed in his big coat, blanket half off him, face buried in the pillow.
John thought that. Then saw the bloodstain weeping around his son’s head like an ungodly halo.
He didn’t panic, simply took the two quick steps required to find a pulse on Dean’s neck, to assure himself that his son hadn’t died in the night, and as he touched him, Dean flailed about, one hand catching John squarely on the nose.
“Jesus Christ,” John swore, and Dean buried himself into the pillow, one hand covering his head.
John saw how bruised the knuckles were, recognized the signs of a beating taken in the course of a brawl.
Took until the coffee was ready to coax Dean into the main room of the cabin, wash cloths soaked in hot water to clean a bloody and swollen nose, cut on his eyebrow too set now for stitches, bruises clear up his brow bone, split lip, torso just a mess, but nothing broken.
Cleaned him up and Dean was perfectly silent, didn’t even wince as John put antiseptic on the cuts, wrapped the hand in gauze. Like he didn’t care. Like he’d deserved it, somehow.
John didn’t quite know what to make of it. He’d patched up his son dozens of times, and Dean usually masked everything with a running monologue. This was different, not right.
“What happened?” John asked, snapping shut the first aid box.
Dean shrugged, looking at the cup of black coffee in his hands.
After a moment, John said, “They aren’t like us, Dean.” Unable to offer anything to him that would help.
Dean sipped the coffee, not ignoring John, just not responding. Far away. Hurting.
“Why don’t you get some rest,” John suggested, wishing that Dean would say something.
Dean didn’t move, but after a minute, he shook his head. “Nah. You okay?” Looked questioningly at John.
John didn’t quite know what he was asking, so took it at face value. “Yeah, I’m good.” He gestured to his neck. “Swelling’s down. No fever.”
Dean walked stiffly to the battered aluminum coffee pot, poured himself another mug. He didn’t turn, merely lifted a hand to the paltry curtain, so cold here John could see his own breath. Dean pulled the cheap gingham back, looked out at the snow-covered vehicles. At the frozen lake beyond. “The job’s done. No point in sticking around.”
He wanted to go, wanted it so badly even John - half-healed, naturally obtuse - could see it.
They had nothing to go to, no ‘next gig’. The only gift John could give him was to point them south. Go someplace warm, because they couldn’t get colder than this.
--
He ought to have been outraged, really, but Dean looked so…whole, sitting there in the sunshine, face tilted to the sky like he was trying to get a tan, eyes closed, that beat-up leather coat that used to be John’s open because it was almost warm in the sun.
Whole and normal. Like any other young guy hanging out, enjoying the good weather.
Still, John suspected an act, because Dean could put on normal like a raincoat, it was one of his most useful attributes. Wind him up and watch him go, had gotten them out of many a scrape, the charm-normal combo. But even John recognized that the older Dean got, the less believable his normal was. The longer Dean spent in this vocation, this chosen career.
Pushed that thought to the side, pulled the Impala to a stop in front of the motel, piece of rope stapled in an inverted infinity symbol to the battered blue door. Number eight most people would have called it. Dean had spotted this motel when John had driven him from the Carson-Tahoe Hospital to the Rehabilitation Unit just across campus, insisted that John would get a reasonable and comfortable room at the Silver Nugget Ranch-o-Rama and John knew exactly what his son was up to.
Dean tried to embarrass him all the time, kept upping the motel décor ante like he was at an Atlantic City betting table. The Ranch-o-Rama was only one step removed from a Japanese Love Hotel, an old-west brothel re-imagined by that freaky French circus. Big waving cowboy emblazoned in neon, a cousin to the one in Vegas, cute mining-flavored names for all the rooms - John had opted for The Sutro Suite, which included a kitchenette. The Comstock Pump n’ Ride was across the highway, causing further hilarity in the peanut seats.
Dean had laughed so hard when he’d seen that, pointed out that it was close to both Highway 15 and the Rehab Unit. Close, my ass. The room was cheap, at any rate.
So John had booked the room before dropping Dean off at the huge fifties-era brick residential rehab clinic. Had made sure Dean was secure in the open ward, secure in the sense that he was registered and had a bed and a schedule. Had a plastic-coated bracelet with the purloined name. Had a list of rules a mile long. Had to adhere to the safety precautions, not move from his ward or even his bed without buzzing the floor nurse.
So, secure in that sense.
Not in the sense that he wasn’t able to appear fewer than twenty-four hours later outside John’s motel room, settled in a white plastic patio chair, lounging lizard-like in the early evening light.
Dean looked up as the Impala came to a stop, wiped his eyes with his fingers like he’d been dozing. Brought out a slow, weary smile that told John so much. Dean wasn’t going to raise his voice, wasn’t going to go into hysterics, or give his father a long protracted argument outlining various pros and cons. He wasn’t Sam. But he wasn’t going to be moved, either.
John unfolded himself from the car, shrugged out of his canvas coat; it was warm on the sun-soaked pavement outside the room.
“So?” he asked, aimed for ‘mildly inquisitive’ instead of ‘pissed’.
Dean shrugged, one foot turned lazily on its side like a sleeping puppy. “I’m not staying in that place.” A statement, not a plea or a question. “Someone stole my toothpaste last night. The floor nurse is a bored psychopath. The PTs are all either zombies or satanic spawn and I didn’t even have to say kristo to figure that one out.”
John leaned against the car. “How’d you manage your escape?”
“Asked one of the visitors - girlfriend of some guy who dove headfirst into the shallow end - to give me a ride here. Not like breaking out of maximum security or anything.”
John didn’t look at his son, kept his eyes on the far horizon, dusty blue mountains faded as morning make-up. “Free man, I guess,” he muttered, almost too low for Dean to hear.
“Something like that.”
He wasn’t going to give Dean hell; he knew what it was like to be stuck in hospital, for god’s sake. John was too tired to tear a strip. “So. What’s the plan for getting better?” For avoiding a lifetime in a wheelchair, you little shit? Kept it out of his voice.
Or thought he did.
“I can go for outpatient services during the day. Do the exercises here as well.” There it was. The question, hidden in there, because he’d heard what John had been trying to hide. Dean might have decided not to be in the Rehab Unit, but it was still John’s motel room.
Unexpectedly, John pushed off the car, fast, silently. “I’m phoning Bliss. We’ll see.”
He was halfway through the motel door when Dean’s chuckle stopped him. Turning, he could only see the side of Dean’s head, which was shaking back and forth. “You can try, Uncle John. I don’t think my doctor’s authorized to speak to you about my progress.”
It was somewhere between amusement and outright insolence, which wasn’t a usual trait of Dean’s. Bliss talked to Dean and Bobby, and Bobby talked to John. In turn, John grilled Dean, who was relentlessly blasé about topics such as ‘recovery’ and ‘therapy’, brushing John off with ease.
Brushing off was different from brushing back, though, which is what this was. Dean had been in a hospital for a month. He’d fallen. He’d been broken. There was what had come before. So. A brush back, a precision move from a star pitcher and John didn’t have to wonder where he’d learned it.
Don’t charge the mound.
“Okay,” John breathed, slowly turning. “Smartass. Think I’m going to drive you to rehab every day?”
And yes, of course, that’s exactly what Dean would be thinking, mostly because it was true. Something in John twanged sharp as a mouth harp, realizing that his son trusted him. Still, after everything that had happened, and John turned away so Dean wouldn’t see.
“You can’t make me stay there.” Statement of tired fact, no heat, cold hard truth. And John could hear him winding up, because he’d never liked to be crowded. “Maybe Bobby’ll…”
“Bobby Singer’s done enough for us. We’re now in his debt.” Wasn’t that the truth, and who knew what being in Bobby Singer’s debt would actually mean? It wasn’t Dean’s fault, not at all, but John was capable of throwing his own curveballs. Step back from the mound, son, if you give me half a chance, I’m gonna nail you with a line drive. “I’ve been trying to work it off, but it’s a pretty heavy load.”
Dean ducked his head, but John could see the smile. Thinks he’s won. Maybe he has.
“C’mon inside. I’ve got some beer in the fridge.” John came close beside him, didn’t ask, just slid one hard hand under Dean’s elbow, the one that hadn’t been injured. “You still drink beer?” Grinned. “One, two…” and on three, it was upright and John told Dean that he’d put on weight while in the hospital, which wasn’t true, but it made Dean laugh anyway, and that was good enough.
--
An hour into the new year and Dean hoped this wasn’t a sign of things to come, because the last year had probably been the worst of his life if you didn’t count 1983, and even that had been a mix: gained Sam, lost Mom.
Two thousand and two was starting out to be pure crap, as a matter of fact.
The first five minutes were okay, though, in the resort’s coatroom with Natasha, welcoming the New Year in the way most people did - an embrace, a kiss. Several. That was pretty good, actually.
Until the Greco-Roman wrestler got wind of it. He and his buddies trained with the boxers at Northern Michigan University’s Olympic Training Center, and all of them were at Natasha’s party. That pretty much shot New Year to shit.
The night had started just fine, really: Elena was pleased to see him, told him that more than once, said she’d introduce him round, and all Dean really wanted was a beer, so he helped himself from one of the overflowing coolers.
The lobby of the resort was huge, the pool was open downstairs, ice sculpture in the dining area and Dean thought that Elena’s parents were certifiable to leave their girls alone for winter vacation.
He didn’t run into trouble for the first half hour.
Elena made the tactical error of introducing him to her sister Natasha, who asked him about what he was studying, where he came from, where little sister Elena had found him. Like he was a lost dog. Dean, beer in hand, was okay with this. He told her that he was taking a year off, that he was studying forensic psychology, said it all with a straight face.
Natasha introduced him to her boyfriend, Jason or Justin or Jeremy, Dean didn’t quite catch it, and then disappeared with him for a bit. Dean stood like a ghost with these tall boys talking around him about who was training with whom, what weight they could carry, their schedules, what classes they had next term.
Dean let it eddy around him, a lull of voices, wondered if Sam was mouthing something similar at some Stanford party out in California, but that thought sliced through him like a harpoon, and he slammed down the last of his beer, dropped the can on a crowded table, made his way to the keg.
A group of boys clustered round the keg like it was pirate gold, and Dean surmised from their talk that these were the boxers. Jason-Jeremy-Justin stood with them. Dean slid sideways between two of them, aiming for the stack of plastic cups.
“Hey,” one of them said, sloppy smile pulling over straight white teeth, good haircut, clean shirt. Smelled of cologne and bud. “You’re one of Elena’s friends? The little sister? You go to school with her in Ishpeming?”
You from around here, townie? And the next question: You look too old for high school and Dean knew he’d looked too old for high school since he was fourteen.
“Nah,” he said with a smile in return. “I’m up here fishing. Back to Stanford in a couple of days.”
The boxers shuffled a little and Dean recognized it: intimidated. Impressed. One simple word had done it. He poured himself a beer from the keg, left the smile on his face like it belonged there.
“So, Stanford?” The shorter of the bunch sized Dean up a little and he recognized that, too. “Good school. You varsity?”
“Damn right it’s a good school.” Dean grinned. “Don’t have time for sports,” without missing a beat. “I spend most of my time in the labs. Research.”
The boxers looked interested. Jason-Jeremy-Justin’s eyes were shining. High, Dean thought, taking stock automatically. “Natasha says you’re in forensic psych. I didn’t even know they had a program in that. You work with Tsai? I’m thinking of doing grad work there, if I can get in.”
Dean shook his head. “Hard to get in,” he cautioned, enjoying this enormously. “Tsai’s a hardass, too. I’d watch out for him. He likes me, though. Like this,” and crossed his fingers tight.
“Jeanne Tsai?” Puzzled, but not too puzzled. Yet.
“Uh, no,” Dean backtracked. “Um…Richard?”
“How you like Palo Alto? I hear it’s quiet.”
Dean shrugged. “Shit, I don’t live there. If you want action, you live in San Francisco.”
They looked mystified. “Isn’t that a hell of a commute?” Jeremy-Justin-Jason asked, incredulous.
Okay, time to end this conversation. The one guy asked him about behavioral versus social psych within the department and what kind of hoops the ethics committee tried to get you to jump through and Dean had never been so glad to see someone as when Elena came back into the circle, arm linked through her sister’s.
J-J-J leaned against the table. Suspicious, Dean saw clearly. What the fuck am I doing here? Glanced over to find Natasha staring at him. Not suspiciously. Something else, equally dangerous.
When asked what house he belonged to, he told them Kappa Kappa Hey and suddenly didn’t give a shit whether or not he took them all on. Wanted to.
Natasha had a wine cooler in her hand, eyes shining, smelled of dope. “You a Yooper, Dean?”
Dean shook his head. “Kansas.” Might as well have announced he was from the moon.
“Kansas is niiiiiice,” Elena said, pushing against Dean and cutting off Natasha.
Okay, he knew which way the wind was blowing. Time to cut losses, but there was free beer and these chumps were assholes and he didn’t feel like leaving. It wasn’t even midnight.
“Hey, Dean,” Elena said, “You want to come outside? I have some weed.”
Dean kept his attention carefully on his beer cup. “Uh, maybe in a few. I have to…um…”
Elena smiled at him, tried to pull him away, but Natasha bent to her sister’s ear, offered a grin to Dean and chivied Elena into the crowd. The lights went off, and colored floodlights lit up the lobby and the music got louder. Dancing.
Great.
“Elena’s only seventeen, eh? She gets in enough trouble without some guy taking advantage of her,” the boyfriend said. “Keep that in mind.”
Oh, okay, Dean thought with a smile. “Sure thing,” was all he said. He’d keep that in mind, all right. Seventeen and a line-up of NMU wrestlers forming behind the sister. The same sister who’d been throwing him ‘come hither’ looks over Elena’s shoulder all night. No problem.
Listened as a group of severely impaired guys argued about taking the resort’s snowmobiles out on the ice for a ride, because that was obviously an intelligent thing to do when you were pissed faceless.
“Come on,” one of the boys said, “It’ll be a fuckin’ riot!”
“Five guys dead in the last month?” Another said.
First guy, wearing a t-shirt that said I don’t have a drinking problem: I drink, I fall down, no problem, laughed. “You believe in the big bad monster? What a fucking baby!”
Dean wished he and his father hadn’t been quite as successful earlier in the week; it would have made New Year’s a little more interesting.
Must be nice, he thought as J-J-J and his buddies ignored Natasha’s pleas not to take the snowmobiles out, to not worry about anything underneath the ice, ready to drag your sorry ass down. To just make a stupid drunken decision, blast across a frozen lake and not worry about what could kill you.
The exact moment he thought to hell with this, was when Natasha put an arm around his waist, hooked her thumb in his belt loop and he knew perfectly well what that would happen next. He didn’t care.
He spent the last few minutes of the year avoiding talk of philosophy and physics and engineering, the party’s elevated language washing over him in waves, incomprehensible. Didn’t have a fucking clue what a course pack was, or why the copy shop in the mall did it cheaper than the bookstore, or why running out your food card might be important. He really didn’t care. What he understood perfectly was this: Natasha, pressing herself against him, lips on the side of his neck, hand sliding down his belly under his t-shirt. He knew that kind of language, which was all that mattered.
At the stroke of midnight, he was in the coatroom and Natasha was all over him, and he was all over her, and he had to remind himself that she had an Olympic wrestler for a boyfriend and thought he should draw the line, but suspected that the line would be drawn for him, and he wasn’t wrong in that.
Almost inevitable that Elena would come looking, come finding, and she’d bring her sister’s boyfriend with her.
The door burst open, Dean smiled a wide fuck you at J-J-J, apologized to Natasha. Found he couldn’t look at Elena.
Think it’s time to leave, Dean thought. Trouble was, of course, that there were about ten of them, and they weren’t inclined to let Dean just leave.
Dean skidded out into the lobby, crashed through a crowd of freshmen, the music loud and not to his taste. He turned, dove through the nearest doorway, which happened to lead to the industrial, resort-sized kitchen. The lights were off, the music not quite so loud and Dean wondered, with a pang of disappointment, if he’d ditched them. He could probably get out through the kitchen’s back door, minus his coat.
He looked around. A stack of laundry, a big bowl of fruit.
Years of training emerged: he could have improvised something lethal in under three seconds - it was a kitchen for fuck’s sake, full of chef’s knives and corkscrews and skewers. A kitchen was a freakin’ goldmine for a hunter, but he didn’t need to kill anyone. He spotted the back door beyond a bank of walk-in freezers. Way out.
I don’t want to.
He took a pillowcase from on top, wished for some cans, but just then the double doors to the lobby swung open and five of the guys were there, back lit by the party lights, and Dean dropped a half-dozen oranges into the pillow case, wrapped the open edge around his left hand.
He did okay for the first few minutes, took one of them down immediately with an accurate kick to the groin, used the oranges to break the nose of one of the others. But they were fast, Olympic fucking athletes, and understood that Dean was going to fight dirty after the first two were on the floor.
He didn’t have a chance.
Five minutes and the kitchen was covered in blood: his nose, his mouth, his knuckles, but he gave as good as he got, and then the overhead lights flickered on, revealing the carnage in stark relief, and the air was filled by a terrible screaming that he was pretty sure wasn’t him.
But no, it was Elena, who got herself in there - not exactly cowardly, given that the kitchen was full of people now - got in there, down on the floor with him, a towel up against his face, asking for ice, yelling at the boys, all of whom seemed to have names that were variations of Matt or Chad or Dylan.
Dean tried to get up, but she held him down, teary, told the boys they were assholes, and called her sister a stupid slut and that started something but Dean’s eye had swollen shut by that point and he couldn’t really make it out. Sounded like two cats in a sack, though.
The screams subsided as Natasha left, dragging her bloodied boyfriend with her. One kid - hell, Dean thought he’d never seen him before - bent down beside him. His nose was running with blood and Dean must have been the one to cause that, but he couldn’t even recognize him.
“You okay, man?” he asked and Dean just stared at him.
“Fuck you.”
The kid sighed. “Listen. This isn’t your sort of party.” Townie. “Natasha’s taking care of Jason, but you should get the hell out of here before he comes back in.” He helped Dean to his feet, and to his horror, Dean couldn’t quite keep himself there, but then Elena was under his shoulder, arm around him.
The peacemaker kid swore. “I’ll take you home,” he said. “Elena, you come with me. Get his coat and shit. Let’s get him out of here.” He bent in close. “Don’t come back with any of your friends. Hear me?”
Dean laughed at that, because if he came back with his dad, they’d kick ass so seriously the Olympic wrestling team wouldn’t know what the fuck had hit them.
And knew that it would never happen, that they’d never know, not any of it.
--
Weird, Dean thought, to imagine the mountain riddled with holes and tunnels, complex systems of congress and egress interlaced in knots as complicated as the Tokyo subway system. Ratholes, mere skinny slits in the earth. Adits and drifts, larger connecting tunnels running crosswise. Shafts, running straight down a thousand feet into the heart of the mountain.
Lots of them were flooded, Bobby told him, running his finger along one whole section of the map. Boiling hot water and fires, poisonous gasses that you couldn’t smell but that could kill you dead. Bobby shifted his coffee mug to hold out to the waitress as she circled around their table.
“See?” Bobby continued, once the woman was out of earshot. “I’ve been able to calculate how much ore they brought up for about a ten-year period. From this mine, anyway. Most of the silver came from here in the shortest amount of time. A decade of stripping away layer upon layer of protection. Up to the time of the fire, anyway.”
“What fire?” Dean asked, wanting to drink his refill, but his mug was now holding down the curling corner of the map. He lifted the sugar jar, switched them, checked the wall clock as he did so. An hour until he was supposed to be in his session with the therapist-zombies.
The map showed three mines, all in close connection, all working the big Ledge: the Yellow Jacket, the Kentuck, and the Crown Point. “April 7, 1869. Fire down below. They don’t know exactly what started it, but it coulda been anything. Fires down there all the time,” and Dean remembered Pennsylvania, and coal mines, disappearing houses. Other terrible things.
He cleared his throat. “But, what’s to burn? These are silver mines, not coal mines.”
Bobby looked up fast, eyes shrewd and calculating. Dean didn’t know much about mines, not really, but more than most and that obviously turned Bobby’s crank. He felt his father shift beside him.
Finally, Bobby shrugged. “Whole forest down there, all the timber from the Tahoe basin. Lots of firsts with the Comstock mines: richest, deepest. Brought in a guy called Deidesheimer…”
“The square-set timbering guy, right?” Dean felt useful, first time in months, it seemed. A week in a shitty motel room and he felt halfway normal. “Like a honeycomb, right?”
John’s mouth was open, and Dean knew it would be seconds before his surprise dissolved into anger, because John didn’t like to be surprised, but Bobby was grinning beneath the beard.
“How the hell’d ya know about Deidesheimer?”
Dean grinned, ducked his head. “First season, the brother that disappeared later on, the architect one - Adam? He and Deidesheimer got stuck in a mine. Hoss had to save them.”
“Everything I need to know, I learned from Bonanza,” Bobby chuckled. “Well, it solved the early cave-in problems because the silver deposits ran too deep for traditional methods; Deidesheimer dreamed up the square-set system for shoring up the tunnels, like one of those erector sets you probably played with as a kid,” looked to John for verification, but only drew a blank stare. “Anyway, loads of wood down there.”
“Those fires. They still burning?” In his excitement, he’d forgotten about his father getting from point A, surprise, to point B, anger.
“Time to go,” John said, words terse, and his hard dark stare boring into Dean, intrusive as a doctor’s light. “Leave this to Bobby and me.”
Bobby folded the map. “I can drop Dean at his PT appointment, John. Why don’t I meet you up there? I hafta pull some records from the assholes at Ameriminco anyway.” He smiled at Dean conspiratorially. “I could use Dean. The girl in there is getting wise to me.”
“His appointment’s at nine-thirty.” John pointed out. Like Dean wasn’t even there.
“C’mon, Dad,” Dean cajoled. Sweet talking an office clerk was practically second nature. “It’ll take ten minutes.” He lowered his voice, tilted his head. “It’s the least I can do for Bobby. I owe him.”
There, that was the card to play. He watched as his father pulled back a little, unsure. “Nine-thirty,” John repeated and Dean knew better than to disagree.
“Nine-thirty. I’ll be done at noon today.”
“Then back to the motel room. Bobby can drop you while I’m up at Gold Hill.” Pointed a finger at Dean. “You rest.”
Waited for confirmation, since the reverse was certainly possible. Probable even.
“Yessir. After I’ve done the exercises they’ve given me.” Like a fucking Middle East peace negotiation, every time.
It was done, and John paid the bill, walked them out to Bobby’s truck before saying goodbye. Dean watched the Impala go. My car, he thought.
Bobby waited outside and Dean walked into the Ameriminco offices armed with his smile and a list of photocopies that Bobby wanted. He was told to wait in the chairs. Offered a cup of coffee, a stack of mining industry magazines.
There was a television in the waiting area, set to CNN, talking about War on Terror and then the Red Wings Stanley Cup chances and people were throwing…what the fuck was that? Were throwing octopi on the fucking ice? Stupid dumb dead jellycreatures sliding across the rink and Dean shook his head, but his stomach had suddenly turned to ice or jelly, one of the two or maybe both.
Ready smiles - two clerks, each vying to be more helpful - and Dean walked slowly to the chairs, kept his eye on the television. Saw scenes of rural Pennsylvania flash on the screen, and then some troops in Afghanistan, and then the fucking octopi again.
Pulled out his phone and stared at it, wondering if it would ever ring. And before he knew it, was punching in the number now on speed dial.
Waited, smiled at one of the girls who gave him a cup of coffee, stared at her ass as his brother’s tinny voice came over the phone and thought, hold it together, man, hold it…
He swallowed, waited a beat. “You know, Sam, I don’t understand people. I really don’t. Monsters, ghosts, demons, I get. I get that shit. Plain evil.” Saw a flash of troops rounding up some Afghans and bodies littered by the side of the road. Clean up crews starting to bulldoze ground zero, NYC. Heard the sound of that plane as it had torn into the empty field. “But people, they don’t make much sense.
“Take this whole War on Terror shit. That’s what those idiots on CNN are calling it. Like people just woke up, right? Just figured out that there’s shit they have no control over. War on fucking terror, my ass.” Finding his groove, and he closed his eyes against the television, held the warm paper cup tightly, imagined Sam as though he was sitting across the coffee table, smiling mouth ready to shoot back.
“Remember watching The Deer Hunter?” And launched into it, thinking of Pennsylvania, and blue skies and their father, because all those things were somehow bound together now. Went on an on.
Then the beep sounded unexpectedly, cutting him off mid-word, and he just stopped, cold, unfinished. “You haven’t changed your number, so I’m guessing you don’t mind,” he whispered. He took a deep breath, stood up. “We’re okay. We’re doing okay,” and that caught on something, and Dean was glad suddenly that nothing was recording, because the last question sounded pathetic, even to his own ears.
“Aren’t we?”
--
Fever? Check.
Chills? Check.
Muttered invective directed at first-born? Double check.
Turned out John Winchester made one shitty patient. Dean already knew that. But the good news was, the crankier John got, the better he was feeling. The fever spiked day two, just like John said it would.
John talked about monsters. In his sleep, waking. How to kill them. What they did. Muttered about what lay beneath the ice, waiting to surface. Waiting to drag John down. Nightmares with claws and tentacles and teeth.
All Dean could do was wait it out, occupy his hours by watching a single channel on the grainy TV, the Queen’s Christmas message to Her Loyal Subjects. Wow. Between the Queen and Boxing Day sales, Canadians sure knew how to yuk it up during Christmas.
John finally ate soup on the third day, the swollen marks on his neck and chest only oozing a little clear pus. Clear was okay. Dean had learned that at age seven. Green, no good, but clear a good sign.
No other ice fishermen disappeared. The owner of the Wonderland Cabins told Dean that one snowmobiler had broken through the ice and glugged to the bottom, but his friends said that he’d been drunk and the whole thing was considered an accidental death. Darwinism at work, Dean thought. The owner didn’t comment on the lack of lake deaths, but then no one ever seemed to notice when the Winchesters did a job well, only when they didn’t.
Sour relief turned to irritated boredom. Dad, ungraceful in recovery. Dean, alone with nothing but bad TV, bad coffee, and endless winter so relentless he thought bears probably had it right. Just pack on the pounds and sleep through it. The snow was coming down like a white sheet and he hated the cold with a precise bitter passion.
New Years Eve, ten o’clock and John was already asleep. Nothing to do, not even a hockey game, and there was always a hockey game. Go Wings, Go. No music, out of booze except for the vodka, which they needed for other purposes, and Dean remembered that he didn’t have to be here.
That he actually had been invited to do something perfectly normal.
The showers were in the main lodge and he’d missed the assigned time. Too cold to walk around with wet hair anyway. He changed shirts, hoped he didn’t smell like jet fuel, knew that he did. Put on the one pair of jeans that weren’t torn or bloodstained. Brushed his teeth. Made sure he had a couple of condoms in his wallet because you never knew.
He wrote a note in case John woke up, left it on the narrow cot beside his sleeping father.
Going to a party. Phone if you need anything. Back late, don’t worry. D.
--
Read PART TWO HERE Well? What are you waiting for?
--
--
NitGirl is doing fine, thanks everyone. She’s back at school, minus superfluous body parts.
Our house now has a ‘SOLD’ sign in front of it.
I’m heading off to BC on Sunday for our Glorious Month-Long Vacation.
So it might be awhile before you see the next chapter.
We’ll be doing the Bear Hunt 2 while we’re out there (Sasquashme, Lemmypie and maybe, just maybe if we’re really, really lucky: kimonkey7), so look for that before end of August, in all its crackalicious glory. Locations, locations, locations.
Otherwise….
Fire in the Hole, 5/9
Chapter Five/Full Fathom Five (Part One)
Summary: After Sam leaves for Stanford, Dean falls hard and John doesn’t catch him. Their long bloody year comes to an abrupt end in the silver mining district of western Nevada, where both father and son must face their worst fears.
Rating: PG-13. Swearing! One good Ramones joke! Really, really loooong. Gen, WIP.
Fall on my knees: Sasquashme (a.k.a. jmm0001) and Lemmypie read this HUGE thing several times, for which I owe them much alcohol. I probably would also buy Kripke a beer.
Read previous chapters
--
Sam, I don’t know what you’re doing. One day you’re gonna come back and we won’t be speaking the same language. Need a fucking translator. You’re probably studying some shit I’ll never understand and I’ll pretend I don’t care what the fuck quantum physics are, but I do. You’re right though; it’s not as if I ever understood any of that crap. Not as if I’d ever fit in at college.
Guess you’ve got better things to do than pick up the phone. Don’t know what I’d say, even if you called. Just ignoring us, as usual, blocking us out like we don’t matter.
Maybe we don’t. I don’t know anymore.
You’re right about Dad. You are. He’s chasing around this obsession of his, this idea about evil and he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know what he’s chasing. Some days I think it’s his own tail. As if I’d say that to him. Like that fucked-up captain with the peg leg, just hunting that fucking whale and doesn’t really care if the whole ship goes down with him.
Yeah. So maybe you’re right about everything. But...but. It doesn’t give you the excuse, you know? To not call back. Even your college buddies, I bet they phone home once in a while. What if…what if something was wrong? What if something was really wrong? Would you call back then?
Fuck you, Sam.
Well, yeah. So that’s all I wanted to say.
--
Die of hypothermia, or burn the cabin down: not much of a choice, but John had a well-founded aversion to fire, so before falling asleep, he’d put on an extra sweater and huddled into the sleeping bag. He woke up cold, knowing he’d have to get up to light the kerosene heater. He had to be awake enough so he didn’t blow them up.
He sat up in the sagging cot, a relic from the Depression, felt his neck and chest with cautious fingers. Tender, but not burning. Okay. He was going to be okay.
He hadn’t wanted to worry Dean, but he hadn’t been sure if the vodka and salt was going to work. As usual, all he’d had to go on was rumor and conjecture. And this time, like times before, it had been enough. Barely.
The day had dawned cloudless, sun blasting blowtorch bright from the ridiculous amount of snow; it had snowed the entire time they’d been here. What a fucking place, a land out of time, cut off from everything, floating between two Great Lakes, not quite Canada, but certainly not part of twenty-first century America.
As John got up, a piece of paper drifted from his bed to the floor. He automatically stooped to get it, dizziness hitting him. A week flat out, more or less. Not good to move too fast. A paper bag from the liquor store, flattened, Dean’s pencil markings on one side. Read the message and shook his head. Found a New Year’s Eve party, had he?
Still wrapped in the sleeping bag, he shuffled over to the heater, bent and lit the disreputable thing, and it clicked and popped before starting to glow and grudgingly throw off heat.
He didn’t knock on the bedroom door, mostly because there was no door: only a piece of unraveling fabric separated the rooms. Must have been one hell of a party, because Dean was still in his clothes, was sprawled on the bed in his big coat, blanket half off him, face buried in the pillow.
John thought that. Then saw the bloodstain weeping around his son’s head like an ungodly halo.
He didn’t panic, simply took the two quick steps required to find a pulse on Dean’s neck, to assure himself that his son hadn’t died in the night, and as he touched him, Dean flailed about, one hand catching John squarely on the nose.
“Jesus Christ,” John swore, and Dean buried himself into the pillow, one hand covering his head.
John saw how bruised the knuckles were, recognized the signs of a beating taken in the course of a brawl.
Took until the coffee was ready to coax Dean into the main room of the cabin, wash cloths soaked in hot water to clean a bloody and swollen nose, cut on his eyebrow too set now for stitches, bruises clear up his brow bone, split lip, torso just a mess, but nothing broken.
Cleaned him up and Dean was perfectly silent, didn’t even wince as John put antiseptic on the cuts, wrapped the hand in gauze. Like he didn’t care. Like he’d deserved it, somehow.
John didn’t quite know what to make of it. He’d patched up his son dozens of times, and Dean usually masked everything with a running monologue. This was different, not right.
“What happened?” John asked, snapping shut the first aid box.
Dean shrugged, looking at the cup of black coffee in his hands.
After a moment, John said, “They aren’t like us, Dean.” Unable to offer anything to him that would help.
Dean sipped the coffee, not ignoring John, just not responding. Far away. Hurting.
“Why don’t you get some rest,” John suggested, wishing that Dean would say something.
Dean didn’t move, but after a minute, he shook his head. “Nah. You okay?” Looked questioningly at John.
John didn’t quite know what he was asking, so took it at face value. “Yeah, I’m good.” He gestured to his neck. “Swelling’s down. No fever.”
Dean walked stiffly to the battered aluminum coffee pot, poured himself another mug. He didn’t turn, merely lifted a hand to the paltry curtain, so cold here John could see his own breath. Dean pulled the cheap gingham back, looked out at the snow-covered vehicles. At the frozen lake beyond. “The job’s done. No point in sticking around.”
He wanted to go, wanted it so badly even John - half-healed, naturally obtuse - could see it.
They had nothing to go to, no ‘next gig’. The only gift John could give him was to point them south. Go someplace warm, because they couldn’t get colder than this.
--
He ought to have been outraged, really, but Dean looked so…whole, sitting there in the sunshine, face tilted to the sky like he was trying to get a tan, eyes closed, that beat-up leather coat that used to be John’s open because it was almost warm in the sun.
Whole and normal. Like any other young guy hanging out, enjoying the good weather.
Still, John suspected an act, because Dean could put on normal like a raincoat, it was one of his most useful attributes. Wind him up and watch him go, had gotten them out of many a scrape, the charm-normal combo. But even John recognized that the older Dean got, the less believable his normal was. The longer Dean spent in this vocation, this chosen career.
Pushed that thought to the side, pulled the Impala to a stop in front of the motel, piece of rope stapled in an inverted infinity symbol to the battered blue door. Number eight most people would have called it. Dean had spotted this motel when John had driven him from the Carson-Tahoe Hospital to the Rehabilitation Unit just across campus, insisted that John would get a reasonable and comfortable room at the Silver Nugget Ranch-o-Rama and John knew exactly what his son was up to.
Dean tried to embarrass him all the time, kept upping the motel décor ante like he was at an Atlantic City betting table. The Ranch-o-Rama was only one step removed from a Japanese Love Hotel, an old-west brothel re-imagined by that freaky French circus. Big waving cowboy emblazoned in neon, a cousin to the one in Vegas, cute mining-flavored names for all the rooms - John had opted for The Sutro Suite, which included a kitchenette. The Comstock Pump n’ Ride was across the highway, causing further hilarity in the peanut seats.
Dean had laughed so hard when he’d seen that, pointed out that it was close to both Highway 15 and the Rehab Unit. Close, my ass. The room was cheap, at any rate.
So John had booked the room before dropping Dean off at the huge fifties-era brick residential rehab clinic. Had made sure Dean was secure in the open ward, secure in the sense that he was registered and had a bed and a schedule. Had a plastic-coated bracelet with the purloined name. Had a list of rules a mile long. Had to adhere to the safety precautions, not move from his ward or even his bed without buzzing the floor nurse.
So, secure in that sense.
Not in the sense that he wasn’t able to appear fewer than twenty-four hours later outside John’s motel room, settled in a white plastic patio chair, lounging lizard-like in the early evening light.
Dean looked up as the Impala came to a stop, wiped his eyes with his fingers like he’d been dozing. Brought out a slow, weary smile that told John so much. Dean wasn’t going to raise his voice, wasn’t going to go into hysterics, or give his father a long protracted argument outlining various pros and cons. He wasn’t Sam. But he wasn’t going to be moved, either.
John unfolded himself from the car, shrugged out of his canvas coat; it was warm on the sun-soaked pavement outside the room.
“So?” he asked, aimed for ‘mildly inquisitive’ instead of ‘pissed’.
Dean shrugged, one foot turned lazily on its side like a sleeping puppy. “I’m not staying in that place.” A statement, not a plea or a question. “Someone stole my toothpaste last night. The floor nurse is a bored psychopath. The PTs are all either zombies or satanic spawn and I didn’t even have to say kristo to figure that one out.”
John leaned against the car. “How’d you manage your escape?”
“Asked one of the visitors - girlfriend of some guy who dove headfirst into the shallow end - to give me a ride here. Not like breaking out of maximum security or anything.”
John didn’t look at his son, kept his eyes on the far horizon, dusty blue mountains faded as morning make-up. “Free man, I guess,” he muttered, almost too low for Dean to hear.
“Something like that.”
He wasn’t going to give Dean hell; he knew what it was like to be stuck in hospital, for god’s sake. John was too tired to tear a strip. “So. What’s the plan for getting better?” For avoiding a lifetime in a wheelchair, you little shit? Kept it out of his voice.
Or thought he did.
“I can go for outpatient services during the day. Do the exercises here as well.” There it was. The question, hidden in there, because he’d heard what John had been trying to hide. Dean might have decided not to be in the Rehab Unit, but it was still John’s motel room.
Unexpectedly, John pushed off the car, fast, silently. “I’m phoning Bliss. We’ll see.”
He was halfway through the motel door when Dean’s chuckle stopped him. Turning, he could only see the side of Dean’s head, which was shaking back and forth. “You can try, Uncle John. I don’t think my doctor’s authorized to speak to you about my progress.”
It was somewhere between amusement and outright insolence, which wasn’t a usual trait of Dean’s. Bliss talked to Dean and Bobby, and Bobby talked to John. In turn, John grilled Dean, who was relentlessly blasé about topics such as ‘recovery’ and ‘therapy’, brushing John off with ease.
Brushing off was different from brushing back, though, which is what this was. Dean had been in a hospital for a month. He’d fallen. He’d been broken. There was what had come before. So. A brush back, a precision move from a star pitcher and John didn’t have to wonder where he’d learned it.
Don’t charge the mound.
“Okay,” John breathed, slowly turning. “Smartass. Think I’m going to drive you to rehab every day?”
And yes, of course, that’s exactly what Dean would be thinking, mostly because it was true. Something in John twanged sharp as a mouth harp, realizing that his son trusted him. Still, after everything that had happened, and John turned away so Dean wouldn’t see.
“You can’t make me stay there.” Statement of tired fact, no heat, cold hard truth. And John could hear him winding up, because he’d never liked to be crowded. “Maybe Bobby’ll…”
“Bobby Singer’s done enough for us. We’re now in his debt.” Wasn’t that the truth, and who knew what being in Bobby Singer’s debt would actually mean? It wasn’t Dean’s fault, not at all, but John was capable of throwing his own curveballs. Step back from the mound, son, if you give me half a chance, I’m gonna nail you with a line drive. “I’ve been trying to work it off, but it’s a pretty heavy load.”
Dean ducked his head, but John could see the smile. Thinks he’s won. Maybe he has.
“C’mon inside. I’ve got some beer in the fridge.” John came close beside him, didn’t ask, just slid one hard hand under Dean’s elbow, the one that hadn’t been injured. “You still drink beer?” Grinned. “One, two…” and on three, it was upright and John told Dean that he’d put on weight while in the hospital, which wasn’t true, but it made Dean laugh anyway, and that was good enough.
--
An hour into the new year and Dean hoped this wasn’t a sign of things to come, because the last year had probably been the worst of his life if you didn’t count 1983, and even that had been a mix: gained Sam, lost Mom.
Two thousand and two was starting out to be pure crap, as a matter of fact.
The first five minutes were okay, though, in the resort’s coatroom with Natasha, welcoming the New Year in the way most people did - an embrace, a kiss. Several. That was pretty good, actually.
Until the Greco-Roman wrestler got wind of it. He and his buddies trained with the boxers at Northern Michigan University’s Olympic Training Center, and all of them were at Natasha’s party. That pretty much shot New Year to shit.
The night had started just fine, really: Elena was pleased to see him, told him that more than once, said she’d introduce him round, and all Dean really wanted was a beer, so he helped himself from one of the overflowing coolers.
The lobby of the resort was huge, the pool was open downstairs, ice sculpture in the dining area and Dean thought that Elena’s parents were certifiable to leave their girls alone for winter vacation.
He didn’t run into trouble for the first half hour.
Elena made the tactical error of introducing him to her sister Natasha, who asked him about what he was studying, where he came from, where little sister Elena had found him. Like he was a lost dog. Dean, beer in hand, was okay with this. He told her that he was taking a year off, that he was studying forensic psychology, said it all with a straight face.
Natasha introduced him to her boyfriend, Jason or Justin or Jeremy, Dean didn’t quite catch it, and then disappeared with him for a bit. Dean stood like a ghost with these tall boys talking around him about who was training with whom, what weight they could carry, their schedules, what classes they had next term.
Dean let it eddy around him, a lull of voices, wondered if Sam was mouthing something similar at some Stanford party out in California, but that thought sliced through him like a harpoon, and he slammed down the last of his beer, dropped the can on a crowded table, made his way to the keg.
A group of boys clustered round the keg like it was pirate gold, and Dean surmised from their talk that these were the boxers. Jason-Jeremy-Justin stood with them. Dean slid sideways between two of them, aiming for the stack of plastic cups.
“Hey,” one of them said, sloppy smile pulling over straight white teeth, good haircut, clean shirt. Smelled of cologne and bud. “You’re one of Elena’s friends? The little sister? You go to school with her in Ishpeming?”
You from around here, townie? And the next question: You look too old for high school and Dean knew he’d looked too old for high school since he was fourteen.
“Nah,” he said with a smile in return. “I’m up here fishing. Back to Stanford in a couple of days.”
The boxers shuffled a little and Dean recognized it: intimidated. Impressed. One simple word had done it. He poured himself a beer from the keg, left the smile on his face like it belonged there.
“So, Stanford?” The shorter of the bunch sized Dean up a little and he recognized that, too. “Good school. You varsity?”
“Damn right it’s a good school.” Dean grinned. “Don’t have time for sports,” without missing a beat. “I spend most of my time in the labs. Research.”
The boxers looked interested. Jason-Jeremy-Justin’s eyes were shining. High, Dean thought, taking stock automatically. “Natasha says you’re in forensic psych. I didn’t even know they had a program in that. You work with Tsai? I’m thinking of doing grad work there, if I can get in.”
Dean shook his head. “Hard to get in,” he cautioned, enjoying this enormously. “Tsai’s a hardass, too. I’d watch out for him. He likes me, though. Like this,” and crossed his fingers tight.
“Jeanne Tsai?” Puzzled, but not too puzzled. Yet.
“Uh, no,” Dean backtracked. “Um…Richard?”
“How you like Palo Alto? I hear it’s quiet.”
Dean shrugged. “Shit, I don’t live there. If you want action, you live in San Francisco.”
They looked mystified. “Isn’t that a hell of a commute?” Jeremy-Justin-Jason asked, incredulous.
Okay, time to end this conversation. The one guy asked him about behavioral versus social psych within the department and what kind of hoops the ethics committee tried to get you to jump through and Dean had never been so glad to see someone as when Elena came back into the circle, arm linked through her sister’s.
J-J-J leaned against the table. Suspicious, Dean saw clearly. What the fuck am I doing here? Glanced over to find Natasha staring at him. Not suspiciously. Something else, equally dangerous.
When asked what house he belonged to, he told them Kappa Kappa Hey and suddenly didn’t give a shit whether or not he took them all on. Wanted to.
Natasha had a wine cooler in her hand, eyes shining, smelled of dope. “You a Yooper, Dean?”
Dean shook his head. “Kansas.” Might as well have announced he was from the moon.
“Kansas is niiiiiice,” Elena said, pushing against Dean and cutting off Natasha.
Okay, he knew which way the wind was blowing. Time to cut losses, but there was free beer and these chumps were assholes and he didn’t feel like leaving. It wasn’t even midnight.
“Hey, Dean,” Elena said, “You want to come outside? I have some weed.”
Dean kept his attention carefully on his beer cup. “Uh, maybe in a few. I have to…um…”
Elena smiled at him, tried to pull him away, but Natasha bent to her sister’s ear, offered a grin to Dean and chivied Elena into the crowd. The lights went off, and colored floodlights lit up the lobby and the music got louder. Dancing.
Great.
“Elena’s only seventeen, eh? She gets in enough trouble without some guy taking advantage of her,” the boyfriend said. “Keep that in mind.”
Oh, okay, Dean thought with a smile. “Sure thing,” was all he said. He’d keep that in mind, all right. Seventeen and a line-up of NMU wrestlers forming behind the sister. The same sister who’d been throwing him ‘come hither’ looks over Elena’s shoulder all night. No problem.
Listened as a group of severely impaired guys argued about taking the resort’s snowmobiles out on the ice for a ride, because that was obviously an intelligent thing to do when you were pissed faceless.
“Come on,” one of the boys said, “It’ll be a fuckin’ riot!”
“Five guys dead in the last month?” Another said.
First guy, wearing a t-shirt that said I don’t have a drinking problem: I drink, I fall down, no problem, laughed. “You believe in the big bad monster? What a fucking baby!”
Dean wished he and his father hadn’t been quite as successful earlier in the week; it would have made New Year’s a little more interesting.
Must be nice, he thought as J-J-J and his buddies ignored Natasha’s pleas not to take the snowmobiles out, to not worry about anything underneath the ice, ready to drag your sorry ass down. To just make a stupid drunken decision, blast across a frozen lake and not worry about what could kill you.
The exact moment he thought to hell with this, was when Natasha put an arm around his waist, hooked her thumb in his belt loop and he knew perfectly well what that would happen next. He didn’t care.
He spent the last few minutes of the year avoiding talk of philosophy and physics and engineering, the party’s elevated language washing over him in waves, incomprehensible. Didn’t have a fucking clue what a course pack was, or why the copy shop in the mall did it cheaper than the bookstore, or why running out your food card might be important. He really didn’t care. What he understood perfectly was this: Natasha, pressing herself against him, lips on the side of his neck, hand sliding down his belly under his t-shirt. He knew that kind of language, which was all that mattered.
At the stroke of midnight, he was in the coatroom and Natasha was all over him, and he was all over her, and he had to remind himself that she had an Olympic wrestler for a boyfriend and thought he should draw the line, but suspected that the line would be drawn for him, and he wasn’t wrong in that.
Almost inevitable that Elena would come looking, come finding, and she’d bring her sister’s boyfriend with her.
The door burst open, Dean smiled a wide fuck you at J-J-J, apologized to Natasha. Found he couldn’t look at Elena.
Think it’s time to leave, Dean thought. Trouble was, of course, that there were about ten of them, and they weren’t inclined to let Dean just leave.
Dean skidded out into the lobby, crashed through a crowd of freshmen, the music loud and not to his taste. He turned, dove through the nearest doorway, which happened to lead to the industrial, resort-sized kitchen. The lights were off, the music not quite so loud and Dean wondered, with a pang of disappointment, if he’d ditched them. He could probably get out through the kitchen’s back door, minus his coat.
He looked around. A stack of laundry, a big bowl of fruit.
Years of training emerged: he could have improvised something lethal in under three seconds - it was a kitchen for fuck’s sake, full of chef’s knives and corkscrews and skewers. A kitchen was a freakin’ goldmine for a hunter, but he didn’t need to kill anyone. He spotted the back door beyond a bank of walk-in freezers. Way out.
I don’t want to.
He took a pillowcase from on top, wished for some cans, but just then the double doors to the lobby swung open and five of the guys were there, back lit by the party lights, and Dean dropped a half-dozen oranges into the pillow case, wrapped the open edge around his left hand.
He did okay for the first few minutes, took one of them down immediately with an accurate kick to the groin, used the oranges to break the nose of one of the others. But they were fast, Olympic fucking athletes, and understood that Dean was going to fight dirty after the first two were on the floor.
He didn’t have a chance.
Five minutes and the kitchen was covered in blood: his nose, his mouth, his knuckles, but he gave as good as he got, and then the overhead lights flickered on, revealing the carnage in stark relief, and the air was filled by a terrible screaming that he was pretty sure wasn’t him.
But no, it was Elena, who got herself in there - not exactly cowardly, given that the kitchen was full of people now - got in there, down on the floor with him, a towel up against his face, asking for ice, yelling at the boys, all of whom seemed to have names that were variations of Matt or Chad or Dylan.
Dean tried to get up, but she held him down, teary, told the boys they were assholes, and called her sister a stupid slut and that started something but Dean’s eye had swollen shut by that point and he couldn’t really make it out. Sounded like two cats in a sack, though.
The screams subsided as Natasha left, dragging her bloodied boyfriend with her. One kid - hell, Dean thought he’d never seen him before - bent down beside him. His nose was running with blood and Dean must have been the one to cause that, but he couldn’t even recognize him.
“You okay, man?” he asked and Dean just stared at him.
“Fuck you.”
The kid sighed. “Listen. This isn’t your sort of party.” Townie. “Natasha’s taking care of Jason, but you should get the hell out of here before he comes back in.” He helped Dean to his feet, and to his horror, Dean couldn’t quite keep himself there, but then Elena was under his shoulder, arm around him.
The peacemaker kid swore. “I’ll take you home,” he said. “Elena, you come with me. Get his coat and shit. Let’s get him out of here.” He bent in close. “Don’t come back with any of your friends. Hear me?”
Dean laughed at that, because if he came back with his dad, they’d kick ass so seriously the Olympic wrestling team wouldn’t know what the fuck had hit them.
And knew that it would never happen, that they’d never know, not any of it.
--
Weird, Dean thought, to imagine the mountain riddled with holes and tunnels, complex systems of congress and egress interlaced in knots as complicated as the Tokyo subway system. Ratholes, mere skinny slits in the earth. Adits and drifts, larger connecting tunnels running crosswise. Shafts, running straight down a thousand feet into the heart of the mountain.
Lots of them were flooded, Bobby told him, running his finger along one whole section of the map. Boiling hot water and fires, poisonous gasses that you couldn’t smell but that could kill you dead. Bobby shifted his coffee mug to hold out to the waitress as she circled around their table.
“See?” Bobby continued, once the woman was out of earshot. “I’ve been able to calculate how much ore they brought up for about a ten-year period. From this mine, anyway. Most of the silver came from here in the shortest amount of time. A decade of stripping away layer upon layer of protection. Up to the time of the fire, anyway.”
“What fire?” Dean asked, wanting to drink his refill, but his mug was now holding down the curling corner of the map. He lifted the sugar jar, switched them, checked the wall clock as he did so. An hour until he was supposed to be in his session with the therapist-zombies.
The map showed three mines, all in close connection, all working the big Ledge: the Yellow Jacket, the Kentuck, and the Crown Point. “April 7, 1869. Fire down below. They don’t know exactly what started it, but it coulda been anything. Fires down there all the time,” and Dean remembered Pennsylvania, and coal mines, disappearing houses. Other terrible things.
He cleared his throat. “But, what’s to burn? These are silver mines, not coal mines.”
Bobby looked up fast, eyes shrewd and calculating. Dean didn’t know much about mines, not really, but more than most and that obviously turned Bobby’s crank. He felt his father shift beside him.
Finally, Bobby shrugged. “Whole forest down there, all the timber from the Tahoe basin. Lots of firsts with the Comstock mines: richest, deepest. Brought in a guy called Deidesheimer…”
“The square-set timbering guy, right?” Dean felt useful, first time in months, it seemed. A week in a shitty motel room and he felt halfway normal. “Like a honeycomb, right?”
John’s mouth was open, and Dean knew it would be seconds before his surprise dissolved into anger, because John didn’t like to be surprised, but Bobby was grinning beneath the beard.
“How the hell’d ya know about Deidesheimer?”
Dean grinned, ducked his head. “First season, the brother that disappeared later on, the architect one - Adam? He and Deidesheimer got stuck in a mine. Hoss had to save them.”
“Everything I need to know, I learned from Bonanza,” Bobby chuckled. “Well, it solved the early cave-in problems because the silver deposits ran too deep for traditional methods; Deidesheimer dreamed up the square-set system for shoring up the tunnels, like one of those erector sets you probably played with as a kid,” looked to John for verification, but only drew a blank stare. “Anyway, loads of wood down there.”
“Those fires. They still burning?” In his excitement, he’d forgotten about his father getting from point A, surprise, to point B, anger.
“Time to go,” John said, words terse, and his hard dark stare boring into Dean, intrusive as a doctor’s light. “Leave this to Bobby and me.”
Bobby folded the map. “I can drop Dean at his PT appointment, John. Why don’t I meet you up there? I hafta pull some records from the assholes at Ameriminco anyway.” He smiled at Dean conspiratorially. “I could use Dean. The girl in there is getting wise to me.”
“His appointment’s at nine-thirty.” John pointed out. Like Dean wasn’t even there.
“C’mon, Dad,” Dean cajoled. Sweet talking an office clerk was practically second nature. “It’ll take ten minutes.” He lowered his voice, tilted his head. “It’s the least I can do for Bobby. I owe him.”
There, that was the card to play. He watched as his father pulled back a little, unsure. “Nine-thirty,” John repeated and Dean knew better than to disagree.
“Nine-thirty. I’ll be done at noon today.”
“Then back to the motel room. Bobby can drop you while I’m up at Gold Hill.” Pointed a finger at Dean. “You rest.”
Waited for confirmation, since the reverse was certainly possible. Probable even.
“Yessir. After I’ve done the exercises they’ve given me.” Like a fucking Middle East peace negotiation, every time.
It was done, and John paid the bill, walked them out to Bobby’s truck before saying goodbye. Dean watched the Impala go. My car, he thought.
Bobby waited outside and Dean walked into the Ameriminco offices armed with his smile and a list of photocopies that Bobby wanted. He was told to wait in the chairs. Offered a cup of coffee, a stack of mining industry magazines.
There was a television in the waiting area, set to CNN, talking about War on Terror and then the Red Wings Stanley Cup chances and people were throwing…what the fuck was that? Were throwing octopi on the fucking ice? Stupid dumb dead jellycreatures sliding across the rink and Dean shook his head, but his stomach had suddenly turned to ice or jelly, one of the two or maybe both.
Ready smiles - two clerks, each vying to be more helpful - and Dean walked slowly to the chairs, kept his eye on the television. Saw scenes of rural Pennsylvania flash on the screen, and then some troops in Afghanistan, and then the fucking octopi again.
Pulled out his phone and stared at it, wondering if it would ever ring. And before he knew it, was punching in the number now on speed dial.
Waited, smiled at one of the girls who gave him a cup of coffee, stared at her ass as his brother’s tinny voice came over the phone and thought, hold it together, man, hold it…
He swallowed, waited a beat. “You know, Sam, I don’t understand people. I really don’t. Monsters, ghosts, demons, I get. I get that shit. Plain evil.” Saw a flash of troops rounding up some Afghans and bodies littered by the side of the road. Clean up crews starting to bulldoze ground zero, NYC. Heard the sound of that plane as it had torn into the empty field. “But people, they don’t make much sense.
“Take this whole War on Terror shit. That’s what those idiots on CNN are calling it. Like people just woke up, right? Just figured out that there’s shit they have no control over. War on fucking terror, my ass.” Finding his groove, and he closed his eyes against the television, held the warm paper cup tightly, imagined Sam as though he was sitting across the coffee table, smiling mouth ready to shoot back.
“Remember watching The Deer Hunter?” And launched into it, thinking of Pennsylvania, and blue skies and their father, because all those things were somehow bound together now. Went on an on.
Then the beep sounded unexpectedly, cutting him off mid-word, and he just stopped, cold, unfinished. “You haven’t changed your number, so I’m guessing you don’t mind,” he whispered. He took a deep breath, stood up. “We’re okay. We’re doing okay,” and that caught on something, and Dean was glad suddenly that nothing was recording, because the last question sounded pathetic, even to his own ears.
“Aren’t we?”
--
Fever? Check.
Chills? Check.
Muttered invective directed at first-born? Double check.
Turned out John Winchester made one shitty patient. Dean already knew that. But the good news was, the crankier John got, the better he was feeling. The fever spiked day two, just like John said it would.
John talked about monsters. In his sleep, waking. How to kill them. What they did. Muttered about what lay beneath the ice, waiting to surface. Waiting to drag John down. Nightmares with claws and tentacles and teeth.
All Dean could do was wait it out, occupy his hours by watching a single channel on the grainy TV, the Queen’s Christmas message to Her Loyal Subjects. Wow. Between the Queen and Boxing Day sales, Canadians sure knew how to yuk it up during Christmas.
John finally ate soup on the third day, the swollen marks on his neck and chest only oozing a little clear pus. Clear was okay. Dean had learned that at age seven. Green, no good, but clear a good sign.
No other ice fishermen disappeared. The owner of the Wonderland Cabins told Dean that one snowmobiler had broken through the ice and glugged to the bottom, but his friends said that he’d been drunk and the whole thing was considered an accidental death. Darwinism at work, Dean thought. The owner didn’t comment on the lack of lake deaths, but then no one ever seemed to notice when the Winchesters did a job well, only when they didn’t.
Sour relief turned to irritated boredom. Dad, ungraceful in recovery. Dean, alone with nothing but bad TV, bad coffee, and endless winter so relentless he thought bears probably had it right. Just pack on the pounds and sleep through it. The snow was coming down like a white sheet and he hated the cold with a precise bitter passion.
New Years Eve, ten o’clock and John was already asleep. Nothing to do, not even a hockey game, and there was always a hockey game. Go Wings, Go. No music, out of booze except for the vodka, which they needed for other purposes, and Dean remembered that he didn’t have to be here.
That he actually had been invited to do something perfectly normal.
The showers were in the main lodge and he’d missed the assigned time. Too cold to walk around with wet hair anyway. He changed shirts, hoped he didn’t smell like jet fuel, knew that he did. Put on the one pair of jeans that weren’t torn or bloodstained. Brushed his teeth. Made sure he had a couple of condoms in his wallet because you never knew.
He wrote a note in case John woke up, left it on the narrow cot beside his sleeping father.
Going to a party. Phone if you need anything. Back late, don’t worry. D.
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Read PART TWO HERE Well? What are you waiting for?
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