SPN Fic: To Everything A Season (Pt 2/4, Gen/Het, R)
Edit: Fine, LJ won't let me post it in one chunk, so part 2 is going up in two chunks.
Okay, y'all. I may have mentioned to a few people that the end of this think kind of detonated on me during the final polish, so I've been wigging out a bit on how to end something I thought was over, and it has thrown me a wee bit behind in my original schedule.
It has also, however, just about doubled the length of this story. Huh. So now instead of 18.5K, I'm at 34K, and I suspect I still have about 5K left to add in trying to de-detonate that end thing to a finish I can live with.
The reason I tell you that is multi-fold. First, yeah, the whole two part thing? Not gonna happen. Right now, I'm aiming for it being 3 parts ... something I think I can accomplish, but I may not be able to, as Freaks and Monsters was only 25K, and it needed 3 parts, so I might be talking 4 by the time I get finished.
Either way though, Part 2 is going up tonight.
Another reason I tell you this is to disclaim any typos or other continuity-type errors being my wonderful beta's responsibility, as she is somewhat indisposed at the moment, with more important things on her mind than minding my p's and q's, so since I've nearly doubled my word count since the last time she had a chance to gander at it, anything that snuck in under my own edit radar is my fault, not hers. Cause she caught all my goofs in the version she saw, trust me.
Hopefully, I've read and re-read this enough times in getting it to a stable place where it doesn't want to big bang on my any more that I've caught all the continuity goofs that might exist (I had to make myself a frakkin TIMELINE people ... fanfic is NOT supposed to be this hard), and most of the dropped words and/or typos or wrong words. If a few of them slipped through, please forgive. I really know better, my eyes are just getting old and decrepit ... or at least, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
So here's the second part of the story. Again, I have to thank my wonderful beta
phantomas for all her sage advice and catching of authorial statements trying to masquerade as John thoughts. Most of the changes that have expanded this piece to such degree are things she brought to mind with suggestions she made that I'm sure she thought I would take less seriously than I did, but then she doesn't know me well enough to know how OCD I can get when someone makes a good point that I then have to address, or risk going crazy with the knowing of it existing in an unaddressed form.
I'd also like to give a quick shout-out thankya to
justforspite , who gave me the most wonderful realization a couple of days ago that John could actually be called Johnny by those trying to annoy him ... something I'd never really considered until I read it in her marvelous "Shine 9" final installment, and it tickled my funny bone to such degree that I found it cropping up here as the perfect solution to an issue that has been vexing me for weeks. So totally, I stole that idea from her. Thanks for putting it to my mind, Jayne.
So I guess that's all the front end babbling I'm gonna do. Sorry this took so long to get up, but the compensatory candy is that it's twice as long now, and the whole Dean cornfield thing is not something that existed until today, nor is the final scene in this installment, so sometimes running behind schedule can be a good thing. I think. Or at least, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Until the end detonates on me during final polish, and then I'll probably totally re-write the fucker.
Title: To Everything A Season (Part 2)
Author:
dodger_winslow
Challenge: Firsts Chart: First Memory
Genre: Gen (some het, not graphic), FutureFic
Word Count: 34,000 (total)
Pairings/Characters: John/OFC, Dean/OFC, Sam/OFC (hey, did I mention it was Future Fic?)
Rating: R (just to be safe)
Warnings: Language, sexual situations (not graphic)
Spoilers: Oh yeah. Everything S1
Disclaimer: I don't own the boys, I'm just stalking them for a while.
Timeline Note: Set seven years after the events of Devil's Trap. John, Dean and Sam all survived the crash to hunt down and destroy the Demon. For Sam, life goes on. For Dean, life stalls. For John, life has no more meaning, and he begins to self destruct.
Summary: A little piece of good advice: Never hunt a wendigo when you're drunk.
To Everything A Season (Part 2 of 3)
"Hello, Mr. Winchester." Arianna smiled up at him from the reception desk, her dark, exotic features a distraction that made Dean wonder, as he always did, how in the hell Sam ever got any work done at all.
Flashing her the best smile in his considerable collection, he asked, as he always did, "How many times do I have to ask you to call me Dean?"
"Just one more time, Mr. Winchester. I’ll tell your brother you’re here."
It was a routine they’d been going through for years now. He flirted. She played respectable. Then they fucked like bunnies in an expensive hotel down the street until the sun came up or Dean’s war wounds got the better of him, whichever came first. Usually the latter, but always something he blamed on the former, and she usually played along.
Unfortunately - to his mind, at least - the fucking like bunnies part had gone the way of all good things almost three years ago, so now it was just flirting and respectability whenever he showed up without benefit of an appointment, looking to kink her carefully planned schedule into an origami of chaos.
"So how’s what’s-his-name?" he asked as she stood.
"Eric."
"No. The other one … uh … Karl, isn’t it?"
She smiled tolerantly. "Eric."
"Really? I thought you dumped Eric."
"I dumped Robert."
"Damn, girl, you’re harder to keep a scorecard on than I am."
She lifted one eyebrow at him. He tried to look innocent and failed. Leaving him in the familiar foyer of Sam’s ridiculously pricey private practice, Arianna disappeared down a long hallway with a delicious swish of delicate hips, a sleek sway of seductive motion he liked to revisit in his memory on long nights hunting bad things. She could buzz Sam’s office from her desk, but she never did when he showed up unannounced. Dean liked to think it was because she wanted him to watch her walk away, but the more likely truth was that Sam was prone to saying things better not broadcast in polite company and public places when she told him Dean was there.
Or it could be that he was on a conference call with God or something. Sam traveled in some serious circles. If God needed a good lawyer, Sam would be the guy He’d call.
The hallway ended at the closed door to Sam’s office - a private inner sanctum no one but Arianna was allowed to disturb without specific invite, and that included Dean, perhaps even specifying Dean by name. On the way there, it snaked past two conference rooms, a kitchenette that was more of a small bistro than a cubby with a cappuccino machine, four small offices for lesser employees, and a freakin’ library, of all things.
Yup. Geek Boy Sammy had his very own library, and he kept it at the office because he had another one just like it at home.
Dean shook his head, still amazed, even after all these years, at how good his little brother was at making money. He ran one hand along a dark, Italian leather sofa that probably cost more than everything in Dean’s living room combined. If he asked, Sam would no doubt lie and say it didn’t really cost that much, that he picked it up at a flea market or something.
Yeah. That Trump Flea Market was good for things like Ferraris and Italian leather sofas. But Sam was gracious like that, even though he was rich enough he didn’t have to be, and even though he knew better than to think Dean would believe him no matter how Jimmy Stewart he tried to play it.
Dean watched Arianna until she slipped into Sam’s office and closed the door behind her, then picked up one of the framed photos she kept on her desk. He studied it for a moment, running his fingertips over the small faces that smiled back at him with their mother’s eyes. Marcella and Luciana: Marsh-a-mallow and Luci-Bug. They’d changed since the last time he was here. He liked to keep track just for the sake of keeping track, but he never indulged the urge to look until their mother had stepped away. He didn’t mind torturing himself, but it wasn’t fair to hurt her for no good reason. And him looking at things he’d never have was no good reason.
He studied what might have been for another moment, then put the photo back on her desk. She had three more photos there, two of just her and the girls, and one that looked like a family portrait, Eric smiling from where he stood at Arianna’s side with the slightly dazed, euphoric expression of a man who’d hit the jackpot with the only quarter in his pocket.
Robert was an ass who needed his nuts put to a knife, but Eric seemed like a nice guy. At least he did from everything Sam said when he talked about Arianna’s life as if it was nothing more than a topic in passing rather than his way of keeping Dean up on things he didn’t want to hear, but really needed to know.
Dean was happy for her, in a jealous kind of way. She deserved someone nice, and the girls deserved someone who wouldn’t be off hunting poltergeists when they needed him to help with their homework, or tuck them into bed.
He wandered away, restless, pacing. Though the wallpaper on the walls had that richer-than-you feel to it, and the sofa intimidated him enough he wasn’t willing to actually sit on it; by industry standards, Sam’s little corner of normal wasn’t much in the line of stuffy. It was almost inviting, in fact. Elegant without being formal. Classy without being pretentious. That was Meredith’s touch, no doubt, since Sam didn’t have a classy bone in his body, and his wife was very good at hiding the pretentious ones in hers when it suited her to do so, which it usually did when she was dealing with anyone whose name didn’t end in Winchester.
"Dean."
The grin on Sam’s face damned near split it in two as he strode down the hall in expensive shoes and a casual suit that belied how much it cost to rent his brain by the hour. He grabbed Dean in a bear hug - something Dean had complained about for years, but had finally given up on as inevitable - then slapped him twice on the back before releasing him to a simple handshake.
"’Bout time, Geek Boy," Dean said. "I was beginning to feel a little unwanted out here."
"Teleconference," Sam said. "Some of us have to work for a living."
Dean snorted lightly. "Yeah. Damned shame about the conditions. You really need to look into getting a union rep. Get this place up to spec."
"Says the man who drives his office to work. Come on back." He glanced at Arianna as they passed. "Can you pick us up a couple of coffees when you take lunch?"
"Sure, Sam."
"None of that cappuccino crap," Dean reminded her, pretty sure that was exactly what he was going to get in trade for the scorecard dig.
"Oh, I know your tastes, Mr. Winchester." The way she smiled verified that was exactly what he should expect, with extra nutmeg or cinnamon or some whipped cream on top, if she could manage it.
Sam led the way back to an office more reflective of the Sammy he used to be than the Samuel he’d become, saying, "She gets you whipped cream because you made some kind of Karl crack again, and we’re not trading this time."
"Would I make a Karl crack to her?" Dean’s tone was properly affronted at the suggestion. "How insensitive do you think I am?"
"Oh, we are so not trading." Sam gestured Dean through the office door first, then followed, closing it behind them. "So how the hell are you?"
Dean shrugged. "Eh. Can’t complain."
Sam’s office looked smaller than he remembered it being, but that was probably because it always came off as something of an airplane hanger when he tried to picture it in his head. While the furniture was no less expensive than that in the common areas, it was less intimidating in at least looking like you could sit on it without any need to take out insurance in case of accidental ass printage; and it lent a gratifying sense of normalcy to the place to know - which Dean did, from personal experience - there was an x-box hidden in the expensive, hand-carved armoire Meredith imported from some third world country the last time she tried to upgrade Sam from regular guy to pompous moron.
Sam had his little rebellions against his wife’s efforts to make him into a man he didn’t want to be. More often than not, he let her have her way just because it was easier than fighting over something that didn’t really matter. But on rare occasion, when she pushed too hard in what he wore, or where he ate, or what kind of furniture he put in his own damned office, he’d come up with some little way to thwart her entire notion of what she’d accomplished with him.
Hardwiring an x-box to a widescreen TV inside that gargantuan armoire was one such little rebellion. Keeping his Stanford law diploma in the same drawer where he kept Dad’s demon hunting journal was another. He did that just because he knew, wherever Dad was, it would piss him off.
Sammy was like that. He wasn’t very good at letting it all go.
He did let Dad go, though.
Sam and Dad hadn’t spoken for better than three years now. Not since the last time the old man showed up drunk for Christmas dinner and decided to celebrated the birth of Sam’s Lord and Savior by calling Meredith a haughty cunt who wouldn’t know a good jump if it fucked her.
Which was, granted, a little out of line, even for Dad; but it wasn’t like it hadn’t happened before.
But that time was the last time it happened; not because Dad as any less right than he’d been before, but because he said it in front of Garrison, who was sitting on the living room floor in his footie pajamas, ripping paper off presents as only a three year old can. And because the way he said it transcended Garrison’s limited vocabulary on the subject of cunts and fucking to convey a very clear picture of what Grandpa meant … clear enough to leave Garrison gaping at him with wide eyes and an open mouth, half de-wrapped presents in a forgotten scatter around him.
That look got Dad banned from Sam’s house - something Meredith had been trying to do for almost as long as she and Sam shared the same roof, but something Sam hadn’t backed her on until that moment. Dad took the news in typical Dad fashion, punishing Sam by lashing out at his wife, launching into an even more colorful detailing of Meredith’s sexual inadequacies, a choice that actually got him physically carried to his truck, not just by Sam, but by Dean, too.
Not that Meredith didn’t deserve it. Though he’d never say as much to Sam, she was a bit of a haughty cunt, and the way she looked at anyone who shared Sam’s gene pool didn’t really allow for much interpretation to her opinion. But still, Dad was wrong … not only to say it, but to say it in front of Garrison. No boy should hear his mother talked about like that, even if it was true.
Which, technically, it wasn’t. Meredith didn’t have many sexual inadequacies, something Dean knew, again, from first hand experience. Before she figured out who was going to make the six figures in the family, Dean had put some serious hours in exploring the subject of Meredith’s sexual proclivities, and the results he got gave her some pretty serious cred, even in his book. No doubt, she torched poor Sam’s book to a cinder once they hooked up, after she’d traded Dean in for a license to hunt pre-law, and he’d traded her in for a better quality play station.
All in all, a good trade for both of them.
And for Sam, too, evidently. Whatever she had that made him love her, she seemed to have it in spades. Or maybe it was just that she fit his idea of normal. Either way, she was in his bed before Dean’s got cold - something Sam never knew and never would - and by the time Dean realized it was getting serious, Sam was on his knee with a ring, and she was saying yes, and Sam was looking to him to be happy for them, and Meredith was looking to him to keep his fucking mouth shut, so he did both, not for her, but for Sam.
Because Sam seemed to love her. He seemed to be happy, which was all Dean really wanted, even if it meant taking Meredith in the deal, too.
What it came down to in the end, Dean figured, was that there’s just no accounting for taste. Love and which direction a werewolf’s going to break when you get too close on its ass are the two most unpredictable variables in the whole, damn universe. So all in all, even though he would have preferred Sam marry a werewolf over Meredith, and Dad would have preferred Sam turn into a werewolf over marrying Meredith, it wasn’t their call, so Dean didn’t try to make it, and he did his best to buffer Sammy from the worst of the ways Dad tried to punish him for not only marrying Meredith, but for leaving them behind in doing so.
At least, that was the way Dad saw things, which wasn’t always through the clearest eyes, or in any way that wasn’t directly related to what he wanted as compared to what someone else might want. Because for all her failings, having his own family was what Sammy wanted, and Meredith was half of the Garrison equation, so she couldn’t be all bad, his and Dad’s personal opinions on the subject aside.
"So what’s it been?" Sam demanded. "Three months? Garrison is convinced you’re out hunting werewolves in the Yukon with Wolverine, and you haven’t called because you are too cool to carry a SAT phone around in your hip pocket."
"Smart kid," Dean said. "SAT phones really fuck with the line of your ass, or so I’m told. And those Eskimo ladies?" Dean whistled his appreciation, a sound only he could make that lewd, "They are some hot mamas, let me tell you. Melt a man down to nothing, then freeze him up again for another go around."
If it was possible, Sam’s grin split his face a little wider. "Damn, I’ve missed you, Dean. Where have you been? What have you been doing, popsicle porn aside?"
"Ah, this and that. A little of the other thing just for giggles." He was purposefully vague. Sam didn’t want to know the details of his life any more than he wanted to share them. It was a lose-lose scenario, and he’d had his fill of those over the years, dealing with Dad’s drunk, dead ass. "What about you? New couch, I noticed. Must’ve cost a bundle."
"Eh. Got it at a garage sale."
"Uh huh."
He should have come back stronger. Asked if Paris Hilton had the sale in all twenty-seven berths of her garage, or called Sam a bitch, maybe insulted his shoes, made a sex joke, something. Because when all Sam got was ‘uh huh,’ he was on it like black on a hell hound.
"It’s Dad, isn’t it," Sam said, the grin falling right off his face.
Dean sighed. Throwing himself into the corner of a couch that was distressed enough by design he didn’t feel a need to take his pants off before sitting down, Dean glared at some crap-ass painting Sam had on the wall in lieu of answering. As long as he lived, he was never going to get the whole abstract art thing. Sam assured him it was good stuff; but to Dean, it just looked like expensive shit, painted by an expensive ape, with an expensive PR man.
"Hey, know what this one reminds me of?" He gestured at the painting with a wave of one hand, hoping to distract Sam to another subject. "Reminds me of that time you tried to cook spaghetti for me and Dad in Cincinnati. Remember? We were out all night, tracking that ka’aliki demon, and came back to find you sacked out on the floor of that motel kitchenette, looking like a horror movie exploded on you." Dean laughed at the memory, shaking his head. "Man, I thought Dad was going to have your ass for that one; but he was so tired, he just stood there in the doorway for a minute, then said, ‘Huh. Guess Sammy was in the mood for Italian.’"
"So, what’s he done this time?’ Sam asked, dropping to the couch at Dean’s side.
"Those were some good times, Sammy," Dean said as if he hadn’t heard the question. "Dad didn’t even make you take a bath. He just picked you up and dropped you in a bed. You never even woke up. Slept there all night, smelling like tomato sauce and looking just damned near exactly like that ugly-ass painting."
"What’s he done?" Sam asked again.
"And best part was, he let me sleep with him that night. ’Cause dude, did I mention you smelled like tomato sauce?"
"Dean."
"What."
"Are you really going to make me ask you a third time?"
"Yeah. Guess I am."
Sam sighed. "What’s he done?"
"He hasn’t done anything. He hasn’t been home for a while."
The echo of it was familiar. Too familiar.
For some time, Sam didn’t say a word. When he did speak, it was to ask simply, "How long?"
"Over a month. Almost two."
"He hasn’t called?"
"Not a word."
Sam stood up. He started to pace. "Two months," he said, and nothing more.
"I didn’t worry for the first couple of weeks," Dean allowed. "But when it started to run up on three, I figured I’d better start looking. Didn’t find anything. It’s like he dropped off the face of the planet."
"He tell you where he was going?"
"Last time we talked, it was more like me telling him where to go."
Sam nodded. "Bad?"
"Bad enough."
"He’s probably off on a drunk somewhere. When he sobers up, he’ll be back."
"Two months, Sam."
"He’s stayed gone longer."
"No. Not like this." Dean hesitated, then added, "We had a fight. I said some things I probably shouldn’t have."
"So he’s punishing you, then. He’s done that before, too: Gone dark just because he knows it makes you nuts."
"He was drunk when he left."
"He’s always drunk, Dean. He hasn’t been sober a day since we got the demon. At least, not one that I can remember."
"He has good days," Dean said defensively.
"When? When he’s Mr. Happy Drunk or Mr. I’m Proud of You Son Drunk instead of Mr. Falling Down Drunk or Mr. Your Wife Is A Cunt Drunk?"
Dean thrust to his feet. He crossed to the room’s only window, staring down at the view. Sam was living high off the hog these days. From eighteen stories above street level, everyone down below looked inconsequential.
"You’re not around," he said quietly. "You don’t know."
"I know," Sam countered. "And I tried to be around. He’s the one who fucked that up, not me."
"It was one time, Sam. You could have gotten over it."
"It was every time he came to the house," Sam protested. "And yeah, I could have gotten over it again; but Meredith doesn’t need to hear that kind of crap in her own home. And Garrison sure doesn’t need to hear it. Can you imagine how you and I would have felt if someone talked to Mom like that?"
"I probably would have hunted them down and killed them," Dean agreed quietly. "But that’s me. I was precocious."
"No." Sam was shaking his head, absolutely adamant. "I’m not taking the rap for this. Dad did it to himself. Maybe you and I have to keep giving him chances to screw us over again, but Meredith doesn’t. And I won’t let Garrison. He doesn’t even know what ‘cunt’ means, and he cried all night long after you and Dad left. And the way Dad said it? That nasty, ugly, hateful way he has of talking to Meredith even when he’s not calling her a cunt right to her face? Garrison was scared for a week, Dean. A week. I’m not ever going to let that happen again. Not ever."
"We’ve been scared most of our lives, Sammy."
Sam made a rude sound. "Yeah. That’s real poetic. But I don’t want my son growing up that way. I don’t want him feeling that way. Not the way Dad made me feel. And sure as hell not the way he’s always made you feel."
"I love Dad," Dean said.
"Yeah. I know you do. You’d have to, to let him keep bleeding you like this." Sam shouldered in beside him at the window. "Maybe it doesn’t seem like it sometimes; but I love him, too. Or at least, I did. To be perfectly honest though, I’m not sure I do any more. Too much water under the bridge. Too much Jack Daniels under the bridge."
He studied Dean for a long moment, then said, "Look … I know you don’t have a kid to consider, but don’t you think it’s time you considered yourself for a change? I mean, how long are you going to let him do this to you before you say enough is enough? How long does he get to be the only one that matters? How many times does he get to stomp off in a huff so you can go after him and apologize and tell him you were completely wrong for not doing everything exactly the way he wants, or for saying something that isn’t what he wants to hear?"
Dean laughed a little, quietly and from deep inside his chest. "Yeah. Well, he didn’t want to hear what I had to say a month ago."
"What did you say?"
"Doesn’t really matter. But I shouldn’t have said it. I was out of line."
"Like you could even be out of line with Dad."
Dean shrugged, but didn’t answer.
"It’s time you let him go, Dean. You’ve got to let him go and move on, or he’s going to drag you under with him."
"I’m the only thing keeping him afloat."
"That’s not your job."
"Sure it is, Sammy. I’m all he’s got left."
"You’ve been keeping him afloat for thirty years," Sam said, his voice sharp with frustration. "You do it much longer and you’re never going to have a life of your own."
"This is my life. I accepted that a long time ago."
"But it doesn’t have to be, Dean. This isn’t what Mom would have wanted for you. This isn’t even what Dad would want if he hadn’t crawled so far down into that bottle of his that he can’t see anything any more but his own misery."
Dean turned, looked at his brother. "Well, Mom isn’t here," he said calmly. "And now, neither is Dad. I need your help, Sam. I need to go find him."
Sam was already shaking his head. "No," he said. "Not this time."
And he meant it.
Dean nodded. "Okay. That’s what I figured, but I needed to hear it. I had to ask. You understand that, right?"
"I don’t understand anything about you any more," Sam said. "You used to hunt because it meant something to you. Because you could save people. But it doesn’t mean anything any more. You just do it because Dad wants you to. Because he’s going to do it, with or without you."
"That’s a reason."
"It’s not a good reason."
"Maybe not for you."
"Tell me it matters to you, Dean. Tell me you get anything out of it at all."
"I get Dad still alive."
"Tell me this is what you want to do for the rest of your life."
Dean licked his lips, looked away. "Not really the point."
"It is the point. You’re the point. What you want."
"I just want Dad back."
"Maybe it would be better if he never came back."
Every muscle in Dean’s body tensed. "Don’t even say that, Sammy," he warned angrily.
"You could get a life then. Find something that makes you happy."
"I am happy."
"You’re not happy, Dean. Even Garrison can tell that."
"Garrison’s just a kid."
"Garrison idolizes you."
"What can I say? The kid’s got good taste."
"This isn’t funny, Dean. He loves you. I love you. Hell, even Meredith doesn’t hate you any more."
"Wow. My life is complete."
"The point is, we’re your family, now. Dad isn’t. He hasn’t been for a long time."
"You’re wrong," Dean said.
"I’m not wrong, and you know it. Dad hasn’t been anything but a shadow since Mom died. And it’s only gotten worse since we killed the demon. He doesn’t have anything to live for now. He doesn’t care about anything. And if you stay with him much longer, he’s going to make you that way, too. He’s going to make you into a shadow, just like him."
Dean reached out and slapped Sam’s biceps. "He does, just a little salt behind the ear should do the trick. I’ve gotta travel, dude. Tell the rug rat hey for me. Tell the ole ball and chain she’s a haughty cunt, but say it nicely so it doesn’t make Garrison cry."
"Ha ha. Very funny."
Dean held out both hands like it was a gimme. "I’ve still got it. See you around, Sammy."
"What? You’re going all ready?"
"Hey, some of us have to work for a living."
"Oh, you’re just hysterical today. Stop yourself before I laugh or something."
"Bitch," Dean said, grinning as he headed for the door.
"That’s Mister Bitch to you. Oh. Wait. Garrison gave me something to send to you in the Yukon. As long as you’re here, I can save the three hundred dollars in postage." Sam opened a desk drawer and rummaged around in it for a moment before he pulled out an envelope folded down to a small square with "DUDE" written on it in red crayon. "He hasn’t quite got the whole address thing down yet," Sam said as he passed the note over. "In his head, you’re kind of like Santa Clause, but with a cooler car. So he thinks you can just put ‘Dude’ on it, and somebody will know how to find you."
"How’s that working out for him so far?" Dean asked.
Sam rolled his eyes. "And speaking of Santa Clause," he went on, "would you quit telling him you’re in the Yukon when you call, please? He made me watch the Iditarod with him last week. I didn’t think there was a sport more boring than golf on TV, but I was wrong. Dog mushing: twice as boring, you just don’t have to whisper. And he asked Meredith if he could quit judo lessons and start taking dog mushing instead. Because of you and your little ‘I’d love to make your soccer game, bud; but I’m going to be hunting werewolves in the Yukon with Wolverine that week’ schtick, my son wants to mush dogs for a living. And he figures with Jo-Jo and Binks, we’ve already got a good start on a twelve dog team."
Dean chuckled. "That’s my boy," he said as he unfolded the envelop and tore it open.
"You’re going to open it now?" Sam asked, surprised. "Here?"
Dean already had the piece of paper inside half way out when he stopped, lifted one eyebrow at Sam, and said, "What? You’d rather I wait until I get back to the Yukon?"
"Good point."
Dean finished pulling the piece of paper out, unfolded it to its full size, and read it.
Sam craned his neck, twisting his body around a bit to get a look at what it said. Dean pulled it away, angling it to shield the contents from Sam’s line of sight, saying, "Dude. Privileged information."
Sam rolled his eyes. "Then why are you reading it here?"
"Because it makes you nuts," Dean said. He went back to reading. His lips twitched to a half grin several times before he finished. When he was done, he told Sam, "Smart kid," as he folded the message back into its envelope, then folded the envelope back down to its original size and stuck it in the breast pocket of his leather jacket.
"What does it say?" Sam asked.
"None of your business." Dean headed for the door again.
"He’s my son," Sam protested.
Dean smirked at him over one shoulder. "My nephew. Later, Sammy."
Dean was half way out the door when Sam said, "Don’t go, Dean."
"I’ve got to."
"You don’t have to. You could come home with me tonight. Eat dinner. Stay a couple of days … or a couple of weeks. Garrison would love it."
"Yeah. Meredith, too, I’ll bet."
"Meredith can get over it."
For a moment, he actually considered it. Then he shook his head and said, "No. I’ve got to do this. I know you don’t get it, but I have to."
Sam followed him down the hall. "Maybe he wants to be gone. Did you ever think of that?"
"I thought of it," Dean said as he cleared the hallway and entered the reception area.
Arianna was in the process of hanging her coat on an ornate, brass tree in the corner. Her purse, keys and a cardboard caddy with three cups of coffee in it were sitting on her desk. Flicking her a grin he reserved just for women he’d fucked who he’d really like to fuck again, he asked, "One of those for me, beautiful?"
She pulled one cup out of the caddy and handed it to him. He popped the plastic lid, expecting cinnamon or nutmeg or whipped cream or something worse. It was black and strong and exactly the way he liked: Everything he wasn’t expecting to a degree that it actually stopped him in his tracks for a moment.
He looked up, met her eyes. "What? No whipped cream?"
She smiled. "I thought about it."
He took a sip of the coffee, holding her eyes as he did so. It was in a Starbucks’ cup, but it wasn’t the crap from the Starbucks down the street. It was the really good shit from the coffee bar at their hotel … the one he used to take her to when Sam was off on a business trip, or when she met him in the parking garage on her lunch break so Sam wouldn’t realize he was there.
"Eric, huh?" he said.
"Yes. Eric."
"Lucky bastard." He walked to the outer door, telling Sam as he went, "Don’t let that one get away, Sammy, or you’ll regret it for the rest of your life."
"Dean."
Dean hesitated, the door already open. When he gave in and turned back, Sam had that stricken look to him Dean knew would be there. That look always killed him when Sammy was a kid. Now, as an adult, it was worse, more raw for the way Sam tried not to show how much he was hurting, and how much he didn’t want to do what he felt he had to do. It was the same look Sam had when he handed Dean his acceptance letter to Stanford over a decade earlier. The hardest thing Dean had ever done was look up from that letter and grin, saying, It’s okay, Sam. It is.
"I can’t go with you," Sam said quietly. "I wish I could, but I can’t."
"I know." Dean touched the breast pocket of his jacket with two fingers, just enough of a gesture to draw Sam’s eyes to where he’d put Garrison’s letter. "Don’t worry about it." He flashed his brother a grin of absolution, saying, "It’s okay, Sam. It is."
And then he was gone.
Sam stood in the middle of his expensive office, standing on expensive carpet in expensive shoes, and stared after everything that had ever mattered to him as it walked away and didn’t look back.
Everything that mattered except a little boy who thought he wanted to take dog mushing lessons. And because that little boy mattered more, Sam didn’t follow. Sam couldn’t follow.
"Sometimes he makes you just want to break things, doesn’t he?" Arianna asked from where she was settling in behind her desk.
"You have no idea," Sam muttered. He turned back toward his office, saying, "Hold my calls, will you? And cancel out my afternoon."
"Any particular reason you want me to cite?"
"I don’t care. Lie to them. Tell them whatever they want to hear."
Arianna nodded. "And your wife?"
"No. I don’t want to talk to anybody. If she calls, tell her I’m in a meeting or something. Unless it’s Garrison or Dean, I’m not here." He was half way down the hall when he called back over his shoulder, "Or my dad. If it’s my dad, put him through." The quiet click of his office door behind him echoed lonely in the empty foyer.
Arianna glanced at the picture of her daughters. The slight smudge of his fingertips was still visible on the glass over their faces. He was never here but what he touched their pictures. He was never here but what he pretended he didn’t even remember their names.
Sighing, she picked up the phone and began to dial, constructing in her head the lies they would want to hear.
*
John worked in the café for almost a month before he decided Bill wouldn’t fire him if he asked his daughter out. She said he was the slowest man she’d ever met, and then she said yes.
When he showed up at the restaurant with his wedding ring on, she tried to pretend she didn’t notice, but she did. It was a fleeting expression - the look on her face as she saw it, then tried to un-see it - but it made him realize he was ten times the fool he’d thought he was, and he had a very high opinion of how much the fool he was.
"Sorry," he said, trying to twist it off his finger.
She reached out, laid a hand on top of his. "It’s okay, John. Leave it on." She smiled at him with the smile that made him want to drink. He thought he could love her when she smiled that way, and it was the scariest thing he’d ever felt. Or he ever remembered feeling, at least; of the many things he didn’t remember feeling.
"No. I should take it off." He started twisting at it again, but it wasn’t moving much. "I don’t even know what it means. I don’t remember who she is. Who she was. How I feel about her. How I felt about her. Any of it. She’s the past. Whoever she is - she was - she’s gone now, and I don’t remember her."
"Maybe that’s the problem," Julie said.
He tilted his head slightly, unsure what she was saying. "I think the problem is that I’m an idiot," he ventured after a beat.
"Maybe the problem is that you don’t remember whether or not you still love her."
Frustration flashed in his tone, making him sound harsher than he intended when he said, "How can I love her when I don’t even remember her?"
"Her name was Mary," Julie told him quietly. "And you’re still wearing your wedding ring, John."
"Like I said, I’m an idiot."
"She wore a lot of white," Julie went on. Her fingertips brushed the hollow of her own throat. "And she liked it when you kissed her here."
He wanted a drink. He wanted a drink so badly it was all he could think about for a moment. Just the burn of it tracking down his throat, settling in his belly. He closed his eyes, struggling against the urge to leave her right where she sat, to just stand up and walk out of the restaurant; to leave her behind, find the nearest bar and drink himself back into a stupor until he didn’t remember that he didn’t remember.
"Just try, John," she said. "Try to remember her."
"No."
"It’s been more than three months," Julie pressed. "What if she’s looking for you?"
He opened his eyes, met her gaze. "She isn’t."
"How do you know that, if you can’t remember her?"
"I don’t know how I know, but I do. She isn’t looking for me."
"I would be," Julie said.
Because he couldn’t look at her any longer, he dropped his gaze to his hands. As much as he didn’t want it to, the ring on his finger belonged there. It had always been there. It was as much a part of him as his name. They were all he had when he staggered out of the Ochoco, bleeding and alone: his name and this ring.
John. Husband of Mary.
"I think she’s gone," he said suddenly.
"Gone?" Julie pressed.
"Yes. She isn’t with me any more. Either I loved her, and I lost her; or I don’t love her, and I need to lose her. Whatever we had when I put this ring on my finger, it isn’t there any more. If it were, I’d feel it. And I don’t. I don’t feel anything. It’s just a ring. Whatever she meant to me once, she’s gone now. I don’t remember her. I don’t want to remember her."
"You don’t know that, John."
"I’ll tell you what I know." He reached across the table between them, putting his hand over hers, ignoring the wedding band burnished richly gold by years of wear as he held on to her with his eyes, the way she had once held on to him as he sat on the floor dying, leaning against a café wall, fading out of existence with only the intensity of her will to keep him from becoming nothing. "I know I want to be here, right now, with you. Whoever she is, whoever she was. What I want is to be here with you."
Julie nodded. She ran one thumb along his ring, then patted his hand, saying, "That’s sweet, John. I’d rather be here with you, too. You and your wedding ring."
He tried not to laugh and failed. "No, really," she said, masterful in how sincere she sounded while laughing her ass off at him in her eyes. "It’s what I’ve always dreamed of, every since I was a little girl. Just you, me, and your wedding ring. Right here. In this very restaurant, eating dinner."
Shaking his head, he let go of her hand and leaned back in his chair. The intensity of his need to hold on to her faded to an easy, comfortable knowledge that she wasn’t going anywhere. She was where she wanted to be. He could feel it in the gentle tease of the way she poked him with a sharp stick in his greatest vulnerabilities.
There was no ground she wouldn’t walk with him. No places she was afraid to go, nothing about him that made her think she couldn’t call him on it. It made him trust her in a way he couldn’t remember ever trusting anyone before. She saw his failures, and they didn’t matter to her. She didn’t care who he wanted to be. She wanted who he was. Just that. Who he was.
"Then I guess that makes tonight your lucky night," he said finally.
"A dream come true," she agreed. "Just like in the fairy tales."
He quit trying to tear the ring off his finger and ordered a white wine for her and a club soda for himself. They ate dinner, flirting, talking, flirting some more. The subject of his wife didn’t come up again, although she poked him at least three more times about fairy tales and perfect dates.
Later, he walked her to her door and kissed her goodnight under the porch light.
She asked if he wanted to come inside. He told her he wasn’t ready for that, and didn’t worry that she wouldn’t understand; not because he didn’t care, but because he’d finally figured out he could trust her to tell him if she didn’t.
She said he was the slowest man she’d ever met.
He told her that was why she liked him.
She kissed him then, and the way she did it made him want to go inside with her more than he remembered ever wanting anything in his life. But he didn’t. He let her close the door between them because he wasn’t lying when he said he wasn’t ready. There was a ring on his finger, and he couldn’t take it off yet. Until he could, he knew he had to stay on the porch.
Not for her so much as for him.
She accepted him the way he was. And because she did, he wanted to be better than the way he was. Though he remembered almost nothing about his life before her, he had just enough sense about the kind of man he must have been to know he hadn’t wanted anything for a very long time.
Nothing but the sweet relief of nothing.
But he wanted this. He wanted it enough to make himself let it happen.
*
Go to Part 3