SPN Fic: The Eyes to See (Gen, PG)
Just a little something I ended up finishing off when I was supposed to be writing on Pt 4 of Season instead. (Can we say procrastination, boys and girls?). Have to send a shout out of thanks to the wonderful
eloise_bright whose lovely BURNED reminded me I had a teacher fic I wanted to finish sitting on my harddrive, being sadly and tragically neglected. Cause really, it was the tragedy of this inexcusable neglect that prompted me to finish it, not the fact that I was procrastinating. No. Really. Why are you looking at me that way? I'm serious.
Fine. Don't believe me then.
Title: The Eyes to See
Author: dodger_winslow
Challenge: Paranormal 25: Haunting
Genre: Gen
Word Count: 4,200
Rating: PG
Warnings: Mild Language
Parings: None
Disclaimer: I don't own the boys, I'm just stalking them for a while.
Summary: The kid was in trouble. He'd seen kids in trouble before. He’d been watching them most of his life. He knew the signs … knew the dark look in their eyes, knew the cautious way they moved when they were hiding bruises or burns or broken bones under clothes and lies and a determination to be normal at any cost.
The Eyes to See
The kid was in trouble. Mike had seen kids in trouble before. He’d been watching them most of his life. He knew the signs … knew the dark look in their eyes, knew the cautious way they moved when they were hiding bruises or burns or broken bones under clothes and lies and a determination to be normal at any cost.
This kid was a new transfer. He’d been in class a little over two weeks. In that time, he hadn’t said more than a handful of words to anyone. The way he watched the world was too familiar: An animal hunted to ground, treed and waiting for someone to come and finish him off.
Someone was hurting him. Mike could see it in the hopeless way he smiled.
"Winchester."
The kid glanced at him, already half way to the door.
"Stay for a minute."
His eyes narrowed, but he didn’t argue.
"Have a seat." Mike gestured to a chair in the front row. He leaned against his desk, studying how smoothly this boy moved until he got to the wrong angle, then how well he hid the clench of pain that skated his features as he settled in. Ribs, maybe. Or a shoulder. It was hard to tell. He seemed to be favoring his whole left side.
"So." Mike said.
The kid didn’t respond the way most did. He didn’t try to fill the silence, didn’t try to offer lies or stories or other diversions to distract a teacher’s scrutiny from things he didn’t want noticed.
Instead, he just sat there, quietly, waiting, watching.
"How things going for you?" Mike asked after several seconds. "What do you think of our school? You settling in to the new routine okay?"
"Yes, sir."
The economy of his answer was what Mike expected. When this kid did talk, he tended to do so in small bursts, few words wasted, nothing revealed that wasn’t specifically required by the question asked.
"You don’t have to call me sir, Winchester. My name is Mr. Farris. Or you can call me Mike, if you’d rather."
"Yes, sir," the boy said again.
Mike smiled. That wasn’t what he’d expected. Not quite a joke, but not far from it either. Certainly a response more that absolutely required by what he’d said. And just a hint of antagonism for authority. That was a good sign. It meant he still had some spine left. Whoever was hurting him hadn’t broken him yet.
"Why don’t you tell me a little bit about your last school?" Mike asked. It was a deliberately leading question, one he left open to see how much the kid would try to fill in.
"What do you want to know?"
Mike shrugged. "Whatever you want to tell me."
The kid said nothing. Mike waited. Still, he said nothing.
Mike got it then, realized the boy was telling him exactly what he wanted to tell him: Nothing.
"How long did you go there?" he asked after almost a minute of silence.
"Two months."
Mike nodded. School jumping. Harder to track injuries that way. If they don’t stay in one place long enough to establish a baseline, no one ever knows them well enough to see the despair changing them. No one bonds with them, cares enough to look behind the failing grades. They’re just bad kids. Poor students.
"I noticed on your transcript that you’ve been enrolled in seven schools this year." He waited a beat, then added, "So far."
The boy didn’t answer him. He wasn’t going to offer an explanation then. Another good sign. The harder a kid is to crack to the task of talking, the more they have left to protect.
"That seems like a lot," Mike noted. Then, because he’d established the boy wouldn’t offer anything unless directly requested, he asked, "What kind of work does your father do that requires you to move around so much?"
"He’s a spy," the boy said. "I could tell you more, but then I’d have to kill you."
Mike actually laughed at that. He didn’t mean to, but he did. To this point in time, the kid had been so quiet, so isolated, so withdrawn, that it never occurred to him he might have a sense of humor.
"Really," Mike said, still chuckling.
And then the kid did something unprecedented. He offered something unasked, saying, "Scout’s honor."
Mike laughed again. "You don’t really strike me as the Boy Scout type, Dean," he observed drily.
The kid didn’t answer, but something flickered in his eyes. It almost seemed like an expression for a passing moment, and then it was gone. His eyes were dark again. Unreadable. Waiting.
"Why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself?" Mike invited.
"What do you want to know?"
Because he’d learned from this question the first time it was asked, Mike said, "Why don’t you tell me about your family. You have a brother, right?"
"Yes."
"Younger or older?"
"Younger."
"How much?"
"Four years."
"What about your dad? The spy?"
"He’s older."
Mike smiled, but pushed on, "And your mother?"
The kid didn’t answer. Not with his mouth, at least. But his eyes told a different story; different enough for Mike to know he’d hit something.
"Is your mother older, too?" he pressed, softening his insistence by playing the question as a joke.
"Did I do something wrong?"
He had hit a nerve. This evasion was what he’d expected earlier; a shift away from a subject the kid didn’t want to discuss. This was his road of ingress. This was a place to start.
"You don’t want to talk about your mother?"
"Because if I didn’t do anything wrong," he glanced at the clock pointedly, "I really need to be heading home."
"Just a few more questions. What happened to your side?"
That shut him down completely. Like a time lock on a safe, every expression the boy had vanished.
"My side?"
It was the most disingenuous request for clarification Mike had ever heard. "Yeah. You’ve been favoring it for two days now. Did something happen? Are you hurt?"
"There’s nothing wrong with my side."
"You mind if I take a look?" When Mike reached for him, the boy jolted to his feet, stumbling a bit with the abruptness of the response, wincing in pain, his eyes fierce suddenly, angry in a way that seemed very near violence.
"Dude! Hands."
Mike stood, too. Though he had no intention of actually touching the boy, his response to the mere possibility of such a thing was all the clarification Mike needed to take his concerns to the next step. "Let me see your side, Dean," he said quietly.
"Fuck you," Dean retorted. "Sir."
Mike sighed. He kept his voice even, calm. The boy needed to know this offer was one of refuge, even if it was made as a threat. He’d learned through hard experience they wouldn’t respond to invitations, to suggestions, to a hand extended with the intention to help. They were too broken to see a sanctuary offered. They couldn’t accept what wasn’t forced, couldn’t capitulate to anything not coerced.
"We can go at this one of two ways, Dean. You can either let me see it now, here, with just you and me in the room. Or I can call social services and have you removed from your home. Taken away from your family. And we can look at it then, in a hospital, with at last twelve other people involved. Which way do you want to go?"
There was panic in his eyes now. True panic. For a moment, Mike thought he was going to run.
"I play a lot of sports," Dean said suddenly. The lie was a burst of panic through tight lips. "Motorcross is my favorite. I totaled my bike a couple of days ago. Totaled a few ribs, too. My dad took me to the hospital. They said everything is fine. Just some bruises, nothing that won’t heal."
Mike felt sick. It was the way so many of them played it, trying so hard to convince someone they were loved, to convince themselves the parent betraying them was, in reality, their protector.
"Dean …" Mike started.
"I have to go." He was backing toward the door as he spoke. "I pick my brother up at school. He’ll be waiting."
"You don’t have to do this alone," Mike said. "Let me help you."
"I don’t need help," Dean told him.
"What are you going to do when he starts in on your brother?"
"My brother’s fine. My dad and I make sure of that."
He was losing him. He could tell he was losing him. If he let this boy leave, he would never see him again. Mike held out one hand, knowing it was already too late, knowing it would do no good, that this boy was already lost to him. "Let me help you, Dean," he whispered.
"Goodbye, Mr. Farris."
And then he was gone.
He didn’t come to class the next day. Or the next. Within a week, Mike had the official notification: Dean Winchester was no longer one of his students. He’d moved out of district, forwarding address unknown.
*
Mike Farris sat in his classroom, staring out a window, thinking of children lost and years gone by. It had been almost twenty years now, but he still remembered one in particular. He’d tried so hard to reach him. Tried so hard to give him a hand out, to let him know it was okay to ask for help, or to accept it when it was offered.
Losing that boy haunted him. He’d lost sleep over it for years, wondering what had become of him, what had become of his little brother. He’d had his chance to make a difference when there was still something of that boy to salvage, and he’d failed. That failure lived with him every day of his life.
He could sense someone standing in the doorway to his classroom, but he didn’t turn for a long moment, knowing it wouldn’t matter to whoever was there how long it took him to respond. Time didn’t mean much any more. Each day was the same as the last, an endless string of regrets for children lost.
"Hello, Mister Farris." The quiet voice was familiar. It blew through him like a cold wind from the past.
Mike jolted to his feet. The chair he was sitting on slammed back against the wall, cracking the plaster, shattering the chair itself to kindling. A window burst outward in a explosion of glass as he turned. Every desk in the room screaked backward several inches, scoring the hard linoleum floor like nails put to a chalkboard.
"Dean."
The temperature dropped several degrees when he spoke. Though neither were lit, both overhead fluorescent lights burst, showering the room with orange and white sparks.
Dean Winchester smiled. "You remember me," he said. "I wasn’t sure you would."
Mike stared at him, seeing the child in the man. "I’ve never forgotten you," he said.
There was another man with him, older, with a beard and dark eyes. Those eyes were the same eyes he saw in his dreams, watching him from the face of a quiet kid who’d only been in his classroom for two weeks, but who’d stayed on his conscience for twenty years.
His father.
The temperature dropped another ten degrees. Mike took a step forward, wanting nothing so much as he wanted to get his hands around that man’s throat. Another window blew. In the hallway outside, the sprinkler system went off, a monsoon in a can, artificial rain pelting rows of metal lockers in a staccato of pings and pops.
"This is my dad," Dean said, his breath puffing to vapor in the cold as he spoke. "I should have brought him to meet you sooner. I’m sorry it took me so long to get him here."
A third window exploded, followed in quick succession by a forth and a fifth.
"Hello, Mr. Farris," John said calmly. "I’ve heard a lot about you. I’ve wanted to meet you for years; to thank you for what you tried to do for my son; to tell you how much I appreciated it, even though it might not have seemed like it at the time."
Mike was confused. He lost his focus for a moment, forgot what it was he wanted to do. "I don’t understand," he said.
"It was never what you thought it was," Dean explained. "This is what my father and I do. Sometimes there are injuries. That’s what happened to my ribs all those years ago. It was never my father hurting me. That particular time, it was a poltergeist that pitched me into a wall, but I couldn’t very well tell you that at the time."
"A poltergeist?" Mike snorted derisively. "Are you really trying to tell me a ghost put those bruises on you?" He laughed then, bitterly. "I appreciate you trying to protect him, Dean; but ghosts don’t do things like that to children. Fathers do."
This time, it was John who slammed back into the wall. The impact of it shook the small room, reverberating through the floor.
Mike blinked, surprised when Dean raised a shotgun, pointing it straight at his face. "I don’t want to hurt you, Mister Farris," he said levelly. "But I will if you don’t let my dad go."
"I’m just trying to help you, Dean," Mike said.
"I know that. But I can’t let you hurt my father."
"Son of a bitch, Dean," John wheezed. "Pull the trigger already."
Dean pulled the trigger.
Mike didn’t know what was in the shotgun, but it burned like acid going through him. He screamed, blowing apart for a moment before coming back together again, weak and disoriented and barely able to maintain himself.
Across the room, John Winchester slid to the ground. He gasped several times, breathing like a man who’d been held underwater too long and was only now being allowed to surface.
Dean cracked the shotgun and ejected the spent shells. He’d already reloaded and had the weapon in position again, ready to fire, before Mike got his bearings, re-oriented himself to his surroundings, figured out where he was, and why.
Putting a hand up to protect himself as Dean’s finger whitened against the trigger, Mike stepped back, turning his face instinctively away. "No …"
The ferocious intensity of Dean’s expression eased. Though his finger remained tight to the trigger, ready to fire at any moment, he released the immediacy of its pressure as he said again, "I don’t want to hurt you, Mister Farris. But I won’t let you hurt my dad."
Mike took another step back. "I don’t understand." He looked from Dean, to his father, and back to Dean again. "Why are you here?"
"We’re here for you," Dean said.
"What?"
"We’re here to help you," he clarified. "To help you go where you’re supposed to be."
"I’m supposed to be here," Mike said. "I’m a teacher. This is where I belong."
"Not any more," Dean said.
"I don’t understand …" Mike said a third time.
"I think you do," Dean corrected.
John was standing again. Unsteady on his feet, his throat already darkening with a five-fingered bruise, he moved closer to his son, a shotgun in his hand now, too; but held down, pointing at the floor. There was an overtly protective aspect to his posture that confused Mike, made him feel off balance and uncertain.
"Did I do something wrong?" he asked suddenly, speaking to John this time instead of Dean.
"No," John said. "You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s just time for you to let go."
"I can’t let go. They need me. My kids need me." He shifted his gaze to Dean. "The way you needed me. I’m so sorry I couldn’t help you, Dean. I tried, but I couldn’t reach you."
"You did help me," Dean said. "I just didn’t need the kind of help you thought I did."
Mike stared at Dean for several long moments, then looked to John again, and then once more to Dean. "You didn’t?" he asked finally.
"No. But I did need help. And you helped me."
"How?"
"Just by caring. By noticing me."
"Noticing you?"
"Seeing there was something wrong, even if it wasn’t what you thought it was."
"I always see it," Mike said. "Sometimes it haunts me. Especially when I fail. When I fail like I failed you."
"You didn’t fail me. That’s why we’re here: to show you that. I wanted you to meet my dad so you’d see he was never a threat to me."
"I thought he might have killed you. That happens sometimes. When I lose one, they show up dead some other place, some other time. I was so afraid that had happened to you. You had so much spirit. So much heart. I knew he’d break you, sooner or later. I knew he’d break you, or if he didn’t, you’d turn up dead someplace where no one knew what you could have been. Someplace where no one had the eyes to see what you were going through."
Dean lowered his shotgun to his side. "You don’t have to do this alone, Mister Farris." He held out one hand. "Let me help you."
"How can you help me? You’re just a child."
"Trust me," Dean said.
It came to him like a dream he’d dreamed for a thousand years: He was tired. So terribly, terribly tired. The air around him had grown warm. The weight of it against his body was almost too much to bear. It made him weary just to be. It exhausted him simply to exist.
"I’m tired," he admitted. "But I can’t afford to sleep. If I close my eyes, I might lose one of them. They need me to see them. Sometimes I’m the only one who does."
"Have you met Mrs. Wagner yet?" Dean asked.
Mike nodded. "She teaches music. She’s been here almost four years now. She seems like such a nice woman."
"She’s seen three of them this year alone," Dean told him. "All three of them are getting help now."
Mike blinked. "She has?"
"Yes. And Mr. Vebruge, the science teacher? He reported one just this week."
"Vebruge?" Mike canted his head to one side. "I had a student by that name once."
"I know. Leo, right?"
"Yes." Mike nodded. "Leo. He was a good kid. Very sharp. Such a sad boy though." Mike was smiling, but his smile faded as his memory clarified. The room went cold again as he said, "His father put him in the hospital three times. Three times, Dean."
"But the third time, you stopped it," John said.
"Three times," Mike repeated grimly. "I told them what was happening. I tried to get him to tell them, too; but he was just so frightened. It took three times before they finally caught on. Three times for them to see what was right in front of their eyes, for them to pay attention. Three times for them to stop. Letting. It. Happen."
"But you never gave up on him," John said. "I spoke to him earlier today. He told me you’re the reason he became a teacher. That you were the only person who ever saw him as a kid. The only person who ever cared enough to keep at him when he tried to push you away."
Mike blinked. "He said that?"
"He’s the one who told us you were here. He’s worried about you. He wants to help you the way you helped him once. The way you helped my son. The way you’ve helped a hundred kids over the years."
"I’ve lost so many," Mike whispered. "They haunt me." He turned back to Dean, staring at him, hopeless, empty. "The way you haunt me, Dean. I wanted to help you. I wanted to help you so much."
"It’s my turn to help you," Dean said.
"I don’t need help."
"Yes, you do. You don’t have to do this alone, Mister Farris. It’s okay to let us help you."
"I’m so tired," Mike said again.
"Leo asked me to tell you thank you," John said. "He wanted me to assure you he would keep teaching the way you taught him to."
"I teach math," Mike said.
"You taught him how to see." John corrected gently.
Mike was tired. He was so very, very tired. "You can help me?" he whispered.
"Just close your eyes and let it go," John said. "Let my son and I take it from there."
"Your son." Mike smiled. "Dean, right? He’s a good kid. Very funny. He seems to have such heart. It makes losing him so much harder."
"You never lost me, Mister Farris," Dean said.
Mike glanced at the young man standing beside John. There was something so oddly familiar about him, but he couldn’t place exactly what it was. "I’m sorry, do I know you, young man?" he asked. Then, a little embarrassed, he added, "I used to have a much better memory. Getting old sucks, you know. But I highly suggest it. Much better than the alternative."
Dean smiled at him. "I used to be one of your students," he said.
Mike brightened. "Really? I wish I remembered you. I’m so sorry I don’t."
"That’s okay," Dean said. "I remember you, Mister Farris."
Mike chuckled. "I hope that’s a good thing."
"It is," Dean assured him. "You were my favorite teacher when I was a kid."
Drawing a long, deep breath, Mike nodded. "I probably shouldn’t admit as much, but I never get tired of hearing that," he said. "Even if I can’t remember the student, I feel like I’ve accomplished something if they remember me. If I made a difference for them somehow." He looked sad for a moment. "So many of them need things. I do the best I can, but sometimes I think I fail more than I help."
"You helped me," Dean said.
Mike cocked his head to one side. "Did I?" He smiled then, saying, "Thank you for telling me that, young man." He glanced at John. "And this is your father, I assume?"
"Yes. This is my dad. I thought you might like to meet him."
"Your son turned into quite a fine man," Mike told John. "You should be proud of him."
"I am," John agreed.
"It’s time for you to go now, isn’t it Mister Farris?" Dean asked.
Mike sighed. "Yes. I suppose it is. I didn’t really want to retire, but they’d already bought the gold watch, so I figured what the heck. I hate to leave this place though. I loved it here. Loved teaching." He looked around the room, remembering all the children who had passed through his watch over the years. "I felt like I made a difference in this place. One of my students is a teacher here, did you know that? He started the same year I retired. Nice young man. Very dedicated to his students. I really don’t remember him, but he told me I was his favorite teacher when he was young." Mike chuckled slightly. "Old age," he said, shaking his head self depreciatingly. "Sometimes it steals the best of your memories. But I guess it’s less important that I remember him than that he remembers me, eh? Kids should remember their teachers. If they don’t, the teachers aren’t doing it right."
He looked at Dean then, smiling and feeling a sense of satisfaction that the fierce boy with the sense of humor had turned out so well. "It’s good to see you again, Dean." He looked to John. "And a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Winchester. I didn’t have Dean as a student for very long, but he made a big impression on me. I’ve remembered him all these years. I used to worry about him, but I can see now that I needn’t have bothered. He seems to have grown up just fine."
"Yes," John said. "He has."
"I hate to leave this place, but I need to be going, I suppose. The old have to make way for the young: That is the way of our people. Besides, this new math is much worse than the new math they had when I was first teaching. You’d think something like the adding and subtracting of numbers wouldn’t change so much over the years, but they always seem to find some new way to confuse students into thinking the round world is newly round all over again. Sometimes I think that’s the role of teachers: To confuse kids into standing still long enough to let them grow." Mike laughed at the notion. "Isn’t that a silly thing for a teacher to say? It was something my father used to say. He was a teacher, too. Wonderful man. Always saw the best in kids."
"You should visit him," Dean suggested.
"I think I will. Goodbye, Dean." He nodded to John. "Mr. Winchester."
"Goodbye, Mister Farris," Dean said. "And thank you."
"Well there’s something I don’t hear every day," Mike said. "In fact, you may be the first student I’ve ever had who came back to say thank you. Except for Leo Vebruge. He told me thank you once. I have no idea what for, but he seemed sincere about it, so I accepted it as if I remembered him … which I don’t, but don’t tell him that, okay?"
"I won’t," Dean promised.
Mike smiled once more. And then he was gone.
-finis-