SPN gen fic - Less Traveled - PG13
The supernatural100 challenge this week was Almost. It gave me a plot bunny, and the resulting fic ended up being slightly over the 100 word limit. About 3000 words over.
TITLE: Less Traveled
RATING: PG13 (gen)
CHARACTERS: John, Sam and Dean.
SPOILERS: Season 1 - pilot, Something Wicked, and Devil’s Trap.
DISCLAIMER: Kripke breaks them, I just play with the pieces.
SUMMARY: Five ways things didn’t happen to John Winchester.
NOTES: 3100 words. A huge thank you to my betas yasminke and innie_darling. They made this so much better than it started out. Title and cut text quote from “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost.
Christ, what a night. Five-car pile-up on the freeway, goddamn frat brats and their keggers. Limbs and god knows what just scattered over the crash site like a freaking human jigsaw puzzle. They finish up just as the guys from accident reconstruction arrive and Hal just wants this shift to end when they get the call about a house fire over in Lawrence.
It’s a mess, this shell of a house still smoldering in the chilled air. He’s been doing this job too long to be shocked by what he sees, but Hal’s stomach clenches at the thought of more charred bodies. And a family this time. Jesus, he’s getting too old for this.
The fire department is still working inside the house, but somehow--and looking at the state of the building, Hal believes there’s got to be a deity involved--somehow, no one is badly hurt, let alone burned to a cinder.
The mother and kids are shaken up, understandably, but other than that, they’re surprisingly unhurt. The baby is wailing loud enough to wake the dead, or at least any of the neighbors that managed to sleep through the fire trucks and sirens, but it’s a healthy, hungry wail.
The other kid is quiet as Mike checks him over, and he thinks maybe shock, but the boy is responsive to stimuli. Hal talks to him as he works and the kid answers him softly--yes sir, no sir--and all the time his eyes are on his dad as Mike works on him.
The father’s got mainly first degree burns, but he’s suffering from smoke inhalation and shock. Mike’s got him on the gurney, but the guy’s not happy, reaches up to rip the oxygen mask away.
“--wife --my boys --” He struggles weakly against the straps, streaks of pale skin shining through the soot on his face “--please.”
Mike pushes him gently back onto the gurney. “They’re fine, sir.” He wheels him over to the back of the ambulance, and the wife settles the baby against her hip, leans forward to press her hand to her husband’s chest.
“It’s okay, John,” she whispers, and the baby snuffles against her shoulder. “We’re safe; you got us out in time.”
There’s a look of terror in the guy--John’s--eyes, and his hand comes up to cover hers. “Mary, his eyes,” John babbles, gripping her hand tight. “He had cat’s eyes.”
Guy’s in shock, Hal thinks. Mike puts him out, and they head to Lawrence Memorial, wife and kids riding in the back.
Mike’s been talking to the cops, and turns out it was a freaking break-in, some crackhead pedophile trying to take the baby, for Christ’s sake. The older kid saw him and woke his daddy, and John went in, armed with some fancy revolver, and caught the guy setting fire to the baby’s crib.
John put a bullet in the guy’s chest, then pulled the baby out of the burning crib, and somehow managed to get the rest of his family out of the house as well.
By the time he’d gotten them out, the perp had gone. Not like that’s unusual; the asshole was probably so hopped up on PCP he didn’t even feel the bullet. The cops found blood in the neighbors’ back yard, Mike says, so the guy won’t get far.
Hal swings around in his seat, watching the little family in the back of the ambulance. Mother and baby, father and son.
And for the first time tonight, he smiles. Some days, the good guys win.
*~*~*~*
He checks Sammy over, settling him back to sleep pretty easily, considering.
Though, when he thinks about it, the kid was only very vaguely aware of what happened, so it’s not surprising that he’s not particularly disturbed.
Unlike Dean.
Dean sits on the couch, waiting for debrief. His fists are bunched hard against his thighs, and Jesus, he doesn’t think he’s ever seen his kid this pale. His freckles stand out, dark splotches vivid against his pallid skin.
John sets the guns out for cleaning, then goes to the refrigerator and pours milk into a pan. He adds cocoa and sets it on the stove, warming it gently. He looks over at Dean, debates for a moment, then digs in his bag for his flask, tips a capful into the warmed milk.
Dean accepts the drink meekly, like a punishment, and John sees tiny ripples on the surface of the milk as Dean tries to control the trembling in his fingers. John sits down beside him on the couch, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees.
“What happened?” He keeps his voice low and calm, as non-threatening as he can manage.
“I--I came in--and it was there--the--” Dean fumbles the words badly, and Christ, the kid is really shaking. John reaches up and closes his hand around the mug, guides it to Dean’s lips.
“Drink up,” he orders softly. Dean takes a sip, grimaces a little, but he swallows obediently.
John waits a moment, for the warmth of the milk and whiskey to kick in, and then feels the boy relax. The rigid tension of Dean’s muscles slackens, and he slumps against the back of the couch.
“I--Dad, it wouldn’t stop. I shot it, and it wouldn’t stop.”
“Dean.” He waits for Dean to look up at him, then fixes him with his sternest, most serious gaze. “You did the right thing. You slowed it down, made it easier for me to kill it.”
“But Sammy--it almost got him.” There’s a tremor in Dean’s voice, and his eyes are bright with unshed tears. “Dad, I left him alone.” There’s an agony of shame in Dean’s admission.
Remorse swells within him at the guilt in his son’s voice, guilt for doing exactly what he’d done himself three days earlier. John reaches over and takes the cup from Dean, sets it down. Then he drops his arm lightly across the boy’s shoulders, draws Dean to his chest.
Dean resists at first, fighting the embrace the way he fights the tears that John knows need to be shed. He lets Dean struggle, keeps his arms curved around his back, holding him gently, firmly; unyielding.
“You did good, son.” He ignores the frantic headshake against his shoulders, the warm huff of breath against his collar bone. “You looked out for Sammy. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
His assurances drag an unwilling sob from the kid, and then John feels the damp warmth of tears on his neck, as Dean clings to him, but tries not to.
He presses his hand to the boy’s back in a gesture of helpless comfort, his own throat aching in sympathy with Dean’s desperately restrained sobs.
It’s been too long since Dean’s done this, just let himself be held, and John suddenly understands just how much responsibility he’s put on his elder son. Too much. He should never have left the boys alone, not when he knew the Shtriga was out there.
He’s let himself get lost in the hunt, forgotten the real reason he does this. Things will have to change, he knows that now.
He can’t leave the boys alone again.
*~*~*~*
The silence echoes through the apartment, infinitely louder than the screaming match they’d played earlier. One of the worst, and that’s saying something, considering their record.
John rubs his hand over his face, warm against his cheek, and curses softly. He’s a fool; he knows that. He let himself be manipulated by the kid, and it’s not as if they haven’t done it before, gone round after round, endless variations on the same argument.
He knows Sam’s lines by heart, pitched them to his own father a hundred years ago, but it’s taken till now to really understand the motivation behind his dad’s anger back then.
It had nothing to do with high school graduation or college courses or basic training, or even war, and everything to do with fear and love and panic and letting go. And John’s never been good with those things either.
And when push comes to shove, and hell, did it ever tonight, John is his father’s son, as Sammy is his. Word for word, following a script written more than twenty-five years ago.
“You’re staying put, you hear me, Johnny?”
“It’s John, Dad. Been John for a while now.”
“You watch your tone with me, sonny.”
“You can’t stop me, Dad. I’m eighteen; I don’t need your permission.”
“You wanna test that theory, Johnny-boy? Right here and now?”
John’s jaw aches in silent sense memory, and he presses his palm there, half-expecting the heat of a healing bruise.
“You walk out that door, boy; you just keep right on going. Don’t bother coming back.”
“Fine by me.”
He had taken his father at his word. Stayed gone long enough for him to learn that there are worse things in the world than an overprotective parent. For him to realize that sorry counts for nothing when it’s spoken in eulogy, no matter how much it’s meant.
He can’t let that happen now. Not to Sammy.
John steps down the hall, and Dean is on his feet and in John’s space almost immediately, deferential but defiant. John knows Dean isn’t happy about the whole college thing, but when it comes down to it, he’ll walk through fire to protect his baby brother.
He drops his hand lightly onto Dean’s shoulder, shakes his head. “It’s okay, son.”
Dean hesitates, and John sees his thoughts written plainly on his face. Anger and worry and frustration with them both.
“Dean, it’s okay. I just want to talk to him.”
Dean stands down, and John continues to the boys’ room, to the door slammed so hard he thinks he can still feel the reverberations in its frame.
“Sammy,” he says softly as he knocks, and there’s silence from the other side of the door for so long he thinks that he’s too late, his boy is already gone.
Then the handle creaks, and the door’s flung open, and Sammy--Sam, he reminds himself sternly--stands in the doorway.
He’s standing tall, like John taught him, his shoulders back and his chin tilted a little, so that John has to look up to meet his eyes. He sees the imprint of his palm on Sam’s cheek, flushed pink against his pale face.
John shoves his fists into his jeans pockets. “You didn’t tell us,” he offers quietly.
It’s enough to get him in the door. Sam sits down on the bed, and doesn’t move away when John takes a seat beside him.
“So. Full ride, huh? Pretty impressive.”
Sam ducks his head, and John pats his knee, lightly. “We’re gonna have to exorcise the dorms, you know that, right?”
*~*~*~*
The cell chirps, and John flips it out, peers at the caller ID. He sighs and lets it go to voicemail.
“You’re a bastard, John Winchester,” Caleb informs him, like it’s news or something.
“Yeah, and you’re an asshole, Caleb, but I try not to let that ruin our beautiful friendship.”
Caleb sets the last box of ammo in the back of the truck, then flips him the finger. “You should call them.”
“When I want your advice,” John pauses, offers a warning grin, “They’ll be hosting the Winter Olympics in Hell.”
“They’re good kids, both of them. They could help.” Caleb clearly isn’t going to leave this alone.
“I don’t need their help,” John points out softly. “Better that they’re not in the loop. Safer that way. It’s for their own good.”
Caleb slams the weapons compartment closed, and John winces softly at the sound; he pets the truck bed apologetically.
“Funny, I used to hear the same thing from my old man. Right before he took a belt to my ass.” Caleb’s finger jabs through the air towards John, but stops short of connecting with his shoulder. “And I don’t buy it from you any more than I ever bought it from him.”
“Man has my sympathies,” John mutters, not quite under his breath. “Bet you were one mouthy little sonofabitch.”
His attempts at distraction are futile, though. Caleb won’t let it go. “Seriously John, how long are you going to keep this up? The boys are bound to be worried about you.”
“They’ve no need to be.” John climbs into the truck. “I sent them on a job, something to keep them busy.”
Caleb gives an exaggerated sigh. “God, John, they’re your sons, they’re gonna worry, no matter how many pointless errands you send them on.”
“Fine.” John capitulates, even if it’s only to get the man to shut the hell up. “I’ll swing by Palo Alto, see if we can meet up for debrief. Happy now?”
Caleb curls his lip. “Oh, yeah. Freaking ecstatic.”
He gets into Palo Alto late evening, parks in his usual spot, not so close that he’d be seen, but close enough. There’s no sign of the Impala, but he does see Sammy’s girlfriend--Jessica, he remembers--taking out the trash.
He waits a while, figures he can sell that to Caleb, and he’s just about to start up the engine, when he sees it. A flicker in the window, barely discernible; to a less practiced eye it’s nothing more than a stutter in the electricity supply. To John, it’s a warning beacon, blinking its distress message loud and clear.
He’s out of the truck and up the steps before he’s thought it out, and he stops at the door. He scans the frame, smiles at the tiny symbols worked carefully into the wood. He might not act like it, but Sammy hasn’t forgotten his childhood lessons.
He raises his hand to knock, and suddenly realizes he has no idea what he’s going to say. He decides he’ll think of something when the light above the door sputters wildly.
He knocks, and she answers almost immediately, the security chain in place. He’s about to launch into some tongue-tied explanation when she unhooks the chain and smiles warmly.
“It’s Mr. Winchester, right? Sam’s dad?”
He nods, utterly dazed.
“I recognized you from the photo,” she says, and then points to a picture somewhere that he can’t see. “They’ve gone looking for you, you know.”
John just nods. “I know.”
“You want to come in and wait? They should be back soon.”
John shakes his head, and it clears a little. “I thought maybe we could go and get some coffee.” He gestures behind him, to where he vaguely remembers seeing one of those pansy-assed coffee places.
Her smile is open, innocent. “Sure.” She lifts her purse from the table, and then steps out of the apartment, locks the door.
John heaves a deep sigh and pulls out his cell, hands barely shaking. “I’ll just give the boys a call, then, and let them know where we are.”
*~*~*~*
“You shoot me. You shoot me in the heart, son.”
He thought it would hurt more. Or that there would be some kind of defining moment, a tunnel of white light with a time-lapse version of his sorry excuse for a life playing in the background.
He’s still wondering if the lack of his life flashing before his eyes means he’s not actually dead, when Mary whaps him across the back of the head, pretty damn hard.
Seems he’s got something of a reputation up here, which freaks him out a little; there are things he’s not proud of. Mary gives him hell, or whatever the heavenly equivalent of that is, over the boys, and he takes it willingly, knows he deserves worse.
It doesn’t take long to get things organized. Mary has contacts, and Jim’s there to help with the paperwork. His own reputation helps, surprisingly. The demon’s not quite the Prince of Lies, but he’s inner circle, and it turns out he’s been causing grief for a couple of millennia. So yeah, there’s room for a little leeway when it comes to the name of John Winchester.
All those years spent chasing ghosts haven’t really prepared him for the experience of being one. It takes him three tries to turn the sound on the TV set up loud enough to wake him.
It works, though, gets his ass off the couch and into bed beside her, where he should always have been. John waits till he’s asleep, then slides the nightstand drawer open and replaces the standard issue service revolver with the Colt.
The next move is easy. He heads across the landing and into the kid’s room, and even as a ghost, he still manages to trip over that damn fire truck. He can’t count the number of times he’s told Dean to clean up his room before bed.
The sound wakes Dean, which is what he’d planned anyway, and he sits up, rubs his eyes. If John had breath, it would catch in his chest at the sight of his son, young and innocent and unbroken. He barely remembers Dean like this.
He knows his boy, though, better than he knows himself. Dean pads out of his room, and goes straight to Sammy’s door.
That’s the tricky part. John hates it, hates himself for terrifying his boy like this, but at least it’s better than letting him see the Demon itself.
He checks his watch, as Dean runs into the bedroom, his frantic whispers carrying through the open door.
“Daddy, wake up. There’s someone in Sammy’s bedroom. Daddy, you gotta come now.”
He hears his own voice, rough with broken sleep, and then Dean pleads again, desperation making his voice a petulant whine. John thinks his heart will break when he hears himself tell Dean to watch his tone.
Goddamn idiot, John thinks, and then concentrates hard, makes the lamp topple off the table on the landing. It shatters on the hardwood floor, and that’s enough to get the idiot moving.
He’s timed it perfectly. The demon’s leaning over Sammy’s crib, scooping him up, and doesn’t suspect a thing. He turns at the sound of the safety being clicked off.
“Put my son down, you bastard.” John hears the tremor in his voice, but the hand holding the colt is steady.
Yellow eyes flash in sudden recognition, and the demon smiles, nods to him pleasantly. “Kudos, John,” he says, his regret tinged with grudging admiration. He puts Sammy back in the crib as it begins to smolder.
The colt kicks once, hard, and then it’s finally over.
TITLE: Less Traveled
RATING: PG13 (gen)
CHARACTERS: John, Sam and Dean.
SPOILERS: Season 1 - pilot, Something Wicked, and Devil’s Trap.
DISCLAIMER: Kripke breaks them, I just play with the pieces.
SUMMARY: Five ways things didn’t happen to John Winchester.
NOTES: 3100 words. A huge thank you to my betas yasminke and innie_darling. They made this so much better than it started out. Title and cut text quote from “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost.
Christ, what a night. Five-car pile-up on the freeway, goddamn frat brats and their keggers. Limbs and god knows what just scattered over the crash site like a freaking human jigsaw puzzle. They finish up just as the guys from accident reconstruction arrive and Hal just wants this shift to end when they get the call about a house fire over in Lawrence.
It’s a mess, this shell of a house still smoldering in the chilled air. He’s been doing this job too long to be shocked by what he sees, but Hal’s stomach clenches at the thought of more charred bodies. And a family this time. Jesus, he’s getting too old for this.
The fire department is still working inside the house, but somehow--and looking at the state of the building, Hal believes there’s got to be a deity involved--somehow, no one is badly hurt, let alone burned to a cinder.
The mother and kids are shaken up, understandably, but other than that, they’re surprisingly unhurt. The baby is wailing loud enough to wake the dead, or at least any of the neighbors that managed to sleep through the fire trucks and sirens, but it’s a healthy, hungry wail.
The other kid is quiet as Mike checks him over, and he thinks maybe shock, but the boy is responsive to stimuli. Hal talks to him as he works and the kid answers him softly--yes sir, no sir--and all the time his eyes are on his dad as Mike works on him.
The father’s got mainly first degree burns, but he’s suffering from smoke inhalation and shock. Mike’s got him on the gurney, but the guy’s not happy, reaches up to rip the oxygen mask away.
“--wife --my boys --” He struggles weakly against the straps, streaks of pale skin shining through the soot on his face “--please.”
Mike pushes him gently back onto the gurney. “They’re fine, sir.” He wheels him over to the back of the ambulance, and the wife settles the baby against her hip, leans forward to press her hand to her husband’s chest.
“It’s okay, John,” she whispers, and the baby snuffles against her shoulder. “We’re safe; you got us out in time.”
There’s a look of terror in the guy--John’s--eyes, and his hand comes up to cover hers. “Mary, his eyes,” John babbles, gripping her hand tight. “He had cat’s eyes.”
Guy’s in shock, Hal thinks. Mike puts him out, and they head to Lawrence Memorial, wife and kids riding in the back.
Mike’s been talking to the cops, and turns out it was a freaking break-in, some crackhead pedophile trying to take the baby, for Christ’s sake. The older kid saw him and woke his daddy, and John went in, armed with some fancy revolver, and caught the guy setting fire to the baby’s crib.
John put a bullet in the guy’s chest, then pulled the baby out of the burning crib, and somehow managed to get the rest of his family out of the house as well.
By the time he’d gotten them out, the perp had gone. Not like that’s unusual; the asshole was probably so hopped up on PCP he didn’t even feel the bullet. The cops found blood in the neighbors’ back yard, Mike says, so the guy won’t get far.
Hal swings around in his seat, watching the little family in the back of the ambulance. Mother and baby, father and son.
And for the first time tonight, he smiles. Some days, the good guys win.
*~*~*~*
He checks Sammy over, settling him back to sleep pretty easily, considering.
Though, when he thinks about it, the kid was only very vaguely aware of what happened, so it’s not surprising that he’s not particularly disturbed.
Unlike Dean.
Dean sits on the couch, waiting for debrief. His fists are bunched hard against his thighs, and Jesus, he doesn’t think he’s ever seen his kid this pale. His freckles stand out, dark splotches vivid against his pallid skin.
John sets the guns out for cleaning, then goes to the refrigerator and pours milk into a pan. He adds cocoa and sets it on the stove, warming it gently. He looks over at Dean, debates for a moment, then digs in his bag for his flask, tips a capful into the warmed milk.
Dean accepts the drink meekly, like a punishment, and John sees tiny ripples on the surface of the milk as Dean tries to control the trembling in his fingers. John sits down beside him on the couch, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees.
“What happened?” He keeps his voice low and calm, as non-threatening as he can manage.
“I--I came in--and it was there--the--” Dean fumbles the words badly, and Christ, the kid is really shaking. John reaches up and closes his hand around the mug, guides it to Dean’s lips.
“Drink up,” he orders softly. Dean takes a sip, grimaces a little, but he swallows obediently.
John waits a moment, for the warmth of the milk and whiskey to kick in, and then feels the boy relax. The rigid tension of Dean’s muscles slackens, and he slumps against the back of the couch.
“I--Dad, it wouldn’t stop. I shot it, and it wouldn’t stop.”
“Dean.” He waits for Dean to look up at him, then fixes him with his sternest, most serious gaze. “You did the right thing. You slowed it down, made it easier for me to kill it.”
“But Sammy--it almost got him.” There’s a tremor in Dean’s voice, and his eyes are bright with unshed tears. “Dad, I left him alone.” There’s an agony of shame in Dean’s admission.
Remorse swells within him at the guilt in his son’s voice, guilt for doing exactly what he’d done himself three days earlier. John reaches over and takes the cup from Dean, sets it down. Then he drops his arm lightly across the boy’s shoulders, draws Dean to his chest.
Dean resists at first, fighting the embrace the way he fights the tears that John knows need to be shed. He lets Dean struggle, keeps his arms curved around his back, holding him gently, firmly; unyielding.
“You did good, son.” He ignores the frantic headshake against his shoulders, the warm huff of breath against his collar bone. “You looked out for Sammy. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
His assurances drag an unwilling sob from the kid, and then John feels the damp warmth of tears on his neck, as Dean clings to him, but tries not to.
He presses his hand to the boy’s back in a gesture of helpless comfort, his own throat aching in sympathy with Dean’s desperately restrained sobs.
It’s been too long since Dean’s done this, just let himself be held, and John suddenly understands just how much responsibility he’s put on his elder son. Too much. He should never have left the boys alone, not when he knew the Shtriga was out there.
He’s let himself get lost in the hunt, forgotten the real reason he does this. Things will have to change, he knows that now.
He can’t leave the boys alone again.
*~*~*~*
The silence echoes through the apartment, infinitely louder than the screaming match they’d played earlier. One of the worst, and that’s saying something, considering their record.
John rubs his hand over his face, warm against his cheek, and curses softly. He’s a fool; he knows that. He let himself be manipulated by the kid, and it’s not as if they haven’t done it before, gone round after round, endless variations on the same argument.
He knows Sam’s lines by heart, pitched them to his own father a hundred years ago, but it’s taken till now to really understand the motivation behind his dad’s anger back then.
It had nothing to do with high school graduation or college courses or basic training, or even war, and everything to do with fear and love and panic and letting go. And John’s never been good with those things either.
And when push comes to shove, and hell, did it ever tonight, John is his father’s son, as Sammy is his. Word for word, following a script written more than twenty-five years ago.
“You’re staying put, you hear me, Johnny?”
“It’s John, Dad. Been John for a while now.”
“You watch your tone with me, sonny.”
“You can’t stop me, Dad. I’m eighteen; I don’t need your permission.”
“You wanna test that theory, Johnny-boy? Right here and now?”
John’s jaw aches in silent sense memory, and he presses his palm there, half-expecting the heat of a healing bruise.
“You walk out that door, boy; you just keep right on going. Don’t bother coming back.”
“Fine by me.”
He had taken his father at his word. Stayed gone long enough for him to learn that there are worse things in the world than an overprotective parent. For him to realize that sorry counts for nothing when it’s spoken in eulogy, no matter how much it’s meant.
He can’t let that happen now. Not to Sammy.
John steps down the hall, and Dean is on his feet and in John’s space almost immediately, deferential but defiant. John knows Dean isn’t happy about the whole college thing, but when it comes down to it, he’ll walk through fire to protect his baby brother.
He drops his hand lightly onto Dean’s shoulder, shakes his head. “It’s okay, son.”
Dean hesitates, and John sees his thoughts written plainly on his face. Anger and worry and frustration with them both.
“Dean, it’s okay. I just want to talk to him.”
Dean stands down, and John continues to the boys’ room, to the door slammed so hard he thinks he can still feel the reverberations in its frame.
“Sammy,” he says softly as he knocks, and there’s silence from the other side of the door for so long he thinks that he’s too late, his boy is already gone.
Then the handle creaks, and the door’s flung open, and Sammy--Sam, he reminds himself sternly--stands in the doorway.
He’s standing tall, like John taught him, his shoulders back and his chin tilted a little, so that John has to look up to meet his eyes. He sees the imprint of his palm on Sam’s cheek, flushed pink against his pale face.
John shoves his fists into his jeans pockets. “You didn’t tell us,” he offers quietly.
It’s enough to get him in the door. Sam sits down on the bed, and doesn’t move away when John takes a seat beside him.
“So. Full ride, huh? Pretty impressive.”
Sam ducks his head, and John pats his knee, lightly. “We’re gonna have to exorcise the dorms, you know that, right?”
*~*~*~*
The cell chirps, and John flips it out, peers at the caller ID. He sighs and lets it go to voicemail.
“You’re a bastard, John Winchester,” Caleb informs him, like it’s news or something.
“Yeah, and you’re an asshole, Caleb, but I try not to let that ruin our beautiful friendship.”
Caleb sets the last box of ammo in the back of the truck, then flips him the finger. “You should call them.”
“When I want your advice,” John pauses, offers a warning grin, “They’ll be hosting the Winter Olympics in Hell.”
“They’re good kids, both of them. They could help.” Caleb clearly isn’t going to leave this alone.
“I don’t need their help,” John points out softly. “Better that they’re not in the loop. Safer that way. It’s for their own good.”
Caleb slams the weapons compartment closed, and John winces softly at the sound; he pets the truck bed apologetically.
“Funny, I used to hear the same thing from my old man. Right before he took a belt to my ass.” Caleb’s finger jabs through the air towards John, but stops short of connecting with his shoulder. “And I don’t buy it from you any more than I ever bought it from him.”
“Man has my sympathies,” John mutters, not quite under his breath. “Bet you were one mouthy little sonofabitch.”
His attempts at distraction are futile, though. Caleb won’t let it go. “Seriously John, how long are you going to keep this up? The boys are bound to be worried about you.”
“They’ve no need to be.” John climbs into the truck. “I sent them on a job, something to keep them busy.”
Caleb gives an exaggerated sigh. “God, John, they’re your sons, they’re gonna worry, no matter how many pointless errands you send them on.”
“Fine.” John capitulates, even if it’s only to get the man to shut the hell up. “I’ll swing by Palo Alto, see if we can meet up for debrief. Happy now?”
Caleb curls his lip. “Oh, yeah. Freaking ecstatic.”
He gets into Palo Alto late evening, parks in his usual spot, not so close that he’d be seen, but close enough. There’s no sign of the Impala, but he does see Sammy’s girlfriend--Jessica, he remembers--taking out the trash.
He waits a while, figures he can sell that to Caleb, and he’s just about to start up the engine, when he sees it. A flicker in the window, barely discernible; to a less practiced eye it’s nothing more than a stutter in the electricity supply. To John, it’s a warning beacon, blinking its distress message loud and clear.
He’s out of the truck and up the steps before he’s thought it out, and he stops at the door. He scans the frame, smiles at the tiny symbols worked carefully into the wood. He might not act like it, but Sammy hasn’t forgotten his childhood lessons.
He raises his hand to knock, and suddenly realizes he has no idea what he’s going to say. He decides he’ll think of something when the light above the door sputters wildly.
He knocks, and she answers almost immediately, the security chain in place. He’s about to launch into some tongue-tied explanation when she unhooks the chain and smiles warmly.
“It’s Mr. Winchester, right? Sam’s dad?”
He nods, utterly dazed.
“I recognized you from the photo,” she says, and then points to a picture somewhere that he can’t see. “They’ve gone looking for you, you know.”
John just nods. “I know.”
“You want to come in and wait? They should be back soon.”
John shakes his head, and it clears a little. “I thought maybe we could go and get some coffee.” He gestures behind him, to where he vaguely remembers seeing one of those pansy-assed coffee places.
Her smile is open, innocent. “Sure.” She lifts her purse from the table, and then steps out of the apartment, locks the door.
John heaves a deep sigh and pulls out his cell, hands barely shaking. “I’ll just give the boys a call, then, and let them know where we are.”
*~*~*~*
“You shoot me. You shoot me in the heart, son.”
He thought it would hurt more. Or that there would be some kind of defining moment, a tunnel of white light with a time-lapse version of his sorry excuse for a life playing in the background.
He’s still wondering if the lack of his life flashing before his eyes means he’s not actually dead, when Mary whaps him across the back of the head, pretty damn hard.
Seems he’s got something of a reputation up here, which freaks him out a little; there are things he’s not proud of. Mary gives him hell, or whatever the heavenly equivalent of that is, over the boys, and he takes it willingly, knows he deserves worse.
It doesn’t take long to get things organized. Mary has contacts, and Jim’s there to help with the paperwork. His own reputation helps, surprisingly. The demon’s not quite the Prince of Lies, but he’s inner circle, and it turns out he’s been causing grief for a couple of millennia. So yeah, there’s room for a little leeway when it comes to the name of John Winchester.
All those years spent chasing ghosts haven’t really prepared him for the experience of being one. It takes him three tries to turn the sound on the TV set up loud enough to wake him.
It works, though, gets his ass off the couch and into bed beside her, where he should always have been. John waits till he’s asleep, then slides the nightstand drawer open and replaces the standard issue service revolver with the Colt.
The next move is easy. He heads across the landing and into the kid’s room, and even as a ghost, he still manages to trip over that damn fire truck. He can’t count the number of times he’s told Dean to clean up his room before bed.
The sound wakes Dean, which is what he’d planned anyway, and he sits up, rubs his eyes. If John had breath, it would catch in his chest at the sight of his son, young and innocent and unbroken. He barely remembers Dean like this.
He knows his boy, though, better than he knows himself. Dean pads out of his room, and goes straight to Sammy’s door.
That’s the tricky part. John hates it, hates himself for terrifying his boy like this, but at least it’s better than letting him see the Demon itself.
He checks his watch, as Dean runs into the bedroom, his frantic whispers carrying through the open door.
“Daddy, wake up. There’s someone in Sammy’s bedroom. Daddy, you gotta come now.”
He hears his own voice, rough with broken sleep, and then Dean pleads again, desperation making his voice a petulant whine. John thinks his heart will break when he hears himself tell Dean to watch his tone.
Goddamn idiot, John thinks, and then concentrates hard, makes the lamp topple off the table on the landing. It shatters on the hardwood floor, and that’s enough to get the idiot moving.
He’s timed it perfectly. The demon’s leaning over Sammy’s crib, scooping him up, and doesn’t suspect a thing. He turns at the sound of the safety being clicked off.
“Put my son down, you bastard.” John hears the tremor in his voice, but the hand holding the colt is steady.
Yellow eyes flash in sudden recognition, and the demon smiles, nods to him pleasantly. “Kudos, John,” he says, his regret tinged with grudging admiration. He puts Sammy back in the crib as it begins to smolder.
The colt kicks once, hard, and then it’s finally over.