SPN FIC - Life Turned on Its Head
Continuing the Course Corrected AU mini-verse -- wherein Henry didn't goof up the spell, and rather than ending up in the motel room of his grandsons in 2013, reached his intended target: his son John. In Lawrence, Kansas, in mid-November 1983.
"Will you tell me what happened?" Henry asks.
CHARACTERS: John and Henry
GENRE: Gen
RATING: PG
SPOILERS: None
LENGTH: 1000 words
LIFE TURNED ON ITS HEAD
By Carol Davis
Ruined house. Ruined lives. Nothing left but the three of them, him and his boys; an old car, and a cardboard box full of odds and ends, grabbed from the wreckage with no real purpose in mind. Or maybe there had been a purpose - for each item, each piece; maybe something led him to choose what he did, gave him a reason other than "it's still in good shape."
"John," Henry says.
He'd just as soon not listen to anyone's voice right now. But his father's never been much of one for being ignored, and Henry will tolerate the silence for just so long.
Father, John thinks.
Of all the kicks in the ass life could have chosen to deliver on this particular day, that's probably the one he expected the least: his father tumbling out of a motel room closet, after having been gone for twenty-five years - and Dad was well and truly gone, beyond phone calls and letters, beyond the police, beyond notices in the newspaper, beyond even the expert reach of the private detective Henry's cousin Jack hired to track him down.
He vanished without a trace, and now he's back, looking exactly the same as he did the night he disappeared.
Shuddering, John props his elbows on his knees and lays his face in his hands.
"Will you tell me what happened?" Henry asks.
Stern. No-nonsense. But at the same time, not unkind.
"Rather not," John murmurs.
"I'm going to assume you haven't committed a crime," Henry says; in his right periphery John can see Henry looking out across the motel parking lot, paying a lot of the attention to the bustling McDonald's across the road, maybe fifty yards from where they're sitting outside the room where Dean and baby Sam are sleeping. "I'm going to trust that you're no different from the John I said good night to last night, back in Normal - and that you're still not capable of doing anything that would be reason for you to go on the run. I'll add that I can't imagine what sort of crime you'd commit that would justify your running anywhere with two little children in tow."
It's him, John thinks.
That's not possible in any reasonable universe, but it's him, all the same.
So.
The telling takes very little time.
Waking to the sound of Mary's scream. Snapping to almost immediately, because the soldier in him has never died; those who trained him, molded him, taught him well. Zero to sixty in two-point-four seconds, he thinks wryly; by the time he reached the foot of the stairs he was fully awake, fully alert, because Mary was screaming, and Mary had never been one to scream at mice, or spiders, or nightmares.
Something drew him to Sam's nursery.
Blood.
Mary on the ceiling.
Then a burst of flame, white-hot and huge.
He was stunned by that, flummoxed, because it was nothing he'd ever been trained for, nothing his mind had ever been given a test run for, nothing he could immediately recognize and respond to in any constructive way. In moments she was gone, nearly entirely consumed - also not possible, he thought, for her to be gone so quickly, from the world, from his life, from their children's lives - so maybe it wasn't seconds that had elapsed. Maybe it was minutes, or hours.
How he managed to get out of that room with Sam, give instructions to Dean…
Her angels, he thinks.
Is that it??? The angels she was always talking about steered him out of there. Allowed him to save his children. If that hadn't happened, if he hadn't been able to climb up off the floor and scoop Sam from his crib, and Dean had come wandering in, looking to see what was happening…
People have praised him for having the presence of mind to rescue his children.
Not me, he thinks.
The hand of God was in that. Had to be.
Didn't it?
When he finally looks fully over at Henry, Henry is still studying the damned McDonald's.
"No one trained you, did they?" Henry asks as he slides his gaze back to John, back to the right here, right now. Frowning, he touches his tietack with the tip of a finger. "You asked me about this, before I left. Do you know what this symbol is? Did anyone tell you?"
He seems to already know the answer, but he waits.
"No," John says.
"You know nothing of the Men of Letters."
"No."
World's turned into a funhouse, John thinks, one that hasn't got a crumb of fun in it. Nothing makes sense any more, and he thinks again that maybe he's gone completely off the rails, gone completely and utterly bugshit. He saw that happen over there, in-country: saw a couple of perfectly sane people take in one bit of absofuckingcrazy too many and snap like a Thanksgiving wishbone.
They were hustled quickly away; there was no chance to absorb it, learn from it, before it was simply gone, the space where that soldier had been filled up as if he'd never been there at all.
It's going to be like that now.
If he doesn't talk himself back down to Normal, the world's going to push him out. Fill up the space he occupied, as if he'd never been there.
But Normal's gone.
Like Mary, and those men who snapped.
"Something found you," Henry says softly. "I don't think it was Abaddon. But something's come into your life, John."
John's lips form the word What?
Rather than answer, Henry stares down at his hands. He gives a passing glance to the dried blood on his skin and on the white cuff of his shirt, looks away, then looks at the stain again. "I wish I could -" he begins, then shakes his head. "No. I don't. You need some sleep, John. Then I need to tell you about the Men of Letters. And about what's out there in the dark."
* * * * *
"Will you tell me what happened?" Henry asks.
CHARACTERS: John and Henry
GENRE: Gen
RATING: PG
SPOILERS: None
LENGTH: 1000 words
LIFE TURNED ON ITS HEAD
By Carol Davis
Ruined house. Ruined lives. Nothing left but the three of them, him and his boys; an old car, and a cardboard box full of odds and ends, grabbed from the wreckage with no real purpose in mind. Or maybe there had been a purpose - for each item, each piece; maybe something led him to choose what he did, gave him a reason other than "it's still in good shape."
"John," Henry says.
He'd just as soon not listen to anyone's voice right now. But his father's never been much of one for being ignored, and Henry will tolerate the silence for just so long.
Father, John thinks.
Of all the kicks in the ass life could have chosen to deliver on this particular day, that's probably the one he expected the least: his father tumbling out of a motel room closet, after having been gone for twenty-five years - and Dad was well and truly gone, beyond phone calls and letters, beyond the police, beyond notices in the newspaper, beyond even the expert reach of the private detective Henry's cousin Jack hired to track him down.
He vanished without a trace, and now he's back, looking exactly the same as he did the night he disappeared.
Shuddering, John props his elbows on his knees and lays his face in his hands.
"Will you tell me what happened?" Henry asks.
Stern. No-nonsense. But at the same time, not unkind.
"Rather not," John murmurs.
"I'm going to assume you haven't committed a crime," Henry says; in his right periphery John can see Henry looking out across the motel parking lot, paying a lot of the attention to the bustling McDonald's across the road, maybe fifty yards from where they're sitting outside the room where Dean and baby Sam are sleeping. "I'm going to trust that you're no different from the John I said good night to last night, back in Normal - and that you're still not capable of doing anything that would be reason for you to go on the run. I'll add that I can't imagine what sort of crime you'd commit that would justify your running anywhere with two little children in tow."
It's him, John thinks.
That's not possible in any reasonable universe, but it's him, all the same.
So.
The telling takes very little time.
Waking to the sound of Mary's scream. Snapping to almost immediately, because the soldier in him has never died; those who trained him, molded him, taught him well. Zero to sixty in two-point-four seconds, he thinks wryly; by the time he reached the foot of the stairs he was fully awake, fully alert, because Mary was screaming, and Mary had never been one to scream at mice, or spiders, or nightmares.
Something drew him to Sam's nursery.
Blood.
Mary on the ceiling.
Then a burst of flame, white-hot and huge.
He was stunned by that, flummoxed, because it was nothing he'd ever been trained for, nothing his mind had ever been given a test run for, nothing he could immediately recognize and respond to in any constructive way. In moments she was gone, nearly entirely consumed - also not possible, he thought, for her to be gone so quickly, from the world, from his life, from their children's lives - so maybe it wasn't seconds that had elapsed. Maybe it was minutes, or hours.
How he managed to get out of that room with Sam, give instructions to Dean…
Her angels, he thinks.
Is that it??? The angels she was always talking about steered him out of there. Allowed him to save his children. If that hadn't happened, if he hadn't been able to climb up off the floor and scoop Sam from his crib, and Dean had come wandering in, looking to see what was happening…
People have praised him for having the presence of mind to rescue his children.
Not me, he thinks.
The hand of God was in that. Had to be.
Didn't it?
When he finally looks fully over at Henry, Henry is still studying the damned McDonald's.
"No one trained you, did they?" Henry asks as he slides his gaze back to John, back to the right here, right now. Frowning, he touches his tietack with the tip of a finger. "You asked me about this, before I left. Do you know what this symbol is? Did anyone tell you?"
He seems to already know the answer, but he waits.
"No," John says.
"You know nothing of the Men of Letters."
"No."
World's turned into a funhouse, John thinks, one that hasn't got a crumb of fun in it. Nothing makes sense any more, and he thinks again that maybe he's gone completely off the rails, gone completely and utterly bugshit. He saw that happen over there, in-country: saw a couple of perfectly sane people take in one bit of absofuckingcrazy too many and snap like a Thanksgiving wishbone.
They were hustled quickly away; there was no chance to absorb it, learn from it, before it was simply gone, the space where that soldier had been filled up as if he'd never been there at all.
It's going to be like that now.
If he doesn't talk himself back down to Normal, the world's going to push him out. Fill up the space he occupied, as if he'd never been there.
But Normal's gone.
Like Mary, and those men who snapped.
"Something found you," Henry says softly. "I don't think it was Abaddon. But something's come into your life, John."
John's lips form the word What?
Rather than answer, Henry stares down at his hands. He gives a passing glance to the dried blood on his skin and on the white cuff of his shirt, looks away, then looks at the stain again. "I wish I could -" he begins, then shakes his head. "No. I don't. You need some sleep, John. Then I need to tell you about the Men of Letters. And about what's out there in the dark."
* * * * *