Fic: Wild By Skye (26/27)
Sam broke the speed limit as he raced toward the Sunspots. The place he told Dean was their kind of place, the place Dean wouldn't take them to for reasons that had seemed so threadbare at the time.
John had to be there. It was all Sam could think as he floored the gas.
The Sunspots was a fleabag motel at the edge of the bad part of town. The parking lot was practically deserted when Sam whipped the Impala into it.
Almost deserted, but Sam saw John's black truck immediately.
Sam slammed to a stop near the truck, taking up two spaces carelessly, threw the gear shift into park, and he all but flew out of the car. He ran to the door directly in front of the truck and pounded on it.
Nothing. He tried the door knob, but it was locked.
Sam pounded again, his fist beating in time with his racing heart. "Dad! It's me! Open the damn door!"
Still no answer. Sam glared at the faded numbers on the door, '12' Maybe it wasn't the room. Could John have parked on the opposite side of the motel than where his room was? It was the kind of paranoid thing he would do. Would Sam have to go pounding on every door in the place? Could the front office worker be bullied into giving him the room number?
Sam stopped his pounding and put his ear to the door. He forced himself to calm down and listen.
It was almost impossible at first to hear past the sound of his own heart hammering in his head. Then he heard a muffled cry on the other side of the door.
That was good enough.
Sam stepped back, hauled off, and sent a bone-jarring kick into the door.
The jamb shattered, wood splintered, and the door flew open.
Sam stepped into the room and gaped in shock.
Dean was half-naked, tied to the bed and writhing in agony. He had a gag in his mouth to stave off the screaming. John looked up from his place at Dean's side on the far side of the bed. He set eyes on Sam and his gaze flashed pure fire at Sam's conspicuous intrusion.
Sam spared his father only half a second of his attention. His eyes focused on Dean. It looked like he was being tortured.
"What the hell are you doing to him?!" Sam demanded.
John's expression was furious. "Stay out of this, Sam. It's almost over."
Sam strode into the room angrily, making a bee line for his bound brother.
"Get away from him!" Sam yelled.
John rose from his seat, a wall of ex-Marine fury. "Back off, Sam!"
Sam came up alongside the bed and reached for Dean.
Dean's body was drenched in sweat, shaking from pain or exhaustion or both. His arms were taut, in a constant attempt to pull free from the ties holding him down. Tears were tracking down Dean's temples from his eyes clenched tightly shut. He was gagged, choking for air around a strap of leather between his bared teeth.
"Sam…" John growled and began to round the bed.
Sam took Dean's face in his hands and turned Dean's head toward him. "Dean," he called desperately.
Dean opened his eyes. Sam flinched in shock. They were black. Demon black. Then they flashed gold. The wolf. Then the black again. Dean cried out and his body jerked.
John closed a hand around Sam's arm roughly and began to pull him away. "Don't interfere," John barked.
Sam rounded on John. "What the hell happened?! Is he possessed?"
John narrowed his eyes at Sam. "It was the only way."
Sam's jaw dropped open as his brother bucked again on the bed. "You did this to him?!"
The resolute glower on John's face was Sam's answer.
Appalled, Sam shoved John away furiously.
John stumbled back a pace then stalked toward Sam again. "It's under control, Sam. Letting that demon in him was the only way to get rid of the lycanthropy."
"WHAT?!" Sam cried, so blindly furious his vision began to tunnel.
Dean whimpered brokenly, too weak anymore to scream.
Sam spun back to his brother and took Dean's face in his hands again. Dean's face, expression twisted in agony, was hot and sweaty in Sam's palms.
"Dean…" Sam croaked.
Dean opened his eyes again. For a second, they were Dean's eyes. They were swimming with tears. And they were begging him.
Sam took the leather out of Dean's mouth.
"Sam!" John barked angrily. He grabbed the back of Sam's neck, as if he were a disobedient six-year-old all over again.
Sam turned fighting. He punched his father, fist flying as hard and fast as he could. Sam was no light weight kid anymore. The strike whipped John's head around, and he went down in a stunned heap on the floor.
John was dazed, but not unconscious. Sam wouldn't have more than a few seconds. He turned resolutely back to Dean, took his brother's face in his hands once more, and met Dean's eyes again.
Free of the gag that had silenced him, Dean whispered, his voice breaking, "Sammy… please…"
Sam's grip on Dean tightened, and he began to recite the words as fast as he could form them. "Espiritus amundi…" He knew the incantation by heart. He could rattle it off in record time.
"… Sam… stop…" John struggled behind him, fighting to get his wits back around him enough to stop his youngest son.
Sam didn't stop. Didn't let himself so much as pause for breath. He spouted off the exorcism incantation in a frenzied rush.
Dean screamed, the sound raw as it ripped from his throat. Then it was black smoke, pouring out of his mouth and into the air. It hadn't taken long to dislodge the demon. Dean had obviously been fighting it from the start for all he was worth.
Then it was over. The smoke was gone and Dean fell back, limp and spent on the bed.
Sam took a deep breath of relief.
John grabbed Sam and hauled him around. Sam, too focused on Dean to defend himself, was slammed into the wall and held there by John's bear-like stature.
"What the hell did you think you were doing?!" John yelled in his face.
"You were killing him!" Sam screamed back, literally seeing red. What their own father had done to Dean…
"I was saving him! That was the only way to kill the wolf in him."
"You can't do that!"
John looked at Sam like he was something repugnant, less than nothing, worthless. "Do you have any idea what you've done? It was almost over! Now Dean is going to have to go through all of that again."
"No, he won't! I won't let you!" Sam snaked his arms up between John's, gave himself just enough room to push John back, bring up a foot, and kicked John halfway across the room.
John staggered back a few steps then righted himself, surprised by how much of a fight Sam wanted to put up but ready to answer force for force. John Winchester was not a man to lose the upper hand with his boys. He faced Sam, opponent against opponent.
For a second, they weren't father and son. They were just two men with the same degree of stubbornness butting heads, neither willing to relent or surrender, each certain their position was the correct one.
Sam started to advance toward John. If this was going to be a brawl, so be it. He'd fight their father if that's what it took to protect Dean.
But Dean stopped Sam dead in his tracks. Dean gagged and began to throw up. Bound starfish-like on his back, he couldn't roll to keep himself from choking.
In a second flat, Sam forgot about John. He ignored his father completely when only a second ago John had been Sam's target.
Sam went quickly to Dean and untied one of his brother's arm. He rolled Dean on to his side as Dean vomited on the bed, body shaking and weak. Sam curled his arm around Dean's shoulder, holding him up from rolling into the mess or over on to his back.
Sam found that he was shaking almost as badly as Dean was.
God, what if he'd been a few minutes later?
Before long, Dean's stomach was empty, and he was left to weakly dry heave. Sam rubbed his brother's drenched back helplessly, trying to end the wrenching muscle contractions wracking Dean's body.
Sam started when he saw John moving from the corner of his eye. He braced for another confrontation, but John wasn't coming close to fight. He was quietly untying Dean's feet.
Sam reached across Dean's crumpled form and untied his other hand. Dean's limbs fell like dead weight on the mattress. Dean had stopped heaving and was lying still but for his ragged breathing.
Sam touched the soaked back of Dean's neck in worry. "Dean? You done hurling?"
Dean's eyelids fluttered and he made a cracked noise.
"Dean…" John began, but Sam shot his father a murderous look.
"Don't," Sam snarled. He began to roll Dean on to his back again, toward himself and away from John on the other side of the bed. "Just don't, Dad."
When Dean was flat on his back once more, Sam took Dean's face in his hands again, the same way Dean had cupped Sam's so many times when the youngest Winchester was hurt. "Dean… hey, you with me?" he asked gently.
Dean's eyelids moved again.
Sam swallowed his rising fear. "Please answer me, Dean… are you okay?"
"…awesome…" Dean rasped.
Sam smiled. Then he frowned in concern. "What about… is it still…"
Dean forced his eyes open, little more than slits with slivers of hazel-green, and met Sam's gaze. For a brief second, Dean's eyes flashed gold.
Sam sagged in relief. "Thank god…"
Dean swallowed with obvious effort. "… thank you, Sammy…"
Sam tensed. He knew John would hear that. He knew Dean knew John would hear.
But it didn't matter right now. As far as Sam was concerned, John didn't matter at that moment.
"Damnit, Dean… what were you thinking?" he asked, but it was rhetorical. He knew the way his brother thought. He knew what Dean would do, what he would endure, when it was an order from their father.
Dean closed his eyes to avoid the disapproval. The shame. John.
Sam glanced over at the chair lying on its side by the wall. He didn't even remember knocking that over. Sam went over to the chair, righted it, and dragged it as close the bedside as he could.
If there was one dance the Winchesters knew without need for conversation, it was how to take care of a wounded family member.
John helped Sam lever Dean off the bed and into the chair long enough for John to strip the soiled sheets off the bed. He threw them in a heap outside the motel room door while Sam eased Dean back into bed. Sam went to the sink and fetched Dean a plastic cup of water. He helped Dean take a few swallows. John took a wet, dingy beige washcloth and wiped the sheen of sweat from Dean's brow and chest.
Dean lay submissive to it all, body wrung and next to useless after the war that had been waged for possession of it.
John and Sam had fallen into a strange, wordless tandem taking care of Dean. They knew when the silent tending to Dean was over, there would be words exchanged that no one wanted to hear.
Sam, with a scowl of disgust, took the Native American amulet off of Dean and threw it across the room.
"Sam…" John intoned lowly.
Here it was. Showdown at the Winchester corral.
Sam started to stand to face his father when Dean, with surprising strength, reached out and grabbed Sam's wrist. Sam knelt down again and looked his brother in the eye. Dean was searching Sam's eyes for something. Absolution maybe. Understanding. Sam didn't know why his brother was looking. Dean had that from him. Had it from the start.
"I tried…" Dean said weakly.
Sam winced. "Yeah… and you shouldn't have."
"Dad…" Dean protested.
"Fuck Dad," Sam snapped. He could practically feel John stiffen only a few feet away.
Dean managed to crack a smile. "Been nice knowing you, dude."
Sam chuckled and gently pulled his wrist free from Dean's grasp. With cold resolution, he stood and looked toward their father.
John was staring at him, the disapproval radiating from him like a cold tide, wave after icy wave crashing against the stone that was Sam Winchester. Sam didn't care. That look used to take him out at the knees, but he just didn't care anymore. John Winchester had pushed Sam too far.
"Outside," John growled, and he turned and left the room, not even waiting to see if Sam would follow.
Sam did, at his own pace. He checked on Dean one last time (who had fallen asleep) before he went after his dad.
When he caught up to John pacing an angry circle in the virtually deserted parking lot, he was half expecting it when John grabbed him roughly by the front of his shirt and pulled him in until they were standing nose to nose. Sam remembered the days when John had looked down at Sam when he tore him apart. Now John had to look up, but it didn't diminish his power.
Sam steeled himself, unafraid.
"I ought to beat the shit out of you for what you just did," John growled.
"You can try," Sam returned evenly, his voice dangerously calm.
John shoved him away in disgust. "What the hell were you thinking? I was helping your brother."
"No, Dad, you were killing him."
"I was killing that thing inside him," John snapped. "Damnit, Sam, you of all people should know the difference!"
"That thing?!" Sam countered hotly. "Dad, it's not a thing inside him. It's him. That was Dean you were tearing apart."
"It was the wolf."
"Dean is the wolf!"
"Keep your voice down," John warned lowly.
Sam complied (because in that, John was right), but he didn't back off. "You can't separate them, Dad. It's who he is now."
"They can be separated," John insisted.
"He doesn't want that! God, Dad, did you ever ask him if this was what he wanted?"
"Of course I did."
"Did you? Or did you just assume that Dean wanted whatever you said he wanted?"
John blinked, began to frown, and remained silent. Sam could practically hear Dean's hoarse 'thank you' to Sam only a moment ago haunting John's memory, making the seasoned hunter question and doubt. In his father's silence, Sam knew he had his answer to his question. He'd expected as much.
"Have you ever cared about what either of us wants?" Sam asked angrily.
John crowded into Sam's personal space to hiss, "This isn't the same as your little tantrum about going to college. This is about what's happened to your brother. He's not human, Sam."
"No," Sam agreed, "he's better."
John sneered. "You can't honestly believe that."
"I do," Sam insisted stubbornly. "And Dean does, too. You might know that if you took a second to talk to him, to ask him what he wants before you tried to pull the wolf out of him."
"He can't stay that way," John pointed toward the door, toward the room where they'd left Dean.
"Yes, he can," Sam said darkly.
John studied Sam closely for a moment. He didn't like what he saw. "I expected better from you," John said.
Once upon a time, that might have crushed Sam. But not anymore. Not now. Not after what their father had done to Dean.
"I expected more from you, but then, that was always my problem, wasn't it? Expecting you to be a father who wants to see his children happy instead of an overbearing commanding officer keeping his troops in line. But our happiness never meant anything to you, did it, Dad? All you've ever cared about is that demon that killed Mom."
John hit him. It was fast and surprising. Sam stepped back from the blow, more angry than hurt.
"I'm used to your selfishness, Sam," John growled, "but Dean isn't like you. Don't lay your shit on him. He isn't you."
Sam spit the taste of blood from his mouth. "You don't know him like you think you do, Dad. You don't know either of us. You never cared to. You never tried."
"I'm not going to listen to this," John grumbled and tried to stalk past Sam.
Sam caught him by the arm. "Then ask him, Dad. Go in there and ask Dean what he wants. I won't say another word."
John studied Sam a moment, then some of the tension left his body. Determination set into his eyes. He shrugged off Sam's hand and walked back to the motel room door. Sam mutely followed.
The broken door was easy to push open. Dean was sleeping just as they'd left him. Sam would have left him alone to rest, but John had to have his answers.
Sam closed the door as best he could while John went to the bed and shook Dean. "Dean… wake up."
Dean grumbled but didn't stir.
"Wake up, Dean," John said again in that voice Sam knew so well from their childhood. It was the commanding officer Winchester.
Dean obeyed and groggily opened his eyes. When he realized he was staring up at his father, his expression froze. Dean scanned the room and his eyes stopped when he spotted Sam.
"Dean… how you doing?" John asked.
Dean returned his eyes to his father. "Been better."
"I'll bet." John frowned. "Dean… I want to ask you something, and it's important that you give me an honest answer."
Dean was visibly put on edge by that. He struggled weakly into a sitting position propped against the headboard. "Okay…" he said warily.
John stared closely at Dean. "Do you want to get rid of the wolf?"
Dean paled and his lips tightened.
Sam wanted to jump in and lend his voice, but this had to be Dean's answer. Dean's answer and only Dean's. Their father would never believe it any other way.
"Dean…" John ordered when there was no immediate reply.
Dean dropped his gaze to his lap. "No," he whispered, so lowly Sam could barely tell Dean had made a sound.
"What?" John asked. Maybe he hadn't heard, or maybe he just couldn't believe it.
Dean looked up miserably. "No, Dad… I… I don't want to lose the wolf."
John had no response for that. He stood staring down at his son a long time. Shocked, no doubt. Then he turned and looked at Sam. His expression was unreadable.
Without a word, he brushed past Sam and went out the door. They heard the truck door slam shut and the engine turn over. Neither brother felt the right to breathe until, finally, they heard the truck leaving the parking lot.
Sam felt a rod of tension in his spine loosen and he went over to the bed. Dean looked lost.
Sam sat down beside him and sighed. "I'm sorry, man."
Dean nodded faintly. "He hates me," Dean said in a small voice.
Sam shook his head. "He doesn't know what he thinks right now. But he doesn't hate you. Doesn't understand, maybe."
Dean looked reproachfully at Sam. "To a hunter, that's the same as hating something."
Sam winced. He wouldn't speak of what John might be thinking about his oldest son anymore. It was too ugly to bear. Instead, Sam asked the question burning in his mind. "How could you go through with that, Dean?"
Dean shrugged. "Doesn't matter now. Maybe if that demon had finished what it started… but I can't do that again, Sam. I can't."
"And you won't. Dad tries it and I'll shoot him."
Dean's lips twitched in a humorless smirk. "No, you won't."
"You don't think so?" Sam countered calmly, confidently.
Dean looked up at him then, studying Sam's expression. He obviously saw something in there that scared him. "Sam…"
Sam lifted a single eyebrow, as though to ask 'what?'
Dean looked away, uneasy and rattled. "Look… can we get out of here?"
"You feel up to that?"
Dean shrugged. "Not really, but I don't want to be here."
"Okay." Sam helped Dean to the car and drove him back to their own hotel. They didn't leave a note for John on where they'd gone or how to find them. Dean didn't say anything about just leaving without word, and Sam didn't care.
Twenty-Seven
John had to be there. It was all Sam could think as he floored the gas.
The Sunspots was a fleabag motel at the edge of the bad part of town. The parking lot was practically deserted when Sam whipped the Impala into it.
Almost deserted, but Sam saw John's black truck immediately.
Sam slammed to a stop near the truck, taking up two spaces carelessly, threw the gear shift into park, and he all but flew out of the car. He ran to the door directly in front of the truck and pounded on it.
Nothing. He tried the door knob, but it was locked.
Sam pounded again, his fist beating in time with his racing heart. "Dad! It's me! Open the damn door!"
Still no answer. Sam glared at the faded numbers on the door, '12' Maybe it wasn't the room. Could John have parked on the opposite side of the motel than where his room was? It was the kind of paranoid thing he would do. Would Sam have to go pounding on every door in the place? Could the front office worker be bullied into giving him the room number?
Sam stopped his pounding and put his ear to the door. He forced himself to calm down and listen.
It was almost impossible at first to hear past the sound of his own heart hammering in his head. Then he heard a muffled cry on the other side of the door.
That was good enough.
Sam stepped back, hauled off, and sent a bone-jarring kick into the door.
The jamb shattered, wood splintered, and the door flew open.
Sam stepped into the room and gaped in shock.
Dean was half-naked, tied to the bed and writhing in agony. He had a gag in his mouth to stave off the screaming. John looked up from his place at Dean's side on the far side of the bed. He set eyes on Sam and his gaze flashed pure fire at Sam's conspicuous intrusion.
Sam spared his father only half a second of his attention. His eyes focused on Dean. It looked like he was being tortured.
"What the hell are you doing to him?!" Sam demanded.
John's expression was furious. "Stay out of this, Sam. It's almost over."
Sam strode into the room angrily, making a bee line for his bound brother.
"Get away from him!" Sam yelled.
John rose from his seat, a wall of ex-Marine fury. "Back off, Sam!"
Sam came up alongside the bed and reached for Dean.
Dean's body was drenched in sweat, shaking from pain or exhaustion or both. His arms were taut, in a constant attempt to pull free from the ties holding him down. Tears were tracking down Dean's temples from his eyes clenched tightly shut. He was gagged, choking for air around a strap of leather between his bared teeth.
"Sam…" John growled and began to round the bed.
Sam took Dean's face in his hands and turned Dean's head toward him. "Dean," he called desperately.
Dean opened his eyes. Sam flinched in shock. They were black. Demon black. Then they flashed gold. The wolf. Then the black again. Dean cried out and his body jerked.
John closed a hand around Sam's arm roughly and began to pull him away. "Don't interfere," John barked.
Sam rounded on John. "What the hell happened?! Is he possessed?"
John narrowed his eyes at Sam. "It was the only way."
Sam's jaw dropped open as his brother bucked again on the bed. "You did this to him?!"
The resolute glower on John's face was Sam's answer.
Appalled, Sam shoved John away furiously.
John stumbled back a pace then stalked toward Sam again. "It's under control, Sam. Letting that demon in him was the only way to get rid of the lycanthropy."
"WHAT?!" Sam cried, so blindly furious his vision began to tunnel.
Dean whimpered brokenly, too weak anymore to scream.
Sam spun back to his brother and took Dean's face in his hands again. Dean's face, expression twisted in agony, was hot and sweaty in Sam's palms.
"Dean…" Sam croaked.
Dean opened his eyes again. For a second, they were Dean's eyes. They were swimming with tears. And they were begging him.
Sam took the leather out of Dean's mouth.
"Sam!" John barked angrily. He grabbed the back of Sam's neck, as if he were a disobedient six-year-old all over again.
Sam turned fighting. He punched his father, fist flying as hard and fast as he could. Sam was no light weight kid anymore. The strike whipped John's head around, and he went down in a stunned heap on the floor.
John was dazed, but not unconscious. Sam wouldn't have more than a few seconds. He turned resolutely back to Dean, took his brother's face in his hands once more, and met Dean's eyes again.
Free of the gag that had silenced him, Dean whispered, his voice breaking, "Sammy… please…"
Sam's grip on Dean tightened, and he began to recite the words as fast as he could form them. "Espiritus amundi…" He knew the incantation by heart. He could rattle it off in record time.
"… Sam… stop…" John struggled behind him, fighting to get his wits back around him enough to stop his youngest son.
Sam didn't stop. Didn't let himself so much as pause for breath. He spouted off the exorcism incantation in a frenzied rush.
Dean screamed, the sound raw as it ripped from his throat. Then it was black smoke, pouring out of his mouth and into the air. It hadn't taken long to dislodge the demon. Dean had obviously been fighting it from the start for all he was worth.
Then it was over. The smoke was gone and Dean fell back, limp and spent on the bed.
Sam took a deep breath of relief.
John grabbed Sam and hauled him around. Sam, too focused on Dean to defend himself, was slammed into the wall and held there by John's bear-like stature.
"What the hell did you think you were doing?!" John yelled in his face.
"You were killing him!" Sam screamed back, literally seeing red. What their own father had done to Dean…
"I was saving him! That was the only way to kill the wolf in him."
"You can't do that!"
John looked at Sam like he was something repugnant, less than nothing, worthless. "Do you have any idea what you've done? It was almost over! Now Dean is going to have to go through all of that again."
"No, he won't! I won't let you!" Sam snaked his arms up between John's, gave himself just enough room to push John back, bring up a foot, and kicked John halfway across the room.
John staggered back a few steps then righted himself, surprised by how much of a fight Sam wanted to put up but ready to answer force for force. John Winchester was not a man to lose the upper hand with his boys. He faced Sam, opponent against opponent.
For a second, they weren't father and son. They were just two men with the same degree of stubbornness butting heads, neither willing to relent or surrender, each certain their position was the correct one.
Sam started to advance toward John. If this was going to be a brawl, so be it. He'd fight their father if that's what it took to protect Dean.
But Dean stopped Sam dead in his tracks. Dean gagged and began to throw up. Bound starfish-like on his back, he couldn't roll to keep himself from choking.
In a second flat, Sam forgot about John. He ignored his father completely when only a second ago John had been Sam's target.
Sam went quickly to Dean and untied one of his brother's arm. He rolled Dean on to his side as Dean vomited on the bed, body shaking and weak. Sam curled his arm around Dean's shoulder, holding him up from rolling into the mess or over on to his back.
Sam found that he was shaking almost as badly as Dean was.
God, what if he'd been a few minutes later?
Before long, Dean's stomach was empty, and he was left to weakly dry heave. Sam rubbed his brother's drenched back helplessly, trying to end the wrenching muscle contractions wracking Dean's body.
Sam started when he saw John moving from the corner of his eye. He braced for another confrontation, but John wasn't coming close to fight. He was quietly untying Dean's feet.
Sam reached across Dean's crumpled form and untied his other hand. Dean's limbs fell like dead weight on the mattress. Dean had stopped heaving and was lying still but for his ragged breathing.
Sam touched the soaked back of Dean's neck in worry. "Dean? You done hurling?"
Dean's eyelids fluttered and he made a cracked noise.
"Dean…" John began, but Sam shot his father a murderous look.
"Don't," Sam snarled. He began to roll Dean on to his back again, toward himself and away from John on the other side of the bed. "Just don't, Dad."
When Dean was flat on his back once more, Sam took Dean's face in his hands again, the same way Dean had cupped Sam's so many times when the youngest Winchester was hurt. "Dean… hey, you with me?" he asked gently.
Dean's eyelids moved again.
Sam swallowed his rising fear. "Please answer me, Dean… are you okay?"
"…awesome…" Dean rasped.
Sam smiled. Then he frowned in concern. "What about… is it still…"
Dean forced his eyes open, little more than slits with slivers of hazel-green, and met Sam's gaze. For a brief second, Dean's eyes flashed gold.
Sam sagged in relief. "Thank god…"
Dean swallowed with obvious effort. "… thank you, Sammy…"
Sam tensed. He knew John would hear that. He knew Dean knew John would hear.
But it didn't matter right now. As far as Sam was concerned, John didn't matter at that moment.
"Damnit, Dean… what were you thinking?" he asked, but it was rhetorical. He knew the way his brother thought. He knew what Dean would do, what he would endure, when it was an order from their father.
Dean closed his eyes to avoid the disapproval. The shame. John.
Sam glanced over at the chair lying on its side by the wall. He didn't even remember knocking that over. Sam went over to the chair, righted it, and dragged it as close the bedside as he could.
If there was one dance the Winchesters knew without need for conversation, it was how to take care of a wounded family member.
John helped Sam lever Dean off the bed and into the chair long enough for John to strip the soiled sheets off the bed. He threw them in a heap outside the motel room door while Sam eased Dean back into bed. Sam went to the sink and fetched Dean a plastic cup of water. He helped Dean take a few swallows. John took a wet, dingy beige washcloth and wiped the sheen of sweat from Dean's brow and chest.
Dean lay submissive to it all, body wrung and next to useless after the war that had been waged for possession of it.
John and Sam had fallen into a strange, wordless tandem taking care of Dean. They knew when the silent tending to Dean was over, there would be words exchanged that no one wanted to hear.
Sam, with a scowl of disgust, took the Native American amulet off of Dean and threw it across the room.
"Sam…" John intoned lowly.
Here it was. Showdown at the Winchester corral.
Sam started to stand to face his father when Dean, with surprising strength, reached out and grabbed Sam's wrist. Sam knelt down again and looked his brother in the eye. Dean was searching Sam's eyes for something. Absolution maybe. Understanding. Sam didn't know why his brother was looking. Dean had that from him. Had it from the start.
"I tried…" Dean said weakly.
Sam winced. "Yeah… and you shouldn't have."
"Dad…" Dean protested.
"Fuck Dad," Sam snapped. He could practically feel John stiffen only a few feet away.
Dean managed to crack a smile. "Been nice knowing you, dude."
Sam chuckled and gently pulled his wrist free from Dean's grasp. With cold resolution, he stood and looked toward their father.
John was staring at him, the disapproval radiating from him like a cold tide, wave after icy wave crashing against the stone that was Sam Winchester. Sam didn't care. That look used to take him out at the knees, but he just didn't care anymore. John Winchester had pushed Sam too far.
"Outside," John growled, and he turned and left the room, not even waiting to see if Sam would follow.
Sam did, at his own pace. He checked on Dean one last time (who had fallen asleep) before he went after his dad.
When he caught up to John pacing an angry circle in the virtually deserted parking lot, he was half expecting it when John grabbed him roughly by the front of his shirt and pulled him in until they were standing nose to nose. Sam remembered the days when John had looked down at Sam when he tore him apart. Now John had to look up, but it didn't diminish his power.
Sam steeled himself, unafraid.
"I ought to beat the shit out of you for what you just did," John growled.
"You can try," Sam returned evenly, his voice dangerously calm.
John shoved him away in disgust. "What the hell were you thinking? I was helping your brother."
"No, Dad, you were killing him."
"I was killing that thing inside him," John snapped. "Damnit, Sam, you of all people should know the difference!"
"That thing?!" Sam countered hotly. "Dad, it's not a thing inside him. It's him. That was Dean you were tearing apart."
"It was the wolf."
"Dean is the wolf!"
"Keep your voice down," John warned lowly.
Sam complied (because in that, John was right), but he didn't back off. "You can't separate them, Dad. It's who he is now."
"They can be separated," John insisted.
"He doesn't want that! God, Dad, did you ever ask him if this was what he wanted?"
"Of course I did."
"Did you? Or did you just assume that Dean wanted whatever you said he wanted?"
John blinked, began to frown, and remained silent. Sam could practically hear Dean's hoarse 'thank you' to Sam only a moment ago haunting John's memory, making the seasoned hunter question and doubt. In his father's silence, Sam knew he had his answer to his question. He'd expected as much.
"Have you ever cared about what either of us wants?" Sam asked angrily.
John crowded into Sam's personal space to hiss, "This isn't the same as your little tantrum about going to college. This is about what's happened to your brother. He's not human, Sam."
"No," Sam agreed, "he's better."
John sneered. "You can't honestly believe that."
"I do," Sam insisted stubbornly. "And Dean does, too. You might know that if you took a second to talk to him, to ask him what he wants before you tried to pull the wolf out of him."
"He can't stay that way," John pointed toward the door, toward the room where they'd left Dean.
"Yes, he can," Sam said darkly.
John studied Sam closely for a moment. He didn't like what he saw. "I expected better from you," John said.
Once upon a time, that might have crushed Sam. But not anymore. Not now. Not after what their father had done to Dean.
"I expected more from you, but then, that was always my problem, wasn't it? Expecting you to be a father who wants to see his children happy instead of an overbearing commanding officer keeping his troops in line. But our happiness never meant anything to you, did it, Dad? All you've ever cared about is that demon that killed Mom."
John hit him. It was fast and surprising. Sam stepped back from the blow, more angry than hurt.
"I'm used to your selfishness, Sam," John growled, "but Dean isn't like you. Don't lay your shit on him. He isn't you."
Sam spit the taste of blood from his mouth. "You don't know him like you think you do, Dad. You don't know either of us. You never cared to. You never tried."
"I'm not going to listen to this," John grumbled and tried to stalk past Sam.
Sam caught him by the arm. "Then ask him, Dad. Go in there and ask Dean what he wants. I won't say another word."
John studied Sam a moment, then some of the tension left his body. Determination set into his eyes. He shrugged off Sam's hand and walked back to the motel room door. Sam mutely followed.
The broken door was easy to push open. Dean was sleeping just as they'd left him. Sam would have left him alone to rest, but John had to have his answers.
Sam closed the door as best he could while John went to the bed and shook Dean. "Dean… wake up."
Dean grumbled but didn't stir.
"Wake up, Dean," John said again in that voice Sam knew so well from their childhood. It was the commanding officer Winchester.
Dean obeyed and groggily opened his eyes. When he realized he was staring up at his father, his expression froze. Dean scanned the room and his eyes stopped when he spotted Sam.
"Dean… how you doing?" John asked.
Dean returned his eyes to his father. "Been better."
"I'll bet." John frowned. "Dean… I want to ask you something, and it's important that you give me an honest answer."
Dean was visibly put on edge by that. He struggled weakly into a sitting position propped against the headboard. "Okay…" he said warily.
John stared closely at Dean. "Do you want to get rid of the wolf?"
Dean paled and his lips tightened.
Sam wanted to jump in and lend his voice, but this had to be Dean's answer. Dean's answer and only Dean's. Their father would never believe it any other way.
"Dean…" John ordered when there was no immediate reply.
Dean dropped his gaze to his lap. "No," he whispered, so lowly Sam could barely tell Dean had made a sound.
"What?" John asked. Maybe he hadn't heard, or maybe he just couldn't believe it.
Dean looked up miserably. "No, Dad… I… I don't want to lose the wolf."
John had no response for that. He stood staring down at his son a long time. Shocked, no doubt. Then he turned and looked at Sam. His expression was unreadable.
Without a word, he brushed past Sam and went out the door. They heard the truck door slam shut and the engine turn over. Neither brother felt the right to breathe until, finally, they heard the truck leaving the parking lot.
Sam felt a rod of tension in his spine loosen and he went over to the bed. Dean looked lost.
Sam sat down beside him and sighed. "I'm sorry, man."
Dean nodded faintly. "He hates me," Dean said in a small voice.
Sam shook his head. "He doesn't know what he thinks right now. But he doesn't hate you. Doesn't understand, maybe."
Dean looked reproachfully at Sam. "To a hunter, that's the same as hating something."
Sam winced. He wouldn't speak of what John might be thinking about his oldest son anymore. It was too ugly to bear. Instead, Sam asked the question burning in his mind. "How could you go through with that, Dean?"
Dean shrugged. "Doesn't matter now. Maybe if that demon had finished what it started… but I can't do that again, Sam. I can't."
"And you won't. Dad tries it and I'll shoot him."
Dean's lips twitched in a humorless smirk. "No, you won't."
"You don't think so?" Sam countered calmly, confidently.
Dean looked up at him then, studying Sam's expression. He obviously saw something in there that scared him. "Sam…"
Sam lifted a single eyebrow, as though to ask 'what?'
Dean looked away, uneasy and rattled. "Look… can we get out of here?"
"You feel up to that?"
Dean shrugged. "Not really, but I don't want to be here."
"Okay." Sam helped Dean to the car and drove him back to their own hotel. They didn't leave a note for John on where they'd gone or how to find them. Dean didn't say anything about just leaving without word, and Sam didn't care.
Twenty-Seven