Lupo Mutaret (Interlude, Part Two)
Jim debated over whether or not to confront John for quite some time.
After young Samuel had retreated, following his brother up the stairs to the room that they shared, the Pastor had spent almost half an hour spinning a pen in his hand and staring at his desk, trying to work out the best course of action.
It was obvious that someone needed to talk some sense into John, before things got too much for one of his boys, but Jim had known the man long enough to know that the eldest Winchester wouldn’t take kindly to someone meddling in his business. He’d been the receiving end of many an irate phone call when Bobby Singer - or one of John’s other friends, for that matter - had done that very thing. John didn’t like to be told how he should treat his boys.
But that didn’t mean that, sometimes, an intervention was necessary.
Mind finally made up, the elderly pastor carefully lay his pen down next to his bible, before following the unmistakable sounds of a field rifle being stripped to the kitchen. John was hunched over the table, gun parts and rags of cloth strewn across the scratched wooden surface; across from him, Ivan was perched on a chair, one paw and his head resting on the table. The hunter was eyeing him as if waiting for an inevitable attack.
“That cat is far too smart to attack somebody with a gun in their hand,” Jim laughed, nodding to the body of the weapon, which John was cleaning. “Stripped down or not.”
John didn’t startle, like many other men in his position would have, but merely shrugged.
“You sure that you checked that it’s not some kind of evil cat-shifter?”
Jim smiled despite himself. “I assure you, a shifter would have been entirely unable to step over my threshold without experiencing at least a little discomfort. This house, and the land surrounding it, is plenty protected.”
John shrugged, but he refused to take his eyes off the cat, even as Jim sunk into a seat of his own.
“You been talking to that kid of mine?” He asked after a few moments of silence, and though Jim knew that the flippant tone was forced, he couldn’t help but wince on Sam’s behalf. The Pastor understood John’s apparent disregard for his youngest as the act that it was, designed to distance the young man and keep him from hurting John in the way that they’d all expected, but the older hunter couldn’t help but wonder if Sam understood that.
“I have indeed,” Jim offered honestly. “He’s understandably upset at the situation. Perhaps more than that, he’s upset with the idea that you’ve traded your standard knife out for a silver one. That kid, as you called him, is observant.”
John sighed, dropping the gun to the table and leaning back in his seat. He met the Pastor’s eye even as a hand pulled the silver blade in question from his belt, laying it gently on the table.
“You seem pretty sure that I’m not justified in doing so.” John said, but his eyes were blazing with an emotion that Jim couldn’t name.
“Sam’s still your son.” Jim pointed out logically.
John shrugged, and a part of Jim hated him from the nonchalance on his face. “Yeah, but he’s also a shifter. They’re killers, right down to their blood. In case you’ve forgotten, Jim, we hunt shifters on a daily basis.”
“Not Sam.” Jim said firmly. “You know that he’d never hurt anybody… much less you or Dean. That boy would rather die than let anything happen, to either one of you. Besides which, he’s not a normal shifter, John… hell, if he was he wouldn’t be upstairs resting comfortably. He’d still be stuck on the other side of the wards.”
“Look,” John snapped, an angry edge to his voice that hadn’t been there moments before. “I fucked up with the witch, and now Sam’s stuck with this… curse, and it sucks. I’m not gonna fuck up again and lose Dean, too. You hearing me, old man?”
“Sam and I are a package deal.”
Jim jumped, cursing John Winchester in his head for training his boys to be able to sneak up on even him. Dean was shrouded in shadows, stood stock-still in the doorway, but that didn’t stop the Pastor from seeing the fierce determination in his green eyes.
“The sooner you learn that, Dad, the better.” His tone was calm, and in that moment - facing down his father - he seemed a lot older than his twenty-two years. “I’ve already taken him away from you once, and I won’t hesitate to do it again. He’s the only reason that I’m still within a thousand square miles of you.”
Across the table, John faltered visibly for the first time.
“I’m trying to protect you,” He protested. “Your brother could be dangerous.”
Dean raised an eyebrow. “The only one that’s dangerous right now is you, and I won’t let you break Sam. I love you, you’re my dad, but I love Sam more.”
There was no hesitation in his voice, no trace of anything but pure resolve, and the second that John’s back was turned, Jim sent him a proud smile.
“You know that I’ve been giving your brother the benefit of the doubt,” John told his eldest irritably. “But there’s nothing wrong with being cautious. If your brother is still himself, and I’d like to believe that he is, then surely he should want that.”
Dean’s face changed from cool indifference to an almost frightening amount of rage.
“The night that Sam found out that silver burnt him, he asked me to carry a silver knife.” He confessed. “I said no, because I know Sam better than I know myself sometimes, and I’ve got no need to be scared.”
John bristled. “I’m not scared.”
“Really?” Dean asked, eyes dropping his eyes to the knife that was still lying on the table, blade glistening in the kitchen light. “It sure looks like it to me.”
The eldest Winchester frowned; hand dropping defensively to the weapon, but Dean was already talking - barrelling right over his father’s excuses.
“I’m giving you a choice, here.” The young man said stiffly. “Get rid of the knife, or you lose both of us - for good, this time.”
He didn’t give his father a chance to respond, simply turned and disappeared just as quickly as he’d arrived. John watched after him with a somewhat lost expression, and when he turned his attention to Jim, the elder hunter found himself mimicking the man’s son. He stood in silence, waiting for Ivan to sit up and take note, before heading upstairs.
When he passed Sam and Dean’s room, he paused there, knocking lightly and propping the door open to allow Ivan to slither in.
Sam and Dean were curled up on the double bed they’d shared since they were kids (Jim had adamantly promised that he’d get them twin beds for months before he’d worked out that they honestly didn’t mind sharing, that they liked feeling each other there, knowing that they were alive and warm and safe), Sam facing away from the doorway and his brother wrapped around his back - protecting him.
The sound of the door creaking open had Dean turning to look, and Jim could see the muscles in his forearm tense as his grip about his knife tightened. Paranoid, that boy, however good his reasons were.
He watched with distaste as Ivan trotted into the room, trilling happily as he bypassed Dean entirely and crawled into the gap between Sam and the wall, curling into the younger hunter’s stomach.
Sam mumbled something in his sleep, arm coming up to lie over the cat’s back, and Dean settled back onto his side, hand coming up so that his fingers were splayed over his brother’s ribcage. If Jim hadn’t known better - and he did - he might have been worried, but he knew the need to protect and defend when he saw it.
“Goodnight, boys.” He whispered, not at all surprised when neither of them responded, and shut the door quietly.
When he slipped into his own bed that night, he was content with the knowledge that - no matter what - the Winchester boys would take care of each other. Even when their father failed them, when they were faced with odds that would have made the most experience hunter break from the pressure, those boys would stay strong.
Sometimes he wondered if they didn’t live more for each other than they did for themselves.
(Pretty boring chapter, so apologies for that. On the plus side, the action is about to pick up, and look at my posting rate... I'm on a roll! Clearly having long holidays off uni agrees with me! Who would've thought, huh? :3 Can't make it pretty at the moment as all of the art is saved on my laptop, which is currently out of commission due to a broken charger. Hopefully you can cope for now!)