Let's Not Call It a Game - Part II
|Part I|
John closes his eyes against the small sliver of light that cuts through the room like a bright knife, a single line of dust dancing in the sunlight from the blinds to the door on the opposite wall. He tries to hang on to consciousness by the sound of the wind whistling past the window, by the pounding behind his eyes. He misses the point where his mind shifts and then the physical pain is gone and all he knows is a vague sense of dread. Bright lights sucking the life out of children. Voices (Mary’s voice) telling him he’s never gonna be enough to keep them safe.
John isn’t sure if he’s dreaming or finally managed to cross the bridge into lala land, but suddenly he’s sitting upright in his bed, fumbling for a weapon before he identifies the sounds that startled him awake as Jim knocking on his door to tell him it’s time for dinner.
John’s eyes are still itchy, his face feels crumpled from fatigue and fear and every bone in his body feels like it’s been turned into granite.
“Your boys are waiting for you,” Jim says, his voice muffled through the door, then, like he's worried that isn’t enough, “I made fresh coffee.”
John wonders when he last managed to get through the day without half a gallon of caffeine coursing through his veins. It’s been years, probably since before Sammy was born. Sometimes he wonders if the trembling unsteady hands he gets every morning have more to do with need for alcohol or coffee. He rarely drinks one without the other anymore, so he doesn’t know.
The kitchen smells like boiling water and tomato sauce that’s got so much purree in it, it'd make John want to gag even if he weren't feeling like shit. He sits down heavily in his chair, ignoring the way his stomach turns at the mere idea of eating. He lets his eyes wander so he doesn’t have to look at the food on the table. There’s a stack of empty cans sitting on the counter, the dried sauce still stuck to the edges like scab on a fresh wound.
John waves off Jim’s attempts to fill up his plate, picks up his fork and tries to figure out how little a helping he can get away with. Jim raises a knowing brow at the small pile of spaghetti on John’s plate but he doesn’t say anything. John focuses on pushing the cut-up bits of drained tomato to the edge of his plate where he can pretend they were never there in the first place.
“’s good,” Sammy smiles, drawing out the word as he sucks the spaghetti through where his missing front tooth should be. Sauce whips up, hits him in the face in tiny red droplets.
John’s stomach twists. He can't look away.
“Don’t talk with your mouth open, son,” he rasps, empties half his cup of burning hot coffee just to give himself something to do.
He wonders how Dean did with his target practice. He wants to ask but the inside of his mouth tastes like ashes and he can’t find the words. The heap of ground tomatoes on the edge of his plate keeps growing and still he can’t bring himself to take a single bite of Jim’s spaghetti. Probably makes him a hypocrite for always being on the boys’ case about eating whatever’s been put in front of them, but he can’t give half a fuck right now.
Sam keeps sucking spaghetti up into his mouth. It’s like chips of John’s nerves break away, hard and jagged, every time he closes his eyes against the swlurrrp of pasta and little-boy teeth.
“Sam,” John finally growls. He has to swallow against the rough burn of his own voice rumbling through his throat. “Cut it out.”
Sam’s lip comes out in a well-practiced pout, his eyes huge and swimming, peering up at John from under dark lashes.
John prides himself on being immune to the manipulation tactics that work so well on sitters and middle aged waitresses and Bobbys. The pleading doe eyes don’t do anything for him. John Winchester doesn’t tolerate that kinda shit. Except today when Sammy looks at him like an abandoned puppy, John’s heart stops dead in its tracks and he ends up staring at his plate, suddenly ashamed of himself.
Sam stuffs another fork full of spaghetti into his mouth with a dark, dark glare that still manages to be one hundred percent manipulative toddler bullshit. John growls in warning and Sam’s little nostrils flare.
Dean reaches up to wipe the sauce off his brother’s cheeks with the palm of his hand and Sammy squirms, pushes Dean’s hands away, knocks his elbow into his glass in the process. Milk spills over Sam’s plate onto the floor, the glass hangs in the balance for a split second, before it tips over and shatters on the floor.
“Sam!” John barks at the same time that Jim says “John,” in that quiet, strangely urgent tone that sounds like it’s usually reserved for pastoral visits to the clinically insane.
Sam stares at his ruined dinner, the watery mixture of white and red on his plate. He juts out his lower lip, not upset, not apologetic, but frowning.
John heaves himself out of his chair just as Dean tries to slip off of his. John sees the broken pieces of glass on the floor and his son’s stocking feet and shouts before he knows what he’s doing.
“Stay the fuck where you are.”
Dean shrinks back so far he hits his head on the back of his chair.
Glass gets crushed under John’s heavy boots and suddenly the room is spinning around him, he isn’t sure which way is the ceiling and what to stand on and he’s sure he’s falling backwards until a calm and steady hand settles on his shoulder.
“You need to sleep,” Jim says, still in that infuriatingly calming voice.
John wants to say that Jim dragged him out of bed because he Needed To Eat not five minutes ago, but he can’t quite wrap his tongue around the words, so he just keeps looking at the empty space between his eyes and the floor. The world begins and ends with the shattered glass and spilled milk, pooling around his boots.
His hand is shaking as he blindly grabs for a towel, but his fingers close around empty air. His fingers close around nothing and for a moment he feels like it’s all he can do to keep from bawling like a little kid.
“I can clean up in here,” Jim’s voice cuts through the quiet static. The pressure on John’s shoulder increases enough to make him turn towards the door. “You need to sleep right now.”
John does need to sleep. He feels heavy all over, can’t keep his eyes open all the way to the guest room. He’s glad for Jim’s hand on his back, leading him along the hallway without bumping into too many corners.
He’s also glad he can just toe off his boots with the laces still undone from when he crashed earlier. He may be exhausted, but he draws the line at priests taking his shoes off for him.
He keeps seeing red tomato sauce on Sam’s face, milk spilling all over the wooden floor. Bright lights killing his little boy and useless guns being pointed at nothing.
Blood is rushing through his ears in a way that makes it difficult to hear anything outside his own head.
He thinks Jim might be saying something - John hopes it’s not some kind of the Lord is your shepherd bullshit, not that Jim’s ever really been one to shove religious platitudes down John’s throat.
The door closes and the red and white turn into black.
:: :: ::
The first thing he notices when he wakes up is that he needs water. He tries to swallow but his mouth and tongue and throat are made of rubber.
The next thing he notices is his heartbeat pounding along the left side of his face. He barely noticed the bruises yesterday, but they’re making themselves known full force now. He should have put ice on it when Jim offered him some. It won’t do any good now that he can barely open his eye and his jaw feels like it went head to head against a meat grinder and lost.
There’s really very little he can do to help the bruises, so he stumbles into the bathroom instead, sticks his head under the faucet and drinks about a gallon of water straight from the tab. It gets tangled up in his beard which stopped being stubble several days ago, runs down his neck into the red plaid shirt he hasn’t taken off in so long he doesn’t even dare sniff his own armpits. Everything feels wrong and bad in a way that clings to John’s skin like cold dread and milk gone sour.
:: :: ::
The sky is heavy with clouds this morning, even the red and orange and yellow of the last leaves not enough to fight back the overwhelming grey.
He makes the boys run again. Five sets this time and Sam almost keeps pace each first round. Kid’s going to have legs one day. Good legs. John is glad for it. You never know when you need your legs to carry you somewhere and quick. The boy will be a good runner one day. For now though he’s easily distracted, losing focus like a greyhound pup chasing leaves.
“I’m superman,” he hollers as he comes running around the corner, his open jacket whipping in the wind behind him like a cape.
John tries to frown, but can’t stop his mouth from curling into a tight-lipped smile. It’s rare enough that Sammy doesn’t give him some shitty attitude over training, so John’s happy to play along with whatever fantasy the kid’s come up with.
“One more set ‘n you’re done, Clark.”
Sam somehow manages to blush and smile and huff out a huge breath of air, all at the same time until his face is ninety percent dimples. He tugs the sleeves of his jacket down over his red fingers and looks at John.
“Do I gotta do the whole three laps?”
John grabs Sam’s shoulder and turns him towards the first corner. He tries to make his voice stern, but the smile seeps right into his words.
“Yes. Now hustle.”
Sam throws a slightly puzzled look over his shoulder before he starts running again. John cups his hands in front of his face and blows on them. The heat doesn’t do much good, but the slight sting of his scraped-up palms against his rough beard makes him feel a tiny bit more alive.
:: :: ::
He pulls Sammy up onto the front steps beside him after both boys have finished their last rounds.
“You take a break,” he says, rubbing his hand up and down Sam’s arm. “Zip up your jacket.”
“But I’m all sweaty!” Sam’s complaint comes automatic, still slightly out of breath.
“I know. But I don’t want you to get sick, so do as you’re told.”
Sammy sighs low under his breath, but his fingers fumble with the bright yellow zipper, so John doesn’t really feel the need to shut him down.
He shakes his head, goes to ruffle the kid’s hair but Sam ducks away, crinkling his nose.
“’s Dean gonna get a break too?” he asks, his eyes glued to his brother, halfway across the yard, jogging in place to keep warm.
John whistles with his fingers and Dean slows down.
“Nope,” he tells Sam as he gets up. His knees and back are stiff with cold. “Dean ‘n I are gonna be sparring.”
Sam’s eyes grow smaller, not sure if he likes the sound of that or not.
“Are you gonna hit ‘im?” he finally asks, catching his lower lip between his teeth.
John scoffs slightly, but the sick feeling from last night is already spreading through his stomach again.
“Not if he keeps his fists up, I won’t.”
John gets up and leaves Sammy to sit on his steps alone before he can see the kid’s reaction.
John doesn’t go around hitting his children. He isn’t going in to hurt Dean. He’s not.
So why does he have to feel so goddamn filthy just because his youngest asked if he would?
:: :: ::
Sparring with Dean isn’t usually this much of a hassle. Dean’s the kind of kid who doesn’t sit still unless you tie him to a chair. He likes fighting with a passion and perfectionism that scares John sometimes when it doesn’t make him proud as fuck.
John expected him to be sharp today, eager to prove to himself and John that he is capable of protecting Sammy. Instead he is sloppy, dragging his feet, at least three steps behind John every time John throws a jab at him. And pointing out corrections is one hell of a lot like talking to a fucking brick wall.
“Keep your hands up,” John snaps for probably the third time in as many minutes after he nails Dean in the shoulder with a move the kid knew how to dodge a year ago.
Dean rubs his shoulder with a trembling hand, opens his mouth to say something but apparently thinks better of it. He bites down on his lower lip and peers up at John from under long dark lashes.
“Sorry,” he mumbles dejectedly.
John sighs. “Sorry’s not gonna keep your brother alive, is it?”
John could as well have slapped him it seems from the way Dean recoils at the words. John thinks he should reach out, give him a quick hug, or something but he needs to drive this lesson home.
“Watch out,” he calls before throwing a quick jab at Dean’s other shoulder. Dean stumbles back a step, looks like he’s about to sprawl to the ground but catches himself on the side of the house.
He looks at his hands for a second, actually manages to look confused when they come back white and scratched up from the rough plaster of the house. Sweat is pooling on his upper lip.
About half the problems the kid’s having with this exercise would go away if he just took off his jacket to give his shoulders a little more reach, but it’s something John’ll let him figure out for himself.
Dean picks himself back up, arms coming up in a protective position, elbows close to his chest, fists curled in front of his face. John aims a low kick at the back of Dean’s knee that sweeps him clean off his feet.
He lands with a soft thud and stays on the ground. Again.
“Ow,” Dean mumbles softly, rubbing at a sore spot on his hip.
The bruises won’t hurt after a day or two so that’s all right.
“C’mon,” John says, only his voice breaks midway through the word and it comes out more like a cough. He clears his throat, licks a trickle of sweat off his upper lip, even though the salt makes his guts twist. “Get up.”
Dean stares up at him, panting; his hair dark with sweat from doing absolutely nothing. His right arm comes up, palm out in a just gimme a second motion.
John doesn’t know what this is, whether it's some kind of crappy act to get out of training or if they just need to work on Dean's stamina, but he knows it needs to stop if he wants his boys prepared.
“You think a monster’s gonna let you take a break to catch your breath?”
Dean chews on his lips for a minute, shudders in a way that doesn’t fit with his sweaty brow.
“When ‘m I ever gonna fistfight a monster?”
“Well, you’re doing a piss-poor job of shooting them.”
The words are out before John realizes what he’s saying. Dean actually makes a noise this time, like he’s been hit again.
John takes another deep breath, pinches the bridge of his nose before looking back down at Dean. For the first time he notices the dark circles under his son’s eyes, the way his freckles are too dark against his pale skin.
It occurs to John that maybe Dean is having just as much trouble sleeping as John, without the occasional shot of tequila to help it along.
Most monsters care as little about their prey tossing and turning in their beds at night as they do about lack of motivation though, so it doesn’t matter.
“Watch the attitude,” he says, sighing again as he bends down and grabs Dean’s hip and upper arm, puts him back on his feet like a rag doll.
Dean mumbles something into the collar of his jacket, he looks up at John like he’s waiting for some sort of explosion.
“What’s that?” John asks.
Dean’s eyes go big, he swallows once like his throat has suddenly gone dry.
“I said don’t,” he mumbles, his hand comes up to rub his shoulder again. “I can stand fine on my own. I’m not some kid. I know how to fight.”
“No you don’t,” John cuts in. “You don’t know what you’re doing, I can as well leave you and your brother here for good. Is that what you want?”
“No,” Dean yelps, quickly stumbles back a couple of steps out of reach before he shakes his head. “No, sir.”
John’s heart clenches up along with his guts like he’s being sick after running too fast too far. Dean is wrong. A kid is exactly what he is. A scared kid who nine time out of ten hits a bull’s eye with any shotgun he’s strong enough to hold from fifty feet away but who freezes up the one time it counts.
“Do you need a drink?” he asks, helplessly waves his hand in the general direction of Sammy and the milk carton Jim brought them a couple of minutes ago before he went back inside, head shaking, eyes raised to the heavens.
Dean’s eyes follow John’s hand. He swallows hard and shakes his head with a huge, shuddering intake of breath.
“’m good.” His voice is so thin and out of breath it almost sounds like a whisper.
“Alright then, hands up.”
John throws another jab at Dean. It shouldn’t go anywhere near his face, because Dean’s face is supposed to be long gone by the time John’s fist arrives.
What isn’t supposed to be happening is Dean flinching violently, drawing up his right shoulder and catapulting his face directly into John’s punch.
For a moment everything’s so quiet, all John can hear his own erratic heartbeat. Then Sammy jumps off his seat, yelling about Daddy killing Dean and John whips around, barks at the kid to run inside, tell Pastor Jim to get out his med kit and Sam takes off at a death sprint.
John settles Dean’s head on his knee, one hand carding though the sweat-slick hair.
Dean’s eyes flutter back open, the left one stops midway through the motion. John tries to pry it open with his thumb to check for the pupil’s reaction but Dean winces under the gentle touch and John pulls his hand back to rest against the back of Dean’s head.
“What…uh…” Dean blinks slowly, winces again. His hand comes up haltingly to probe the side of his face. “I uh…what..?”
John shushes him, tries to ignore the sharp sting behind his eyes or the way his throat his clogging up.
“You zigged when you should have zagged,” he croaks, pushes the guilt back down into the sick knot of bad in the pit of his stomach.
Dean’s brows twitch like he wants to frown and isn’t quite sure how. His eyes are blurry, unfocused and he finally just shrugs, nestles his head against John’s thigh and mumbles, “sorry.”
John hears his breath explode out of his lungs, loud and helpless. “Let’s get you inside,” he whispers, squeezing Dean’s shoulder once before he hoists him up, dead weight against his shoulder.
:: :: ::
The skin around Dean’s eye is an angry red; purple where John’s knuckles connected with Dean’s cheekbone. The bruise will turn black and blue over night and John knows he won’t be able to look at it in the morning. He glances down at his right hand, tries to make the throbbing between his second and third knuckle go away, but it's no good.
The ice pack Jim found in his freezer is dripping onto Dean’s jeans, onto the quilt around his shoulders. John picks it up and carries it back into the kitchen. He throws it into the sink, soaked-through towel and everything.
There’s beer in the fridge and suddenly John needs a drink more than he’s ever needed one in his life. It’s cool going down, soothing the terrible burning ache right around his heart so John takes another long pull.
He never used to be bad at the whole being a father thing. He read parenting books from the day Mary told him she was pregnant, right up until they placed his first-born in his arms, tiny and crumpled and red and the most precious thing he’d ever held. He remembers singing lullabies and playing peekaboo and he doesn't know. Doesn’t fucking know when Curious George at bedtime turned into a crisp lights out.
When he stopped throwing a football around in the evening and started knocking his ten-year-old out during a sparring match behind a church.
John thinks about getting something stronger to go with the beer, but he doesn’t know where Jim keeps his hard liquor and his legs suddenly feel like tree trunks, rooted to the floor beneath his chair.
The first beer disappears within minutes and John is glad he took the entire six pack out of the fridge even if it means the second one isn’t as cold as the first one and the third one is well on the way to lukewarm. At least he doesn't have to get up.
John rubs the heels of his hands against his closed eyes. The darkness is the sea. The darkness is the sea and John is the dingy boat being tossed this way and that until he lands with his head under water and drowns.
He comes back up with his head swimming. The tell-tale squeak of the bottom-three stairs somehow makes him realize how heavy his own breathing’s become. He quickly takes another pull off his bottle, empties it and sets it down to stand in line with its brothers.
John listens as the steps travel down the hall, stop in front of the kitchen before the door opens with the familiar creak.
He wants to tell Jim to leave him be, get back to bed and dream of Jesus, lollipops and candy canes, but the fist that’s been twisting his stomach into knots all day reaches up and closes around his throat like it’s made of play-doh.
He hears a chair scrape across the floor as Jim sits down next to him, his hands folded on the table.
John feels something in his chest stir nervously. His eyes snap open as he pops the cap off another beer. He belatedly thinks to offer one to his friend, but Jim refuses with a quick shake of his head. “Not on an empty stomach.”
John tips his head forward. He couldn’t even muster up the strength to nibble at his sandwich during dinner. Not with the way Dean kept shooting him those long, sad looks that John doesn’t even want to think about.
He isn’t sure why Jim didn’t eat. Doesn't want to think about that, either.
“I tried to tell ‘im sorry, y’know,” he whispers, his voice scratching through the thick layer of alcohol in his throat.
Jim ducks his head in a way that’s very definitely not agreeing.
“I did,” John presses on. “He just…I got no idea what his problem is, Jim.”
That’s a lie, even though it really isn’t. Sometimes it feels like John doesn’t know where one problem begins and the other ends and which ones are his or Dean’s.
Even when he sets out to keep his kids alive, he ends up almost beating their heads in.
“You need to talk to him.” Jim’s voice is too loud and too quiet and he doesn’t make any sense.
John opens himself another beer.
He tried to apologize. Went to rub arnica on Dean’s face and all the kid did was flinch and hunch his shoulders with his lips sucked in between his teeth and his eyes focused too closely on the crucifix behind John’s head.
“I just told you - “ John starts, but Jim cuts him off and his voice is dark and harsh and John almost doesn’t recognize the sound of it.
“You know I’m not talking about today.”
John’s breath is loud and shaky when he releases it, fighting the irrational urge to hang on to the table. He grabs his bottle instead.
“Well, I’m not talkin’ about Fort Douglas.”
He isn’t even trying to be a stubborn bastard. Jim can quote scripture at him all his wants, talking about that bright, kid-killing light he sees every time he closes his eyes isn’t going to happen. John scratches his fingers over the wet label of his beer until it comes peeling off in tiny white strings that stick under his short nails.
“Remember the time he ‘borrowed’ money from the donation box for the ice cream truck?”
John glares.
Of course he remembers. It’s Jim’s covert way of saying John didn’t use to dangle guilt over their heads like this. John used to know how to handle his kids being kids, but if you asked him to do it today it’d be as impossible as growing wings and flying around the steeple. Even worse, because John knows a couple of people who could probably help him out with the wings thing if he came up with the right bribes.
“He didn’t steal money for candy this time,” John rasps even though his throat and chest and fucking everything hurts.
He turns away from Jim as much as possible without moving his chair. All he wants is for his friend to fuck off and go away, but he can’t very well tell him that in his own house, so he keeps staring at the darkness between here and the far wall and waits for Jim to get the hint.
It doesn’t work. Jim just keeps sitting there; silent.
“I didn’t mean to hit him, you know that, right?” John tells the wall behind Jim’s head. He gives his bottle a quick spin and watches it topple over with a soft ringing sound. Jim reaches out to stop it from rolling off the table.
“I know,” he says slowly and John couldn’t meet his eyes even if he could see them in the dark. “Does Dean?”
John stares. He wants to say yes, of course Dean knows, but the answer dies on his lips.
“I’m not having this conversation,” he mumbles. He has to use both his arms, palms flat on the table to push himself to his feet.
|Part III|