Vision - Six (6/15)
Winter 2003. Lawrence County, South Dakota.
Dean doesn’t sleep that night, just lies on the floor and stares at the ceiling. The whiskey bottle is almost empty in the morning, when the first sounds of Bobby getting up penetrate the silence. By the time he comes downstairs, Dean’s got the coffee waiting and bacon and eggs going in a skillet. He gets ‘the look,’ but Bobby’s good at playing along. He doesn’t say a word when Dean knocks the salt and pepper over, and ignores the fact that the now empty bottle of Beam is lounging quite obviously in the trash.
Adam tromps down the stairs around ten-thirty, all sullen and slumping. Dean offers to cook up some food for him, but the kid just glares at him and pulls down a box of cereal. Dean goes back to the couch and starts cleaning his equipment. When he glances into the kitchen after a few minutes, he sees Adam quickly turning his head back to his bowl of cereal.
He smirks and goes back to working on his babies. A shadow stretches across him while he’s going at the Colt .45, and Dean looks up and meets the kid’s eyes with an impatient look.
“What now?”
Kid drops his head, shrugs. Dean’s had about enough of this already. Had to go through it with Sam. Damned if history’s gonna repeat itself with this one.
“You ever handle anything?” he asks the kid, holding up the Colt to illustrate.
He gets a wide-eyed look and a shake of the head in response. Figures.
“Come here,” he tells him, jerking his head to the cushion next to him. Adam shuffles over quickly, and Dean almost smiles when the kid trips over the rug in his haste. Almost. “First thing: never point it near anything you don’t want wasted.”
“But. . . ” Kid takes a deep breath, then challenges him. “I’ve seen you, you and. . . John, Bobby. . . you stick them behind your backs, in the waistbands,” he says, pointing on himself where he means.
Dean smirks at him. “Yeah, well, we’ve been handling these things a hell of a long time. Know what we’re doing. You,” he says, going back to the Colt, “do not. So, don’t point it at anything but a target for the next six months, even if you’re sure it’s empty, and we’ll go from there.”
“You’re going to show me how to shoot?” Kid asks in this utterly amazed voice.
“No,” he snaps, wishing he didn’t feel bad when the kid flinches at his tone. “I’m going to teach you how to protect yourself.” He waits a beat. “There’s a difference.”
“What the difference?” comes Adam’s now hesitant voice.
“This way, maybe Dad won’t kill me when he finds out,” Dean replies with his best attempt at a grin.
Adam looks at him blankly for a little bit, but then finally cracks a smile.
Dean drops his head back down and ignores the way the kid’s dimples make him feel like hunting down another bottle of whiskey to drown in.
***
Kid’s a terrible shot, but they all are when first starting. Sam couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn till he was about nine.
When the sky starts getting dark, Dean shows him how to pack up and they head back towards Bobby’s house. Not bad for an afternoon spent with a complete stranger. The kid never even mentions his mother or what he’s doing here, though, and Dean thinks the attitude and mood swings might be more than just normal teenager shit.
Once in sight of the old house, he starts scanning the drive and yard. It’s not until he spots the black pickup that he realizes what the sinking feeling in his chest is. He hesitates, stops walking and just watches Adam keep going forward. After a few paces, though, Kid turns around and looks at him confused-like. Dean takes a deep breath in and squares his shoulders before starting in again. He’s surprised Dad hadn’t come out and found them. Bobby’s most likely out back working on something. He’d have known what was happening, but maybe he chose to run interference. Wouldn’t be the first time.
They’re both silent as they hit the yard and draw closer to the porch. It’s not like they’d talked up a storm out by the targets, but it was never a heavy, awkward silence like it is now. Pushing open the door and going in first feels like walking into a lion’s den. When he turns the corner and looks up, Dad’s looking back from his spot on the couch. He’s leaning forward with his hands under his chin, and Dean breathes out a little heavily. At least the old man isn’t pacing. That’s the kiss of death, right there. Anything else he can deal with, but Dad walking around like a pissed off tiger is always the prelude to a shouting match.
Dean feels kind of sick when he realizes he’s missed those fights. Used to be, he’d come in sometimes and have to break up Dad and Sammy, drop whatever fast food or ritual ingredients he’d been sent out to get and hustle over to keep the two of them from duking it out.
“Dean.”
He sets the bag of equipment down, deliberately turning his back to them. Adam’s standing just barely in the doorway, a scowl on his face. He’s chewing the inside of his cheek from the looks of it, though, so Kid’s nowhere near as calm as he’s trying to seem. Neither is Dean, for that matter.
The gap where he’s supposed to answer Dad’s unspoken question is just getting bigger and bigger, so he starts pointlessly rifling through the bag in order to keep his hands busy and his face hidden.
“What were you after?” he asks in a monotone instead.
There’s a heavy sigh and then the sound of Bobby’s couch springs groaning as Dad gets to his feet. He comes close and sets a heavy hand on Dean’s shoulder. It’s gentle and apologetic and supposed to make everything all better. That’s what Sam used to sneer when Dad would go in to pay for gas and the two of them were left in the car. ‘Bet it’ll be candy bars and soda this time. Like everything’s all better,’ he’d say, glaring out the window of the Impala.
He shrugs off Dad’s hand and moves away to the other side of the room. Suddenly, there’s nothing to say. He doesn’t even know why he came here besides some ingrained response to the man telling him to. It’s just habit.
‘You walk out that door, don’t you ever come back.’
“Dean, I don’t know what you’re thinking, but this is not-- ” He stalls, his face falling into those sad lines Dean hardly ever sees anymore. Used to be, Dad looked like that all the time, sad and defeated and lost. Not determined at all. Not driven or reckless.
But then, a lot of things used to be that aren’t anymore. There used to be a place for him, even if it were only riding shotgun in the Impala with Sammy in the back bitching about yet another school they had to leave too early. Now he feels like a stranger. Now he feels like an interloper, some pathetic guy refusing to grow up.
Sam’s not even here. It’s Christmas, the first one in years in which Dean’s seen his father, and now it’s Sammy who’s not here.
He accidentally makes eye contact with Adam, and feels like bashing the fucking kid’s head in for looking so clueless and confused. Everything’s not all better. Everything will never be the same ever again, and it’s all because of this kid.
Dean pushes past him and stalks into the kitchen. He doesn’t know what to do once he’s there, but at least he can breathe again.
“Fucking lied,” he growls, kicking the cabinets and then punching the fridge. He turns around and sees Dad gently pushing Adam farther back into the den while stepping forward, himself. He puts his hands out in a calming gesture and Dean just laughs.
“So that’s what you were doing on all those ‘hunts,’” he sneers. “Got a thing for blondes, huh?”
From the looks of it, Dad’s about one step away from just hauling back and clocking him right in the face, but Dean can’t see the point in stopping now.
“Is this one better than the last?” At his dad’s reluctantly blank look, he adds, jerking his head in Adam’s direction, “He got any brothers or sisters? Mom died and you fucked up with me and Sammy, so now you’re starting ov-- ?”
He doesn’t even finish the sentence before he’s being shoved back against the fridge so hard he bites his tongue and smacks his head.
“Shut up,” his dad warns him, voice so low it’s like rumbling thunder. His hands are fisted in Dean’s shirt, keeping him pinned to the refrigerator. “It isn’t like that, and you know it.”
“Like you just gave up on us and went to greener pastures?”
Dad closes his eyes and growls in frustration. Then he looks back at Dean and shakes him a little. “Stop it! I didn’t abandon you or Sam. I didn’t leave. I didn’t even know he existed until last year, okay?! It was just. . . ” He stops, and Dean can see him searching for the right words, for how to say it without making it sound as bad as it is.
Dean sighs and looks past him. Adam’s standing in the doorway with a wounded expression on his face, and he meets Dean’s eyes with something like morbid curiosity after awhile.
Eventually Dad lets go of him and steps back. Dean avoids the old man’s eyes and just slumps against the fridge some more. His head hurts where he’s pretty certain there’s now a lump forming, and he can taste blood in his mouth.
But when he thinks about it, he’s pretty sure he knows the score now, knows why Adam’s here instead of with his mother back in Minnesota.
“When’d it happen?” he asks quietly. And when the answer comes, it’s not his dad doing the talking for once.
“My mom was killed three months ago,” Adam tells him, all huge green eyes and expressive eyebrows. He’s even got the little tilt to his mouth when he talks, the tugging up in the right corner like Dad. Like Sammy.
“Do we know what did it?” Dean asks, not realizing until later that he’d immediately latched onto the idea of a ‘what,’ and not a ‘who’ as being responsible.
Vision - Seven
Dean doesn’t sleep that night, just lies on the floor and stares at the ceiling. The whiskey bottle is almost empty in the morning, when the first sounds of Bobby getting up penetrate the silence. By the time he comes downstairs, Dean’s got the coffee waiting and bacon and eggs going in a skillet. He gets ‘the look,’ but Bobby’s good at playing along. He doesn’t say a word when Dean knocks the salt and pepper over, and ignores the fact that the now empty bottle of Beam is lounging quite obviously in the trash.
Adam tromps down the stairs around ten-thirty, all sullen and slumping. Dean offers to cook up some food for him, but the kid just glares at him and pulls down a box of cereal. Dean goes back to the couch and starts cleaning his equipment. When he glances into the kitchen after a few minutes, he sees Adam quickly turning his head back to his bowl of cereal.
He smirks and goes back to working on his babies. A shadow stretches across him while he’s going at the Colt .45, and Dean looks up and meets the kid’s eyes with an impatient look.
“What now?”
Kid drops his head, shrugs. Dean’s had about enough of this already. Had to go through it with Sam. Damned if history’s gonna repeat itself with this one.
“You ever handle anything?” he asks the kid, holding up the Colt to illustrate.
He gets a wide-eyed look and a shake of the head in response. Figures.
“Come here,” he tells him, jerking his head to the cushion next to him. Adam shuffles over quickly, and Dean almost smiles when the kid trips over the rug in his haste. Almost. “First thing: never point it near anything you don’t want wasted.”
“But. . . ” Kid takes a deep breath, then challenges him. “I’ve seen you, you and. . . John, Bobby. . . you stick them behind your backs, in the waistbands,” he says, pointing on himself where he means.
Dean smirks at him. “Yeah, well, we’ve been handling these things a hell of a long time. Know what we’re doing. You,” he says, going back to the Colt, “do not. So, don’t point it at anything but a target for the next six months, even if you’re sure it’s empty, and we’ll go from there.”
“You’re going to show me how to shoot?” Kid asks in this utterly amazed voice.
“No,” he snaps, wishing he didn’t feel bad when the kid flinches at his tone. “I’m going to teach you how to protect yourself.” He waits a beat. “There’s a difference.”
“What the difference?” comes Adam’s now hesitant voice.
“This way, maybe Dad won’t kill me when he finds out,” Dean replies with his best attempt at a grin.
Adam looks at him blankly for a little bit, but then finally cracks a smile.
Dean drops his head back down and ignores the way the kid’s dimples make him feel like hunting down another bottle of whiskey to drown in.
***
Kid’s a terrible shot, but they all are when first starting. Sam couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn till he was about nine.
When the sky starts getting dark, Dean shows him how to pack up and they head back towards Bobby’s house. Not bad for an afternoon spent with a complete stranger. The kid never even mentions his mother or what he’s doing here, though, and Dean thinks the attitude and mood swings might be more than just normal teenager shit.
Once in sight of the old house, he starts scanning the drive and yard. It’s not until he spots the black pickup that he realizes what the sinking feeling in his chest is. He hesitates, stops walking and just watches Adam keep going forward. After a few paces, though, Kid turns around and looks at him confused-like. Dean takes a deep breath in and squares his shoulders before starting in again. He’s surprised Dad hadn’t come out and found them. Bobby’s most likely out back working on something. He’d have known what was happening, but maybe he chose to run interference. Wouldn’t be the first time.
They’re both silent as they hit the yard and draw closer to the porch. It’s not like they’d talked up a storm out by the targets, but it was never a heavy, awkward silence like it is now. Pushing open the door and going in first feels like walking into a lion’s den. When he turns the corner and looks up, Dad’s looking back from his spot on the couch. He’s leaning forward with his hands under his chin, and Dean breathes out a little heavily. At least the old man isn’t pacing. That’s the kiss of death, right there. Anything else he can deal with, but Dad walking around like a pissed off tiger is always the prelude to a shouting match.
Dean feels kind of sick when he realizes he’s missed those fights. Used to be, he’d come in sometimes and have to break up Dad and Sammy, drop whatever fast food or ritual ingredients he’d been sent out to get and hustle over to keep the two of them from duking it out.
“Dean.”
He sets the bag of equipment down, deliberately turning his back to them. Adam’s standing just barely in the doorway, a scowl on his face. He’s chewing the inside of his cheek from the looks of it, though, so Kid’s nowhere near as calm as he’s trying to seem. Neither is Dean, for that matter.
The gap where he’s supposed to answer Dad’s unspoken question is just getting bigger and bigger, so he starts pointlessly rifling through the bag in order to keep his hands busy and his face hidden.
“What were you after?” he asks in a monotone instead.
There’s a heavy sigh and then the sound of Bobby’s couch springs groaning as Dad gets to his feet. He comes close and sets a heavy hand on Dean’s shoulder. It’s gentle and apologetic and supposed to make everything all better. That’s what Sam used to sneer when Dad would go in to pay for gas and the two of them were left in the car. ‘Bet it’ll be candy bars and soda this time. Like everything’s all better,’ he’d say, glaring out the window of the Impala.
He shrugs off Dad’s hand and moves away to the other side of the room. Suddenly, there’s nothing to say. He doesn’t even know why he came here besides some ingrained response to the man telling him to. It’s just habit.
‘You walk out that door, don’t you ever come back.’
“Dean, I don’t know what you’re thinking, but this is not-- ” He stalls, his face falling into those sad lines Dean hardly ever sees anymore. Used to be, Dad looked like that all the time, sad and defeated and lost. Not determined at all. Not driven or reckless.
But then, a lot of things used to be that aren’t anymore. There used to be a place for him, even if it were only riding shotgun in the Impala with Sammy in the back bitching about yet another school they had to leave too early. Now he feels like a stranger. Now he feels like an interloper, some pathetic guy refusing to grow up.
Sam’s not even here. It’s Christmas, the first one in years in which Dean’s seen his father, and now it’s Sammy who’s not here.
He accidentally makes eye contact with Adam, and feels like bashing the fucking kid’s head in for looking so clueless and confused. Everything’s not all better. Everything will never be the same ever again, and it’s all because of this kid.
Dean pushes past him and stalks into the kitchen. He doesn’t know what to do once he’s there, but at least he can breathe again.
“Fucking lied,” he growls, kicking the cabinets and then punching the fridge. He turns around and sees Dad gently pushing Adam farther back into the den while stepping forward, himself. He puts his hands out in a calming gesture and Dean just laughs.
“So that’s what you were doing on all those ‘hunts,’” he sneers. “Got a thing for blondes, huh?”
From the looks of it, Dad’s about one step away from just hauling back and clocking him right in the face, but Dean can’t see the point in stopping now.
“Is this one better than the last?” At his dad’s reluctantly blank look, he adds, jerking his head in Adam’s direction, “He got any brothers or sisters? Mom died and you fucked up with me and Sammy, so now you’re starting ov-- ?”
He doesn’t even finish the sentence before he’s being shoved back against the fridge so hard he bites his tongue and smacks his head.
“Shut up,” his dad warns him, voice so low it’s like rumbling thunder. His hands are fisted in Dean’s shirt, keeping him pinned to the refrigerator. “It isn’t like that, and you know it.”
“Like you just gave up on us and went to greener pastures?”
Dad closes his eyes and growls in frustration. Then he looks back at Dean and shakes him a little. “Stop it! I didn’t abandon you or Sam. I didn’t leave. I didn’t even know he existed until last year, okay?! It was just. . . ” He stops, and Dean can see him searching for the right words, for how to say it without making it sound as bad as it is.
Dean sighs and looks past him. Adam’s standing in the doorway with a wounded expression on his face, and he meets Dean’s eyes with something like morbid curiosity after awhile.
Eventually Dad lets go of him and steps back. Dean avoids the old man’s eyes and just slumps against the fridge some more. His head hurts where he’s pretty certain there’s now a lump forming, and he can taste blood in his mouth.
But when he thinks about it, he’s pretty sure he knows the score now, knows why Adam’s here instead of with his mother back in Minnesota.
“When’d it happen?” he asks quietly. And when the answer comes, it’s not his dad doing the talking for once.
“My mom was killed three months ago,” Adam tells him, all huge green eyes and expressive eyebrows. He’s even got the little tilt to his mouth when he talks, the tugging up in the right corner like Dad. Like Sammy.
“Do we know what did it?” Dean asks, not realizing until later that he’d immediately latched onto the idea of a ‘what,’ and not a ‘who’ as being responsible.
Vision - Seven