Part III
Part III
(click to see full size)John tried to think of when things really changed, when he changed. It was easy to say that it was the night Mary died and that would be true. His whole world had changed then. But when Sammy found his journal, his family really changed. Before Sammy knew about hunting; it had been hard keeping up appearances. It was hard to juggle keeping Sammy out of the loop. Keeping up pretenses as a traveling salesman wasn't easy. John knew too damn well that Sammy had always been too smart, too eager to connect the dots.
John had insisted on training. Sammy never got why, though, and to be truthful, who would? John played it up as physical fitness and learning to defend yourself. Of course, Dean did it, too, and that made it easier. John didn't justify it though; he was the dad and if Dad said run, well, Sam better run. If Dad said drop and give me twenty, Sam had better snap to. PT was as much a punishment as a necessity and it worked pretty well. Some parents put their kids in time outs, John Winchester sent his boys on three-mile runs.
John realized that Sam knew about hunting when John returned home after missing Christmas of '91. It wasn't that Christmas was a big holiday for Winchesters but John tried. Calling himself non-religious was clearly a misnomer. John was not only non-religious, he gave less than shit about Christmas. Still, he usually got the boys a few presents and made it a point to be there. Winchester Christmases were more than likely to be celebrated with some Chinese takeout and a football game. Spending time with the boys was important to him though.
It was important to him to be with the boys and he knew it was important to them, too. When he didn't show up, he should have expected Sam would put two and two together. It wasn't intentional, missing that Christmas. Hunts sometimes happened on holidays because evil never took a holiday, religious or otherwise, but in this case what was supposed to be an easy salt and burn and turned into a clusterfuck of monumental proportions. He'd gotten out safely and had torched the thing, but not in time for Christmas.
When he came back, he knew Sam knew. Sometimes his youngest was an open book. When he asked Dean, the boy didn't lie; he couldn't lie to John. John was angry, he had to admit. The journal was private, at least then it was and privacy for all three Winchesters was a valuable commodity. John realized though that it gave him the opportunity to bring it out into the open. John talked to Sam. He didn't mince words but didn't go into every detail either. Instead of Sam going off the deep end, he seemed almost relieved, as if it all started to make sense.
(click to see full size)But with Sam's knowledge came Sam's worry. Never an easy sleeper, the boy tossed and turned at night. Ragged dreams and night terrors became usual occurrences. John understood; there was scary shit out there and grown men had been known to cower at some of it. More often than not, John found Sam curled against Dean in the morning. Dean never taunted him on it, which was odd, considering he badgered Sam on everything else.
Sometimes watching them sleep together he could almost believe that things would work out. That he would kill the sonofabitch that killed his wife and then he and the boys could get on with their lives.
But almost didn't count.
Sam finding the journal wasn't the way he wanted his youngest to find out the truth if he ever found out at all but ultimately it was so much easier. There was no more dancing around the subject, and now that Sammy knew the score, John upped the ante. Physically, he was harder on both boys. John really started Sam on guns and knives. Research. Hardcore training and fighting tactics. He drilled them both on weapons and what they needed to know to kill whatever needed killing. Salt, silver, cross-thatched bullets, holy water, sometimes wood. Rowan and ash. Herbs and incantations.
John never really explained why it needed to be done other than there was evil out there and John and the boys needed to kill it. That was never enough for Sam. Sammy always wanted to know why. Why everything. On some level, John got it but he didn't have the patience to coddle Sam or explain every fucking detail. Sometimes, Sam just needed to do what John told him to do. Period. Once in a while though, John's gruff, "Figure it out, Sam," was often exactly what Sam needed to hit the research a little harder. A challenge wasn't something Sam Winchester backed down from easily.
Sam never really liked hunting though. He was good, although not as good as Dean. He put in the necessary hours because having John breathing down his neck like a fucking DI worked wonders as incentive. But Sam didn't embrace the life, didn't need it like John and, John was realizing, Dean did. John could feel the tentative hold he had on Sam slipping away sometimes. No matter hard he loved Sam it seemed to make no difference.
Sam knew that John loved him. John had no problem sliding an arm around either boy. A rough tousle to Sammy's long hair. A quick embrace. Once in a while both boys would roughhouse and John would join in leaving them all three of them laughing and a little out of breath.
But John was the first to admit he was tough on both kids. He demanded perfection and that he demanded respect. Dean seemed to get it and Sam did too. Sometimes. Unfortunately, when Sam decided to buck John he seemed to lose all sense of self-preservation. John wouldn't tolerate Sammy and bullshit, something that fact seemed to escape his youngest. It never failed to escalate into a fight that was never going to end well for Sam.
For a smart kid, the boy was sometimes dumber than a rat. Even a rat knew that one way in the maze was cheese and the other was an electrical shock.
Sammy was so stubborn. That stubborn willful toddler turned into a stubborn willful preteen.
"Dad, why can't I play soccer?" Sammy stood in the living room of their rented house.
"You know why, Sammy. We've got work to do."
"No, Dad you've got work to do. I'm a kid. I've got school and soccer." Sam countered with righteous indignation in every syllable.
"You do what I say you have to do and bow hunting is what you are doing." John dismissed Sam right then and there. It was a done deal.
"Dad, that's not fair." Sam wasn't whining - John wouldn't allow for whining, not even for one second, but Sam wasn't backing down either.
John glowered. The stare should have wilted Sam and it would have worked with Dean but Sam just stood steadfast in the face of his wrath.
"Yeah, well, there's not much shit that's fair. Deal with it." John slammed the book had been reading shut with a finality that should have ended it.
"I've got a team depending on me!" Sam's voice though young was forceful.
"You've got a family depending on you too. Bow hunting is what you'll be doing this weekend."
"You're a dictator! Mussolini could have taken tips from you!"
"That's right. I'm a dictator. Another word and you'll eat your dinner standing up and you won't play soccer for the rest of the season."
That stopped Sam because John didn't make idle threats.
They spent the weekend bow hunting.
(click to see full size)Sometimes late at night on a stake out or maybe when he was driving, John would try to reassess, see if he needed to regroup or back off and the answer was always no. He loved Sam and Dean with every ounce of his being. Loving them meant working harder to keep them alive.
The problem was Sam wanted normal and normal was not to be found. Oh, civilians thought things were normal but that didn't make it so. Some folks thought that ignorance was bliss, but John could offer a much clearer picture than that.
Ignorance was not bliss; it was death.
That wasn't even a supernatural thing, it was a natural thing. It had been natural with Deacon and Jim in Vietnam and it was real every time some yahoo figured that he didnít need to lock his door at night because he lived in a "safe" neighborhood. Or some girl walked to her car alone after a late night shift at some bar without watching her own back. Or a drunken idiot figured that he could take on some fugly dude in a bar fight.
Fucking ignorance killed everyone, but for a hunter? Well, knowledge could make all the difference in the world. Because, yeah, he was gonna die and it was probably going to be bloody but it wouldn't be without a fight. Fighting blind was stupid, so for John there was always contingencies for contingencies. Teaching his boys how to take care of themselves was as important as breathing. Knowledge had saved his own ass on more than one occasion, so he learned as much as he could. He read everything he could and he listened to hunters like Bobby Singer - he paid attention to hunters who made it through some bad scrapes, and he bided his time.
Death could be hard, fast, brutal or slow. It was usually messy because in John's experience, that was just the nature of things. There were many ways to die and just because you weren't aware of them didn't change the fact that they were there. So Sammy bitched and whined about how he wanted the white picket fence. And his school friends. And sleepovers. And fucking soccer camp. But that was just not going to happen. Even for the people who thought normal was normal.
It was just a lie.
He might lie about some things, even to his boys, but lie about what could kill them?
Not going to happen. Not if he could help it, except life has a crazy way of throwing curve balls when you signal for a fast pitch and there came a time down the road when he lied about that too.
John taught both boys to fight and to fight dirty. It was a combination of a mutated version of martial arts liberally laced with street fighting.
"Go for the balls if you can boys; that kinda shit will take a man down."
Of course that didn't always work for monsters. Testicular pain didn't necessarily transfer from species to species. But it was as much muscle memory as anything else. Sparring constantly made both boys automatic fighters. John's constant drilling made sure of it.
On a late autumn afternoon, John watched the boys sparring in the back yard. They were pretty damn good. Attack, counter attack, and back again. Suddenly though it deteriorated into a rough and tumble fight. For a moment John thought about intervening. But then he heard both boys giggling and John couldn't help but smile when he heard Sam's indignant, "Dickhead!"
There was a small trickle of blood down at Sam's lip but he obviously could have cared less.
Dean laughed deep and full ñ when did his kid get so big? Dean was big, strong and effortless when he moved. "Bitch."
Then Sam's counter of "Jerk" and Sam moved in, quick and light. A moment later they were both laughing their asses off and Dean was wiping a tear from his right eye that looked well on the way to swelling shut.
John shut the screen door quietly and grinned. Damn kids.
John knew he was tough and hard on the boys. As they grew older, they had more responsibilities. More than most kids, hell more than most people. But they were Winchesters and they were tough.
It was justified. He was justified. He was a hard ass and as mean an SOB as Samuel Campbell and Jacob Winchester combined and it didn't bother him at all. He needed his boys alive and sometimes that meant being an asshole. It was that important to him. They were that important to him.
With each passing year and with everything he learned, his vision became clearer. To save Sam and Dean, he had to make them the toughest hunters alive. Then he had to kill the fucker that killed his wife.
Then and only then would his family be safe.
Once in a while Sam or Dean got a bug up their butt and thought they could make decisions on their own. Usually it was Sam, but Dean had been known to jump the gun every so often. John nipped that shit in the bud. He was their CO. He was their father.
Him.
The buck stopped at John Winchester and just like in the jungles of Vietnam, his family was depending on him. Didn't matter whether it was Echo 2/1 or Sam and Dean. Any poor choices were his, any good decisions were too. The boys were his responsibility.
He gave the orders. He called the shots. He was walking point for his boys. Just like in 'Nam, hunting was about killing them before they killed you. Same concept; different war. But this time, there was no air support, no cease fire coming down the pipeline - not even the possibility of a peace treaty. It was all about who was going to stop breathing first and John wanted to make sure his boys were on the winning team in that particular game.
It was up to John to decide what was best for his family. Only him.
If John was a bit of a loner in Vietnam, he was far worse as a hunter. There was a pretty short list of people he would hunt with and an even shorter list of those he let interact with his boys. Jim, Bobby, Caleb, and Jefferson. Once in a while he would introduce them to an occasional stand-up guy. Hell, he didn't even tell them about Ellen and Bill. But in John's estimation, most hunters were nuts and psychopaths; he really didn't even exclude himself in that category, so putting his sons lives in someone else's hands was just not something he was prepared to do.
So he hunted by himself, something that most hunters chose not to do. It didn't bother John one bit; not having back up meant not having to depend on anyone. Not depending on anyone else made him sharp. It wasn't until Dean was up to snuff and hunting with him that he started two-man hunts.
At first that was almost worse, because he spent more time worrying about Dean and less time focusing on the task at hand. But he learned quickly that Dean was savvy, smart and a good man to have at his back. Dean was born to hunt. The kid was a natural. Sam joined in easy hunts by the time he was fourteen, but just a few salt n burns. It was one of the few times that Dean bucked John's orders.
"He's too young, Dad - he's just a kid."
"You were younger than him."
"Totally different."
"He's going Dean. That's an order."
And damn if Dean didn't stand there, ass against the quarter panel of the Impala, watching Sam as he was getting a soda at some mom and pop gas station.
"You're wrong." The boy turned to face John, looking a hell of a lot older than eighteen.
"Pardon?" John actually stopped pumping gas. He was that surprised.
"He's not ready. Keep him in research, that's where the geek in him shines anyway." Dean kept his eyes focused on John. Not wavering, but not staring him down either. There was just enough deference that John's automatic reaction to give him a sharp cuff was curbed.
"I think maybe you are under the impression that this family is a democracy." John let the pump sit in the Impala's gas tank and straightened up to his full height. He didn't step toward Dean but he didn't need to.
Dean continued to hold his gaze, "No, sir."
"Then it's settled. Next easy hunt, Sammy comes with us."
Dean nodded.
"And Dean?" John turned back to pumping gas. "Don't second guess me again."
Dean didn't answer and that was answer enough.
John could hear the boys fighting in the other room. They'd stopped in some hotel just south of Omaha, and the noise they were making deadened even the rush of his shower.
They fought a lot these days, usually over dumb shit like the remote control or whose turn it was to do the laundry, but real fighting? That usually only happened when John wasn't around. There would be a telltale black eye or an occasional split lip. Sometimes John called them on it and they explained it off as a missed pulled punch. But John knew better. His boys knew how to spar and seldom did anyone ever get hurt. It was okay to fight in John's book - in fact, it was actually encouraged but John didn't hold with his boys trying to kill each other, something they could both probably do, especially now that Sammy was fifteen and Dean nineteen.
Dean was stronger, but Sammy was as slippery as an eel and he knew all Dean's moves, mostly because Dean had taught them to him. From the sounds of it they were turning the motel room into World War III.
"Boys!" John bellowed from the bathroom, wrapping a towel around his waist and opening the bathroom door, steam billowing out around him. Finally, a nice hot shower and his two miscreants were fucking up his ten minutes of bliss.
He didn't even bother to towel off his hair, water dripped on the floor causing an instant squishy puddle in the gray non-descript carpet.
Normally, when John yelled like that that whatever was going on stopped abruptly; in this case though, it didn't seem to faze either kid. They were standing toe-to-toe in a clinch where Dean was able to hold Sammy effectively. Sam however was pummeling Dean with hard sharp hooks to the belly. If John had to guess, he was going for Dean's liver. In which case, Sam really wanted to hurt Dean. Sam was deceptively strong. John knew that and could tell whatever patience Dean might have had was pretty much gone.
It was only a split second but John could see that Dean was going for a throw-down and before John could react, Sam was on his back, hard, on the floor.
"Tap out, shithead." Dean growled low. It wasn't a request.
Sam's only remark to that was to struggle more. "Fuck you."
John moved now - three long steps to Dean where he pulled him off of Sam. To John's amazement, Dean actually kept coming. Sam made another attempt to step back into Dean's space but John managed to maneuver himself between Dean and Sam.
Sam seemed to ignore the fact that his father was standing between him and his brother. John saw the punch coming but couldn't move, otherwise Sam would have hit Dean. Sammy nailed John a hard uppercut to the jaw. Sam didn't have the reach to do much damage but John felt the power behind the punch.
Now that would leave a mark.
A rush of both pride and anger washed over John and then he was dragging Sam bodily away from Dean.
"STAND DOWN!" John roared and that seemed to do the trick.
Both boys stood facing off with John in between, both breathing hard and still glaring at each other.
"What the fuck is the problem?"
Neither boy answered. Both red faced and panting. Not out of breath from the exertion but more from adrenalin.
"I asked you both a question." John demanded, shifting his gaze from Dean to Sam to Dean again.
Silence.
John had less patience than either Sam or Dean combined. Considering he was standing in just a towel in their motel room, physical intimidation seemed a little harder to come by. However, something must have worked because Dean answered.
"Nothing, Dad."
But the kid never moved his gaze from Sam. Sam never stopped eyeballing Dean.
In was an impasse of sorts.
"Nothing huh? Yeah, well this nothin' just earned you both five miles. Maybe you can burn up a little of the obvious excess energy that caused you two to think this motel is a WWW ring. But first police this fuckin' room and get it squared away."
There was still silence.
"You hear me?" John's voice dropped a notch. He meant business.
"Yes, sir." Tandem voices.
John ran a hand through his sopping wet hair and turned back into the bathroom. Then over his shoulder, "Sam, bring me back some ice first it seems I walked into somebody's punch. Which, by the way, better not happen again."
Sam mumbled a yes, sir. John toggled his chin once or twice and then headed back to the shower. Damn kids.
John never did find out what the boys were fighting about. Sometimes he just had to throw that shit out there and hope for the best.
John was hunting a pod of water sprites when Dean called him.
"Sammy's gone, Dad."
"What do ya mean, he's gone?"
"Gone, Dad. He's..." John could hear the tremor in Dean's voice, "...lost."
John could barely keep it together. Sammy gone? Shit, shit and then a quick prayer to a God he didn't believe in anyway. John tried to keep his heart from racing.
The demon. It had to be the demon. John took another quick breath. Centered himself. It wouldn't do any good for him, Dean or even Sam if he couldn't get his shit together.
"Well fuckin' find him then." He growled low.
"Dad, I've looked. Friends. Hangouts. The bus station. The library. I even checked at the damn police station, hospital and..." Dean stuttered, his voice shaking. "...even the morgue. Dad he's not here."
"Jesus, Dean. What the hell happened? Sulfur? EMF? Didja see anything? Damn it, Dean."
"I dunno, I just came home from work and he was gone. His duffel, some clothes. I think he ran away."
"Ran away? He's not a God damned dog, Dean."
"Dad I..."
"I'm leaving now, but shit, I'm a half a day away. You find your brother, you hear?"
There was silence then, damn if John didn't know any better he'd swear Dean was crying.
"DEAN. DEAN! C'mon, boy, talk to me."
Then lower, almost hushed. "It was nothing supernatural, Dad. He just left."
"I'm going to kick his ass from here to Richmond, I swear to God." John rumbled low.
Dean didn't seem to hear, didn't seem to understand, he was so wrapped up in himself.
Oddly enough, Dean who always confident and cocky and self assured stuttered, "What...what if I can't, Dad? What if I can't find him?"
"You find him, Dean. That's an order."
John did wait for the yes, sir. He needed to hear it. Dean needed to say it.
"Yes, sir."
John roared the Impala down highway 66. He was so mad. He couldn't remember a time when he was so mad.
Dean had one job to do. One. Job. That was to watch Sam. To make sure Sam didn't go off on one of his emo bullshit tantrums while John worked a job. If anything happened to Sam, John would never forgive himself. He knew Dean would never forgive himself either which is exactly how he expected it to be. Dean knew he had fucked up and John was counting on that.
He hit the motel room hard and met Dean almost as roughly.
"You heard anything yet?"
"This morning. I think he was seen on Highway 40."
"Forty? Today?"
"No, sir. The day he left. I just found out about it today."
"So what have you been doing for the past three days?"
"I've been looking for him, Dad. Where were you?"
John stepped up to Dean. The kid was big and strong and nineteen but he was nothing compared to John. John didn't make it a habit of hitting his kids. A spanked ass once in a while, a solid cuff when one or the other was being a little shit. But he didn't punch his boys. He could feel his hand tense into a fist.
It would be so easy.
Dean didn't try to run, just lifted his chin as if to say, Right here old man and John thought about it. Dear God, he thought about hitting his boy, but for all the shit that John did, he didn't beat on his kids. It wasn't even Mary's voice in his head offering the rebuke, it was his own.
He was mad. Rage had clouded his vision before but not when it came to his boys.
When it came to monsters or even other people, but not Sammy and not Dean.
He took a deep breath and then grabbed Dean hard by the shirt. He shook him once, like a terrier with a rat and then dropped him hard.
"Get your shit together, we leave in ten."
(click to see full size)Dean found Sam in Flagstaff of all places. With a fucking dog. John was glad Dean found him first. Because John probably would have whaled on his ass right there in the fucking parking lot.
But when he saw Sam, yapping about that damn dog and grinning from ear to ear about his fucking two-week adventure, then Dean's easy grin as he threw an arm over his little brother, a lump caught in his throat.
Sammy was okay. His boy was okay.
Never again. He wasn't going to lose Sam again.
Of course saying that and the truth didn't always jive.
(click to see full size)Sam's leaving for college was hard on John. All John thought about was how Sam wasn't protected. How he was vulnerable. And shit, that demon could get him as well as any other supernatural thing out there.
He trusted that Sam could take care of himself for the most part. Sammy was smart and strong and John knew damn well his boy had spent far too long hunting to ignore everything John had taught him. Besides, despite the Winchester War that went down when Sammy left, John made sure he watched out for him. He swung by Palo Alto when he could. He kept tabs on the kid. While he couldn't say he came to terms with Sam and his self-imposed exile, he learned to live with it.
Dean though, not so much.
John figured it would be harder for Dean. There was a shift in dynamics, in tactics, in everything really. Instead of a three-man team, they were two. Hunting wise, it was an adjustment, having Sam made hunts easier in a lot of ways. The kid was good with a gun, great in research, and as solid as they came when on a hunt. But if hunting had been the only problem, he could have handled it. The problem wasn't Sam.
The problem was Dean.
The kid went off the skids for a bit. Like a slow rolling freight train heading downhill. He gathered impulsion with every fuck up. Dean drank too much. Dean fucked too much, and sometimes, well, he didn't come home at all. John let it happen; he watched Dean flounder and let it go. John understood - up to a point - but he'd already lost one son and there was no way he was going to lose another.
One night after Dean staggered in just this side of drunker than a barrel full of monkeys, John called him on it.
They were living in a cheap apartment just outside of Memphis and John was waiting in the darkened shadows of the living room.
"Welcome home, son." John rumbled ominously.
Dean stood, weaving heavily in the dark.
"Dad." Dean didn't sound angry or worried. Simply stating a fact.
"End of the drama, Dean. This was your last night out."
Dean muzzily looked at John, a bewildered expression filtering through the shadows in the living room on his face. "You groundin' me?"
John stood quietly for a moment.
"It appears so."
Dean made an effort to stand straighter. It wasn't entirely successful.
"Can't ground me, I'm twenty-two." Then to make sure that John completely understood he held both hands up in identical peace signs. It was impressive really because how the kid didn't manage to fall over was anyone's guess.
"Well, I just did. Hit the rack, we'll talk in the morning." John's voice was quiet and low but it was an order and Dean knew it.
Dean shook his head stubbornly. That was almost his undoing - the motion causing him to sway horribly to the right. If not for John's quick reaction his kid would have face planted right there in the living room.
But John caught him before he hit the floor, Dean's entire weight sagging onto John. John moved an arm behind Dean's back and hefted him by his belt then stagger-stepped him into Dean's room. The boy hit the bed with a moan and a sniffle and a second later was snoring.
John pulled off Dean's boots and situated him in what appeared to be the most comfortable position. It was hard to tell but Dean didn't seem to mind.
He stood and watched for a few minutes. His eyes were accustomed to the dark and the moon was bright. The soft moonlight spilled through the dirty window across Dean's face. Except for the dark circles under his eyes and the slight scruff on his chin he looked all of sixteen, his face slack with alcohol and sleep.
The boy's freckles stood out sharply in the light and made him look even younger. John resisted the urge to run his hand through Dean's hair, muss it up even more than it was. Instead, he went to the bathroom, grabbed a cool towel and draped it over Dean's forehead and then dropped a hand to his son's shoulder.
It was the best he could do.
Tightening the reins worked. John knew it would; if there was anything that Dean responded to other than Sam it was a job and an order. Which was odd, considering the only authority he cared about was John. John supposed in terms of being a father, he was the exact opposite of Dr. Spock and permissive parenting. But it worked. Dean logged a lot of punishment miles the fall that Sammy left. He spent a good amount of time doing pushups too. But Dean never resented it; in fact, John sometimes thought the boy pushed the envelope just to get caught. It kept Dean busy, and watching Dean kept John busy, too.
All the time, though, John kept feelers out on the demon. He worked late into the night after Dean was exhausted and asleep - usually after a tough day at Winchester Boot Camp. John thought back on his days in the Marines and collapsing in his bunk at night so exhausted that he didn't even dream. The Marines had a pretty good handle on turning boys full of piss and vinegar into men. John figured if it wasn't broke, why fix it? When John would check on him at night, the boy's even deep breathing indicated a kid too tired to do more than take advantage of his bed.
Eventually though, it all evened out and they fell into an easy camaraderie where John still called the shots but he allowed Dean to start working a bit on his own. Dean had proved he could do it and John had to admit that the kid earned it. He was scary good as a hunter and fitter than he had ever been. At first it was a few easy hunts here and there. Dean jumped at the chance to hunt alone. He probably couldn't wait to get out from under John's thumb and John got that.
Sometimes John imagined what Dean would do when the job was done and how much damage it might cost them both. The boy was randier than a stud colt, and as ornery, too, but he wasn't a little boy anymore and John had to trust that twenty-three years of John Winchester training would pay off in the long run.
Besides, John kept tabs on him. Just like he kept tabs on Sam. They may have thought they were independent kids and John supposed to an extent they were, but it was mostly an illusion. As long as John Winchester was alive, he would be watching out for his boys.
Dean would come back home after a hunt sometimes a little rougher than he left, but clear in his debrief and often adding to the journal. It made a man proud.
Dean hunting solo gave John some time to check up on Sammy too. He never drove the Impala; she was Dean's car now anyway. There was no way that Sam wouldn't hear that car and know that John wasn't around. John tried to convince himself that other parents might be doing the same thing, but he knew that wasn't the case every time he saw a mother or father embrace their son or daughter. He stood in the shadows and watched as Sam walked to class or saw him laughing with a group of boys. Once he saw him with a beautiful blond girl. Then, because he was John Winchester, that wasn't enough, he broke into Sam's apartment and was relieved to see salt lines and sigils. He really hadn't expected anything less but the proof was good to have.
Four years. Four years and nothing from Sam. He knew he spoke to Dean and they relayed messages back and forth. Sort of. Neither John nor Sam was willing to actually talk about the day he left but neither one seemed to be really angry anymore either. It was more of an uneasy truce. A reluctant and non-verbal agreement that neither one wanted to admit to being wrong.
There was no doubt that Sammy had inherited both Mary and John's stubborn genes. It was a combination that made him tougher than either individually.
John sent Dean to New Orleans.
Simple case, really, but it got Dean away from him when John finally hit pay dirt. He had a trail to follow now, convoluted to be sure but clear as day as far as John was concerned. John was like a fucking bloodhound when it came to following a scent.
He wanted Dean nowhere around this yellow-eyed demon. This was something John needed to handle on his own. He figured Dean would go to Sam once he realized that John had slipped off the grid. Whether Sam would leave with Dean? That was the variable in the equation, and it was a chance he had to take.
John's gamble paid off and Sam and Dean were back together again.
It bothered John to leave Dean with nothing but the Impala and a trunk full of weapons, but it was the only way for him to do it. Send the boy off on a hunt and then run as fast as possible in the opposite direction. He had to cut every tie and do it quick and merciless. The boys were safer without him. They were safer not being anywhere around the demon.
John couldn't help but feel a sense of relief to know that Sam and Dean were together again. Both that Sam was back with Dean and that Dean had Sam. Sam and Dean were ying and yang. Neither as good on their own as they were together, and they complimented each other perfectly on a hunt.
He hadn't counted on Sam's girl dying like Mary had; that hadn't even crossed his mind. For that he was pissed. Pissed at himself for not putting the pattern together, pissed he hadn't been able to save Jessica. Most of all, though, he was pissed that Sam had to go through what he'd gone through. John would have done anything to have been able to keep his boys from that kind of pain.
(click to see full size)John knew the boys wanted him, needed him, even, but it wasn't something he could do. Going to them when Dean called from Lawrence, when Sam called about the fucking Rawhead getting Dean, God he wanted to. It killed him that he didn't. But he was so close now... If he had gone, it could have lead Azazel straight to Sam and Dean. And if it was the last thing he did, he was going to deny that bastard his children.
So when he felt it safe enough, he sent them on their own hunts, comfortable that Dean would lead and Sam would follow. His saved their messages, even as the pain skittering through their voices broke against his heart. He listened when he needed them close, and he found ways to keep them busy. Keep moving, keep alive. If they were together, he knew they'd be safe.
And if they were safe, then John could follow the signs, find this yellow-eyed bastard, and finish this. He'd find them again when it was done. This was just the beginning of the end.
There was comfort in that.
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Author's Notes and Soundtrack