(Fic) Writer Picks the Music: CrossRoad Blues
John Winchester stood in the center of the crossroads with a box in his hand. It was a full moon, and the world was painted in blue-green light, from the flat blades of grass on all sides of the road to the gravel beneath his feet that had become a cold alien landscape of sharp edges and shadows. He had not begun to dig a hole for his box. He just wanted to breathe the clean night air for a moment before he dug himself down and called the demon.
He had to bring her back, he knew. The boys needed their mother, and he-he needed his Mary. His finger stroked the top of his little cherrywood box as her face appeared in his mind, smiling. And distant.
“I’m sorry, Mary,” he whispered. “I can’t do this anymore.” She would know, she would understand. When she was back, sitting next to him in the Impala where she belonged with the kids in the backseat, they would drive until they found one of Bobby’s hideout cabins. They’d make a home for the boys. He would keep them all safe, and she would raise them to be stronger and better men than their father. They would make the most of their ten years, and then-
A young child’s waking cry startled John, and he nearly dropped the box in the road. His head jerked up towards the car parked well away from the crossroads, so far away that he was surprised that he’d heard Sammy at all. “Kid’s got some lungs, Mary,” he said hoarsely. In the moonlight he caught a flash of bright blue fabric topped by a sandy blonde mop of hair raise in the front seat and then slip over the bench into the back where Sam’s car seat was strapped down. Dean was on the job, as usual, and Sammy’s cries soon softened and stopped. John huffed out a mirthless laugh.
He should have left them with Missouri, but he knew he wouldn’t have borne up under the look she would have given him. He could have left them at Bobby’s place, but then how would he have explained things when he and Mary showed up on the old hunter’s porch to reclaim their sons? And Pastor Jim was out of the question, for what he was about to do. Better if they simply slipped away from the life and let his few friends wonder for a couple of years.
Ten years to be exact.
As he gazed at the car windows he saw the sandy crown of hair glimmering just a little over the top of the bench seat. Dean was looking out of the windshield. Looking for him.
Could he see his father, standing in the middle of the road like a directionless fool? John’s hands began to tremble, still gripping the summoning box.
One second he stood staring at the sliver of pale hair through the windshield. Then he fell to his knees. The box tumbled out of his hands and its lid slipped open. He saw his own photo gazing impassively up at him beside the curved teeth protruding from the skull of a black cat.
Ten years. If he was lucky. If no one found them first. If Mary didn’t get fed up with him and take the kids and leave-
And leave herself in danger. Without him.
Even if he got a full ten years of living with their little family, he’d be leaving them, the boys would only be ten and fourteen, alone. Defenseless.
And Mary-
Mary. Who’d already lost everyone in her life, and who’d lost her chance to build a new one with John and the boys.
Mary would never forgive him.
John stared down at the little picture he’d placed in the summoning box. It was from a photo of himself with her, just after their wedding day. He’d torn it in half and tucked her into his jacket pocket. He looked until, in a sudden burst, his hand reached out and slapped the box away.
It tumbled into the dust at the edge of the crossroads, lid fully gone now. The cat skull lay by itself a yard from his knee. The other contents spilled dark against the gravel in the blue-green light. The picture settled by the box, one corner raised, until a breeze pushed at it and it skittered across the dark dust of spell ingredients, and came to rest in the tall grass at the edge of the road.
He let it go.
*****
When he walked back to the car the box was tucked under his elbow, the skull rattling inside it. He couldn’t see his son’s head over the seat anymore, and hoped that Dean had nodded off again. As he walked he opened his leather journal and found the page that had brought him here. Across the top he’d written in capital letters
Robert Johnson?
After he found the hoodoo guy in Georgia, he’d added his list of ingredients and notes, scrawling them across the page, the ballpoint pen digging deep into the paper. Before he got to the car he’d ripped the page out, along with the next one underneath it, and tucked the pages into his coat pocket next to the picture of his Mary.
He opened the rear passenger door of the Impala, willing it to be silent, but of course it creaked and squealed at him. It didn’t matter to the two little occupants of the back seat, one asleep and one wide awake. Little Sammy was breathing softly around the edges of his pacifier, which he chewed absently now and then, without stirring. Dean stared up at his father and did not speak.
“You did good, son,” John croaked at him. He had the impulse to reach out and ruffle the boy’s hair, but stopped himself. Instead he reached over Dean’s head for the plaid blanket they kept folded in the back window. He spread it out over his two boys, tucking it under Dean’s denim-clad knee. Sammy grasped a corner of the soft fabric in his fist and settled further into his car seat.
“Are you warm enough?” John whispered to Dean. The boy nodded.
John retrieved the box and skull from the roof where he’d left it, closed the noisy door as quietly as he could, and crossed around the back of the car. He climbed into the driver’s seat with a sigh, tossing the box on the passenger seat, and shoved his key into the ignition.
Before he started her up, he caught his son’s gaze in the rearview mirror. The moon was dipping lower now, and in the new gloom of the back seat, all he could see of Dean was a halo of hair and his two gleaming and unblinking eyes. So like his mother’s. He could not meet those eyes.
“Get some rest, Dean,” he said, and turned the key.
Author Notes: Here is my Snowflake Challenge fandom goal for 2019 --A project that I hope to continue regularly over the coming year. It will be a series of short fics and drabbles based on my own SPN playlist. The songs themselves have mostly been used in the show, though this isn't true of all of them, as I've also included some songs that were simply mentioned, that were inspired by fan videos, sung at conventions, or just fit too perfectly not to include.
I plan to begin with the first song on the list and go in order. That said, though, if you have any ideas for pairings of songs with characters, please let me know in the comments! I'm also open to songfic prompts based on the soundtrack of the show. Thanks for reading!
CrossRoad Blues Lyrics, by Robert Johnson:
I went to the crossroad, fell down on my knees
I went to the crossroad, fell down on my knees
Asked the Lord above "have mercy, now save poor Bob, if you please"
Ooh, standin' at the crossroad, tried to flag a ride
Ooh-ee, I tried to flag a ride
Didn't nobody seem to know me, babe, everybody pass me by
Standin' at the crossroad, baby, risin' sun goin' down
Standin' at the crossroad, baby, eee-eee, risin' sun goin' down
I believe to my soul, now, poor Bob is sinkin' down
You can run, you can run, tell my friend Willie Brown
You can run, you can run, tell my friend Willie Brown
That I got the crossroad blues this mornin', Lord, babe, I'm sinkin' down
And I went to the crossroad, mama, I looked east and west
I went to the crossroad, baby, I looked East and West
Lord, I didn't have no sweet woman, ooh well, babe, in my distress
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