[FIC] Father's Gun (1/?)
Title: Father's Gun
Authors: diana_lucifera & tersichore
Pairing: Dean/Sam
Rating: Mature
Warnings: minor character death, mentions of torture, the slowest of burns, and excessive bed-sharing
Summary: After the events of "Brother's Blood," Sam and Dean are faced with teaming up with John to hunt the Yellow-Eyed Demon, all while keeping Sam's powers a secret and dodging their dad's questions about just why things between them are so... different.
Series Master Post | Previous Fic
John’s first thought when he hears the all too familiar tone telling him he’s got a new voicemail is, “Goddammit, it’s Sam again.”
It’s just a guess, but that’s the kind of day John’s been having.
He’s been in Chicago for a while now, playing cat and mouse with one of Yellow Eyes’ lackies - its second in command, if the bitch he exorcised in Topeka can be believed. The thing’s already dropped two bodies trying to set a trap for John, a pair of locked-door murders of former Lawrence residents that John, in spite of himself, has refused to get involved in.
They’re at a stalemate, John moving on to his fourth motel after yet another failed attempt to draw the demon into his own trap went belly-up this morning, and he’s starting to question if he’s wasted all this time he could have spent looking for the Colt on a demon who might not even be worth it, might not even know the secret he’s trying desperately to unravel. The answer to the question that’s been haunting John for months, that keeps him up at night, makes him swear he can still hear that demon’s voice from all those months ago whispering in the dark: “It’s all about the blood.”
The voicemail notification sounds again. John almost, almost doesn’t listen to it.
He always checks them eventually, even though only about 1 in 10 is actually worth his time. He’s got to put up with the rest - Sam swearing at him, Bobby telling him off, Ellen’s nagging - because occasionally there’s one from Caleb or Jim with information about demon sightings and because Dean’s semi-frequent status reports are important and sometimes even useful.
Even as he reaches over to click off “Airplane Blues” and dig the cell out of his truck’s center console, he’s already regretting it. Knows there’s just going to be another one of Sam’s angry rants waiting for him, calls growing more frequent and somehow even more venomous ever since Dean’s close call with that taser and then again after John sent them off after a pagan god playing at being a scarecrow to shake them off his trail.
But it isn’t Sam’s voice he hears when he holds the phone up to his ear.
It’s Dean’s.
It’s Dean, telling John that he and Sam are in Chicago, too, that they think they’ve got a lead on the thing that killed their mom, that they’re going after it tonight.
It feels like John’s heart stops.
All of this running, sending them off in the opposite direction, refusing to answer their calls, and here they are anyway, walking right into a trap set for John. Or Hell, he thinks as he makes a U-turn so tight it has the tires squealing, maybe they are the trap.
It wouldn’t be the first time this bastard and his cronies have tried to use John’s boys against him.
He’s still trying to come up with the best plan of action when he pulls up outside the warehouse at 1435 West Erie. He hasn’t been seeing the right signs, knows it can’t be the yellow-eyed bastard himself, but even if it’s the one he’s been hunting, the Demon’s lieutenant, it’s still plenty dangerous. John never taught Sam and Dean to fight demons, not really - didn’t really think there’d be much use in it, seeing as how up ‘til now they’ve been so rare.
If that gap in their training has gotten his boys killed-
John doesn’t have time to finish that thought, because one of the warehouse windows is exploding and there’s a small, blonde figure plummeting through the air, landing on the cement with a thud. Sam and Dean appear at the window after a moment, a bit banged up but alive and apparently no longer in danger. They stare down at the still, mangled body spread out on the tarmac for a few moments before disappearing back inside.
John slips back into the alley as his boys stumble out of the warehouse as quickly as they can, bickering in hushed voices over who’s more hurt and who should drive, tossing overloaded duffle bags into the backseat of the Impala.
They’re fine. Whatever it was they went up against tonight, it was something they could handle. Maybe it had nothing to do with Yellow Eyes at all. John’s never been happier to get a false lead.
He could leave without them even noticing, go back to tracking down the big fish in town, let Sam and Dean move on while he hides in the shadows just like he did in Lawrence. But it had been hard enough to do it then, and John can’t shake that heart-sinking feeling that had rocketed through him after listening to Dean’s message. It’s been eight months since he’s seen Sam, even longer since he’s seen Dean, and for all he knows, this may be the last chance he has.
It’s stupid and almost certainly dangerous for him to be around them - around Sam - right now, but God, does he want to.
He can break his own rule once, he tells himself. Just once, and just for half an hour. Then he and his boys will go their separate ways again.
John won’t let them get involved in his war. Not yet. Not until the time is right.
Not until he knows the truth.
~
The first thing Sam does when he and Dean walk in and find John in their hotel room is start throwing punches. John’s really not sure why he expected this to go any different.
“Sam,” he tries, blocking a particularly well-executed right hook. “Calm down, son.”
Sam snarls, actually snarls, in response and cracks a fist into John’s jaw so hard that it makes his vision spin.
It’s a good hit. Sam’s gotten stronger since John fought him at that gas station on the way to Louisiana. Hunting’s doing him some good after all, John thinks. He’s gotten faster, too, so fast that John almost takes another blow before he manages to deflect it. John’s not surprised by Sam’s skill or his fury, but he is surprised that he has to doge three more hits before Dean finally shoulders his way between them.
“All right, that’s enough,” he says, putting a hand on each of Sam’s shoulders and gently - so much more gently than John remembers - pushing Sam backwards and away from John. “Cut it out, Holyfield.”
Sam’s letting out heavy breaths, face still pinched into an angry sneer.
“Dean,” he grits out. “After what he-”
“We talked about this,” Dean says in a lower, softer voice. “You’re the one who’s been pushing so hard for us to find him. I’ve been assumin’ that wasn’t just to punch his face in.”
“Well, not just for that,” Sam grumbles after a moment, flicking his eyes up to the ceiling.
“Then take a breather,” Dean tells him. “Lemme talk to him.”
Sam opens his mouth to protest as Dean turns, reaches out and grasps the elbow of Dean’s jacket between his thumb and forefinger, gives a little insistent tug like he’s trying to get big brother to play army men, but Dean shakes it off easily, tossing a look back at his brother that John can’t define. Sam’s frown deepens, but he shoulders one of the duffle bags and tosses it onto one of the beds, digging through it to sort out the weapons he has stashed there.
Dean shoves his hands deep into his pockets and gives John a nod in greeting. He can’t quite seem to look John in the eye.
“Hey, Dad,” he says. “S’been a long time.”
“Hello, son,” John says, smiling softly.
It’s damn good to see him, no matter what the circumstances. John hasn’t forgotten those long weeks of worry from last year and how relieved he’d been to hear those words from his boy: ‘I’m alive.’
“Dad, it was a trap,” Dean says, looking down at his shoes. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”
On the other side of the room, Sam snaps his shotgun closed like a threat, glowering at John from underneath his fringe.
“Yeah,” John tells Dean, smile feeling more pasted on by the second, “I figured it might be. This isn’t the first time it’s tried something like this.”
“Would’ve been nice to have a heads up, then,” Sam interjects.
“Sammy,” Dean says warningly, and Sam sets his jaw and starts unwinding the holster on one of his wrists.
John looks between the two of them, furrowing his brow.
“Listen, boys-” he starts.
But he never gets a chance to finish, because suddenly there’s an unseen hand throwing him backwards with enough force that his feet leave the ground.
Crashing into the kitchenette forces the air out of his lungs, and John gasps open-mouthed as he struggles to escape the invisible hands pinning him to the counter. Dean yells out in shock and is sent flying in the opposite direction, while Sam lunges for the weapons bag and get slashed across the torso for his trouble.
The same claws that send Sam’s blood splattering against the wallpaper are working on John, too. He screams as they rip furrows in his flesh, quick and shallow, taking him apart slow and painful. They’re still working on Dean, throwing him back down every time he tries to stand, and John loses track of Sam completely until he hears a yell over the chaos and realizes that Sam has managed to crawl his way back to his duffle.
“Shut your eyes!” Sam yells, brandishing a flare. “These things are shadow demons! So let’s turn on the light!”
The second Sam lights the flare, the creatures let go of John. He keeps his eyes pinched shut, letting Dean manhandle him out of the building. As soon as they spill out into the darkness, Sam drops the bag of weapons and is at Dean’s side, hands nervously skittering across his brother’s chest.
“Are you okay?” he pants out, eyes wild. “Did they-”
“I’m fine,” Dean grumbles, pulling Sam’s hand away from where he’s thumbing across one of the deep gashes in his forehead. “We need to go, Sammy.”
“Yeah,” Sam agrees after a moment. “They’ll be back once the flare goes out again.”
He throws open one of the back doors of the Impala, tosses his bag in, and motions impatiently for John to follow.
John hesitates. His hunter’s instincts are yelling at him to get into his truck and put as much road between him and the boys as he can. But that same small, quiet part of John that had pushed him to come to the motel in the first place is telling him that he needs to stick with his sons. They’re beat to hell, vulnerable. If they don’t manage to shake off those shadow demons, John isn’t sure Sam and Dean can survive a third assault.
He glances as Dean but can’t catch his gaze.
“Let’s go!” Sam presses, eyes darting anxiously between the motel room window and John.
It’s just until he’s sure they’re all right, John thinks. It won’t have to change anything.
He gets into the car.
Chapter 2
Authors: diana_lucifera & tersichore
Pairing: Dean/Sam
Rating: Mature
Warnings: minor character death, mentions of torture, the slowest of burns, and excessive bed-sharing
Summary: After the events of "Brother's Blood," Sam and Dean are faced with teaming up with John to hunt the Yellow-Eyed Demon, all while keeping Sam's powers a secret and dodging their dad's questions about just why things between them are so... different.
Series Master Post | Previous Fic
John’s first thought when he hears the all too familiar tone telling him he’s got a new voicemail is, “Goddammit, it’s Sam again.”
It’s just a guess, but that’s the kind of day John’s been having.
He’s been in Chicago for a while now, playing cat and mouse with one of Yellow Eyes’ lackies - its second in command, if the bitch he exorcised in Topeka can be believed. The thing’s already dropped two bodies trying to set a trap for John, a pair of locked-door murders of former Lawrence residents that John, in spite of himself, has refused to get involved in.
They’re at a stalemate, John moving on to his fourth motel after yet another failed attempt to draw the demon into his own trap went belly-up this morning, and he’s starting to question if he’s wasted all this time he could have spent looking for the Colt on a demon who might not even be worth it, might not even know the secret he’s trying desperately to unravel. The answer to the question that’s been haunting John for months, that keeps him up at night, makes him swear he can still hear that demon’s voice from all those months ago whispering in the dark: “It’s all about the blood.”
The voicemail notification sounds again. John almost, almost doesn’t listen to it.
He always checks them eventually, even though only about 1 in 10 is actually worth his time. He’s got to put up with the rest - Sam swearing at him, Bobby telling him off, Ellen’s nagging - because occasionally there’s one from Caleb or Jim with information about demon sightings and because Dean’s semi-frequent status reports are important and sometimes even useful.
Even as he reaches over to click off “Airplane Blues” and dig the cell out of his truck’s center console, he’s already regretting it. Knows there’s just going to be another one of Sam’s angry rants waiting for him, calls growing more frequent and somehow even more venomous ever since Dean’s close call with that taser and then again after John sent them off after a pagan god playing at being a scarecrow to shake them off his trail.
But it isn’t Sam’s voice he hears when he holds the phone up to his ear.
It’s Dean’s.
It’s Dean, telling John that he and Sam are in Chicago, too, that they think they’ve got a lead on the thing that killed their mom, that they’re going after it tonight.
It feels like John’s heart stops.
All of this running, sending them off in the opposite direction, refusing to answer their calls, and here they are anyway, walking right into a trap set for John. Or Hell, he thinks as he makes a U-turn so tight it has the tires squealing, maybe they are the trap.
It wouldn’t be the first time this bastard and his cronies have tried to use John’s boys against him.
He’s still trying to come up with the best plan of action when he pulls up outside the warehouse at 1435 West Erie. He hasn’t been seeing the right signs, knows it can’t be the yellow-eyed bastard himself, but even if it’s the one he’s been hunting, the Demon’s lieutenant, it’s still plenty dangerous. John never taught Sam and Dean to fight demons, not really - didn’t really think there’d be much use in it, seeing as how up ‘til now they’ve been so rare.
If that gap in their training has gotten his boys killed-
John doesn’t have time to finish that thought, because one of the warehouse windows is exploding and there’s a small, blonde figure plummeting through the air, landing on the cement with a thud. Sam and Dean appear at the window after a moment, a bit banged up but alive and apparently no longer in danger. They stare down at the still, mangled body spread out on the tarmac for a few moments before disappearing back inside.
John slips back into the alley as his boys stumble out of the warehouse as quickly as they can, bickering in hushed voices over who’s more hurt and who should drive, tossing overloaded duffle bags into the backseat of the Impala.
They’re fine. Whatever it was they went up against tonight, it was something they could handle. Maybe it had nothing to do with Yellow Eyes at all. John’s never been happier to get a false lead.
He could leave without them even noticing, go back to tracking down the big fish in town, let Sam and Dean move on while he hides in the shadows just like he did in Lawrence. But it had been hard enough to do it then, and John can’t shake that heart-sinking feeling that had rocketed through him after listening to Dean’s message. It’s been eight months since he’s seen Sam, even longer since he’s seen Dean, and for all he knows, this may be the last chance he has.
It’s stupid and almost certainly dangerous for him to be around them - around Sam - right now, but God, does he want to.
He can break his own rule once, he tells himself. Just once, and just for half an hour. Then he and his boys will go their separate ways again.
John won’t let them get involved in his war. Not yet. Not until the time is right.
Not until he knows the truth.
~
The first thing Sam does when he and Dean walk in and find John in their hotel room is start throwing punches. John’s really not sure why he expected this to go any different.
“Sam,” he tries, blocking a particularly well-executed right hook. “Calm down, son.”
Sam snarls, actually snarls, in response and cracks a fist into John’s jaw so hard that it makes his vision spin.
It’s a good hit. Sam’s gotten stronger since John fought him at that gas station on the way to Louisiana. Hunting’s doing him some good after all, John thinks. He’s gotten faster, too, so fast that John almost takes another blow before he manages to deflect it. John’s not surprised by Sam’s skill or his fury, but he is surprised that he has to doge three more hits before Dean finally shoulders his way between them.
“All right, that’s enough,” he says, putting a hand on each of Sam’s shoulders and gently - so much more gently than John remembers - pushing Sam backwards and away from John. “Cut it out, Holyfield.”
Sam’s letting out heavy breaths, face still pinched into an angry sneer.
“Dean,” he grits out. “After what he-”
“We talked about this,” Dean says in a lower, softer voice. “You’re the one who’s been pushing so hard for us to find him. I’ve been assumin’ that wasn’t just to punch his face in.”
“Well, not just for that,” Sam grumbles after a moment, flicking his eyes up to the ceiling.
“Then take a breather,” Dean tells him. “Lemme talk to him.”
Sam opens his mouth to protest as Dean turns, reaches out and grasps the elbow of Dean’s jacket between his thumb and forefinger, gives a little insistent tug like he’s trying to get big brother to play army men, but Dean shakes it off easily, tossing a look back at his brother that John can’t define. Sam’s frown deepens, but he shoulders one of the duffle bags and tosses it onto one of the beds, digging through it to sort out the weapons he has stashed there.
Dean shoves his hands deep into his pockets and gives John a nod in greeting. He can’t quite seem to look John in the eye.
“Hey, Dad,” he says. “S’been a long time.”
“Hello, son,” John says, smiling softly.
It’s damn good to see him, no matter what the circumstances. John hasn’t forgotten those long weeks of worry from last year and how relieved he’d been to hear those words from his boy: ‘I’m alive.’
“Dad, it was a trap,” Dean says, looking down at his shoes. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”
On the other side of the room, Sam snaps his shotgun closed like a threat, glowering at John from underneath his fringe.
“Yeah,” John tells Dean, smile feeling more pasted on by the second, “I figured it might be. This isn’t the first time it’s tried something like this.”
“Would’ve been nice to have a heads up, then,” Sam interjects.
“Sammy,” Dean says warningly, and Sam sets his jaw and starts unwinding the holster on one of his wrists.
John looks between the two of them, furrowing his brow.
“Listen, boys-” he starts.
But he never gets a chance to finish, because suddenly there’s an unseen hand throwing him backwards with enough force that his feet leave the ground.
Crashing into the kitchenette forces the air out of his lungs, and John gasps open-mouthed as he struggles to escape the invisible hands pinning him to the counter. Dean yells out in shock and is sent flying in the opposite direction, while Sam lunges for the weapons bag and get slashed across the torso for his trouble.
The same claws that send Sam’s blood splattering against the wallpaper are working on John, too. He screams as they rip furrows in his flesh, quick and shallow, taking him apart slow and painful. They’re still working on Dean, throwing him back down every time he tries to stand, and John loses track of Sam completely until he hears a yell over the chaos and realizes that Sam has managed to crawl his way back to his duffle.
“Shut your eyes!” Sam yells, brandishing a flare. “These things are shadow demons! So let’s turn on the light!”
The second Sam lights the flare, the creatures let go of John. He keeps his eyes pinched shut, letting Dean manhandle him out of the building. As soon as they spill out into the darkness, Sam drops the bag of weapons and is at Dean’s side, hands nervously skittering across his brother’s chest.
“Are you okay?” he pants out, eyes wild. “Did they-”
“I’m fine,” Dean grumbles, pulling Sam’s hand away from where he’s thumbing across one of the deep gashes in his forehead. “We need to go, Sammy.”
“Yeah,” Sam agrees after a moment. “They’ll be back once the flare goes out again.”
He throws open one of the back doors of the Impala, tosses his bag in, and motions impatiently for John to follow.
John hesitates. His hunter’s instincts are yelling at him to get into his truck and put as much road between him and the boys as he can. But that same small, quiet part of John that had pushed him to come to the motel in the first place is telling him that he needs to stick with his sons. They’re beat to hell, vulnerable. If they don’t manage to shake off those shadow demons, John isn’t sure Sam and Dean can survive a third assault.
He glances as Dean but can’t catch his gaze.
“Let’s go!” Sam presses, eyes darting anxiously between the motel room window and John.
It’s just until he’s sure they’re all right, John thinks. It won’t have to change anything.
He gets into the car.
Chapter 2