SPN Fic: Skin Deep (Pt 4 of 8ish, Gen, R, Pre-Series)
Title: Skin Deep (4 of 8ish)
Author: Dodger Winslow
Genre: Gen, Pre-series
Rating: R for language, mature subject matter
Spoilers: Something Wicked, Skin
Disclaimer: I don't own the boys, I'm just stalking them for a while ...
Summary: "I thought maybe if I told you up-front that my dad would kill you if you hurt me; that you wouldn’t hurt me, if that’s what you were thinking about doing," Cain said. "Because he would, if you did. Kill you, I mean. And I thought maybe knowing that would make you not hurt me. Because you’d know you wouldn’t get by with it, which is why most people do bad things, my dad says. Because they think they can do whatever they want to and get by with it. So they do."
"I’m not like that," John said. "I do what I do because I have to, not because I want to."
"Okay," Cain said. Then he added, "My dad, too."
Part 4
The pizza guy was twenty minutes late on his thirty-minute guarantee. John didn’t point it out; he just paid cash for the pizza and the pop, and closed the door again.
As soon as the delivery guy was gone, the bathroom door eased open. Cane peered out, asking carefully, "Is that the food?"
"Smells like it," John agreed.
Less than five minutes later, he and the shifter were sitting on opposite sides of the only table in the room, eating vegetarian pizza and drinking flat, warm root beer. They ate in silence; John barely touching the slice he had on a napkin in front of him; Cain snarfing it down straight out of the box like a little vulture who hadn’t eaten in weeks. He tore his way through one pie and started in on the other before so much as taking a break to breathe.
John didn’t comment; he just watched.
"Pizza’s good," Cain ventured into the silence. He was avoiding John’s gaze almost as much as he sought it out, using the flop of too-long, half-wet hair over his face to hide behind whenever their eyes made contact for more than a couple seconds.
It reminded John of Sammy on those rare occasions when Sammy went shy under the attack of a strange woman’s attentions; when he sidled up to John’s side looking for protection because some blonde in a grocery store, or some brunette working the Food Court, saw past the full-on, balls-to-the-wall assault of his brother’s ferociously insistent flirting to remind John his encyclopedia-in-pants was a ten-year-old with the reddest blush he’d ever seen on a smart-ass walking grimoire usually in need of both a haircut and a swift kick in the pants.
"I was thinking it tastes a bit like an old, dried-out, cow patty," John commented.
"Maybe a little," Cain ventured agreeably. "But I’ve never eaten a cow patty, so I don’t know for sure." He waited three seconds before he asked, "You?"
John snorted root beer into his sinuses. It burned like a bitch and made a hell of a mess when he choked it back out, saying, "Not funny, you little punk," with a pinched off twist to his tone that made it sound like he’d gotten his drawers in a serious bind.
"Kinda funny," Cain countered, smiling a little before taking refuge behind his hair again.
When they were down to a single slice, John asked, "You want that last piece?"
"That’s okay. You can have it."
Because there was still hunger in the boy’s eyes, John said, "I’m full. It’s you or the trash." Cain didn’t need to be told twice. He grabbed the pizza, wolfed it down in three bites. "You still hungry?" John asked, watching the kid lick his fingers clean.
Cain glanced at him, wiped his hands on his jeans as he said, "I’m okay."
"How long has it been since you’ve eaten?"
"Awhile."
"Two days?" John pressed casually. "Three?"
Cain avoided his eyes, picked at the pizza box for no better reason than because it was there. "Awhile," he repeated evasively.
John nodded. He cleaned up the table, tossed the boxes and napkins in the trash. "Getting late," he said. "Probably ought to hit the rack."
"It’s not that late," Cain argued.
"Wasn’t really a suggestion," John told him.
"Oh. Okay." Cain looked at the room’s two beds, looked away again.
"Rack’s a bed, in case you wondered," John said.
Cain glanced at him to see if he was kidding. John gave him a small smile to verify that he was. Cain relaxed a little, nodded. "Yeah. That’s what I figured. Another Marine term, right?"
"Right," John agreed.
"Um … so which bed do you want?" Cain asked.
"One closest to the door."
"Okay. So ... um … I should take the other one then?"
"Unless you want to bunk up," John agreed. Then added, "Or you think you’re big enough to take me."
Cain flicked him another furtive glance. John gave him a second small smile to clarify it wasn’t a threat.
Or a solicitation.
"So I should go to bed now?" Cain ventured.
"That’s what ‘hit the rack’ means."
"Are you going to bed, too?"
"You let me worry about my bedtime."
Cain nodded. He shuffled to the bed like a dead man walking, sat down on the edge of it and started untying his shoelaces so slowly it looked like he might make a full night’s work of it.
"Keep your clothes on if you want," John said. "Hell, keep your shoes on, too, if that makes you feel better."
"I don’t need to keep my shoes on," Cain said. He pulled his shoes off, but kept the rest of Sammy’s clothes on when he crawled in under the covers, tucked them in tight around his body not like he was trying to keep the warmth in, but rather like he was trying to keep something else out. He almost managed casual when he asked, "So when’s my dad going to get here?"
"Don’t know," John said. He stayed where he was, standing across the room and leaning against a desk rather than sitting on his bed just to give the kid a little space, help him settle down, let him relax enough to fall asleep.
The shapeshifter, he corrected himself mentally. Let the shapeshifter relax enough to fall asleep. If that’s what shapeshifters did. Sleep, as compared to lay in wait.
"Soon though?" Cain asked. His eyes were more desperate than hopeful. He watched John like he was hoping for some kind of miracle answer. Like he was praying for it, even.
John wondered if shapeshifters prayed as he said again, "Don’t know."
"Did you talk to him while I was in the head?"
"No."
"Are you going to call him now?"
They were starting into another game of twenty questions, so John cut him off at the pass by saying, "I don’t have his number, Cain. He’s going to have to contact us. I already told you that, didn’t I?"
"Yeah," Cain admitted grudgingly. "I guess."
Because he found himself still wondering about the prayer thing, John asked, "You say prayers at night or anything?"
Cain gave him a funny look. "To who?" he asked after a beat.
John snorted a little. "Guess that answers that."
"To God, you mean?" Cain asked.
"You really need to ask that question?" John countered. "Or is that one of the ones you could probably figure out on your own if you just gave it a little thought?"
"I don’t believe in God," Cain announced. Then he looked at John, waited for a response. When John didn’t offer one, he asked, "Do you?"
"Depends on the day," John told him.
"I don’t," Cain repeated. "Some of my friends do, but I don’t."
"Your friends?" John repeated as if the revelation didn’t interest him.
"From school," Cain clarified easily. "Some of them do, but I don’t. I think science created the world, and it took a lot longer than seven days."
John nodded, but didn’t comment.
"My dad doesn’t either," Cain added. "He says God is just a crutch for people who need something to believe in because they’re too lazy to believe in themselves."
"Is that what he says?"
"Yeah."
"And you agree with him?"
"Yeah." Cain studied him carefully for several seconds, then asked, "Don’t you?"
"Depends on the day," John said again.
"So you believe in him some days?" Cain asked a little uncertainly.
"So you went to school, huh?" John answered. "That surprises me a little."
Cain frowned, caught off guard by the change of subject as John intended him to be. "Why?" he asked.
"Just does."
"Don’t your kids go to school?" he asked.
John felt his shoulders tense. Cain saw it, clarified quickly, "Your sons, I mean. The ones you travel with sometimes. They go to school, don’t they?"
John relaxed slowly from the sudden anxiety of having a shifter refer to kids he’d forgotten he mentioned. "Depends on the day," he said a third time. Then he asked, "So where do you go? Which school?"
Cain looked away, shrugged evasively. "Just school."
John considered that. "You lying to me, Cain?" he asked.
Cain’s eyes jumped back to his. There was guilt in them. A little bit of fear when he said, "No."
"Which school then?" John pressed him.
Cain’s expression tightened. "I don’t go to school here yet," he said after a long beat. "But I did last year. I did before we moved here."
"When did you move?"
Cain shrugged. "Awhile ago."
"Where did you move from?"
"Michigan."
"Why did you move?"
Cain didn’t answer that one. He just shrugged again, left the question hanging in the air.
"Cain?" John prompted after a beat. "Why did you move?"
Cain shrugged a third time. "We just did," he said quietly. "We move sometimes." Then, returning to the origin point of their conversation like the evolution of it had made him uncomfortable, he asked, "When do you think my dad’s going to get here?"
"Still don’t know," John said.
"You don’t even have a guess?"
"I don’t like guessing."
Cain sighed, dissatisfied with his answer. "Where do you think he is, then?" he asked.
"That would be a guess, too," John said.
"I don’t mean a guess about where he actually is," Cain clarified. "I just mean logic about where you think he might be. Like if you were him, where would you be? Like that kind of logic. Deductive, or inductive or whatever. I can’t remember which one it is, but that kind."
"I don’t know where he is," John said.
"Not know," Cain insisted. "Think. Where do you think he is?"
"I don’t know where your dad is, Cain," John said again.
Cain sighed, heavier this time, resigned the same way Sammy got resigned when John refused to play along with his speculative logic games. "Maybe he went back to the sewer," Cain suggested after several long beats of silence.
"Maybe he did," John agreed.
"Because of crossed wires or something," Cain elaborated. "Miscommunication, like when you tell someone one thing, but they think you said something else."
"I know what miscommunication is."
Cain hesitated. He licked his lips, then asked cautiously, "Do you think that’s why he isn’t here yet? That maybe his wires got crossed or something, and he’s still waiting for me in the sewer?" When John started to answer, he clarified quickly, "But not in a guess way. In a ‘do you think that could have happened’ logic way."
It was John’s turn to sigh. "He told me to bring you here," he said, not because it was true, but because he’d already said as much enough times to make it an obvious lie if he tried to float something else by the kid now. "And he told me to wait for him to make contact. That’s all I know, Cain. You can ask me a hundred different questions in a hundred different ways, but I won’t be able to tell you any more than I’ve already told you because I don’t know any more than that."
"Specifically here?" Cain asked.
They weren’t questions for their own sake, then. They were careful investigations, small pressures against John’s story in an effort to suss out holes, weak spots.
Inconsistencies.
Lies.
John didn’t answer right away. "What are you trying to ask me?" he said when he finally did. "Whatever it is, go ahead and spit it out, because I’m tired of playing twenty questions."
Cain’s gaze went on evasives again. "Sorry," he muttered. But he wasn’t. He was still pushing, he just changed tactics in response to being challeneged. "I just wish he was here is all. My dad, I mean. I wish he was here."
"He’ll be here when he gets here," John said. Then he added, "Or he won’t be."
Cain gaze snapped back to him. He stared at John for almost five minutes in total silence. John held the gaze, but didn’t offer anything that wasn’t asked.
"Is he coming, do you think?" Cain whispered finally.
"I don’t know," John lied for the last time. He pushed off the desk against which he was leaning, walked over to shut the light off between the empty bed and the one where a shapeshifter lay curled up under a blanket, dressed in Sammy’s clothes because he was too afraid to go to sleep in just his boxers.
"I’m sorry I thought you were a pervert before," Cain said into the confessional sanctity of new darkness.
"Not the worst I’ve been mistaken for," John told him.
"My dad just says you can’t trust people most of the time. He says they lie, and they’ll hurt you if they think they can get by with it. Or, at least, most of them will. Especially a kid. He says people hurt kids all the time, and he doesn’t want me to be one of them."
"Sounds like a smart man," John allowed.
"He says sometimes the best defense is a strong offense," Cain added. "He says sometimes you have to go after people you think want to hurt you before they come after you."
John didn’t answer that.
"That’s all I was doing," Cain said after a long moment. "I thought maybe if I told you up-front that he’d kill you if you hurt me; that you wouldn’t hurt me, if that’s what you were thinking about doing. Because he would, if you did. Kill you, I mean. And I thought maybe knowing that would make you not hurt me. Because you’d know you wouldn’t get by with it, which is why most people do bad things, my dad says. Because they think they can do whatever they want to and get by with it. So they do."
"I’m not like that," John said.
"Okay."
"I do what I do because I have to, not because I want to."
"Okay," Cain said again. Then he added, "My dad, too."
"Get some sleep," John told him.
"You’re not going to leave me, are you?"
"No."
"Not until my dad gets here, right?"
"Right." When the boy didn’t ask anything else, John added, "I’m going to step outside for a couple of minutes. Check in with my sons so they know I’m alright."
"Okay. But you’re not going to leave me though, right?"
John studied Cain in the darkness The kid still looked scared, but he wasn’t scared of John any more; he was scared of something else. Of being left alone maybe. Or of his dad not ever showing up.
"How many times do I have to answer that question before you believe me?" John asked finally.
Cain burrowed a little deeper under the covers. "Sorry," he said.
"And if you don’t believe me, then why in the hell do you keep asking it?" John added.
"Sorry," Cain said again.
John sighed. "Either believe me or don’t, Cain," he said. "But don’t keep asking me the same question over and over. It not only pisses me off, it’s damned disrespectful."
"I’m sorry," Cain said quietly. Then he added, "I believe you."
"If you believe me, then why do you think I’m going to leave when I’ve already told you I won’t?"
"Because you said you would." When John frowned at his reply, Cain elaborated: "You said you’d leave me if I didn’t believe you. You said I could believe you or not, it didn’t matter to you, and I could look for my dad myself if I didn’t believe you. And I didn’t. Not before. But I do, now. I believe you, so I don’t want you to think I don’t and leave me to look for my dad on my own. Which is why I keep asking. To make sure you know I believe you now even though I know you know I didn’t before. But I do now. Okay?"
"Why do you believe me now when you didn’t before?" John asked.
"I don’t know," Cain lied.
John consider that for a second, then sat down on the edge of his bed, watched the kid watching him with eyes as full of faith as they were of fear. "Do you believe me now because you know I’ve seen what you are?" John asked. "Because I saw what happened earlier, so you think you can trust me now, where you couldn’t before?"
Cain shrugged a little. "Maybe" he allowed cautiously.
"Maybe, huh? Maybe on the yes side? Or maybe on the no side?"
"Just maybe-maybe," Cain said.
"Want to clarify that for me?" John asked when Cain didn’t offer anything else on his own.
Cain fidgeted under the covers. "Maybe a little more because of that," he admitted.
"Just a little more?" John pressed.
"My dad says seeing that changes people," Cain announced suddenly. "But he says it isn’t my fault, it’s theirs for letting it change them when they know me, even. But he says seeing that makes people want to hurt you even if they didn’t before. Even people who know you sometimes. So that’s why it scared me so bad for you to see it. Because I thought you’d hurt me once you saw it. So when you didn’t … I don’t know. I thought maybe that I could believe you a little more because you didn’t want to hurt me just because of what you saw."
"Is that why you moved?" John asked quietly. "Because someone in Michigan saw you shift?"
Cain’s expression tightened. His eyes went hard, angry. "It wasn’t my fault," he said. "I didn’t mean to do it, it just happened."
"And someone saw it," John surmised.
"I thought he was my friend, but he wasn’t." The way Cain spit the words out was bitter. Ugly. Betrayed. "He wasn’t my friend at all. He was just like my dad said. He knew me better than anybody, but he didn’t even care about any of that. All he cared about was what he saw. He let that change everything. He knew me, and he let it change everything anyway, and all he wanted to do after that was hurt me."
"Did your dad stop him from hurting you?" John asked.
"He was my friend," Cain said in lieu of a more direct answer. "My best friend. And he didn’t even care about me any more after what he saw. He didn’t even care that I can’t help it. That it’s not my fault." His eyes were wet with tears again, but he swiped at them angrily this time, using his arm roughly, trying to punish his tears for even thinking about falling. "It’s not my fault," he repeated more fiercely. "I don’t mean to do it. It just happens sometimes."
"Like it happened in my car," John said.
"I just happens," Cain repeated. "You scared me really bad, and sometimes that makes it happen."
John nodded. "Looks like it hurts," he observed after a moment.
"It does. It hurts worse than anything. And it’s scary, too. Scarier than anything. Way scarier than you even."
"But you still do it," John noted.
Cain glared at him in the darkness. "I can’t help it," he repeated. "I told you that already."
"Yeah. You did."
"So you shouldn’t say it like that then," Cain informed him, his tone almost aggressive in its anger. "You shouldn’t say I still do it like I mean to do it. Like it’s my fault or something. Like I could not do it if I wanted to. Because I can’t. If I could, I wouldn’t ever do it again ever. Not ever. Ever."
"Does your dad do it, too?"
Cain’s outrage flickered. He hesitated, then said, "No. Just me." Then he added, "But it isn’t my fault."
John wasn’t sure whether to accept that lie or tip his hand by challenging it, so he let it stand as spoken, at least for the time being. "Okay, Cain." He kept his tone calm, placating. "I’m going to step outside for awhile now. You go to sleep. I’ll wake you if your dad shows."
"You don’t think that’s wrong?" Cain demanded. "That he didn’t even care that it’s not my fault? That he’s my best friend, and he didn’t even care?"
"I’m not sure what I think of that," John admitted more truthfully than he probably should have.
Great time to start telling the truth. Great time to fess up to his sins to a shapeshifter-kid or otherwise-who was dead set on working himself into a hissy fit.
Hell, might be an excellent time to confess he’d killed the kid’s dad, too, while he was at it. Admit he didn’t give a rat’s ass if the bastard slipped his skin by intent or because he didn’t have any choice; admit he’d never even considered the possibility that a shifter might do the kind of shit it did as a protective strategy rather than a predatory one. Or for no strategic reason at all, but rather just because it was a simple biological function he couldn’t control any more than John and his boys could control breathing.
"You think it’s okay that he wanted to hurt me just because of what he saw?" Cain asked. It was more of a question this time; more a plea for understanding that an outraged demand for affirmation. "Even though it wasn’t my fault? Even though I didn’t mean to do it?"
"I think it’s pretty reasonable that seeing something like that would scare him," John said.
"It didn’t scare you," Cain pointed out.
"I knew what you were before I saw you shift." He said it before he thought the statement through, and he regretted saying it before he actually finished saying it.
Cain’s eyes widened in surprise. "You did?"
Ah, dammit.
"Yeah," John verified, not really having much choice but to play the cards out since he’d already been fool enough to put them to the table. Trying to pick them up now could only make matters worse. That left play or fold; and John Winchester had never been much for folding … not even when he had a losing hand and was down to his last chip in the game.
Marines didn’t fold, was the way he looked at it. They sometimes got their asses handed to them on a platter, but they didn’t fold.
"How?" Cain asked after letting the new revelation take a couple laps around his brain.
"Why do you think your father hired me?" John countered. He wasn’t much on folding, but he was hell-on-wheels at bluffing. Big believer in bluffing.
"I don’t know," Cain admitted.
"Because I know what you are," John said. "I know what both of you are, and I don’t give a damn. All I care about is the money. Your dad knew that. It’s why he trusted me."
Trusted him. That was a good one. He not only believed in bluffing, he believed in lying out his ass, too.
"The money?" Cain repeated with a frown.
"The money your dad paid me to find you in the sewer and bring you to him."
Cain studied John in the darkness, tried to see something he wasn’t sure he knew how to see. "You don’t care at all?" he asked finally.
"Not about that. It doesn’t change anything for me. Not knowing it, and not seeing it."
"But you think it’s okay for it to change everything for him?" Cain challenged. He sounded more petulant than outraged now. More hurt than angry. More like a kid who felt betrayed than a monster who might try to justify his own atrocities by citing wrongs suffered at the hands of others. "Even though he was my best friend? Even though he knew me way better than anybody else, so he should have known I wasn’t a monster; but he didn’t care about that, he didn’t care about any of it? He didn’t care about anything we’d done ever, all he cared about was that?"
"I don’t know," John said. "But I do think it would be pretty hard for a kid your age to see somebody he thought he knew-somebody he thought was his best friend-do something like what you do without it scaring the hell out of him, without him wondering what else his friend might not be telling him about."
Cain just stared at him. "So you think it was my fault then?" he said finally. "You think he should have wanted to hurt me? and we should have had to move? and we should have to live in a sewer now, and not ever be able to go to school again, and not ever get to see anybody I’ve ever known in my whole, stupid life? You think that’s my fault because of something I can’t even control?"
John broke the kid’s gaze, looked away, studied the far wall. "I think it’s probably a lot harder question than it seems," he said finally. "There are usually at least two sides to every story. And what you think is right or wrong probably depends a whole lot on which side of the equation you’re looking at it from."
"I’m looking at it from my side," Cain said.
"Well, from your side, he’s probably wrong," John agreed. "But from his side, maybe you are."
"He didn’t have to move," Cain said quietly. "He doesn’t have to live in a sewer, and not get to go to school any more."
John wanted to ask him if the kid was still alive, but he didn’t. It was a question better left unasked, he decided. And likely one Cain didn’t know the real answer to anyway. If someone saw him shift, and his dad knew that; whether that kid was still alive or not, and whether Cain thought that kid was still alive or not, might be two very different things.
What a man would do (could do) to protect his son (his sons) walked darker lines than most would ever know. But John knew those lines well. And he suspected Cain’s father did, too.
"Like I said," John repeated finally. "Probably a harder question than it seems. And definitely one I’m done discussing with you. At least for the time being. I have some calls to make. Are you going to be okay alone while I step outside and make them?"
Cain hesitated, but he didn’t ask.
"I’ll be right outside," John repeated, hearing the question as clearly in Cain’s expression as if the kid had put it to actual words. "I’m not going anywhere without you."
"Okay," Cain said quietly. "I’ll be okay, I guess."
"Not afraid of the dark or anything?" John prodded.
This time, Cain didn’t need a verification he was being teased. He snorted the same way Sammy would have snorted; said, "Yeah, right," with the same level of disdain for the suggestion Dean would have managed. "I’m not five."
"Okay, then. Stay inside. You need something, yell. I’ll be close enough to hear if you do."
"Because it’ll be easier to explain you leaving without me if they never see me," Cain said, quoting him but failing to understand what he was saying.
Something cramped John’s gut, rolled it to a dull sick that ached inside him. "Yeah," he agreed quietly. "Easier to explain." He walked across the room, opened the door to step outside.
"John?" Cain called as he was pulling the door closed behind him.
"Yeah?"
"Do you have more than one?"
"More than one what?"
"More than one son?"
"Yes."
"How many?"
"More than one," John said.
Cain nodded, accepted that. "All I have is my dad," he offered in return. "It’s just him and me. For as long as I can remember, it’s always been just him and me."
"If you can’t sleep, watch a little TV if you want," John said.
"I can probably sleep," Cain assured him. "I’m pretty tired. Shifting hurts. It makes you really tired. And kind of sick, sometimes, too."
"You feel sick now?"
"No. Not really. Just tired, mostly."
John nodded. "I won’t be gone long," he said.
"Okay," Cain agreed. "And I know you won’t leave me. Because you already told me that. You already promised." He stared at John in the darkness, his kid face haunted with kid fears and kid insecurities. "Night," he said finally, closing his eyes, freeing John to step outside and close the door behind him.
"Goodnight, Cain," John said quietly.
He left then, stood in the quiet of a parking lot devoid of any sign of life. The stir of wind through trash wafted the stench of rot through the cool, night air. It seemed like an accusation to him: an indifferent reminder of why he was here and what he’d been looking for in a place well-suited to doing what needed to be done. Better than half of the cars parked in random slots had changed out since they first checked in. It was inarguable evidence of a rotating population of people who wouldn’t give a fuck about the kid inside room forty-seven, huddled in the dark and trying to sleep, putting his last faith in the one man he could least afford to trust.
John closed his eyes, listened to his own heartbeat. It sounded hollow to him. Sounded wrong. Something touched his face. It was cold. Wet. He opened his eyes again, stared at the ominous clouds that were finally getting down to business.
When the rain came, it came hard and unrelenting. It washed the night bitter rather than clean, making the foul stench of rotting trash almost unbearable as John stood in the empty parking lot and let it soak him to the bone.
*
Author: Dodger Winslow
Genre: Gen, Pre-series
Rating: R for language, mature subject matter
Spoilers: Something Wicked, Skin
Disclaimer: I don't own the boys, I'm just stalking them for a while ...
Summary: "I thought maybe if I told you up-front that my dad would kill you if you hurt me; that you wouldn’t hurt me, if that’s what you were thinking about doing," Cain said. "Because he would, if you did. Kill you, I mean. And I thought maybe knowing that would make you not hurt me. Because you’d know you wouldn’t get by with it, which is why most people do bad things, my dad says. Because they think they can do whatever they want to and get by with it. So they do."
"I’m not like that," John said. "I do what I do because I have to, not because I want to."
"Okay," Cain said. Then he added, "My dad, too."
Part 4
The pizza guy was twenty minutes late on his thirty-minute guarantee. John didn’t point it out; he just paid cash for the pizza and the pop, and closed the door again.
As soon as the delivery guy was gone, the bathroom door eased open. Cane peered out, asking carefully, "Is that the food?"
"Smells like it," John agreed.
Less than five minutes later, he and the shifter were sitting on opposite sides of the only table in the room, eating vegetarian pizza and drinking flat, warm root beer. They ate in silence; John barely touching the slice he had on a napkin in front of him; Cain snarfing it down straight out of the box like a little vulture who hadn’t eaten in weeks. He tore his way through one pie and started in on the other before so much as taking a break to breathe.
John didn’t comment; he just watched.
"Pizza’s good," Cain ventured into the silence. He was avoiding John’s gaze almost as much as he sought it out, using the flop of too-long, half-wet hair over his face to hide behind whenever their eyes made contact for more than a couple seconds.
It reminded John of Sammy on those rare occasions when Sammy went shy under the attack of a strange woman’s attentions; when he sidled up to John’s side looking for protection because some blonde in a grocery store, or some brunette working the Food Court, saw past the full-on, balls-to-the-wall assault of his brother’s ferociously insistent flirting to remind John his encyclopedia-in-pants was a ten-year-old with the reddest blush he’d ever seen on a smart-ass walking grimoire usually in need of both a haircut and a swift kick in the pants.
"I was thinking it tastes a bit like an old, dried-out, cow patty," John commented.
"Maybe a little," Cain ventured agreeably. "But I’ve never eaten a cow patty, so I don’t know for sure." He waited three seconds before he asked, "You?"
John snorted root beer into his sinuses. It burned like a bitch and made a hell of a mess when he choked it back out, saying, "Not funny, you little punk," with a pinched off twist to his tone that made it sound like he’d gotten his drawers in a serious bind.
"Kinda funny," Cain countered, smiling a little before taking refuge behind his hair again.
When they were down to a single slice, John asked, "You want that last piece?"
"That’s okay. You can have it."
Because there was still hunger in the boy’s eyes, John said, "I’m full. It’s you or the trash." Cain didn’t need to be told twice. He grabbed the pizza, wolfed it down in three bites. "You still hungry?" John asked, watching the kid lick his fingers clean.
Cain glanced at him, wiped his hands on his jeans as he said, "I’m okay."
"How long has it been since you’ve eaten?"
"Awhile."
"Two days?" John pressed casually. "Three?"
Cain avoided his eyes, picked at the pizza box for no better reason than because it was there. "Awhile," he repeated evasively.
John nodded. He cleaned up the table, tossed the boxes and napkins in the trash. "Getting late," he said. "Probably ought to hit the rack."
"It’s not that late," Cain argued.
"Wasn’t really a suggestion," John told him.
"Oh. Okay." Cain looked at the room’s two beds, looked away again.
"Rack’s a bed, in case you wondered," John said.
Cain glanced at him to see if he was kidding. John gave him a small smile to verify that he was. Cain relaxed a little, nodded. "Yeah. That’s what I figured. Another Marine term, right?"
"Right," John agreed.
"Um … so which bed do you want?" Cain asked.
"One closest to the door."
"Okay. So ... um … I should take the other one then?"
"Unless you want to bunk up," John agreed. Then added, "Or you think you’re big enough to take me."
Cain flicked him another furtive glance. John gave him a second small smile to clarify it wasn’t a threat.
Or a solicitation.
"So I should go to bed now?" Cain ventured.
"That’s what ‘hit the rack’ means."
"Are you going to bed, too?"
"You let me worry about my bedtime."
Cain nodded. He shuffled to the bed like a dead man walking, sat down on the edge of it and started untying his shoelaces so slowly it looked like he might make a full night’s work of it.
"Keep your clothes on if you want," John said. "Hell, keep your shoes on, too, if that makes you feel better."
"I don’t need to keep my shoes on," Cain said. He pulled his shoes off, but kept the rest of Sammy’s clothes on when he crawled in under the covers, tucked them in tight around his body not like he was trying to keep the warmth in, but rather like he was trying to keep something else out. He almost managed casual when he asked, "So when’s my dad going to get here?"
"Don’t know," John said. He stayed where he was, standing across the room and leaning against a desk rather than sitting on his bed just to give the kid a little space, help him settle down, let him relax enough to fall asleep.
The shapeshifter, he corrected himself mentally. Let the shapeshifter relax enough to fall asleep. If that’s what shapeshifters did. Sleep, as compared to lay in wait.
"Soon though?" Cain asked. His eyes were more desperate than hopeful. He watched John like he was hoping for some kind of miracle answer. Like he was praying for it, even.
John wondered if shapeshifters prayed as he said again, "Don’t know."
"Did you talk to him while I was in the head?"
"No."
"Are you going to call him now?"
They were starting into another game of twenty questions, so John cut him off at the pass by saying, "I don’t have his number, Cain. He’s going to have to contact us. I already told you that, didn’t I?"
"Yeah," Cain admitted grudgingly. "I guess."
Because he found himself still wondering about the prayer thing, John asked, "You say prayers at night or anything?"
Cain gave him a funny look. "To who?" he asked after a beat.
John snorted a little. "Guess that answers that."
"To God, you mean?" Cain asked.
"You really need to ask that question?" John countered. "Or is that one of the ones you could probably figure out on your own if you just gave it a little thought?"
"I don’t believe in God," Cain announced. Then he looked at John, waited for a response. When John didn’t offer one, he asked, "Do you?"
"Depends on the day," John told him.
"I don’t," Cain repeated. "Some of my friends do, but I don’t."
"Your friends?" John repeated as if the revelation didn’t interest him.
"From school," Cain clarified easily. "Some of them do, but I don’t. I think science created the world, and it took a lot longer than seven days."
John nodded, but didn’t comment.
"My dad doesn’t either," Cain added. "He says God is just a crutch for people who need something to believe in because they’re too lazy to believe in themselves."
"Is that what he says?"
"Yeah."
"And you agree with him?"
"Yeah." Cain studied him carefully for several seconds, then asked, "Don’t you?"
"Depends on the day," John said again.
"So you believe in him some days?" Cain asked a little uncertainly.
"So you went to school, huh?" John answered. "That surprises me a little."
Cain frowned, caught off guard by the change of subject as John intended him to be. "Why?" he asked.
"Just does."
"Don’t your kids go to school?" he asked.
John felt his shoulders tense. Cain saw it, clarified quickly, "Your sons, I mean. The ones you travel with sometimes. They go to school, don’t they?"
John relaxed slowly from the sudden anxiety of having a shifter refer to kids he’d forgotten he mentioned. "Depends on the day," he said a third time. Then he asked, "So where do you go? Which school?"
Cain looked away, shrugged evasively. "Just school."
John considered that. "You lying to me, Cain?" he asked.
Cain’s eyes jumped back to his. There was guilt in them. A little bit of fear when he said, "No."
"Which school then?" John pressed him.
Cain’s expression tightened. "I don’t go to school here yet," he said after a long beat. "But I did last year. I did before we moved here."
"When did you move?"
Cain shrugged. "Awhile ago."
"Where did you move from?"
"Michigan."
"Why did you move?"
Cain didn’t answer that one. He just shrugged again, left the question hanging in the air.
"Cain?" John prompted after a beat. "Why did you move?"
Cain shrugged a third time. "We just did," he said quietly. "We move sometimes." Then, returning to the origin point of their conversation like the evolution of it had made him uncomfortable, he asked, "When do you think my dad’s going to get here?"
"Still don’t know," John said.
"You don’t even have a guess?"
"I don’t like guessing."
Cain sighed, dissatisfied with his answer. "Where do you think he is, then?" he asked.
"That would be a guess, too," John said.
"I don’t mean a guess about where he actually is," Cain clarified. "I just mean logic about where you think he might be. Like if you were him, where would you be? Like that kind of logic. Deductive, or inductive or whatever. I can’t remember which one it is, but that kind."
"I don’t know where he is," John said.
"Not know," Cain insisted. "Think. Where do you think he is?"
"I don’t know where your dad is, Cain," John said again.
Cain sighed, heavier this time, resigned the same way Sammy got resigned when John refused to play along with his speculative logic games. "Maybe he went back to the sewer," Cain suggested after several long beats of silence.
"Maybe he did," John agreed.
"Because of crossed wires or something," Cain elaborated. "Miscommunication, like when you tell someone one thing, but they think you said something else."
"I know what miscommunication is."
Cain hesitated. He licked his lips, then asked cautiously, "Do you think that’s why he isn’t here yet? That maybe his wires got crossed or something, and he’s still waiting for me in the sewer?" When John started to answer, he clarified quickly, "But not in a guess way. In a ‘do you think that could have happened’ logic way."
It was John’s turn to sigh. "He told me to bring you here," he said, not because it was true, but because he’d already said as much enough times to make it an obvious lie if he tried to float something else by the kid now. "And he told me to wait for him to make contact. That’s all I know, Cain. You can ask me a hundred different questions in a hundred different ways, but I won’t be able to tell you any more than I’ve already told you because I don’t know any more than that."
"Specifically here?" Cain asked.
They weren’t questions for their own sake, then. They were careful investigations, small pressures against John’s story in an effort to suss out holes, weak spots.
Inconsistencies.
Lies.
John didn’t answer right away. "What are you trying to ask me?" he said when he finally did. "Whatever it is, go ahead and spit it out, because I’m tired of playing twenty questions."
Cain’s gaze went on evasives again. "Sorry," he muttered. But he wasn’t. He was still pushing, he just changed tactics in response to being challeneged. "I just wish he was here is all. My dad, I mean. I wish he was here."
"He’ll be here when he gets here," John said. Then he added, "Or he won’t be."
Cain gaze snapped back to him. He stared at John for almost five minutes in total silence. John held the gaze, but didn’t offer anything that wasn’t asked.
"Is he coming, do you think?" Cain whispered finally.
"I don’t know," John lied for the last time. He pushed off the desk against which he was leaning, walked over to shut the light off between the empty bed and the one where a shapeshifter lay curled up under a blanket, dressed in Sammy’s clothes because he was too afraid to go to sleep in just his boxers.
"I’m sorry I thought you were a pervert before," Cain said into the confessional sanctity of new darkness.
"Not the worst I’ve been mistaken for," John told him.
"My dad just says you can’t trust people most of the time. He says they lie, and they’ll hurt you if they think they can get by with it. Or, at least, most of them will. Especially a kid. He says people hurt kids all the time, and he doesn’t want me to be one of them."
"Sounds like a smart man," John allowed.
"He says sometimes the best defense is a strong offense," Cain added. "He says sometimes you have to go after people you think want to hurt you before they come after you."
John didn’t answer that.
"That’s all I was doing," Cain said after a long moment. "I thought maybe if I told you up-front that he’d kill you if you hurt me; that you wouldn’t hurt me, if that’s what you were thinking about doing. Because he would, if you did. Kill you, I mean. And I thought maybe knowing that would make you not hurt me. Because you’d know you wouldn’t get by with it, which is why most people do bad things, my dad says. Because they think they can do whatever they want to and get by with it. So they do."
"I’m not like that," John said.
"Okay."
"I do what I do because I have to, not because I want to."
"Okay," Cain said again. Then he added, "My dad, too."
"Get some sleep," John told him.
"You’re not going to leave me, are you?"
"No."
"Not until my dad gets here, right?"
"Right." When the boy didn’t ask anything else, John added, "I’m going to step outside for a couple of minutes. Check in with my sons so they know I’m alright."
"Okay. But you’re not going to leave me though, right?"
John studied Cain in the darkness The kid still looked scared, but he wasn’t scared of John any more; he was scared of something else. Of being left alone maybe. Or of his dad not ever showing up.
"How many times do I have to answer that question before you believe me?" John asked finally.
Cain burrowed a little deeper under the covers. "Sorry," he said.
"And if you don’t believe me, then why in the hell do you keep asking it?" John added.
"Sorry," Cain said again.
John sighed. "Either believe me or don’t, Cain," he said. "But don’t keep asking me the same question over and over. It not only pisses me off, it’s damned disrespectful."
"I’m sorry," Cain said quietly. Then he added, "I believe you."
"If you believe me, then why do you think I’m going to leave when I’ve already told you I won’t?"
"Because you said you would." When John frowned at his reply, Cain elaborated: "You said you’d leave me if I didn’t believe you. You said I could believe you or not, it didn’t matter to you, and I could look for my dad myself if I didn’t believe you. And I didn’t. Not before. But I do, now. I believe you, so I don’t want you to think I don’t and leave me to look for my dad on my own. Which is why I keep asking. To make sure you know I believe you now even though I know you know I didn’t before. But I do now. Okay?"
"Why do you believe me now when you didn’t before?" John asked.
"I don’t know," Cain lied.
John consider that for a second, then sat down on the edge of his bed, watched the kid watching him with eyes as full of faith as they were of fear. "Do you believe me now because you know I’ve seen what you are?" John asked. "Because I saw what happened earlier, so you think you can trust me now, where you couldn’t before?"
Cain shrugged a little. "Maybe" he allowed cautiously.
"Maybe, huh? Maybe on the yes side? Or maybe on the no side?"
"Just maybe-maybe," Cain said.
"Want to clarify that for me?" John asked when Cain didn’t offer anything else on his own.
Cain fidgeted under the covers. "Maybe a little more because of that," he admitted.
"Just a little more?" John pressed.
"My dad says seeing that changes people," Cain announced suddenly. "But he says it isn’t my fault, it’s theirs for letting it change them when they know me, even. But he says seeing that makes people want to hurt you even if they didn’t before. Even people who know you sometimes. So that’s why it scared me so bad for you to see it. Because I thought you’d hurt me once you saw it. So when you didn’t … I don’t know. I thought maybe that I could believe you a little more because you didn’t want to hurt me just because of what you saw."
"Is that why you moved?" John asked quietly. "Because someone in Michigan saw you shift?"
Cain’s expression tightened. His eyes went hard, angry. "It wasn’t my fault," he said. "I didn’t mean to do it, it just happened."
"And someone saw it," John surmised.
"I thought he was my friend, but he wasn’t." The way Cain spit the words out was bitter. Ugly. Betrayed. "He wasn’t my friend at all. He was just like my dad said. He knew me better than anybody, but he didn’t even care about any of that. All he cared about was what he saw. He let that change everything. He knew me, and he let it change everything anyway, and all he wanted to do after that was hurt me."
"Did your dad stop him from hurting you?" John asked.
"He was my friend," Cain said in lieu of a more direct answer. "My best friend. And he didn’t even care about me any more after what he saw. He didn’t even care that I can’t help it. That it’s not my fault." His eyes were wet with tears again, but he swiped at them angrily this time, using his arm roughly, trying to punish his tears for even thinking about falling. "It’s not my fault," he repeated more fiercely. "I don’t mean to do it. It just happens sometimes."
"Like it happened in my car," John said.
"I just happens," Cain repeated. "You scared me really bad, and sometimes that makes it happen."
John nodded. "Looks like it hurts," he observed after a moment.
"It does. It hurts worse than anything. And it’s scary, too. Scarier than anything. Way scarier than you even."
"But you still do it," John noted.
Cain glared at him in the darkness. "I can’t help it," he repeated. "I told you that already."
"Yeah. You did."
"So you shouldn’t say it like that then," Cain informed him, his tone almost aggressive in its anger. "You shouldn’t say I still do it like I mean to do it. Like it’s my fault or something. Like I could not do it if I wanted to. Because I can’t. If I could, I wouldn’t ever do it again ever. Not ever. Ever."
"Does your dad do it, too?"
Cain’s outrage flickered. He hesitated, then said, "No. Just me." Then he added, "But it isn’t my fault."
John wasn’t sure whether to accept that lie or tip his hand by challenging it, so he let it stand as spoken, at least for the time being. "Okay, Cain." He kept his tone calm, placating. "I’m going to step outside for awhile now. You go to sleep. I’ll wake you if your dad shows."
"You don’t think that’s wrong?" Cain demanded. "That he didn’t even care that it’s not my fault? That he’s my best friend, and he didn’t even care?"
"I’m not sure what I think of that," John admitted more truthfully than he probably should have.
Great time to start telling the truth. Great time to fess up to his sins to a shapeshifter-kid or otherwise-who was dead set on working himself into a hissy fit.
Hell, might be an excellent time to confess he’d killed the kid’s dad, too, while he was at it. Admit he didn’t give a rat’s ass if the bastard slipped his skin by intent or because he didn’t have any choice; admit he’d never even considered the possibility that a shifter might do the kind of shit it did as a protective strategy rather than a predatory one. Or for no strategic reason at all, but rather just because it was a simple biological function he couldn’t control any more than John and his boys could control breathing.
"You think it’s okay that he wanted to hurt me just because of what he saw?" Cain asked. It was more of a question this time; more a plea for understanding that an outraged demand for affirmation. "Even though it wasn’t my fault? Even though I didn’t mean to do it?"
"I think it’s pretty reasonable that seeing something like that would scare him," John said.
"It didn’t scare you," Cain pointed out.
"I knew what you were before I saw you shift." He said it before he thought the statement through, and he regretted saying it before he actually finished saying it.
Cain’s eyes widened in surprise. "You did?"
Ah, dammit.
"Yeah," John verified, not really having much choice but to play the cards out since he’d already been fool enough to put them to the table. Trying to pick them up now could only make matters worse. That left play or fold; and John Winchester had never been much for folding … not even when he had a losing hand and was down to his last chip in the game.
Marines didn’t fold, was the way he looked at it. They sometimes got their asses handed to them on a platter, but they didn’t fold.
"How?" Cain asked after letting the new revelation take a couple laps around his brain.
"Why do you think your father hired me?" John countered. He wasn’t much on folding, but he was hell-on-wheels at bluffing. Big believer in bluffing.
"I don’t know," Cain admitted.
"Because I know what you are," John said. "I know what both of you are, and I don’t give a damn. All I care about is the money. Your dad knew that. It’s why he trusted me."
Trusted him. That was a good one. He not only believed in bluffing, he believed in lying out his ass, too.
"The money?" Cain repeated with a frown.
"The money your dad paid me to find you in the sewer and bring you to him."
Cain studied John in the darkness, tried to see something he wasn’t sure he knew how to see. "You don’t care at all?" he asked finally.
"Not about that. It doesn’t change anything for me. Not knowing it, and not seeing it."
"But you think it’s okay for it to change everything for him?" Cain challenged. He sounded more petulant than outraged now. More hurt than angry. More like a kid who felt betrayed than a monster who might try to justify his own atrocities by citing wrongs suffered at the hands of others. "Even though he was my best friend? Even though he knew me way better than anybody else, so he should have known I wasn’t a monster; but he didn’t care about that, he didn’t care about any of it? He didn’t care about anything we’d done ever, all he cared about was that?"
"I don’t know," John said. "But I do think it would be pretty hard for a kid your age to see somebody he thought he knew-somebody he thought was his best friend-do something like what you do without it scaring the hell out of him, without him wondering what else his friend might not be telling him about."
Cain just stared at him. "So you think it was my fault then?" he said finally. "You think he should have wanted to hurt me? and we should have had to move? and we should have to live in a sewer now, and not ever be able to go to school again, and not ever get to see anybody I’ve ever known in my whole, stupid life? You think that’s my fault because of something I can’t even control?"
John broke the kid’s gaze, looked away, studied the far wall. "I think it’s probably a lot harder question than it seems," he said finally. "There are usually at least two sides to every story. And what you think is right or wrong probably depends a whole lot on which side of the equation you’re looking at it from."
"I’m looking at it from my side," Cain said.
"Well, from your side, he’s probably wrong," John agreed. "But from his side, maybe you are."
"He didn’t have to move," Cain said quietly. "He doesn’t have to live in a sewer, and not get to go to school any more."
John wanted to ask him if the kid was still alive, but he didn’t. It was a question better left unasked, he decided. And likely one Cain didn’t know the real answer to anyway. If someone saw him shift, and his dad knew that; whether that kid was still alive or not, and whether Cain thought that kid was still alive or not, might be two very different things.
What a man would do (could do) to protect his son (his sons) walked darker lines than most would ever know. But John knew those lines well. And he suspected Cain’s father did, too.
"Like I said," John repeated finally. "Probably a harder question than it seems. And definitely one I’m done discussing with you. At least for the time being. I have some calls to make. Are you going to be okay alone while I step outside and make them?"
Cain hesitated, but he didn’t ask.
"I’ll be right outside," John repeated, hearing the question as clearly in Cain’s expression as if the kid had put it to actual words. "I’m not going anywhere without you."
"Okay," Cain said quietly. "I’ll be okay, I guess."
"Not afraid of the dark or anything?" John prodded.
This time, Cain didn’t need a verification he was being teased. He snorted the same way Sammy would have snorted; said, "Yeah, right," with the same level of disdain for the suggestion Dean would have managed. "I’m not five."
"Okay, then. Stay inside. You need something, yell. I’ll be close enough to hear if you do."
"Because it’ll be easier to explain you leaving without me if they never see me," Cain said, quoting him but failing to understand what he was saying.
Something cramped John’s gut, rolled it to a dull sick that ached inside him. "Yeah," he agreed quietly. "Easier to explain." He walked across the room, opened the door to step outside.
"John?" Cain called as he was pulling the door closed behind him.
"Yeah?"
"Do you have more than one?"
"More than one what?"
"More than one son?"
"Yes."
"How many?"
"More than one," John said.
Cain nodded, accepted that. "All I have is my dad," he offered in return. "It’s just him and me. For as long as I can remember, it’s always been just him and me."
"If you can’t sleep, watch a little TV if you want," John said.
"I can probably sleep," Cain assured him. "I’m pretty tired. Shifting hurts. It makes you really tired. And kind of sick, sometimes, too."
"You feel sick now?"
"No. Not really. Just tired, mostly."
John nodded. "I won’t be gone long," he said.
"Okay," Cain agreed. "And I know you won’t leave me. Because you already told me that. You already promised." He stared at John in the darkness, his kid face haunted with kid fears and kid insecurities. "Night," he said finally, closing his eyes, freeing John to step outside and close the door behind him.
"Goodnight, Cain," John said quietly.
He left then, stood in the quiet of a parking lot devoid of any sign of life. The stir of wind through trash wafted the stench of rot through the cool, night air. It seemed like an accusation to him: an indifferent reminder of why he was here and what he’d been looking for in a place well-suited to doing what needed to be done. Better than half of the cars parked in random slots had changed out since they first checked in. It was inarguable evidence of a rotating population of people who wouldn’t give a fuck about the kid inside room forty-seven, huddled in the dark and trying to sleep, putting his last faith in the one man he could least afford to trust.
John closed his eyes, listened to his own heartbeat. It sounded hollow to him. Sounded wrong. Something touched his face. It was cold. Wet. He opened his eyes again, stared at the ominous clouds that were finally getting down to business.
When the rain came, it came hard and unrelenting. It washed the night bitter rather than clean, making the foul stench of rotting trash almost unbearable as John stood in the empty parking lot and let it soak him to the bone.
*