SPN Ficlet: Pray with Me (Gen, PG, pre-series)
My only excuse is that I must be in a morose mood, and maybe I should go to bed. This started out as a replacement for the supernatural_100 "Lasts" prompt, but it got too wordy, too. I pared it down to 113 words, but couldn't go any lower without gutting the rhythms, so I figured what the hell, and wrote is as long as it wanted to be. Which, as it turns out, is around 500 words.
Title: Pray with Me
Author:
dodger_winslow
Genre: Gen, pre-series
Rating: PG
Warnings: Mature Subject Matter
Disclaimer: I don't own the boys, I'm just stalking them for a while.
Summary: Did He speak to you, John?
Pray with Me
"Why?" he asked, his voice breaking.
"I don’t know, John. I’m sorry. I wish I had an answer for you."
"This can’t be happening. It can’t have happened." He put his head in his hands, too exhausted to cry, too drained to do anything other than ask, yet again, "Why?"
"Pray with me," Jim suggested.
"I don’t want to pray. I want to know why."
"Pray with me anyway."
Too tired to argue, John got on his knees at the alter. Jim prayed. He did, too.
And then he stood. His eyes teared as he looked to the cross hanging above the pulpit, but his tears never fell. His eyes dried. They began to burn. He blinked once, but it didn’t help. He had no more tears to shed. He’d given them all away.
John turned and walked down the aisle. Dean was sleeping on a pew in the back, curled up into a small ball of broken little boy. He still smelled of smoke. John picked him up, settled him against his chest. Dean didn’t wake, but his hands sank into John’s shirt, twisting a grip there, holding on, clinging to him even in the desperate dark of deepest sleep.
"Where are you going?" Jim asked, walking down the aisle to join him.
"To pick up Sammy."
"Stay here tonight," Jim suggested. "Sammy will be fine at Mike’s, and you need the rest."
"I need Sammy," John said.
"Did He speak to you, John?" Jim asked.
John looked back to the crucifix hanging across the sanctuary from him. It was lit by three lights: two up and one down. "Yes," he said.
"What did He say?"
Dean’s fingers clenched tighter into John’s shirt. He made a small sound in his throat, choked, broken. John put his hand on his son’s back, rubbing small circles there until Dean settled, until he stilled. "You don’t want to know," John said.
He turned and walked away. Jim followed. He caught John at the door, one hand on John’s shoulder enough to pull him to a stop.
"Tell me," Jim said quietly. "Tell me what He said to you."
"Don’t you want to know what I asked first?" John’s voice was little more than a shadow. His eyes were dull and distant. He was looking at Jim, but he wasn’t seeing him.
"You asked why," Jim surmised.
"No. I asked why her. Why her instead of me."
"And what did He say?"
He stared at Jim for almost a full minute before answering. When he did speak, his voice was so quiet it barely cleared the still of the empty church. The words were gravel in his mouth, and he offered them to Jim in return for everything he’d ever believed.
"He said goodbye."
-finis-