SPN Fic: To Everything a Season (13/?) (Gen, R, FutureFic)
Hey, all. In celebration of the season premiere tonight, another chapter. This sucker has turned into a major fistfight on just about every line, so it's slow, slow, slow going trying to finish this puppy off. I apologize for that. If it helps any, what you're getting is much better than what it was fighting with. The best story is winning. Or at least, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
As always, love to hear what y'all think.
Title: To Everything A Season (Part 13/?)
Author:
dodger_winslow
Challenge: Firsts Chart: First Memory
Genre: Gen (some het, not graphic), FutureFic
Word Count: 133,000 (total)
Pairings/Characters: John/OFC, Dean/OFC, Sam/OFC (hey, did I mention it was Future Fic?)
Rating: R
Warnings: Language, sexual situations (not graphic)
Spoilers: Oh yeah. Everything S1
Disclaimer: I don't own the boys, I'm just stalking them for a while.
Timeline Note: Set seven years after the events of Devil's Trap. John, Dean and Sam all survived the crash to hunt down and destroy the Demon. For Sam, life goes on. For Dean, life stalls. For John, life has no more meaning, and he begins to self destruct.
Summary: A little piece of good advice: Never hunt a wendigo when you're drunk.
Part 13
"Hey," Dean said.
"Hey, yourself." It was the way many of their conversations started. Either "hey" or a joke. Dean was like that. Sometimes he took some foreplay before he was willing to get to the point. "How you doing?" Mary asked after a long beat of silence.
"Pretty shitty."
The fact that he didn’t lie worried her. As much as he was prone to rebuffing unsolicited offers of comfort, he was twice as prone to fail to solicit them.
"You want us to turn around?" she asked.
Meredith flicked her a quick, side-eyed glance; but to her sister-in-law’s credit, she didn’t comment. Unfortunately, neither did Dean. He didn’t so much as grunt. They were more than four hours out, and he didn’t even grunt. His silence told her more than words could have. An offer she made to open him up became a suggestion she pursued.
"We’re not that far away. We can turn around and come back, if that’s what you want." He still didn’t answer. For a moment, she thought maybe she’d lost the connection. "Dean?" she prompted finally.
"I’m still here." He sounded so tired.
"Well breathe once in a while, baby, so I know I’m not just diddling myself here."
He laughed. Even that sounded tired, but he rallied a bit, asking, "Can I watch?"
"Sure. Want Meredith to give you the color commentary?"
Dean snorted. So did Meredith. "I think I’ll pass on that, thanks."
"Damn. And Meredith was really looking forward to it." Meredith snorted again, but there was a trace of a smile on her expression now. Huh. Who knew she liked being teased? Learn something new every day.
"So … you’d come back if I asked?" he asked after a long beat.
"Sure. You asking?"
"No."
"You not asking and expecting me to read your mind?"
"No."
"So … just a rhetorical inquiry then?"
"Yeah. More or less. Kind of like that ‘do you love me?’ thing you do."
"The one during sex or after?" she asked.
"During."
"Oh. That isn’t really rhetorical, you just never answer me."
She could hear the smile in his voice when he reminded her, "You never ask at a time when my speaking brain is functional."
"Oh, trust me, baby, your downstairs brains speaks just fine. Not too many commas, just the right number of exclamation points. And sometimes I could swear it’s speaking in tongues."
He chuckled at that; the deep, rich, textured laugh he got when they were in bed, and she said something that totally put him off his game at the same time as it amped his game to a whole different stadium entirely. "So … is Meredith purple yet?" he asked.
"Pretty close." That was a lie. Meredith was grinning now, shaking her head and trying very hard not to laugh.
"You torture her good," he said.
"I learned from the best."
"Hey, rhetorically speaking, I love you."
"Which brain is that talking?"
"Both of them."
"Hmmmm. Stereotomy. You’re too good to me, baby."
"Brain stereotomy. I like that. Kind of an intellectual thing, right? A menage a trois with geek glasses."
This time she laughed. "That’s going to show up during lady’s choice night now. You realize that, right?"
"I can do geeky."
"I was talking menage a trois."
"Okay, now my downstairs brain is talking."
"So that stereotomy thing was just a line before?"
"Let me rephrase that: Now my downstairs brain is talking dirty."
"Son of a bitch. I knew we should have never left."
"I’m glad you’re not here."
It came out of nowhere. Dean was like that, too: a regimen of structured evasions cut by moments of devastating honesty. The trick was not to over-react to the honesty.
"Huh," she said. "No need to be a bitch about it."
"It’s bad," he confided. "Worse than I thought it would be."
"Do you want us to turn around?" she asked again.
And just that quickly, he was back to his structured evasions, saying, "Meredith would pitch a fit" instead of yes, or no, or I don’t know what to do, or I love you.
"No, she wouldn’t. And besides, I’m meaner than she is. I could kick her ass if I had to."
"What color is she now?"
"Uh oh. She’s smiling. I think maybe Sam taught her some self defense moves he forgot to mention."
"Figures. Sam never was smart enough to keep his women barefoot and pregnant."
Mary looked down at her feet. She never wore shoes in the car, even when her feet weren’t swollen with water weight. "Fuck you, Winchester," she said, wiggling her toes.
"You wish."
"So are you going to answer my question?" she asked.
"I thought it was rhetorical."
"Nope. Bona fide offer. Clock’s ticking though. We’re two miles out from the point-of-no-return, and Meredith just put her foot on the gas."
"No," he said. "I don’t want you to turn around."
It was a straight answer. A direct one. That meant he was ready to talk about it - he wanted to talk about it - but he was going to make her ask. So she asked. "How bad is it?"
"He woke up himself, like the last six years hadn’t even happened. Like it was still the day I told him to fuck off and die, and he was still a drunk with nothing to live for."
"And?"
"And it went downhill from there. He started remembering Mom. Then the time in Jeff City when the Demon possessed him and tried to rip me half a dozen new ones. Some other things in there, too; but I’m not sure what they were. He was swinging back and forth between them like a ball-joint pendulum on crack. One minute he knew who Julie was; the next he’s asking who the fuck Julie is."
The stress fractures in his voice broke her heart. They made her wonder how many times his father asked who the fuck he was. "She there when that happened?" she asked because it was easier for Dean to talk about someone else’s pain that it was for him to talk about his own.
"Yeah. She was holding his hand the whole time. Tough lady. I like her better than I wanted to."
That meant she was more than just tough. Dean really didn’t want to like her; so if he did, John’s wife had to be something special. Even though she’d only spoken to Danny for a handful of minutes - and hadn’t spoken to Julie even that - she’d suspected it would play that way in the end. As much as Danny reminded her of Sam, she thought it pretty reasonable to assume Julie was an awful lot like Dean; which meant she was probably a real pain in the ass at times, but also almost impossible not to like. And even harder not to love.
"What about Danny?"
He misunderstood her question, thought she was asking how he felt about Danny rather than if Danny was there, and what Danny thought of his father’s condition. "He reminds me of Pastor Jim. A more profane version, but similar in how much he’s all about reality rather than bullshit sunshine and posies."
Mary smiled a little. The concern pressuring the base of her spine eased at his invocation of Pastor Jim. Dean’s scale didn’t go any higher than Pastor Jim. He was the angel on top of the Christmas tree; the only man Dean really trusted who wasn’t either his dad or his brother.
Jim had been dead for almost a decade, but Dean still spoke about him like he was only a phone call away. He’d told her once he thought maybe Jim was still around. When she asked what he meant, he looked at her like he was afraid to answer. It took most of the night and half a bottle of Jack to get the rest of it out of him. He told her he felt Jim sometimes; he’d felt him in the cornfield when some state trooper almost beat him to death; he’d felt him in the Impala after the semi totaled it.
He said something about thinking maybe Jim was his spiritual guard dog or something. That he was still hanging around because it had been his mission in life to pull both Dean and his father out of the Demon’s hip pocket, and he’d never gotten it done. He also said he thought maybe Jim was haunting him for all the time he’d wasted praying for Dean’s soul; then he said he figured Jim was still doing that - wasting time praying for Dean’s soul - because that was just the way Jim was; and he didn’t figure Jim would be much different dead than he’d been while he was alive.
He was drunk when he said it, but not nearly as drunk as he pretended to be. He spoke about Pastor Jim a lot, but that night was as close as she’d ever heard Dean come to saying he believed in God in a way that didn’t involve salt and matches if the bastard ever showed His face around the Winchester house.
"Yeah," she said. "I figured him for an okay guy when he told you he’d kick your ass if you didn’t quit calling him Doctor Danny."
Dean snorted. "Pretty empty threat, given the givens."
"It worked," she reminded him.
"Only because it reminded me of Dad."
That surprised her. She’d never heard anyone compared to his father before, not even Pastor Jim. Danny climbed a couple more notches in her already high regard. Dean was hard to impress. He was even harder to impress with anything that didn’t involve bloodshed or sex.
"Except Dad at least had a chance of being able to follow through on a threat like that," he went on. "A pretty good chance until those last couple of years, in fact. But Danny? Fuck. Danny’s a doctor. I could take him easy."
"It worked," she said again.
Dean laughed a little. "Yeah, well, he was right. I was out of line."
"You’re always out of line, baby. That’s why I like you."
"Like me or love me?"
"Eh. Let me think on that one. I’ll get back to you."
"Don’t take too long."
"Okay."
He waited.
And waited.
She made him wait one more beat for good measure before saying, "Okay, fine, I love you."
"Took you long enough."
"It was that ‘don’t take too long’ thing. You know it gets my back up when you tell me what to do."
"There you go, talking dirty again," he said.
She wished he was here; wished she could touch him, just put her hands on his skin. Sometimes that was all he needed: just someone to touch him. "I’ve really got to have this baby so you can get some and get your mind out of the gutter," she said.
"Heh. Like that would do it." He wanted to touch her, too. She could hear the ache of it in his voice.
"Or so I can at least join you there," she revised. Join him in the gutter or back at his father’s bedside: she let him decide which way he wanted to take it.
"Right, Hormone Woman. Have anybody suck on your toes lately?"
She wiggled her toes again, relishing the sense memory it evoked in her bones. That he could do that to her from two hundred miles away was criminal. "Fuck you, Winchester," she said again.
He laughed. "I miss you."
"Want us to turn around?" she asked just to make sure they were on the same page, just to make sure he hadn’t missed the invitation rather than just pretending to miss it. He sounded so tired, she didn’t want to take a chance. And sometimes he was hard to read. Sometimes he said something and actually meant it.
"Stop trying to give Meredith a heart attack," he responded, assuring her they were, making it clear he understood she would come to him, he meant it when he said he missed her, and neither one of those changed a damn thing.
"Spoil sport."
"That’s me. Hey, let me ask you something." That was all the warning she got, all the warning he gave her that what she’d taken to be the point wasn’t really the point at all, and here was the point: "Sam says I was turning into Dad. That before you, I was following Dad down the hole he was climbing into."
Oh crap. It could never be easy with him. He could never just leave it at feeling better. He always had to ask things he wouldn’t believe unless she verified them; and he only asked for verification when he needed to hear something she wasn’t going to be able to say. It was always something Sam told him; always something he didn’t want to hear, but he couldn’t pretend not to hear simply because it was Sam who said it.
Damn Sam.
She waited, hoping he’d give her something more, something she could disagree with so he could apply that dissent across the board even if it was only relevant to one aspect of what he was asking. He didn’t. "Didn’t hear a question in there anywhere, baby," she said finally.
"You think he’s right?" Dean asked.
There was the point, the reason he’d called. It wasn’t just to hear her voice. It wasn’t to ask her to come back, or to hear her offer as much even though they both knew he wouldn’t accept. He called to ask if Sam was right; to hear her tell him he wasn’t turning into his dad, to hear her say she didn’t see that potential in him and never had.
He called to hear her lie.
Damn Sam. Damn Sam all to hell.
"Mary?" he prompted when she didn’t respond.
"I didn’t really know you then," she allowed, knowing he’d hear it if she lied, fearing he’d hear it even if she didn’t. "It being before you met me and all."
"You do think he’s right then," Dean surmised.
Fuck. He heard it. Or maybe he just knew the answer before he asked. Either way, it made her eyes burn to be the one to have to tell him something he’d never noticed about himself, the one fear he should have that he didn’t.
She turned her head, watched the scenery rush by outside her window. She wanted to tell him Sam was full of shit. She wanted to say it so badly; but if she did, he’d hear the lie of that, too, and know. Know how much it scared her, how much it scared Sam. He’d realize how much they talked about it behind his back, how to prevent it, how to keep it from happening. How to keep him from self-destructing over John the way John self-destructed over Mary.
She wanted to lie to him, but even knowing she was a masterful liar on the whole, she couldn’t lie for shit to him, and both of them knew it.
"I think Sam knows you better than anyone," she said finally. "I’d give what he has to say a lot of weight."
"He’s full of shit. I was trying to protect Dad, but I wasn’t turning into him."
He was arguing with her. Dean never argued with her when he asked for verification of something Sam said. The quiet intensity of his voice was a desperation. He didn’t know this, and he didn’t believe it. He needed her to tell him it wasn’t true. He was begging her to tell him it wasn’t true.
But she couldn’t. If she tried, he’d know exactly how true it was. Her silence was damming. It bled him with every second ticking by, the opinion he needed from her lying unspoken between them.
"Was I?" he asked finally.
It was only when Meredith reached out, took her hand and squeezed that Mary realized she was crying. Tears were rolling down her face, dripping silently off her jaw and falling to the swell of her belly.
His child. Her tears were falling on his child because she couldn’t lie to him.
Mary squeezed back, holding on to Meredith as she said, "I don’t know, baby. I didn’t know you then." It was as close as she could get to giving him what he was asking for without telling him what he feared.
He got it. It wasn’t what he wanted to hear; it wasn’t what she wanted to say. But it was the truth, and he got it.
"Yeah. Right. Okay."
Releasing her grip on Meredith, Mary reached up to put her hand over her eyes, struggling to keep her voice steady so he wouldn’t hear her crying and know it was because of him. "Hey, you know what?" she asked, having no idea what she was going to say when he answered.
"It’s okay," he said. "I asked."
"That isn’t what I was going to say."
"Mary."
"Yes?"
"It’s okay."
She wiped her tears away roughly, realizing he could see them from more than two hundred miles away. "Just hormones, baby," she lied. "I asked Meredith for pickled-flavored ice cream about fifty miles back, and she told me no. I’ve been boo-hooing every since."
"You so suck at lying," he said quietly. "Hell, I think you may be even worse than Sammy."
"Fuck you, Winchester. I rock at lying. I just suck at telling the truth."
"I’d better get back," he said. "I think Sam and Danny are finished with their smoke break."
"Sammy smokes?"
"Oh, fuck."
His change of tone startled her. "What?"
"Tell me Meredith didn’t hear you say that."
She looked at Meredith. "She’s about twenty four inches away, Dean. I’m pretty sure she heard me say it."
"Fuck, fuck, fuck. Sam’s going to kill me."
He was working her. She caught it suddenly, sensed it in the way he sounded almost worried about what Meredith might think of his little brother.
Like he ever worried about what Meredith thought of anything, let alone Sam.
Realizing what he was doing, and why he was doing it, reminded her of his hands on the small of her back, kneading the kinks out as he sat behind her on the bed, him still in his uniform, her still crying a little as he assured her the world wasn’t really going to end, that he and Sammy had actually sent most of the demons back to hell where they belonged and the prophecy was peace for a thousand years now.
He’d been on duty for forty-eight hours straight, but he spent his first hour home talking her through the most ridiculous crying jag she’d ever had, still smelling of smoke from some building he’d run into at risk of life and limb and never once sounding like he thought she was an idiot for reading that fucking book when it was late, and he was gone, and she was hormonal. She called herself a little girl for believing it when good God she knew better because he’d told her so much about what was real and what was just some writer’s way of fucking with her adrenaline balance.
He responded by pulling her down on the bed with him, spooning up behind her, tucking her in tight against his body to tell her it was scary stuff, saying that kind of thing gave him nightmares all the time, just reading a book, or watching one of those movies.
He was lying out his ass, but he never once admitted it, not even when she called him on it, told him he’d never been scared by a movie in his life. He said she was wrong, he got scared all the time, he was just too cool to show it. She could remember the feel of his lips against the back of her neck as he spoke, soothing not seducing, never once taking her fear like it wasn’t real, or speaking to her tears like she was being silly. Or pregnant. Or just an emotional nitwit.
She could almost feel him holding her, the warmth of his body a comfort against her back, his hands reverent on her belly, but also protective there, not only of the baby, but of her, too. He laughed when she apologized by calling him a patronizing asshat; then kissed her neck when she told him she was over herself now and he should go take a shower while she fixed him something to eat. He said it made him hot when she was hormonal, then reminded her how often she said him smelling all Fire Boy in their bed made her feel safe and horny at the same time.
He tightened his arms around her when she tried to get up, said he wasn’t hungry, it was too late to eat, he just wanted to go to sleep. She told him he was a crappy liar; she could hear his stomach growling. He kissed her neck again, saying that wasn’t his stomach, it was his downstairs brain expressing unsolicited appreciation for the shape of her perfect ass, and that he was a boy scout before he was a demon hunter and a fireman, so she should believe everything he said because he’d never told a lie in his whole life, scout’s honor.
Laughing, she twisted around to tell him he was a boy scout like she was a debutante, but forgot what she was going to say when she saw his face. His eyes were so serious it took her breath away. He was watching her in a way he never did, and it made her forget everything on the planet except the feel of his hands on her body. There was no tease in him - no tease in him at all - when he put his lips next to her ear and said he liked it when she cried on occasion because it was how he knew she needed him instead of it only being him who needed her.
She could still feel the weight of his hands on her belly. The baby kicked, like she could feel them, too.
"What a little girl," she said.
"Who?" he asked, overplaying the affront of it. "Me or Sam?"
"Sam for hiding. You for worrying. Little girls, the both of you."
She could still smell the smoke of him in her memory, still remember the comfort of his arms around her all night, and the way he tried to play it off as clumsiness when he dropped his morning coffee twice before he got the feeling back in his arm.
"Hey, that makes you and me girl-on-girl. You’ve got my downstairs brain’s attention again."
She smiled. "That’s my boy: always thinking. And here I thought Sammy was the intellectual of the Winchester clan."
"Nah. He’s just the family geek. I’m going to let you go now. Tell Meredith to slow the fuck down."
Mary glanced at the speedometer. "She’s driving three miles under the speed limit."
"Bullshit. Anyone who wears their panties that tight speeds." He was right: She was driving thirteen miles over the speed limit. "Trust me," he added. "I did extensive research on the subject in my younger, wilder days. The results were conclusive: I’d loosen up their panties, and they’d slow the fuck down every single time."
"I’d think that would speed them up," Mary said.
"It only sped up the ones who weren’t wearing panties in the first place."
"I love you," she said.
"Rhetorically speaking or otherwise?"
"Yeah."
"Good. I’ll call you later."
"Hey, Winchester."
"Yeah?"
"I’m not wearing any panties." For a long moment, he didn’t say anything. "You’re not going to say anything to that?" she asked.
"Sorry. Talking brain went offline there for a moment. What did you want me to say?"
"Say if I hurry back, you’ll speed me up." When he didn’t respond, she pressed, "We turn around right now, we can be back in four hours. Get Sam to call Meredith and talk dirty, we might make it in three."
"You don’t play fair," he said quietly.
"Fuck fair. And I’m not playing."
"I know that."
"I’m hella mad about being a yo-yo," she pressed. "Meredith thinks it sounds like fun, too."
Dean sighed. "I’m just tired," he said.
"You haven’t slept in forever," she reminded him.
"Not that kind of tired."
Pulling the phone away from her mouth, she said to Meredith, "Take the next exit, okay?"
Meredith nodded. "Sure."
He was protesting before Meredith answered, his voice terse as he said, "No. Don’t do that. I don’t want you to come back."
"Too late," she informed him blithely. "We’re already off the highway." It was a lie. It was another twenty three miles to the next exit.
"I’m serious, Mary. Don’t."
"Let me talk to him for a minute." Meredith held out her hand for the phone. Mary handed it over. "Dean?" she said.
He didn’t answer.
"Are you still there, Dean?"
"Yes."
"I don’t have a problem turning around," she told him matter-of-factly. "If that’s what’s stopping you, it isn’t a problem. I’d much rather be there with Sam than going home. I’m only doing this because you bullied me into it, so if you want Mary to come back, I’ll be more than happy to turn around right now and bring her back." He didn’t say anything. "Did you hear me?" she asked after several long seconds.
"Yes. I heard you. Put Mary back on, will you?"
Meredith sighed. She handed the phone back to Mary.
"Hey," Mary said.
"Can she hear what I’m saying?" he asked.
"No."
"You suck."
She smiled. "I can hear what you’re saying," she reminded him.
"Good. You suck. I didn’t call to talk to her. I called to talk to you."
"I thought you called to ask me to come back," she said gently.
"No. I just called to hear your voice.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, I’m sure, dammit. I don’t want you to come back. If I did, I’d tell you."
"Scout’s honor?" she asked.
"I don’t want you to come back," he repeated. "And it isn’t because of Meredith. I could give a fuck whether Meredith would be upset or not. I just called to talk to you. That’s all. Just to talk to you."
"Okay."
"I just wanted to hear your voice."
"Okay."
"You said to call, so I did."
"Okay."
"I just wanted to hear your voice, Mary." He sounded so tired. So terribly, terribly tired.
He needed her to say something - something other than just okay - but for a moment, she found herself at a complete loss as to what that something should be. She didn’t know what to say to him. It was an unfamiliar feeling. She always knew what to say to him. "Anything in particular you wanted to hear?" she asked finally.
He laughed a little. It was a coarse, almost desperate sound. "Lady’s choice," he said. "Whatever you want to say that doesn’t involve turning around and coming back or me turning into my dad."
"I can recite the Gettysburg Address," she offered. "And I think I know the whole opening thing from Star Trek. Space, the final frontier. Yada, yada, yada, to boldly go where no man has gone before."
"Who said the yada, yada, yada part?"
She smiled. "That guy from Boston Legal, I think. Oh, wait, I know: the lyrics to American Pie. I know those by heart. A long, long time ago, I can still remember how that music used to make me smile. And I knew if I had the chance …."
"Skip to the part about the Impala," he said.
"Huh. Lady’s choice, but now you’re making requests?"
"I like the part about the Impala."
"Foreplay’s part of the fun," she said.
"For you, maybe. I like the part about the Impala."
She lowered her voice, put the low husk to it that drove him crazy and said, "Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry. And them good ole boys were drinking whiskey and rye, singing this'll be the day that I die. This'll be the day that I die."
"Yeah," he said. "That’s the spot, baby."
"Did you write the book of love?" she went on. "And do you have faith in God above if the Bible tells you so? Do you believe in rock and roll? Can music save your mortal soul? And can you teach me how to dance …" she slowed down, pulled her words out like taffy, "… real … slow?"
He laughed quietly, sounding more like himself. "Do the part about the Impala again."
"Do you want me to tell you what I’m wearing first?"
"Hell, yeah."
"If you’ve got a credit card number handy," she added, "we can talk about my panties again."
"Sweeeeet."
"Will that be Mastercard or Visa?"
"Wallet’s in my other pants," he said. "Do you give freebies?"
"Dream on, big boy. I’m easy, but I’m not cheap. I will run a tab for you, though; if you want. You sound like the trustworthy type."
"I used to be a boy scout," he said.
"Hey, now. I’m driving; don’t be trying to take my mind off the road."
"You like boy scouts?"
"Boy scouts and firemen are my thang," she said.
"I heard that about you."
"Really? What else did you hear?"
"I’d tell you, but then I’d need a credit card number."
"We’re on your nickel, not mine."
"Can we talk about that girl-on-girl thing again then? Because Big Dean-o is a big fan of girl-on-girl, especially when he knows you’re not wearing any panties."
"Sure. We’ll make it a theme thing. I’ll tell you all about me and Meredith road tripping our way to San Jose, top down and hair blowing in the wind."
"You’re not driving a convertible," he pointed out.
"I wasn’t talking about having the car’s top down."
Dean groaned. Beside her in the car, Meredith made a very similar noise for very similar reasons.
Mary grinned. "Score! Two birds with one stone. I rock."
"That’s just wrong," Dean said. "Downstairs brain is broken now."
"That’s what you get for calling it big Dean-o."
"Ow. That hurts. That really hurts. Hang on just a minute."
He put his hand over the phone. She could hear him talking to someone, but she couldn’t hear what he said. When he came back on the line, he said, "Sorry. That was Sam."
"He come in to tell you he was finished not smoking outside with Danny?"
"No. It was nothing."
His voice had gone quiet again. Serious. She couldn’t tell if there was a problem, or if it was just an interruption to the distraction she’d finally managed. Fucking Sammus Interruptus. "John?" she asked carefully.
"No. Danny ordered some food in. He was just letting me know it was here."
"You should go eat," she said.
"I’d rather talk about your panties," he returned. It was a good try, but the capacity to groove on song lyrics with her to the eventual end of talking dirty was gone. He was thinking about something else now. The exhaustion she’d almost pushed out of his voice was back.
"You should eat," she said again. "Have you had anything at all today?"
"Yes."
"Besides coffee?" He sighed. "Go eat," she said. "Call me later, and we’ll talk more about my panties."
"All right. Fine."
"And get some sleep," she added. "You sound exhausted."
"When did you become the boss of me again?" he asked.
"Look down."
"Yeah."
"See that gold thing on your left hand?"
She could hear the smile in his voice when he asked, "Anything else, dear?"
"Yeah. Listen to your brother. He’s pretty smart, for a geek."
"Fucking Sammus Interruptus," he grumbled.
She laughed, but didn’t explain why.
"He’s wrong, you know," Dean said quietly. "You both are."
"What are the odds of that do you think?"
"I wasn’t turning into him. I wasn’t a drunk, and I wasn’t trying to kill myself. You made everything different for me; but even before you, I wasn’t turning into him."
She figured that was probably what he was thinking about. Double damn Sammy with a side of hammy for his crappy fucking timing. "Okay," she said easily. "I’ll be wrong about this one, you be wrong about the next one."
"I’m serious."
"So am I."
"You don’t sound serious."
"I’ll do better next time."
"Do the part about the Impala again," he said.
"Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry," she said, giving him her sex voice again. "And them good ole boys were drinking whiskey and rye, singing this'll be the day that I die. This'll be the day that I die."
"I gave Sam the Impala," he said.
That stopped her for a beat, threw her off her game as he no doubt intended it to. The son of a bitch was good, she had to give him that. She picked American Pie off the top of her head because she knew the Chevy thing would tickle his game bone, engage him into playing with her so she could do something other than verify things he didn’t want to hear. It didn’t occur to her that he’d be able to turn the lyrics back on her, use them to his own point about not being his dad, about how much he’d done to try to avoid that end.
"Yes," she agreed after a moment. "You did."
"I wasn’t turning into him."
"The Impala’s just a car, baby."
"Ow. That’s hitting below the belt."
"Sorry."
"Yeah, you sound all broke up."
"What can I say? I fight dirty. Gives me an edge."
"You’re not going to say it, are you," he said quietly.
"What do you want me to say?"
"That I wasn’t turning into him."
"You weren’t turning into him."
"Damnit, Mary …"
"Go eat," she said.
"You really think that?"
"That the Impala’s just a car? No, I don’t think that. Now go eat your dinner."
"Why? Just because Sam does?"
"Not just."
"But that’s part of it, right?" he pressed. "You think so because Sam thinks so?"
"Sam knows you pretty well," she said.
"So do you."
"Yeah," she agreed. "I do." She didn’t have to say it for him to hear it: but we’re both wrong.
"Why does he think that?" he asked finally.
"Because he sees you the way you see your dad."
Dean didn’t say anything for a long time. She waited, knowing he was still there, knowing he was still on the line.
"Okay," he said finally. "I’m going to go eat. I’ll talk to you later."
"Hey, Dean," she said, just to keep him from hanging up.
He waited a beat. Then another. "Yeah?" he said finally, as if he thought maybe she thought he’d already hung up.
"Nothing. Just trying to keep you on the line."
He laughed quietly. "Thought you wanted me to go eat."
"I do."
Several more seconds passed before he asked, "So … you want to just sit here and listen to each other breathe?"
"Sounds kinky. I’m in."
For several minutes, neither of them said a word. They just sat there, each on their own respective end of the line, listening to the other breathe.
"Thanks," he said finally, quietly.
"Sure."
"Okay."
She waited until he hung up. Once he did, she flipped her own phone closed.
"So, I take it we’re not going back?" Meredith asked.
"No. But Dean says thanks anyway."
Meredith made a small sound in the back of her throat. "Yeah. I’m sure he does."
Mary studied her for a long moment, then said, "Okay. He said he could really give a fuck whether you wanted to come back or not. But he made sure you couldn’t hear him before he said it."
"Well, that’s progress at least."
"But I’m saying thanks," Mary added after a beat.
Meredith smiled. "You’re welcome."
They rode in silence for several minutes. "You mind if I turn the radio on?" Mary asked finally.
"Not at all."
She leaned forward, turned the power dial. Some kind of anemic pop crap filled the car with the sound of anemic pop crap. Mary wrinkled her nose and turned the volume down as Meredith laughed.
"What?" Mary asked.
Meredith indicated the radio with a slight lift of her chin. "Do you listen to that?" she asked.
"Fuck no," Mary said a little too quickly.
"Does Dean?"
"Double fuck no. He’d rather be buried alive in an ant hill."
"Well neither do I. That’s Sam’s idea of a joke. He tunes Dean’s radio to a top forty station every time he gets a chance. He’s been doing that for as long as I’ve known him. Twenty bucks every pre-set on the radio is top forty."
Mary pressed several of the buttons. They were all static. She pressed the eject button, and a tape popped out. Written in black magic marker across the label was "Shut Your Cake Hole Mix."
Meredith laughed again. "God, I love that man. You want to stop and walk around for a while?"
"No. I’m fine."
"Sometimes it helps to get out and stretch your back a little."
"I’m fine," Mary repeated.
Meredith nodded. "You want to put in one of Dean’s tapes, that’s fine with me. I love Sam, but his taste in music leaves something to be desired."
Mary popped in a tape, turned the volume low, then settled back in her seat. She shifted several times in an effort to find a more comfortable position. There wasn’t one. "Maybe at the next rest stop," she said.
"Eighteen miles," Meredith told her. "I’ve been keeping track." She didn’t say anything else for the next twelve miles. Then, her voice calmly inquisitive, she asked, "So … Big Dean-o?"
Mary laughed. And kept laughing. At that moment in time, sitting in a car her husband deemed utterly unfuckable, listening to Kansas sing about dust in the wind as her back cramped and her feet ached and her baby just kicked the crap out of her bladder, she appreciated her sister-in-law more than she had in the almost five years she’d known her, and perhaps more than she ever would again.
*
Danny watched John’s sons interact, studying the way they worked with each other, worked around each other, worked off each other. The dynamic between them was in a constant state of flux, yet never really changing on much more than a superficial level. It was fascinating to watch, to see how instinctively they responded to each other, how much their dialogs were not only verbal, but also physical in the information that passed between them as subtle adjustments of postures and body languages.
When he was in med school, he’d been part of a research study on twins and nonverbal communication. Nothing he saw during that study compared to what he was seeing now. Less a simpatico than a balance, the communication between them wasn’t based on similarity as much as it was dissimilarity. It was almost a yin and yang dynamic: When one pushed, the other gave; when one needed, the other supplied.
Yet even as they balanced each other with instinctive ease, they also bickered like cats and dogs.
Or brothers.
"You’re full of shit, Sam," Dean said around the mouthful of burger he was chewing. "When I start calling you up in the middle of the night, telling you to crawl off Meredith to come bail me out of the drunk tank, then you can say I’m turning into Dad. But until then, you’re so full of shit you’re drawing flies."
"Whatever you have to tell yourself, Dean," Sam returned. "But you know exactly what I’m saying, and you know I’m right."
"You’re never right, dude."
"Yeah? Why’s that?"
"Because I’m older. Now quit bogarting the chips and pass ’em over."
Sam tossed a bag of chips at his brother. Dean caught it, dumped more than half the bag on his plate, then set the rest to the ground at his feet. His eyes were still dark, almost haunted; but his smile was more relaxed now, more genuine, more natural.
He’d gotten something from talking to his wife, and bickering with his brother was making it stronger. With every passing minute, he looked less like rage put to motion and more like who Danny expected John’s son to be under the brittle shell of frantic only now beginning to slough away. Without the pressure of his father breaking right in front of him, Dean was starting to settle, starting to be. The defensive anger had mellowed, the instinct to lash out becoming more potential now than active posture.
But even so - even sitting on the couch, flicking chips at his brother like a ten year old messing with his best friend just for the hell of it - exhaustion owned the younger man’s expression. The hollows of his face were gathering shadows, the lines etched into his skin becoming deeper and more prominent with every passing hour. There was a good two day’s growth of beard seeded along his jawline; and those dark, haunted eyes were glassy with bone-deep fatigue.
Sam asked twice how long it had been since Dean slept; Dean responded both times with a casual joke that put the subject off the table.
The ease with which they navigated each other seemed almost playful on the surface, a dynamic rich with humor and deep with an affection that spoke of decades running this particular stretch of bickering rapids in the same boat. But beneath the façade of it, Danny could sense much deeper waters running fast and cold. The intensity of Sam’s concern for his brother was palpable, as was the profundity of Dean’s damage … something he seemed only willing to let Sam sense, not actually see.
Watching them, Danny could see a reflection of his relationship with Julie. And in that reflection, he could see much more about their lives - about John’s life - than either of them would ever guess.
He knew how much Dean must have protected Sam when they were children to earn this kind of allegiance. He recognized the bond between them, understood the kind of devotion that only grows out of someone being your only touchstone to the reality of life. Your only link to the outside, the only person you can trust, you can turn to, you can believe in.
He’d lived that relationship himself long enough to see it for what it was. And watching it now between Sam and Dean, he understood how much Sam’s interactions with them earlier showed only what he wanted them to see and very little of who he actually was.
Without his brother in the room to expose him, Sam Winchester was the most effective chameleon Danny had ever met. The nuances of normal he could affect were stunningly accurate, virtually indistinguishable from the real thing to anyone who didn’t know to suspect what they saw. They seemed as native to his personality as his compassion, or his capacity for empathy, but they weren’t. Watching him now, in the glaring context of how he interacted with his brother, Danny could see the mask for everything it was.
And everything it wasn’t.
The first thing John told him about Sam was that he’d married someone he didn’t love just to feel normal. That bothered John, bothered him so deeply he’d called Danny from the café, asking if it was just him being old fashioned, or if Danny found that as fucked up as he did. Danny assured him it was both: John was an old stick in the mud and it was totally fucked up for him to care enough about some rich lawyer from California to give a shit why the guy married the woman he did.
That was before Danny saw Sam and knew who he had to be by the way he interacted with John, by the way they responded to one another and the way Sam anticipated a man who was impossible to anticipate unless you knew him far better than anyone would ever know John the first time they met him. That some rich, hippy lawyer might over-bond with John he could buy; John could be charming when he wanted to be. But that John had established this level of rapport with Sam was something Danny recognized as experience the moment he saw it.
Years of experience.
And something more.
John was an excellent mimic when it came to sharing, but it was all mimicry. A charade of charm and misdirection, small tidbits of lies and humor dropped to lure whoever he was talking to into telling him everything while he told them nothing. No one walked away from John knowing more than they walked up with unless they knew how to get through his walls, how to evade his evasions, how to turn the game back on him to get as good as they gave.
When he dropped by on the way home from the hospital because John insisted he had to meet this kid to understand he wasn’t just some rich lawyer from California, Danny expected one of John’s games. He assumed it would be some yuppie John was making sport of to the end of both of them having a hell of a good time, but only one of them really knowing what the game actually was. He didn’t even call Sarah to tell her he was stopping; he was that sure it would take five minutes, and he’d be out.
But it wasn’t a game. All he had to do was see Julie to realize something was going on. Five minutes with Sam, and he called Sarah to tell her he wasn’t coming home.
He stayed for dinner because he needed to know what Sam’s intentions were, and to cut them off at the pass if they were dangerous for John. He stayed the night because by the time he got there, it was already too late to even meet John at the pass, let alone cut him off.
He could see the headaches digging in behind John’s eyes, scoring lines of pain in the same expression that spent the night laughing in defiance of their intentions to subjugate him. Julie didn’t notice them until the next morning because John was very good at pretending they didn’t exist; but Danny couldn’t miss them, not only because he knew where they came from and where they could go, but also because watching Sam’s effortless comradery with a man who poked big city tourists with the sharp stick of his perverse wit just to see them twitch told him exactly what to look for.
John’s headaches had become the stuff of his nightmares. He spent so much time failing against them in his dreams, he recognized even the flicker of them skating through John’s features; or hitting that misdirective bastard so unexpectedly it made his hands shake, or flicking through his eyes like an entire horror movie compressed down to a single frame.
Headcrackers, Sammy called them. And headcrackers is what they were.
Headaches that could - depending on the severity of the trigger - linger behind his eyes for hours or escalate to crippling intensity in a matter of seconds, they were flares warning of a break in the road ahead. They were flashing red emergency lights. They were "stop and go back" signs, detour signs, "get the fuck out now" signs.
But there was only so much Danny could do to make John drive by the rules of the road. He noticed everything, but he wasn’t very good at paying attention to anything he didn’t want to see; and he was even worse at being told what to do. He didn’t like boundaries, and there were times he did things just because someone said they couldn’t be done.
That was a large part of why they’d become friends in the first place: because, despite being fiercely disciplined in so many ways, John simply did not know the meaning of the word acquiesce. It wasn’t in his psychological vocabulary, and it had never been in Danny’s either. And for both of them, it had caused at least as much trouble as it had borne success.
And this was one of the times it caused trouble. John understood the dangers inherent to anything that stirred his headcrackers into play. He understood the pain for what it was, and he knew they weren’t something he could afford to ignore. Or hide.
But that’s what he did, more often than not. And that’s what he was doing when Danny showed up: hiding them from Julie, hiding them from Sam, trying to hide them from him. He’d already blown past the warning signs and was hell bent down the road on a collision course with whatever lay in wait beyond the next blind curve. Danny saw it coming long before Sam slipped and mentioned Mary; just as he saw John’s son in Sam long before he said as much in an effort to keep Meredith from escalating bad to worse to critical by treating John in a way he wouldn’t understand, but he would worry until he figured it out.
But as much as Danny saw the Sam John see didn’t then, he couldn’t say he saw the Sam Dean was showing him now.
When John introduced them, Sam looked as normal as any rich lawyer from California Danny had ever met. By the time he’d spent five minutes watching Sam slide through John’s defenses like they didn’t exist, he knew Sam was not only deadly good at looking like something he wasn’t, he was also John’s son and the least normal man Danny had ever met.
But until now, until he saw Sam in the context of Dean; until he saw Sam’s camouflage stripped away by the pressure of Dean’s pain and how that pain burned Sam to the same kind of bone-deep panic Dean experienced while watching his father break right before his eyes, Danny didn’t realize now how much of a lie it was for Sam to tell his father what he wanted most in the world was to be normal. Sam didn’t want to be normal at all. Dean wanted Sam to be normal. And for Sam, that was all that mattered.
What Sam said earlier about his brother - Dean doesn’t consider what he wants when it comes to Dad. Whatever Dad needs, that’s what Dad gets. Dean comes in a distant second - was just as truly said of him. But it wasn’t John Sam considered first. It was Dean.
Dean wanted Sam to be happy; so he was happy, even if he wasn’t. Dean wanted Sam to be safe; so he was safe, even if he wasn’t. Dean wanted Sam be normal; so he was normal, even if he had no idea what normal really was.
Even if he had to marry someone he thought was normal just so he could pass for normal.
Normal for Dean, because that’s what Dean wanted for him.
Watching them together, Danny saw in Sam everything he’d ever known about himself: that all he needed was whatever Julie wanted for him. Happy. Safe. Normal. Functional. Successful. Part of the community. He was none of those things, but as long as Julie thought he was, that was all that mattered.
And just as he lived his life for Julie, Danny could see Sam living his life for Dean.
Living it the way he did to free Dean from the obligation of his care. Living it to convince Dean everything he’d done - everything he’d sacrificed - while they were growing up was worth it. That it mattered, that it worked. That he was fine now. That because of everything Dean did over the years, Sam had grown up fine. He was functional, normal, happy.
Even if he wasn’t.
Danny recognized the weight of that responsibility because, like Sam, he lived it every day of his life: being happy, being successful, being normal, being fine.
Even though he wasn’t.
It was the only thing he could give Julie for everything she’d been to him over the years. It was all he had to offer to make it okay for her to finally let go of him. To live for herself, now. To want things for herself. To see something she needed - to see John - and to take it this time instead of giving it up, sacrificing it because she decided when she was eleven that her life didn’t matter as much as his did. That she wasn’t as important as he was. That everything was always going to be about him, because he was all that mattered.
He was it, the only thing Julie cared about, the only thing that mattered to her from the time she was eleven years old, watching her mother die, knowing it was the end of everything she ever knew and dealing with the agony of having her life stripped away by making everything from that point on about him.
Just him.
Only him.
Until John.
John was the first thing Julie wanted for herself since she was eleven, and there was nothing Danny wouldn’t do to give him back to her. Nothing.
He saw that same desperation in Sam. Saw how much there was nothing Sam wouldn’t do for Dean, nothing he wouldn’t give up so Dean could have what Dean wanted - what Dean needed. And that included giving up a father he needed as much as he obviously needed the man he sat with last night, talking, laughing, loving the way only a son can love a father he thought he’d lost only to find he hadn’t.
But he would.
Sam would give John up if that’s what Dean needed him to do. I can live with whatever Dean can. And not only was he willing to do that, no one would be able to stop him from doing it, if he felt it was best for Dean. Because everything Sam did was judged first by the criteria of how it affected Dean.
No matter what Sam might say to the contrary, he didn’t think for a moment he was any less John’s son than Dean was. But he did think John was more Dean’s father than John was his. This is Dean’s call. You’re still his son, Sam. Not like Dean is. He thought Dean needed John in that capacity in a way Sam never had and never would.
Because Sam had Dean.
Just like Danny had Julie.
"You wish, bitch," Sam said.
"I know, geek," Dean countered.
He’d lost track of the conversation between them. He had no idea what they were talking about, or why they were calling each other names.
And it didn’t matter.
Nothing mattered except the fact that they were. Over the last half hour, watching them trade insults, watching them be brothers, Danny saw Dean change. He saw a man, bitter and angry and haunted by memories of the murder of his mother and the damage inflicted on him by his father, step away from the edge of the abyss to which he’d been pushed by new traumas opening old wounds. He saw Dean find solid footing again, rediscover himself enough to tap into strengths and endurances that either weren’t there before or weren’t accessible to him.
Exhausted to near collapse and under the kind of pressure that could crush a man, Dean was an emotional wreck, psychologically devastated by learning a father he’d given up for dead was really alive, only to then watch that father break at the sight of him in ways no man should ever see anyone he loves break. From the moment he arrived, charging down the middle of the street, desperate to get to his dad but unable to actually go to him; Dean was so deeply damaged he was teetering on the edge of the abyss, clinging there by only the barest of threads and the same kind of sheer determination of will that kept John alive when Danny would have bet his medical degree there was no way for John to survive. Yet still, in that state, suffering every fracture his father suffered, burning in the same fires in which his father burned, Dean found it within himself to turn away.
He found a way to step back, a way to recover from how far gone he already was by the time he arrived only to see his every fear put to the hellish ruination of callous reality.
Danny could see the amelioration as it spread through him like antibiotics set to the annihilation of an infection. Sitting here, watching him struggle to stay awake as he wolfed down a burger and bitch slapped his little brother silly with half a dozen insults so ridiculous they could have been grade school taunts thrown by schoolyard bullies, he could see Dean healing. See him changing, see him finding his feet, finding his balance. See him finding himself again amid the desolation he’d become after watching John disintegrate into a personal hell they shared so intimately Dean could walk his father through it step by step by agonizing step.
In the comforting familiarity of his brother’s gently antagonistic presence, Dean was coming out of his own incendiary deconstruction, and it had absolutely nothing to do with John.
But it had everything to do with Sam.
Sam who balanced him; Sam who cared about him more than he cared about himself. Sam who would sacrifice anything for him; Sam who would sacrifice everything for him. Dean was coming back, and he was doing it because of Sam.
But it wasn’t anything Sam was doing. It was just Sam. Just Sam being Sam.
Watching them, seeing them, reading them, learning from them, Danny found answers in the ferocity of their relationship that didn’t exist anywhere else. Sam gave Dean reasons to go on; he gave him resources to tap to step away from his own pain, to heal his own damage, to find whatever it was he needed to find if he was going to endure what was happening to John instead of self-destructing over it.
It was a moment of epiphany for Danny. Sitting in John’s living room, watching John’s sons laugh their way into an abbreviated food fight of chips and pickles and hamburger buns, he realized something that made all the difference in the world to the way he was thinking about how to proceed with the broken man lying in the room at the end of the hall.
It wasn’t about who Dean needed. It was about who needed Dean.
*