SPN Fic: To Everything A Season (Pt 17/?) (Gen, R, FutureFic)
Okay, y'all. Since the next sections is 1) long enough to be a full chapter in and of itself and 2) not finished, I'm going to go ahead and post this as chapter 17 even though it is a wee bit shorter than the others have been.
Title: To Everything A Season (Part 17/?)
Author:
dodger_winslow
Challenge: Firsts Chart: First Memory
Genre: Gen (some het, not graphic), FutureFic
Word Count: 163,000 (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 17
When Danny returned to the house, he found Dean dead asleep, slumped down so far into the couch cushions half his ass was hanging out over thin air. He had one arm draped across his eyes, and his head was dropped back at an almost ninety degree angle from his body while he breathed in a soft, consistent snore.
He jerked awake at the quiet click of Danny pulling the front door shut, lifting his arm off his face and dragging one eye open as if the effort of doing so was tantamount to climbing Mount Everest. "Where’s Sam?" he asked, his voice dry from snoring, the words barely audible in the otherwise quiet room. He coughed a little, cleared his throat, then asked again, "Where’s Sam?"
"No idea," Danny said.
Dean dragged the other eye open to scan the room like he expected to find his brother stashed behind a lamp somewhere, or upside down in a trashcan, or hanging from the light fixture over the dining room table. The struggle to think was tangible in his otherwise slack expression, as was the effort of trying to wake out of a haze working as hard to pull him back down as he was working to rise through it.
Danny watched the younger man for a moment, then said, "There’s a room at the end of the hall. Can’t miss it: looks like the inside of a bottle of Pepto Bismal."
Dean blinked, then blinked again. He eyes were blank.
"Go sack out for a couple of hours," Danny elaborated. "We’ll talk when you wake up."
Dean blinked a third time, then scrubbed at his face with one hand. "No. I’m fine. Just taking a catnap to kill a little time until you got back." He tried to sit up and nearly fell off the couch for his trouble. His legs were stretched so far out into the room the small of his back had become the pivot point for shifting positions. When he moved, what little of his ass remained on the couch slipped off, and his body vee-ed sharply at the waist.
It stunned Danny, especially given the sluggish condition of his mind, how quickly Dean twisted to catch himself with one hand on the floor before he actually hit bottom. It was a display of reflexes and instinctive agility that rivaled anything he’d ever seen, even under lab conditions, for fast twitch muscle response.
Recovering awkwardly, Dean used the carpet for traction to walk his heels backward, pushing his lower body back onto the couch in the process. Once he’d established a more stable position, he sat up, rolled his shoulders, cracked his neck, and said. "I meant to do that." Then, looking around the room, he asked, "Where’s Sam?"
"Yeah. Still no idea."
Dean just looked at him.
"I don’t know where Sam is," Danny clarified after a beat.
"I heard you," Dean said. "So I take it I already asked that?"
"You did."
"Damn. Real sorry about that. Must be a hell of an inconvenience to have to say ‘no idea’ twice. Hey, you don’t happen to know where Sam is, do you?"
Danny sighed. "What’s the problem here, Dean? Is it just because it’s my idea? Because we can pretend it’s all yours if that helps move the train on down the track."
"I think it might be the whole treating me like a five-year-old staying up past his bedtime thing. Condescending assholes always throw me into fuck you mode. I’m not sure why."
Danny looked at the younger man for a full three beat before shaking his head and offering a dismissive hand gesture as he walked in the direction of the kitchen. "Whatever. Knock yourself out. Stay up. Go to bed. Dance a jig on the moon for all I care. I’m getting some coffee. Do you want some? Or is that condescending of me to ask?"
Dean rubbed a hand across his eyes, then scratched at the stubble on his face. "No need to be a bitch about it," he said finally.
"Is that a yes or a no?" Danny asked from the kitchen.
"That’s a no." Then, as Danny came back into the living room with a mug in his hand, he added, "Actually, to tell you the truth, I’m a little tired. I was thinking about maybe crashing for a while."
Danny grunted. "Huh. What a novel idea. Wish I’d thought of it."
"You said end of the hall?"
"Yeah. To the left. Not that I’m trying to push you or anything. You can go right if you’d rather. There’s a wall there; but still, if you’d rather go that way, feel free."
Dean squinted at him, one eye half-closed. "Pepto Bismal, huh? Who paints a bedroom the color of Pepto Bismal?"
"That’s Sammy for you. Her first choice was black, but Julie threw a veto down on that. Ugly-ass pink was the compromise … more compromise for Julie than for Sammy, I suspect."
Dean snorted. "I’ll bet."
"If I were laying odds, though," Danny added, "I’d put my money on Pepto being John’s idea. I’m pretty sure Lowell doesn’t carry that color in stock, and he doesn’t have the imagination to mix something like that without a sample to match it to. Besides which, Sammy’s un-directed tastes run more along the lines of florescent algae green, which would have worked much better with the whole hippopotamus thing she’s starting to explore."
"Hippopotamus?"
"She got bored with horses. Says they’re too ordinary. And hippopotami are bigger. She saw one kick a crocodile’s ass on the Discovery channel and was very impressed. That’s all she talked about for a month."
Dean grunted. "Sounds like a fun kid."
"She’s okay," Danny said, taking a draw of his coffee. "For a girl."
"Mine’s a girl," Dean noted. Then he laughed. "Now there’s a scary thought. You have kids?"
"I’ll wake you if something changes with John," Danny said.
Dean’s eyes narrowed for a moment, then he said, "Yeah. Thanks."
"No problem."
"You know where Sam is?" Dean asked as he turned and headed for the hallway. When Danny started to answer, Dean interrupted him, saying, "I’m kidding. Get a sense of humor, dude."
Danny laughed in spite of himself. "Right. Sleep tight there, little buddy."
"Fuck you," Dean returned congenially. He hesitated several steps short of leaving the living room behind to glance back at Danny, looking like he wanted to ask something but wasn’t sure he should.
"To the left," Danny said.
"That isn’t what I was going to ask."
"No, I don’t know where Sam is."
Dean sighed. "Has anyone ever told you you’re a condescending asshole?"
"No. Never. What do you need?"
"More what you need. Demons and wendigos can be kind of hard on a guy’s perception of reality. You need a sounding board or a tour guide or something?"
"I’m good," Danny said, his expression neutral.
"Sammy said that was your wife outside earlier. You talk to her about it?"
"I’m good," Danny repeated calmly.
Dean’s gaze shifted to the bay window. He stared out it to the darkness beyond saying, "Sam should’ve kept his mouth shut, but he didn’t. So since the wendigo’s already out of the bag, I’ll answer whatever questions you have. It’s a mistake not to face something like this head on. Pretending what he told you doesn’t change things will fuck you in the long run."
"I hesitate to say this, because I wouldn’t want it to come off condescending or anything, but am I being unclear about whether or not we’re going to talk about this? Because if I am, I can clarify it for you."
"No," Dean said quietly. "You’re not being unclear." He lifted his chin slightly to indicate the night outside the window. "Sure got dark in a hurry."
"You’ll have that up here when the sun goes down."
Dean nodded. "Sammy tells me I should follow your lead on this whole thing with Dad. Says you’re the doctor. You’re the expert, and I need to respect that, even if it scares me. Which, quite frankly, it does. Scares the shit out of me."
"Sam’s a smart guy."
"Yeah. Most of the time. And here’s where you saying that kicks you in the ass: I’m the expert when it comes to things that go bump in the night. I’ve been dealing with them since I was four." He looked away from the window then, met Danny’s eyes. His gaze was clearer now, no longer clouded with the backwash of exhaustion still so evident in his features. "So maybe you should consider following my lead on this. Not saying you have to, just suggesting it might be something to consider."
"You may be the expert on wendigos and demons, but I’m the expert on me."
"And I’m the expert on Dad," Dean returned. "Sam still says to follow your lead. Not sure he’s right; but like you said, Sam’s a smart guy."
For a moment, Danny didn’t say anything. When he did speak, it was to say, "No offense, Dean; but I’m not very good at being told how to deal with my own personal shit."
"Really? I’m not like that at all. Someone tells me to do something for my own good, I’m all over it like white on rice."
Danny snorted.
"I’m not saying it has to be right now," Dean said. "In fact, it can’t be right now because I’m so damned tired I could fall asleep on my feet and not even know it, so I’m going to hunt down that ugly-ass pink room you offered and crash for a while. Not because I want to, and not because you told me to, but just because it seems like the smart thing to do. What you decide to do about your deal is obviously up to you, but if you try to do nothing, it will catch up to you in the end. That’s all I’m saying."
"Thanks for the advice."
"I’m not big on giving advice," Dean said. "Probably ought to consider it more of a warning."
"Thanks for the warning then."
Dean nodded. "Wake me up if anything changes," he said, then turned and walked down the hall. Mulling over expert advice offered in the form of a warning, Danny watched him go.
*
"Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch."
Sam glanced up from watching his father sleep. Danny was standing in the doorway, looking at him like he’d just discovered the cure to the common cold and solved the value of pi to the last digit on the same day. Smiling wanly, Sam lifted his chin in acknowledgement before returning to the vigil he was keeping.
Danny slipped into the room and closed the door behind him. "So how in the hell did you manage this? You didn’t hit her over the head with anything, did you?"
"Nothing so dramatic. All I had to do was ask."
"Right. What’d you really do?"
"That’s all I really did," Sam assured him. "In fact, I didn’t even do that. She offered. I just said yes."
"Fine. Don’t tell me then." Danny began the routine of checking John’s vitals, starting with blood pressure by tightening the velcro cuff that was always loosely in place around his left biceps.
"Julie said you’re worried about how much his blood pressure’s been jumping around. Said something about it being a strain on his organs in their condition?"
Danny flicked him a quick glance. "Sometimes Julie’s a little chattier than she should be."
"I’m not under any illusions here, Danny. You don’t live at the bottom of a whiskey bottle for as long as Dad did without taking some damage. My concern is how this much sedation plays into that damage. Is keeping him down this long dangerous for him? Does it create more long term problems?"
"I was thinking about hanging out my shingle," Danny said conversationally in lieu of an answer. "Start out slow, just taking on malpractice suits at first, then step my way up to more lucrative cases. Maybe contest a few wills for the next of kin of patients who don’t make it through surgery. You know, get ’em coming and going. Eventually work my way up to capital cases: a little death penalty debate just to see if I’ve got all the kinks worked out of my armchair law degree."
Sam smiled. "That your way of telling me to stick to my specialty?" he asked.
Danny was listening to John’s lungs through a stethoscope. He listened for several seconds, then pulled the earplugs out and draped the stethoscope around his neck, saying, "Dean’s right. You are a smart guy."
Sam snorted lightly. "So … was that was Sarah you met out on the drive?"
"Yup."
"Everything okay?"
"Depends on your definition of okay, I suppose." Leaning over to lift each of John’s eyelids in turn, he flicked a penlight across the iris, checking pupil response.
"How much did you tell her?"
"I tell Sarah pretty much everything."
Sam gave him a moment to elaborate. When he didn’t, Sam prompted, "Pretty much?"
"I leave out the parts about immortal cannibals who sup on Human sushi and demons who get their jollies eviscerating people and then spontaneously combusting them against the ceiling. She was never much for horror movies. Says they give her nightmares."
"So … you talked about …?"
"Had a rousing conversation about credit cards and overdraft protection. Made some Machievelli jokes. Covered a few other subjects … if I’d known there was going to be a pop quiz later, I’d have taken notes."
Sam sighed. "You can’t just ignore it, Danny. Pretend it doesn’t change things."
"Umm hmm." Three fingers pressed to John’s pulse point, Danny watched the seconds tick by on the watch he wore twisted to the inside of his wrist. "That’s what your brother said, too."
"And?"
"And I thanked him for the advice."
"Not so much advice as it is a warning," Sam said grimly.
"He said that, too."
When he finished with John’s wrists, Danny checked his carotid and distal pulses, then his reflex response in both feet. "When I heard the shower running," he said as he worked, "I figured it was you. Best case scenario, I thought I might find Julie in here snoozing on the daybed. It honestly didn’t even occur to me you’d be able to talk her completely out of the room. Sometime you’re going to have to show me how you walk on water that way. It could come in handy when I need to feed the multitudes on a ding dong and a Yoo-hoo."
"I just told her I’d like to have some time alone with my dad."
"Huh." Satisfied with John’s condition, Danny straightened. He folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the wall, fixing Sam with a long, evaluative gaze. "Sounds so obvious when you put it like that."
Sam shrugged. "I’ve had a lot of practice getting around Dean’s stubborn streak. You can push him all day long and never gain an inch. Reason doesn’t work much better. But if he thinks you need something, there’s not much he won’t do if you just ask."
"Pretty insightful," Danny observed dryly, "for a big-city, California lawyer."
Sam smiled. "Dean still asleep on the couch?"
"Sammy’s room. Figured you wouldn’t mind. There’s a couch in the den if you need it."
"What about you?"
"Doctors never sleep. First thing they teach you in med school."
Sam nodded "You and Dean talk at all?" he asked.
"A little."
"He tell you what he thinks of your plan?"
"We kind of got stuck on the whole condescending asshole thing."
Sam chuckled. "You or him?"
"Getting stuck or condescending?" Danny countered.
Sam nodded. "You pissed him off pretty good with your crack about nothing being obvious to him."
"Evidently."
"He’ll get over it. He’s just tired. And stressed. Makes him a little bitchy sometimes."
"It’s more than that. He doesn’t like me telling him what to do. Sees it as me trying to walk in John’s shoes."
"He’ll get over it," Sam said again.
"So what does he think of my plan?"
"He thinks Dad’s life here with you and Julie is too important to risk."
"He doesn’t know enough about it to think that."
Sam studied Danny for a long, silent moment. "You don’t know enough about Dad’s life before this to think otherwise," he said finally.
Danny lifted an eyebrow in surprise. "You saying you agree with him? That isn’t really the way he played it. He said you were advising him to follow my lead."
"I am. But I can’t say the idea of forcing Dad to face memories you think can break him doesn’t scare the shit out of me. It does."
"Scares me, too, Sam. But I don’t see where we have much choice. When your brother’s vertical again, I’ll tell you some things you don’t know. Might change both your perspectives a little."
"He’s pissed I told you about the Demon."
"I got that."
"Thinks it’s bad timing. That I’m undermining your effectiveness by re-defining your perception of reality when you need to be worrying about other things."
"What do you think?"
"I think if you’d tried to deal with Dad’s memories like all he saw was Mom dying, it could have been as disastrous as it would have been for Dad to let a bunch of therapists take their whacks at Dean as a kid, thinking all he was dealing with was the death of his mother. Dad protected Dean from that. If he hadn’t, I don’t think Dean would have made it."
"I’d have to agree with that. On both counts."
"But he’s right, too," Sam said. "It does pretty much fuck you for me to lay this kind of thing on you right now."
"I could use a good fuck," Danny said. "Don’t get much any more, sleeping on John’s couch as much as I do these days. I’m down to meeting my wife in the driveway for a quickie."
"Did you call her, or did she come on her own?" Sam asked.
"Ah, crap. You told Julie she was here?" At Sam’s startled look, he clarified, "No way in hell you care whether I called Sarah or she just dropped by. That’s Julie’s question. Damnit, Sam. Why do you think I met her in the driveway? Did Julie freak?"
"She got a little upset," Sam allowed.
"By a little upset, do you mean she just went into labor or she dropped the baby right then?"
"She was a little scared, but we talked it through."
"By ‘talked it through’ you mean what? Because there’s no way Julie knows I called Sarah, and she reads it as anything other than I’m lying my ass off to her about John’s condition."
"I told her it wasn’t John you were worried about."
"You didn’t tell her anything about demons, did you?" Danny demanded. Then, at the look Sam gave him, he said, "Sorry. That wasn’t really a fair question. Of course you didn’t. Then how did you convince her I didn’t call Sarah about John?"
"I lied," Sam said. "And then I walked on water."
Danny chuckled, shaking his head. "You’ve really got to show me how you do that."
"As far as Julie’s concerned, you already do."
"Come again?" Danny said.
"She told me she has absolute faith in you when it comes to saving my dad. And that I should, too."
Danny blinked. For just a moment, he didn’t say a word. "She said that?" he asked finally.
"She did. And that blind faith in you is as close to putting money on a sure thing as a person ever gets. And then she called you an enormous pain in the ass."
Danny nodded. He lifted one hand, closing his eyes and rubbing at his eyebrow for almost a minute before he opened them again and dropped his hand away from where it was blocking his face from view.
"You okay?" Sam asked.
"Yeah. I’m fine. What were we talking about?"
"About you calling Sarah."
"Right. No, I didn’t call her."
"You’ve already said you called her three times."
"I must have been lying."
Sam smiled. "So you called her because you needed to talk, but then you didn’t talk to her?"
"I didn’t need to talk. I just wanted to see her. She’s my wife: I’m allowed to do that."
"Julie says you only call Sarah when you’re scared."
Danny’s eyes clouded. "Like I said, sometimes Julie’s a little chattier than she should be."
"Dean and I grew up seeing the world this way, Danny," Sam said. "Demons and wendigos and things that go bump in the night have been a part of our lives for as long as we’ve been alive. He learned about them early, and I’ve never known anything else."
"That’s fascinating, Sam," Danny said, "but it really doesn’t have anything to do with me."
"This isn’t new to us, but it is to you," Sam insisted. "And it isn’t something you can just hear one day and be fine with. It changes everything, especially for a man of faith. You have to take some time to absorb it. Talk it through with someone, try and figure out how it fits in with everything else you believe. If you don’t, it will fuck you when it gets tired of waiting for you to deal with it."
"What makes you assume I’m a man of faith?"
Sam just looked at him. "You’re kidding, right?"
Danny smiled a little. "Well, I wasn’t; but I suppose that’s a better answer than whatever else you would have said."
"Don’t try and wrap around all this by yourself, Danny," Sam advised quietly. "It’s too much weight to carry alone."
Danny looked away, watched John sleep for a moment, then shifted his attention to his own hands. His expression was neutral as he studied them, like he was watching paint dry, or contemplating nothing. "Sarah’s faith is important to her," he said after a long beat. "I’m not going to screw with that."
"Nothing I’ve experienced nullifies any kind of spiritual faith. To the contrary, most of it supports a belief in something bigger than us. Depending on your interpretation, of course."
"Sarah’s faith gets any stronger, someone will try to nail her to a cross."
"We’re not talking about Sarah," Sam said.
Danny looked up then, met the younger man’s eyes. "I am."
Sam considered his words cautiously before he spoke again. "So your concern is changing her faith if you discuss these things with her?"
"Not really a concern," Danny said. "More of a deal breaker."
"Then you need to talk to someone else."
"Yeah, that’s not going to happen."
"Why not?"
"Ever hear the one about the old dog and new tricks?"
"When you do the kind of thing Dean and I did for years, you find out most urban legends and old wives tales are ninety-seven percept bullshit and two percent mis-information."
"I’ve always been in the one percentile," Danny said. "Just part of who I am." He hesitated for a moment, then added, "As is the way I deal with my own personal shit. I’m not trying to be a martyr here, Sam. Trust me. I just know my own limitations. And talking about certain things to anyone who isn’t Sarah is simply outside the parameters of what I can do. Of what I’m capable of doing. So for all practical purposes, if I can’t put it in the Sarah lifeboat, it has to either sink or swim on its own."
"So you’ve told Sarah everything you and my dad have ever talked about? Sam asked.
Danny’s eyes flicked back to John. They watched him for a long moment, the neutrality of his expression corroding to something else. "Yeah, well, I don’t think Johnny’s really up to having a conversation right now. Maybe when he’s back up and running I’ll re-consider. In the mean time," he flashed Sam a quick grin, "don’t fret too much over my mental state. I’m nothing if not a resilient bastard, and I’ve been defining my reality as different from everyone else’s for most of my life. To tell you the truth, I’m not sure your campfire stories did much more than spice things up a little, maybe change out a few of the light bulbs to a brighter wattage."
"I’m not sure you could tell the truth if your life depended on it," Sam said.
Danny grinned. "Sure I could. I just don’t. There’s a difference. So how long did you negotiate out of Julie? She just going to clean up a little and then come back and expect us to vacate the premises, or were you able to put an actual nap on her ladyship’s agenda?"
"She said she’d sleep for a couple of hours."
"Damn, Sam. I truly am impressed. You want some time alone with John, or would you prefer company?"
"Grab a chair," Sam said. "I only told Julie alone to get her to take a break."
"Pot meet kettle," Danny quipped. Then, when Sam looked at him quizzically, he clarified, "The whole telling the truth thing."
"Oh." Sam smiled. "Yeah, Julie pointed that out, too. So how much did you actually learn about wendigos on the net? ’Cause some of those supernatural sites are totally whacked."
Danny just looked at him.
"What?" Sam said. "They are."
"Did I not say that whole thing about not sharing my own personal shit out loud? Because I could have sworn I did."
"What about wendigos do you consider your personal shit?"
Danny’s eyes narrowed. He considered that for a long moment before he said, "So we’re talking campfire stories and urban legends, here then?"
"As good a way as any to pass a long night, don’t you think?"
"What about demons?"
"We can go there if you want." Sam met Danny’s gaze calmly. "Or not. Your call if the subject comes up."
"But we’re not talking about me. Or what I believe. Or what I don’t believe."
"Not unless you’re a wendigo. Or a demon."
Danny smiled a little. "We going to cover elves and little green men, too? Because I have a theory about Mrs. Claus and Fox Mulder I wanted to run past you."
"I was thinking more along the lines of ghosts and goblins. A few myths. Some legends. A couple of pagan gods. Maybe even a vampire or two if you’re lucky. Nothing to worry about though, since none of it ever really happened."
"You’re assuming I’ll believe you, of course," Danny said.
"You’re a smart guy. An educated man. Surely you don’t believe in that kind of crap, right?"
"And that I won’t think you’re crazier than bat shit," Danny added.
Sam shrugged. "There is always that," he allowed.
"Yes," Danny agreed. "There is always that."
*
Title: To Everything A Season (Part 17/?)
Author:
dodger_winslow
Challenge: Firsts Chart: First Memory
Genre: Gen (some het, not graphic), FutureFic
Word Count: 163,000 (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 17
When Danny returned to the house, he found Dean dead asleep, slumped down so far into the couch cushions half his ass was hanging out over thin air. He had one arm draped across his eyes, and his head was dropped back at an almost ninety degree angle from his body while he breathed in a soft, consistent snore.
He jerked awake at the quiet click of Danny pulling the front door shut, lifting his arm off his face and dragging one eye open as if the effort of doing so was tantamount to climbing Mount Everest. "Where’s Sam?" he asked, his voice dry from snoring, the words barely audible in the otherwise quiet room. He coughed a little, cleared his throat, then asked again, "Where’s Sam?"
"No idea," Danny said.
Dean dragged the other eye open to scan the room like he expected to find his brother stashed behind a lamp somewhere, or upside down in a trashcan, or hanging from the light fixture over the dining room table. The struggle to think was tangible in his otherwise slack expression, as was the effort of trying to wake out of a haze working as hard to pull him back down as he was working to rise through it.
Danny watched the younger man for a moment, then said, "There’s a room at the end of the hall. Can’t miss it: looks like the inside of a bottle of Pepto Bismal."
Dean blinked, then blinked again. He eyes were blank.
"Go sack out for a couple of hours," Danny elaborated. "We’ll talk when you wake up."
Dean blinked a third time, then scrubbed at his face with one hand. "No. I’m fine. Just taking a catnap to kill a little time until you got back." He tried to sit up and nearly fell off the couch for his trouble. His legs were stretched so far out into the room the small of his back had become the pivot point for shifting positions. When he moved, what little of his ass remained on the couch slipped off, and his body vee-ed sharply at the waist.
It stunned Danny, especially given the sluggish condition of his mind, how quickly Dean twisted to catch himself with one hand on the floor before he actually hit bottom. It was a display of reflexes and instinctive agility that rivaled anything he’d ever seen, even under lab conditions, for fast twitch muscle response.
Recovering awkwardly, Dean used the carpet for traction to walk his heels backward, pushing his lower body back onto the couch in the process. Once he’d established a more stable position, he sat up, rolled his shoulders, cracked his neck, and said. "I meant to do that." Then, looking around the room, he asked, "Where’s Sam?"
"Yeah. Still no idea."
Dean just looked at him.
"I don’t know where Sam is," Danny clarified after a beat.
"I heard you," Dean said. "So I take it I already asked that?"
"You did."
"Damn. Real sorry about that. Must be a hell of an inconvenience to have to say ‘no idea’ twice. Hey, you don’t happen to know where Sam is, do you?"
Danny sighed. "What’s the problem here, Dean? Is it just because it’s my idea? Because we can pretend it’s all yours if that helps move the train on down the track."
"I think it might be the whole treating me like a five-year-old staying up past his bedtime thing. Condescending assholes always throw me into fuck you mode. I’m not sure why."
Danny looked at the younger man for a full three beat before shaking his head and offering a dismissive hand gesture as he walked in the direction of the kitchen. "Whatever. Knock yourself out. Stay up. Go to bed. Dance a jig on the moon for all I care. I’m getting some coffee. Do you want some? Or is that condescending of me to ask?"
Dean rubbed a hand across his eyes, then scratched at the stubble on his face. "No need to be a bitch about it," he said finally.
"Is that a yes or a no?" Danny asked from the kitchen.
"That’s a no." Then, as Danny came back into the living room with a mug in his hand, he added, "Actually, to tell you the truth, I’m a little tired. I was thinking about maybe crashing for a while."
Danny grunted. "Huh. What a novel idea. Wish I’d thought of it."
"You said end of the hall?"
"Yeah. To the left. Not that I’m trying to push you or anything. You can go right if you’d rather. There’s a wall there; but still, if you’d rather go that way, feel free."
Dean squinted at him, one eye half-closed. "Pepto Bismal, huh? Who paints a bedroom the color of Pepto Bismal?"
"That’s Sammy for you. Her first choice was black, but Julie threw a veto down on that. Ugly-ass pink was the compromise … more compromise for Julie than for Sammy, I suspect."
Dean snorted. "I’ll bet."
"If I were laying odds, though," Danny added, "I’d put my money on Pepto being John’s idea. I’m pretty sure Lowell doesn’t carry that color in stock, and he doesn’t have the imagination to mix something like that without a sample to match it to. Besides which, Sammy’s un-directed tastes run more along the lines of florescent algae green, which would have worked much better with the whole hippopotamus thing she’s starting to explore."
"Hippopotamus?"
"She got bored with horses. Says they’re too ordinary. And hippopotami are bigger. She saw one kick a crocodile’s ass on the Discovery channel and was very impressed. That’s all she talked about for a month."
Dean grunted. "Sounds like a fun kid."
"She’s okay," Danny said, taking a draw of his coffee. "For a girl."
"Mine’s a girl," Dean noted. Then he laughed. "Now there’s a scary thought. You have kids?"
"I’ll wake you if something changes with John," Danny said.
Dean’s eyes narrowed for a moment, then he said, "Yeah. Thanks."
"No problem."
"You know where Sam is?" Dean asked as he turned and headed for the hallway. When Danny started to answer, Dean interrupted him, saying, "I’m kidding. Get a sense of humor, dude."
Danny laughed in spite of himself. "Right. Sleep tight there, little buddy."
"Fuck you," Dean returned congenially. He hesitated several steps short of leaving the living room behind to glance back at Danny, looking like he wanted to ask something but wasn’t sure he should.
"To the left," Danny said.
"That isn’t what I was going to ask."
"No, I don’t know where Sam is."
Dean sighed. "Has anyone ever told you you’re a condescending asshole?"
"No. Never. What do you need?"
"More what you need. Demons and wendigos can be kind of hard on a guy’s perception of reality. You need a sounding board or a tour guide or something?"
"I’m good," Danny said, his expression neutral.
"Sammy said that was your wife outside earlier. You talk to her about it?"
"I’m good," Danny repeated calmly.
Dean’s gaze shifted to the bay window. He stared out it to the darkness beyond saying, "Sam should’ve kept his mouth shut, but he didn’t. So since the wendigo’s already out of the bag, I’ll answer whatever questions you have. It’s a mistake not to face something like this head on. Pretending what he told you doesn’t change things will fuck you in the long run."
"I hesitate to say this, because I wouldn’t want it to come off condescending or anything, but am I being unclear about whether or not we’re going to talk about this? Because if I am, I can clarify it for you."
"No," Dean said quietly. "You’re not being unclear." He lifted his chin slightly to indicate the night outside the window. "Sure got dark in a hurry."
"You’ll have that up here when the sun goes down."
Dean nodded. "Sammy tells me I should follow your lead on this whole thing with Dad. Says you’re the doctor. You’re the expert, and I need to respect that, even if it scares me. Which, quite frankly, it does. Scares the shit out of me."
"Sam’s a smart guy."
"Yeah. Most of the time. And here’s where you saying that kicks you in the ass: I’m the expert when it comes to things that go bump in the night. I’ve been dealing with them since I was four." He looked away from the window then, met Danny’s eyes. His gaze was clearer now, no longer clouded with the backwash of exhaustion still so evident in his features. "So maybe you should consider following my lead on this. Not saying you have to, just suggesting it might be something to consider."
"You may be the expert on wendigos and demons, but I’m the expert on me."
"And I’m the expert on Dad," Dean returned. "Sam still says to follow your lead. Not sure he’s right; but like you said, Sam’s a smart guy."
For a moment, Danny didn’t say anything. When he did speak, it was to say, "No offense, Dean; but I’m not very good at being told how to deal with my own personal shit."
"Really? I’m not like that at all. Someone tells me to do something for my own good, I’m all over it like white on rice."
Danny snorted.
"I’m not saying it has to be right now," Dean said. "In fact, it can’t be right now because I’m so damned tired I could fall asleep on my feet and not even know it, so I’m going to hunt down that ugly-ass pink room you offered and crash for a while. Not because I want to, and not because you told me to, but just because it seems like the smart thing to do. What you decide to do about your deal is obviously up to you, but if you try to do nothing, it will catch up to you in the end. That’s all I’m saying."
"Thanks for the advice."
"I’m not big on giving advice," Dean said. "Probably ought to consider it more of a warning."
"Thanks for the warning then."
Dean nodded. "Wake me up if anything changes," he said, then turned and walked down the hall. Mulling over expert advice offered in the form of a warning, Danny watched him go.
*
"Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch."
Sam glanced up from watching his father sleep. Danny was standing in the doorway, looking at him like he’d just discovered the cure to the common cold and solved the value of pi to the last digit on the same day. Smiling wanly, Sam lifted his chin in acknowledgement before returning to the vigil he was keeping.
Danny slipped into the room and closed the door behind him. "So how in the hell did you manage this? You didn’t hit her over the head with anything, did you?"
"Nothing so dramatic. All I had to do was ask."
"Right. What’d you really do?"
"That’s all I really did," Sam assured him. "In fact, I didn’t even do that. She offered. I just said yes."
"Fine. Don’t tell me then." Danny began the routine of checking John’s vitals, starting with blood pressure by tightening the velcro cuff that was always loosely in place around his left biceps.
"Julie said you’re worried about how much his blood pressure’s been jumping around. Said something about it being a strain on his organs in their condition?"
Danny flicked him a quick glance. "Sometimes Julie’s a little chattier than she should be."
"I’m not under any illusions here, Danny. You don’t live at the bottom of a whiskey bottle for as long as Dad did without taking some damage. My concern is how this much sedation plays into that damage. Is keeping him down this long dangerous for him? Does it create more long term problems?"
"I was thinking about hanging out my shingle," Danny said conversationally in lieu of an answer. "Start out slow, just taking on malpractice suits at first, then step my way up to more lucrative cases. Maybe contest a few wills for the next of kin of patients who don’t make it through surgery. You know, get ’em coming and going. Eventually work my way up to capital cases: a little death penalty debate just to see if I’ve got all the kinks worked out of my armchair law degree."
Sam smiled. "That your way of telling me to stick to my specialty?" he asked.
Danny was listening to John’s lungs through a stethoscope. He listened for several seconds, then pulled the earplugs out and draped the stethoscope around his neck, saying, "Dean’s right. You are a smart guy."
Sam snorted lightly. "So … was that was Sarah you met out on the drive?"
"Yup."
"Everything okay?"
"Depends on your definition of okay, I suppose." Leaning over to lift each of John’s eyelids in turn, he flicked a penlight across the iris, checking pupil response.
"How much did you tell her?"
"I tell Sarah pretty much everything."
Sam gave him a moment to elaborate. When he didn’t, Sam prompted, "Pretty much?"
"I leave out the parts about immortal cannibals who sup on Human sushi and demons who get their jollies eviscerating people and then spontaneously combusting them against the ceiling. She was never much for horror movies. Says they give her nightmares."
"So … you talked about …?"
"Had a rousing conversation about credit cards and overdraft protection. Made some Machievelli jokes. Covered a few other subjects … if I’d known there was going to be a pop quiz later, I’d have taken notes."
Sam sighed. "You can’t just ignore it, Danny. Pretend it doesn’t change things."
"Umm hmm." Three fingers pressed to John’s pulse point, Danny watched the seconds tick by on the watch he wore twisted to the inside of his wrist. "That’s what your brother said, too."
"And?"
"And I thanked him for the advice."
"Not so much advice as it is a warning," Sam said grimly.
"He said that, too."
When he finished with John’s wrists, Danny checked his carotid and distal pulses, then his reflex response in both feet. "When I heard the shower running," he said as he worked, "I figured it was you. Best case scenario, I thought I might find Julie in here snoozing on the daybed. It honestly didn’t even occur to me you’d be able to talk her completely out of the room. Sometime you’re going to have to show me how you walk on water that way. It could come in handy when I need to feed the multitudes on a ding dong and a Yoo-hoo."
"I just told her I’d like to have some time alone with my dad."
"Huh." Satisfied with John’s condition, Danny straightened. He folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the wall, fixing Sam with a long, evaluative gaze. "Sounds so obvious when you put it like that."
Sam shrugged. "I’ve had a lot of practice getting around Dean’s stubborn streak. You can push him all day long and never gain an inch. Reason doesn’t work much better. But if he thinks you need something, there’s not much he won’t do if you just ask."
"Pretty insightful," Danny observed dryly, "for a big-city, California lawyer."
Sam smiled. "Dean still asleep on the couch?"
"Sammy’s room. Figured you wouldn’t mind. There’s a couch in the den if you need it."
"What about you?"
"Doctors never sleep. First thing they teach you in med school."
Sam nodded "You and Dean talk at all?" he asked.
"A little."
"He tell you what he thinks of your plan?"
"We kind of got stuck on the whole condescending asshole thing."
Sam chuckled. "You or him?"
"Getting stuck or condescending?" Danny countered.
Sam nodded. "You pissed him off pretty good with your crack about nothing being obvious to him."
"Evidently."
"He’ll get over it. He’s just tired. And stressed. Makes him a little bitchy sometimes."
"It’s more than that. He doesn’t like me telling him what to do. Sees it as me trying to walk in John’s shoes."
"He’ll get over it," Sam said again.
"So what does he think of my plan?"
"He thinks Dad’s life here with you and Julie is too important to risk."
"He doesn’t know enough about it to think that."
Sam studied Danny for a long, silent moment. "You don’t know enough about Dad’s life before this to think otherwise," he said finally.
Danny lifted an eyebrow in surprise. "You saying you agree with him? That isn’t really the way he played it. He said you were advising him to follow my lead."
"I am. But I can’t say the idea of forcing Dad to face memories you think can break him doesn’t scare the shit out of me. It does."
"Scares me, too, Sam. But I don’t see where we have much choice. When your brother’s vertical again, I’ll tell you some things you don’t know. Might change both your perspectives a little."
"He’s pissed I told you about the Demon."
"I got that."
"Thinks it’s bad timing. That I’m undermining your effectiveness by re-defining your perception of reality when you need to be worrying about other things."
"What do you think?"
"I think if you’d tried to deal with Dad’s memories like all he saw was Mom dying, it could have been as disastrous as it would have been for Dad to let a bunch of therapists take their whacks at Dean as a kid, thinking all he was dealing with was the death of his mother. Dad protected Dean from that. If he hadn’t, I don’t think Dean would have made it."
"I’d have to agree with that. On both counts."
"But he’s right, too," Sam said. "It does pretty much fuck you for me to lay this kind of thing on you right now."
"I could use a good fuck," Danny said. "Don’t get much any more, sleeping on John’s couch as much as I do these days. I’m down to meeting my wife in the driveway for a quickie."
"Did you call her, or did she come on her own?" Sam asked.
"Ah, crap. You told Julie she was here?" At Sam’s startled look, he clarified, "No way in hell you care whether I called Sarah or she just dropped by. That’s Julie’s question. Damnit, Sam. Why do you think I met her in the driveway? Did Julie freak?"
"She got a little upset," Sam allowed.
"By a little upset, do you mean she just went into labor or she dropped the baby right then?"
"She was a little scared, but we talked it through."
"By ‘talked it through’ you mean what? Because there’s no way Julie knows I called Sarah, and she reads it as anything other than I’m lying my ass off to her about John’s condition."
"I told her it wasn’t John you were worried about."
"You didn’t tell her anything about demons, did you?" Danny demanded. Then, at the look Sam gave him, he said, "Sorry. That wasn’t really a fair question. Of course you didn’t. Then how did you convince her I didn’t call Sarah about John?"
"I lied," Sam said. "And then I walked on water."
Danny chuckled, shaking his head. "You’ve really got to show me how you do that."
"As far as Julie’s concerned, you already do."
"Come again?" Danny said.
"She told me she has absolute faith in you when it comes to saving my dad. And that I should, too."
Danny blinked. For just a moment, he didn’t say a word. "She said that?" he asked finally.
"She did. And that blind faith in you is as close to putting money on a sure thing as a person ever gets. And then she called you an enormous pain in the ass."
Danny nodded. He lifted one hand, closing his eyes and rubbing at his eyebrow for almost a minute before he opened them again and dropped his hand away from where it was blocking his face from view.
"You okay?" Sam asked.
"Yeah. I’m fine. What were we talking about?"
"About you calling Sarah."
"Right. No, I didn’t call her."
"You’ve already said you called her three times."
"I must have been lying."
Sam smiled. "So you called her because you needed to talk, but then you didn’t talk to her?"
"I didn’t need to talk. I just wanted to see her. She’s my wife: I’m allowed to do that."
"Julie says you only call Sarah when you’re scared."
Danny’s eyes clouded. "Like I said, sometimes Julie’s a little chattier than she should be."
"Dean and I grew up seeing the world this way, Danny," Sam said. "Demons and wendigos and things that go bump in the night have been a part of our lives for as long as we’ve been alive. He learned about them early, and I’ve never known anything else."
"That’s fascinating, Sam," Danny said, "but it really doesn’t have anything to do with me."
"This isn’t new to us, but it is to you," Sam insisted. "And it isn’t something you can just hear one day and be fine with. It changes everything, especially for a man of faith. You have to take some time to absorb it. Talk it through with someone, try and figure out how it fits in with everything else you believe. If you don’t, it will fuck you when it gets tired of waiting for you to deal with it."
"What makes you assume I’m a man of faith?"
Sam just looked at him. "You’re kidding, right?"
Danny smiled a little. "Well, I wasn’t; but I suppose that’s a better answer than whatever else you would have said."
"Don’t try and wrap around all this by yourself, Danny," Sam advised quietly. "It’s too much weight to carry alone."
Danny looked away, watched John sleep for a moment, then shifted his attention to his own hands. His expression was neutral as he studied them, like he was watching paint dry, or contemplating nothing. "Sarah’s faith is important to her," he said after a long beat. "I’m not going to screw with that."
"Nothing I’ve experienced nullifies any kind of spiritual faith. To the contrary, most of it supports a belief in something bigger than us. Depending on your interpretation, of course."
"Sarah’s faith gets any stronger, someone will try to nail her to a cross."
"We’re not talking about Sarah," Sam said.
Danny looked up then, met the younger man’s eyes. "I am."
Sam considered his words cautiously before he spoke again. "So your concern is changing her faith if you discuss these things with her?"
"Not really a concern," Danny said. "More of a deal breaker."
"Then you need to talk to someone else."
"Yeah, that’s not going to happen."
"Why not?"
"Ever hear the one about the old dog and new tricks?"
"When you do the kind of thing Dean and I did for years, you find out most urban legends and old wives tales are ninety-seven percept bullshit and two percent mis-information."
"I’ve always been in the one percentile," Danny said. "Just part of who I am." He hesitated for a moment, then added, "As is the way I deal with my own personal shit. I’m not trying to be a martyr here, Sam. Trust me. I just know my own limitations. And talking about certain things to anyone who isn’t Sarah is simply outside the parameters of what I can do. Of what I’m capable of doing. So for all practical purposes, if I can’t put it in the Sarah lifeboat, it has to either sink or swim on its own."
"So you’ve told Sarah everything you and my dad have ever talked about? Sam asked.
Danny’s eyes flicked back to John. They watched him for a long moment, the neutrality of his expression corroding to something else. "Yeah, well, I don’t think Johnny’s really up to having a conversation right now. Maybe when he’s back up and running I’ll re-consider. In the mean time," he flashed Sam a quick grin, "don’t fret too much over my mental state. I’m nothing if not a resilient bastard, and I’ve been defining my reality as different from everyone else’s for most of my life. To tell you the truth, I’m not sure your campfire stories did much more than spice things up a little, maybe change out a few of the light bulbs to a brighter wattage."
"I’m not sure you could tell the truth if your life depended on it," Sam said.
Danny grinned. "Sure I could. I just don’t. There’s a difference. So how long did you negotiate out of Julie? She just going to clean up a little and then come back and expect us to vacate the premises, or were you able to put an actual nap on her ladyship’s agenda?"
"She said she’d sleep for a couple of hours."
"Damn, Sam. I truly am impressed. You want some time alone with John, or would you prefer company?"
"Grab a chair," Sam said. "I only told Julie alone to get her to take a break."
"Pot meet kettle," Danny quipped. Then, when Sam looked at him quizzically, he clarified, "The whole telling the truth thing."
"Oh." Sam smiled. "Yeah, Julie pointed that out, too. So how much did you actually learn about wendigos on the net? ’Cause some of those supernatural sites are totally whacked."
Danny just looked at him.
"What?" Sam said. "They are."
"Did I not say that whole thing about not sharing my own personal shit out loud? Because I could have sworn I did."
"What about wendigos do you consider your personal shit?"
Danny’s eyes narrowed. He considered that for a long moment before he said, "So we’re talking campfire stories and urban legends, here then?"
"As good a way as any to pass a long night, don’t you think?"
"What about demons?"
"We can go there if you want." Sam met Danny’s gaze calmly. "Or not. Your call if the subject comes up."
"But we’re not talking about me. Or what I believe. Or what I don’t believe."
"Not unless you’re a wendigo. Or a demon."
Danny smiled a little. "We going to cover elves and little green men, too? Because I have a theory about Mrs. Claus and Fox Mulder I wanted to run past you."
"I was thinking more along the lines of ghosts and goblins. A few myths. Some legends. A couple of pagan gods. Maybe even a vampire or two if you’re lucky. Nothing to worry about though, since none of it ever really happened."
"You’re assuming I’ll believe you, of course," Danny said.
"You’re a smart guy. An educated man. Surely you don’t believe in that kind of crap, right?"
"And that I won’t think you’re crazier than bat shit," Danny added.
Sam shrugged. "There is always that," he allowed.
"Yes," Danny agreed. "There is always that."
*