Title: Taking His Life Back
Series Title:
Nothing Else MattersAuthor:
hunters_retreat Pairing: Mary/John, Sam/Dean
Rating: NC-17 (eventually)
Warning: Underage sex
Summary: His life was a lie.
Author's Note : So... it's been years. Literally years since I wrote in this verse. I started it and loved the idea, but couldn't figure out which way to take it. Then I thought maybe it would be better served as a full story instead of a verse. Then I let it drop because I could never make up my mind. When I started writing again though this last two weeks I realized I wanted to continue this as a verse and I figured out how and where this was going :P So yeah! Finally! I swore I would never start writing something and not give closure to it and I mean it.... this verse is happening and I'm pretty excited to see it finally have some drive :P Hope you enjoy!
Dean sighed as his father’s voice mail picked up again. He hung up before the message began. He’d already left two messages and his father would be pissed if he kept at it. He was supposed to be home the night before though and Dean was left in the motel without anything to keep him occupied. His father knew Dean was trouble when he was bored and he usually didn’t leave him long without instructions. Dean ran from worried to angry and back again over and over as he waited.
By night fall there was still no sign of him. Lunch at the diner had been bland. The park was cold and dreary. He didn’t have the money for a movie, but he’d found a back way in and managed to flirt his way into a bag of popcorn and a soda. That at least killed a few hours of time and kept his mind off his dad. After dinner, he’d come home to find the place empty still.
Dean was beyond worried. It wasn’t time to wait and be a good son. This was time to act. Only he had no idea what his father was up against this time. He’d kept Dean out of the loop - which wasn’t so abnormal these days - and now he had no way to track him down. He might have panicked but his father had taught him better than that.
First thing was first. When his father went on a hunt, he always started with the journal. Dean grabbed it from his father’s bedside and set it on the table. He flipped through a few pages, a certain thrill shooting through him at having unrestricted access. His father only let him see pages of the journal, not the whole thing. Dean had asked to study it but his father had been adamant.
He held the spine and used his thumb to flip through and see if there were any loose pages or see if anything stuck. His didn’t expect anything to fall out but then again, his father probably never thought Dean would look through it without his permission. If he hadn’t been gone so long, Dean would never have even thought about it.
Dean picked the page up but it wasn’t a page. It was the back of a photo. The flowing script was a note to John, a message of love and determination.
It was something else entirely for Dean.
Dean set the photo gently on the table. One hand unconsciously caressed the leather cover over his dad’s journal as he stared at it, though he didn’t see it. Nothing made sense. No matter how he tried to wrap his brain around the words on the photo, they all meant the same thing.
His life was a lie.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before he turned the picture over. It was a photo of his mother and a boy. His mother looked older than he remembered, but hell; it’d been six years since he last saw her. The boy with her though, the boy he’d missed with every breath, his Sam looked so different. There was no smile on his lips and the light that Dean had always remembered was missing in his eyes. He put the blame squarely on their parent’s shoulders. He had no idea why his parents would do this, but he’d been lied to for six years.
From the letter Mary had left John, it had been deliberate and they intended to keep their secret. Dean refused to be a part of it anymore. Somewhere in the world, his brother waited for him. He didn’t even know he needed to be saved from the lies he’d been told.
He knew Sam mourned for him still, with the same ache that Dean had felt since that night.
He grabbed his things, never so grateful in all his life for the way his father had always taught him to keep packed up so they could leave in a moment. He took the picture and added that to his bag. He couldn’t take the Impala or his father would be able to follow him easily. He had a fake ID that said he was 18 and no one would question him if he was driving a car around. There was a parking lot on the other side of town with a shuttle to the airport and long term storage for cars. Dean had made it a priority in life to know how to blow his way out of a town without his dad after the second time CPS had been called and he’d had to run.
He left his bag hidden outside under the motel’s garbage bin where no one would find it, then went to find a car. It was easy enough to get past security. They were a couple of nobodys who couldn’t care less what happened to the cars. He waited until the shift change and drove out like he owned the thing and they didn’t question it.
He got back to the motel and saw the impala in the drive. He froze but his father wasn’t in sight. Dean drove the car to the rear of the motel and got his bag to throw in the back seat. He was just outside the back window when he heard his father’s voice.
He’d planned to drive to Lawrence and see if he could figure out what had happened there, but this was an opportunity he hadn’t planned to find.
“Mary, he’s gone.”
There was a pause before his dad kept talking. “The picture you sent me last month is gone. My journal was out on the table. Mary, he’ll find you.”
His dad let out a hollow laugh. “You have no idea, Mary. I told you he was a hunter. I don’t mean I trained him. He was born for this Mary. I’ll search the area, but I won’t be able to find him. He’s better than I am. He’s better than you. Hell, Bobby said he’s never seen anyone with an innate supernatural understanding like Dean’s got. He knows you have Sam. And he’ll come to get him. What you did - what we did - he won’t talk, Mary. He won’t see you as the mother he lost. He’ll see you as an obstacle to Sam.”
“How do I know? Because you tried to break a blood bond! Did you think I hadn’t looked into after all these years, myself? By the time I realized … it was too late … but it didn’t have to be this Mary. We could have raised our family together. We could have made sure they loved each other right.”
Of all the things he might have thought to hear from his father, reprimands and anger towards his mother never factored into it. He would have thought John would fawn on her, the way he made her sound like the perfect wife and mother in his stories, but Dean knew anger and pain and his father’s voice was drenched in it.
“I’m coming to you. Maybe I can get there before he does and stop him. I raised him and you’re just a memory to him. If he comes I might be able to talk some sense into him.”
There was a long pause but Dean couldn’t hear anything else and it was too risky to try to look inside the room.
“I … I love you Mary. Still do after everything. Just keep hold of Sammy until I get there. Just keep him safe. I’ll call when I get to Lawrence and we can arrange a meeting place.”
His father hung up then and Dean let out a deep breath. At least his first instinct to head to Lawrence was a good one.
“Dean-o,” his father said softly. He thought for a moment that his father knew he was listening, but then he kept talking. “I’m so sorry kid. I didn’t know. What’s going to happen now though, it’s a lot worse. If you find Sam … when you find Sam … Jesus. I should never have let her take Sammy away. We were stronger as a family.”
His father’s voice drifted off then and Dean knew that was the end of it. His father began making calls about the next hunt, getting someone to take it for him. Dean knew he had some time at least. John might know how to pack up in a hurry, but he had to take care of business before he could just run off.
Dean grabbed what supplies he needed from the store and pulled the stolen car into the gas station on the outskirts of town. When he saw the impala roar by, Dean pulled his black Camaro out and began to follow him.
There were two direct routes to Lawrence and Dean just needed to know which one John was taking. He needed to switch cars and once he knew where John was headed he could catch up quick enough and follow him to his mother and brother.
It was a different kind of hunt, but Dean felt more alive than he had in years. His father was right. He was going to get his brother, no matter what stood in his way. Dean could be patient though and Sam deserved it. As Dean drove, a plan began to form in his head. It would take years, but in the end, he’d get Sam forever and neither John nor Mary Winchester could stop him.
He was going to end the lies for good and take his life back, take his brother back.
Nothing else mattered.