Everybody's Sin
Title: Everybody’s Sin
Author: July
Rating: R
Genre: Gen
Spoilers: right up through S3 finale
Disclaimer: If it ain’t from IKEA, I don’t own it.
Notes: Thanks to montisello for the beta, and for doing stand-up for the drunk birthday girl.
Summary: Written for the Summer Ficathon prompt: How much was John aware of while he was possessed?
EVERYBODY’S SIN
I know what nobody knows,
Where it comes and where it goes.
I know it’s everybody’s sin,
You got to lose to know how to win.
-“Dream On”, Aerosmith
I have dreams.
I knew this was a shitty idea. What was I supposed to do, though? They killed Caleb and they killed Jim, and Bobby and Ellen were probably next. I can’t take that. I can’t bear the weight and the guilt of that, not on top of everything else. I haven’t heard a man’s throat being slit since I left the Corps. I know I can’t do it again. So, yeah, this was a shitty plan. But I didn’t have a lot of choices.
I look down at my hands; they’re not shaking, and I take a little pride in that. The only thing I can think about is trying to call my boys. Even as I press the numbers, I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to tell them. Goodbye? For God’s sakes, don’t lose the Colt? Quit telegraphing your punches, Sammy? Keep an eye on your brother, Dean, ‘cause you might have to put him down like a rabid dog?
And then I’m up against the wall, courtesy of the other demon. This is not how I want to go out. Not at the hands of some henchman, somebody that should be cannon fodder for the real Colt. No.
There are nightmares about being in country. We never talk about them--that self-help new age crap is for the next generation. And good luck with that. It’s not Saigon that I dream about or the patrol I almost lost my eye or the night I spent with Deacon holding my femoral artery shut. It’s the tall grass. Always the tall grass. It’s too high to see over and too thick to see through, and the insects are torturous, but it’s the sound that kills me: somewhere between a whisper and wave crashing on the shore. It’s white noise. And no matter how hard you listen, you can’t overcome it. In the tall grass, you never fucking hear it coming. You never even know it’s happening until it’s on top of you, and by then it’s too late so go ahead and kiss your ass goodbye.
At some point my phone starts ringing again and the blonde one picks it up. Oh, fuck.
“You boys really screwed up this time,” she says with a self satisfaction that actually makes me hate her more than I thought possible. It’s definitely Dean on the other end. I can’t hear what he’s saying, but that tough tone, that bravado, it has to be Dean. I think he got it from watching Dirty Harry about eight too many times before his tenth birthday. The blonde turns towards me and smiles like the cat that swallowed the canary.
“You’re never gonna see your father again.”
Dean hangs up. But no way is Dean going to take that for an answer. No way is Dean not coming after me. No way is Dean going to let his family go down without a fight. I smirk at the blonde one. Do you feel lucky?
Then I see it: a small cloud of black smoke that looks like a cross between a swarm of locusts and diesel exhaust. I try holding my breath which, in the end, only makes it worse. It tears into my mouth, burns my throat all the way down, and settles into my lungs like napalm.
Nobody ever told me that being possessed would hurt so much.
I have dreams about her, of course, but they’re always painless. No rose-colored bullshit, but sometimes I see us buying our house, painting Dean’s nursery, or even in the courthouse where we were married--which is bizarre because I have very little memory of it actually happening. Deacon assures me that it took place. He signed the certificate, anyway. My favorite dream is the one that takes place in the backseat of the Impala about two weeks after we met: it’s hotter than hell, and our sweat is making the bench seat slippery, and I cannot get my pants off fast enough, and her hair is brushing my forehead because she always did like it on top. Jesus. She was one of a kind. Dreams about Mary only hurt when I wake up.
This is where things get ugly. I’m tied to a bed. I can tell that much, but I can’t feel the mattress on my back or the pain in my wrists--I know they are all there, but I can’t actually feel them. I’ve been benched, taken out of the game. I feel like I’ve been pushed to the back of my skull. I’m watching what’s going on like a drive-in movie. I can see things at a distance. I can hear the sound, a little tinny. I’m here, definitely, but far removed from the action on screen.
This is a new one, Bobby. I’ve got eyewitness perspective on possession. You’re going to love this. It turns out sometimes you can see what’s going on... Maybe I should keep it to myself, considering the way his wife went out. And shouldn’t I be panicking? I should be mounting defenses, I should be planning an escape. But everything outside of me is just a little too adrift. It’s all blue water.
When my sons enter the room, I have to force myself to even notice. Thank Christ Sammy busts out the holy water. It’s a fucking miracle: at some point in our lives, he actually listened to me. A little burn is nothing compared to the satisfaction I’m going to get watching my boys exorcise the demon. Except the holy water doesn’t work. Well. That’s going to be a problem.
“Sam? Why are you splashing water on me?” It starts speaking with my voice. I’m tuned in now. That’s for damn sure. The lethargy passes. I can’t believe it’s letting me watch.
“Dad? Are you okay?”
“They’ve been drugging me. Where’s the Colt?” That damn gun. I swear to God. I will see that damn gun kill this demon before I die. I swear to God. So for fuck’s sake, don’t tell me where it is!
“Don’t worry, Dad. It’s safe.”
“Good boys. Good boys.”
You son of a bitch. I want to tear this thing out of my body with my own two hands. I want to reach into my chest and squeeze until it lets go of me. But I’m not really at home anymore, am I? It’s going to use me, and it’s going to keep me back here against my skull while it takes my body and my voice and my sons to do something terrible. And I’m going to be trapped here with nothing to do except provide color commentary.
Oh my God. I mean those words in a way that might have made Jim proud. It’s toying with me. I wonder if this is how POWs feel, trapped in bamboo cages, waiting helplessly for a cavalry that would come if only it knew where to lead the charge.
I was drinking a fair bit when we stayed at Mike’s, so there were no dreams. There’s one that started right after we left, though, and I’ve had it a million times since them. I’m at the grocery store for Spaghetti-Os. I buy a couple cans and a comic book for Dean. I pick up an extra pack of diapers. I get back in the car. I think about stopping for something to drink. I remember that I have two boys I should be taking care of. I buy a bottle of Jack anyway. A spare, for the trunk. Then I drive back to Mike’s place. Except Mike’s place isn’t there. I look for the house on their street, but it’s gone. I drive up and down every street in Lawrence, Kansas, but that house is gone I can just feel it. And my boys are gone. And I know that I will never find them. I fucking hate that dream.
I’ve seen my sons hurt before. I saw Sammy break his leg once. I carried him two miles back to the car. I saw Dean take a bullet, heard him dislocate his shoulder. I popped it back in myself, a couple times. But that was different. I’m here, but not really there, watching from the back of my head while someone tries to beat Sam to death.
Dammit, Dean! If you’re going to kick a man in the face, make sure you follow through. Fuck! Dean, get off the car. Get off the car and help your brother. You’ve got to put your hands-
Don’t you do it, Dean. Don’t you pull that fucking trigger.
And then he does. Sam’s beat all to hell, but he’s had worse before. Dean’s on the shit list now, though. How many bullets does he think we have to spare? Zero. Exactly zero bullets to spare. It’s wasteful. One shot, one kill, and the only kill that matters is the demon currently in possession of my body.
“Sam, come on! Come on! Come on. We gotta get out of here.”
Dean has the gun. If I can see the gun, the demon can see the gun. Fuck.
This is another weird one. I wake up in whatever apartment we’re staying in. Dean’s already got the coffee going; I can smell it. I pull some clothes on. I go out into the little kitchen and pour myself a cup. Dean’s sitting at the counter eating cheerios. He can’t be more than ten. Mornin’, I say, ready to go? I like it when I’m around and I can drive them to school. I like pulling up in that carpool line in the Impala in between minivans and station wagons. I look around the place, check the sofa. Where’s Sammy? I ask him. Who? Dean says. Sammy, I say, your rug rat little brother, yea tall, likes Lucky Charms. Dean looks at me like I’m crazy. Who’s Sammy? Then I wake up.
This cabin would be a great place to stay if one of us weren’t possessed. My head is clear now. The demon may have me trapped in my own mind, but it is my mind after all. And the sad truth of that is that scarier things have happened to me than this. So, yeah, if I have to ride shotgun in my own skin for a while, I’m going to make it work for me.
“How is he?” I’m possessed, numbnuts, how do you think I am?
“He just needed a little rest, that’s all. How are you?”
“I’ll survive. Hey, you don’t think we were followed here, do you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. I mean, we couldn’t have found a more out-of-the-way place to hole up.”
If I could physically hit my forehead against the wall, I would be doing it right now. There’s gotta be a way. I have to tell them. I have to tell them. I listened to Caleb’s throat being slit and now... I have to warn them.
“You know that guy I shot? There was a person in there.”
You didn’t have a choice, son.
“You didn’t have a choice, Dean.”
“Yeah, I know, that’s not what bothers me.”
Then what?
“Then what does?”
“Killing that guy, killing Meg. I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t even flinch. For you or Dad, the things I’m willing to do or kill, it’s just...it scares me sometimes.”
That’s good, I want to say. That little spark of fear is painful, Dean, it burns and it hurts. But it is what makes us human and them the monsters. Hang on to that.
“It shouldn’t. You did good.”
It’s back and it’s using my voice and it’s lying to my children. And it’s really starting to piss me off.
After Sammy left, I had a new one. Dean and I come back from a hunt--I don’t know what, but it doesn’t seem to matter--and he’s hurting. I tell him to suck it up, it’s a long piece back to the motel. He says no, Dad, I’m really hurting. And I say tough shit, but while I’m driving I’m reaching over with my free hand to check his head for lumps. Dean says why did you do it, Dad, what made you fucking do it. I can’t pull over--I don’t know why--and I have to keep my eyes on the road. I check his front, and I feel it there: a big sucking chest wound, and still I can’t take my eyes off of the asphalt in front of me. He’s screaming now like the time in Provo, and I keep my hand over the wound. He says what made you pull the trigger, Dad, I wasn’t even in the way, I did everything like you said, what did I do wrong. And then I feel the slug, and I know right away that it’s my own .44, and I hit the brakes HARD. When the car stops and I look over there’s nothing in the passenger seat at all.
“You’re not mad?” Fuck yes, I’m mad.
“For what?” Wasting a bullet!
“Using a bullet.”
“Mad? I’m proud of you. You know, Sam and I, we can get pretty obsessed. But you - you watch out for this family. You always have.”
This is the mistake, right here, I realize. It shouldn’t have done this. It shouldn’t have let me watch. It shouldn’t have lied to my sons. It’s my voice and these are my words and they might be true, but they’re not from me. And nobody speaks to my boys in my place. Not Jim, not Bobby, not nobody.
“Thanks.”
Dean sounds...surprised. That smarts, but it might be useful. The demon doesn’t know us, not like we know ourselves. Things get blurry for a second while I start digging in. It’s hard for me at first, because there’s nothing tangible to hit. So I imagine that bamboo cage again. Maybe if I can give my trap here a name, maybe if I can find my own way out...
“Dean, you got the gun?” it asks.
“Yeah.”
“Give it to me.” The tone is off, though, and I know it. This is how I talk to Sam. It’s not how I talk to Dean. Dean’s gonna know. He’s gotta know.
“Dad, Sam tried to shoot the demon in Salvation. It disappeared.”
“This is me. I won’t miss. Now, the gun, hurry.” Please, son, please figure it out. “Son, please. Give me the gun. What are you doing, Dean?” He’s backing up and being smart. Put that in your pipe and fucking smoke it, you demonic son of a bitch. I raised my boys right.
“He’d be furious.”
“What?”
“That I wasted a bullet. He wouldn’t be proud of me, he’d tear me a new one.” Amen to that. And we’ll be discussing it just as soon as I get my body back. Believe you me.
“You’re not my Dad.”
If I had my body back, I feel like I might actually choke up here: relief, pride, I don’t even know. Dean.
This one is probably just a hallucination. Probably the white light at the end of the tunnel, endorphins flooding your brain right before you die or lack of oxygen or whatever the hell rationale they have for it now. Not long after I started hunting, I got seriously fucked up by a wendigo. It was a rookie mistake, and I still don’t like to talk about it because it’s so goddamn embarrassing. Anyway. I’m lying flat on my back in the woods, hoping that Jefferson’s going to find me in time, and I see her again. Not a dream, not a vision, but her. She’s wearing the classy little number she married me in--I remember the dress because the zipper was hidden on the side and it took me a couple tries to get at it. Mary kneels next to me in the dirt and the blood and she looks me over. Well, Winchester, she says, you really stepped in it this time. Then she kisses me on the forehead and suddenly I don’t feel so much pain anymore. Give my love to my boys, she says, you’re going to be okay.
“Dean, it’s me.” No it’s not, you fucker, and he knows.
“I know my Dad better than anyone. And you ain’t him.”
“What the hell’s gotten into you?” You lose, asshole.
“I could ask you the same thing. Stay back.”
“Dean? What the hell’s going on?” Shit. Sammy, please don’t blow it.
“Your brother’s lost his mind.”
“He’s not Dad.”
“What?”
“I think he’s possessed. I think he’s been possessed since we rescued him.”
“Don’t listen to him, Sammy.”
Listen to your brother, Sammy. Listen to the kid that fed you and changed you and bathed you and checked your homework and walked you to school and back. Listen to Dean.
“Dean, how do you know?”
“He’s .... he’s different.”
“You know, we don’t have time for this. Sam, you wanna kill this demon, you’ve gotta trust me.” And Sam does. Sam needs to kill this demon maybe as badly as I do. But he’s looking at his brother and even before it speaks again, I know what Sammy’s decision is.
“Sam?”
“No. No.” God. All those years I spent trying to teach him how to follow his gut instinct. But he couldn’t have picked a better time to pull his shit together, that’s for damn sure.
“Fine. You’re both so sure, go ahead. Kill me.” Please, Dean, please pull that trigger. We can end this now. My life...Dean, it doesn’t matter. We can end this right now. But no way is Dean going to pull that trigger and we both know it.
“I thought so.” Yeah, me too.
Sam makes a run at me, but it throws him up against a wall in the cabin. Dean, too. It slams my son hard enough that he drops the gun. And Dean never drops his gun. I made sure of that myself. I watch my own two hands pick up the Colt.
“What a pain in the ass this thing’s been.”
You have no idea.
I had a dog when I was little. He was a mutt and he was a good dog. His name was Crockett. Yes, after Davy Crockett. In this dream I’m on the front porch of the house I grew up in. Two dogs, totally identical, run up to the porch. One of them is Crockett, and the other one is vicious, baring his teeth and barking like he wants to eat me alive. I run inside the house and shut the screen door. Now I have to choose which one to let in, but suddenly it’s not so easy to tell. I don’t know what to do. And while I’m trying to figure out which dog is which, the mean one turns on Crockett and rips him limb from limb right in front of me. I wake up scared and guilty and every time I miss a dog that’s been dead for thirty some years. I wish I knew what this one meant.
“Your Dad - he’s in here with me. Trapped inside his own meat suit. He says ‘hi’, by the way. He’s gonna tear you apart. He’s gonna taste the iron in your blood.”
So this is where the taunting comes in. Guess what. It’s working. He spills one drop of their blood, and there is no limit to how far I will go. I lose a little of the conversation here while I focus on breaking out. It’s my head, goddammit. But nobody ever taught me how to fight inside it.
“What? You’re the only one that can have a family? You destroyed my children. How would you feel if I killed your family?” He’s smiling at Dean with my face. “Oh, that’s right. I forgot. I did. Still, two wrongs don’t make a right.”
He’s provoking them, and he’s provoking me, and it helps. It gives me something to cling to, a toehold to claw at. I’m hanging on now, I have a grip.
“You know, I never told you this, but Sam was going to ask her to marry him.” Sam. I didn’t know. “Been shopping for rings and everything. You want to know why? Because they got in the way.”
“In the way of what?”
“My plans for you, Sammy. You...and all the children like you.”
Don’t tell them. Holy shit, don’t tell them. Not now. Not like this. They should never even have to know. That’s my burden. Don’t tell them.
“Listen, you mind just getting this over with, huh? Cause I really can’t stand the monologuing.” Thank you, Dean. Thank you again.
“Funny, but that’s all part of your M.O., isn’t it? Masks all that nasty pain, masks the truth.” Here comes the armchair psychology bullshit portion of this evening’s program. It never fails with the demons.
“Oh, yeah? What’s that?” This should be good.
“You know, you fight and you fight for this family, but the truth is they don’t need you. Not like you need them. Sam - he’s clearly John’s favorite. Even when they fight, it’s more concern than he’s ever shown you.”
I have killed for a lot less than this. I can’t even. We need him. I need him. I’m pretty sure the world needs him. Hearing this in my own voice. I have killed for a lot less than this.
“I bet you’re real proud of your kids, too, huh? Oh wait, I forgot. I wasted ‘em.”
You’re goddamn right you did. You’re my son, and I taught you how to do it. Dean’s smirking at me. I feel so close to him just now. I am close to him. If only I could reach out and put a hand on his shoulder- Then my oldest son starts screaming.
“Dean! No!”
There is blood pouring from his chest. Sam’s straining like a wild animal in a trap but he’s getting nowhere. I can feel panic soaking into me now, like contaminated groundwater.
“Dad! Dad, don’t you let it kill me!”
Jesus Christ. I can’t--I can’t feel anything. I can’t fight. I’m trying, but I don’t have anything to hit. There’s nothing to touch, to kill. It’s still smiling with my face and my son is still bleeding. It’s trickling out of his mouth, now.
“Dean! No!”
“Dad, please.”
Dean’s gone.
I’m starting to wonder what Dean dreams about. I try not to think about Sammy’s dreams. Finding out about the visions was the icing on the shit cake that was Chicago. I can’t...no, I don’t want to think about that. Not right now, anyway. But Dean. Part of him has always been a little inscrutable. He reminds me of Mary, in that way: never cheats, but always keeps his hand pretty fucking close to the vest. We’re as different as we are alike, really.
So I can’t help wondering what he dreams about, now that he’s finally got the chance to sleep a little. Maybe he dreams about our family before. Probably he dreams about the fire. Probably he dreams about every hunt gone wrong, every time he’s had to stitch me up, every broken bone and every scar his little brother ever earned. I know for a fact he has dreams about Sam leaving. For months after he left for Stanford, Dean woke up in the middle of the night. Sat straight up in bed, in a cold sweat, shaking like a leaf. And I...I sent him off on solo hunts just so I could get some fucking sleep.
I’m pretty sure that what happened yesterday was worse than any nightmare he could ever have had in his life.
“Dean!”
Stop it. Sam is screaming his name and I am, too, screaming his name from the inside out. Stop it. It’s more than anger, it’s terror, and it’s sweeping through me like a tidal surge. I can feel it pooling in my joints and in my chest. Stop it. It crests and breaks right behind my eyes. Stop it. Shortly after that, just like there might actually be a God like Jim always said, my hands move a little of my own volition.
“Stop.” It’s me. It’s me. Sam drops from the wall. “Stop it.”
Sam’s got the gun now and it’s trained on me. I know he’ll pull the trigger. If I can just give him a chance- It’s turning my head without my permission again.
“You kill me, you kill Daddy.” That’s kind of the fucking point.
“I know.” Then pull the trigger, Sam.
It hits me in the leg and I drop like a stone. I can feel the bullet shorting out in my body--it feels just like it looks. The demon wants out of me now. Over my dead body. It’s back to the smoke trick again but that’s an easy one because I can feel it. I’m not sure what I’m using, but I am hanging on to it.
“Dad? Dad?”
There’s Sam again, right above me. He should be checking on his brother. But he’s pulled the trigger once. I can make him do it again.
“Sammy! It’s still alive. It’s inside me, I can feel it. You shoot me. You shoot me! You shoot me in the heart, son! Do it now!”
“Sam, don’t you do it. Don’t you do it.” I can barely hear him. And now we’ve got a problem. Because you can’t ride two horses with one ass. And Sam never, ever believed me over his brother.
“You’ve gotta hurry! I can’t hold onto it much longer! You shoot me, son!” I hate the fact that I sound like I’m pleading. But I am. “Shoot me! Son, I’m begging you! We can end this here and now! Sammy!”
“Sam, no.”
Dean, goddammit.
“You do this! Sammy! Sam.....”
It’s too late. It hurts even more leaving my body than it did coming in. It’s payback is what it is. It feels like somebody made me drink kerosene and then threw in a match. It hurts. And Dean looks like he’s in trouble. And all I can do is glare at my son because he didn’t follow through. He had the chance and he should have put a bullet in my fucking heart.
I never considered what Hell would be like before. I always thought that maybe on some giant cosmic scale my good deeds would just about level out the bad ones, and I’d make it to someplace like purgatory. Spend some time atoning for my sins. Then head on upstairs. I know I’ve made some really shitty mistakes raising my kids. And I can be a real bastard. But I thought that maybe all the things that I killed and all the people I saved, raising my boys to do the same, I thought that might be enough to keep me out of the pit. The irony is, it probably would have been enough. Maybe just barely. But enough.
“Look, just hold on, alright. The hospital’s only ten minutes away.”
The leg hurts like a bitch and Sam’s face would scare small children, but that’s not the most pressing issue, and we both know it. I can’t look in the back seat. I helped Sammy put his brother in the car, and I haven’t looked back there since. Don’t you let it kill me, he said. Jesus Christ, what if I did?
“I’m surprised at you, Sammy. Why didn’t you kill it?” I would be dead, but it would be, too. And better that than this. “I thought we saw eye-to-eye on this? Killing this demon comes first - before me, before everything.”
“No, sir. Not before everything.” He looks into the back seat. And I can’t. It's crushing. They’ve been better fathers to one another than I could ever be.
“Look, we’ve still got the Colt,” Sammy says. “We still have the one bullet left. We just have to start over, alright? I mean, we already found the demon-“
This is the great thing about hospitals, besides the drugs and the jello: you have all this time to think. How does anybody ever get better in these places when all they can do is think and sit in their stupid wheelchairs and wait for the next round of painkillers to come? How does anybody recover while they sit and watch their son’s body slowly give up the ghost? How am I supposed to fix this now? What the hell kind of father am I?
Because there are some sins no man can atone for. And the Catholics can go fuck themselves because they wouldn’t know a real sin if it was ass up on an altar boy. I’m not talking about the lust and the avarice and the pride. I’m talking about grievous wrong, inalterable transgressions, wounds that will never heal.
I thought killing the demon was more important than my family--I fucking believed it--and I said so in front of my children. And I wanted them to believe it, too. As far as I know, that’s probably good enough to take me to hell anyway. Dean is dying.
“Oh, I don’t want to trap you. I want to make a deal.”
I have a plan.
Author: July
Rating: R
Genre: Gen
Spoilers: right up through S3 finale
Disclaimer: If it ain’t from IKEA, I don’t own it.
Notes: Thanks to montisello for the beta, and for doing stand-up for the drunk birthday girl.
Summary: Written for the Summer Ficathon prompt: How much was John aware of while he was possessed?
EVERYBODY’S SIN
I know what nobody knows,
Where it comes and where it goes.
I know it’s everybody’s sin,
You got to lose to know how to win.
-“Dream On”, Aerosmith
I have dreams.
I knew this was a shitty idea. What was I supposed to do, though? They killed Caleb and they killed Jim, and Bobby and Ellen were probably next. I can’t take that. I can’t bear the weight and the guilt of that, not on top of everything else. I haven’t heard a man’s throat being slit since I left the Corps. I know I can’t do it again. So, yeah, this was a shitty plan. But I didn’t have a lot of choices.
I look down at my hands; they’re not shaking, and I take a little pride in that. The only thing I can think about is trying to call my boys. Even as I press the numbers, I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to tell them. Goodbye? For God’s sakes, don’t lose the Colt? Quit telegraphing your punches, Sammy? Keep an eye on your brother, Dean, ‘cause you might have to put him down like a rabid dog?
And then I’m up against the wall, courtesy of the other demon. This is not how I want to go out. Not at the hands of some henchman, somebody that should be cannon fodder for the real Colt. No.
There are nightmares about being in country. We never talk about them--that self-help new age crap is for the next generation. And good luck with that. It’s not Saigon that I dream about or the patrol I almost lost my eye or the night I spent with Deacon holding my femoral artery shut. It’s the tall grass. Always the tall grass. It’s too high to see over and too thick to see through, and the insects are torturous, but it’s the sound that kills me: somewhere between a whisper and wave crashing on the shore. It’s white noise. And no matter how hard you listen, you can’t overcome it. In the tall grass, you never fucking hear it coming. You never even know it’s happening until it’s on top of you, and by then it’s too late so go ahead and kiss your ass goodbye.
At some point my phone starts ringing again and the blonde one picks it up. Oh, fuck.
“You boys really screwed up this time,” she says with a self satisfaction that actually makes me hate her more than I thought possible. It’s definitely Dean on the other end. I can’t hear what he’s saying, but that tough tone, that bravado, it has to be Dean. I think he got it from watching Dirty Harry about eight too many times before his tenth birthday. The blonde turns towards me and smiles like the cat that swallowed the canary.
“You’re never gonna see your father again.”
Dean hangs up. But no way is Dean going to take that for an answer. No way is Dean not coming after me. No way is Dean going to let his family go down without a fight. I smirk at the blonde one. Do you feel lucky?
Then I see it: a small cloud of black smoke that looks like a cross between a swarm of locusts and diesel exhaust. I try holding my breath which, in the end, only makes it worse. It tears into my mouth, burns my throat all the way down, and settles into my lungs like napalm.
Nobody ever told me that being possessed would hurt so much.
I have dreams about her, of course, but they’re always painless. No rose-colored bullshit, but sometimes I see us buying our house, painting Dean’s nursery, or even in the courthouse where we were married--which is bizarre because I have very little memory of it actually happening. Deacon assures me that it took place. He signed the certificate, anyway. My favorite dream is the one that takes place in the backseat of the Impala about two weeks after we met: it’s hotter than hell, and our sweat is making the bench seat slippery, and I cannot get my pants off fast enough, and her hair is brushing my forehead because she always did like it on top. Jesus. She was one of a kind. Dreams about Mary only hurt when I wake up.
This is where things get ugly. I’m tied to a bed. I can tell that much, but I can’t feel the mattress on my back or the pain in my wrists--I know they are all there, but I can’t actually feel them. I’ve been benched, taken out of the game. I feel like I’ve been pushed to the back of my skull. I’m watching what’s going on like a drive-in movie. I can see things at a distance. I can hear the sound, a little tinny. I’m here, definitely, but far removed from the action on screen.
This is a new one, Bobby. I’ve got eyewitness perspective on possession. You’re going to love this. It turns out sometimes you can see what’s going on... Maybe I should keep it to myself, considering the way his wife went out. And shouldn’t I be panicking? I should be mounting defenses, I should be planning an escape. But everything outside of me is just a little too adrift. It’s all blue water.
When my sons enter the room, I have to force myself to even notice. Thank Christ Sammy busts out the holy water. It’s a fucking miracle: at some point in our lives, he actually listened to me. A little burn is nothing compared to the satisfaction I’m going to get watching my boys exorcise the demon. Except the holy water doesn’t work. Well. That’s going to be a problem.
“Sam? Why are you splashing water on me?” It starts speaking with my voice. I’m tuned in now. That’s for damn sure. The lethargy passes. I can’t believe it’s letting me watch.
“Dad? Are you okay?”
“They’ve been drugging me. Where’s the Colt?” That damn gun. I swear to God. I will see that damn gun kill this demon before I die. I swear to God. So for fuck’s sake, don’t tell me where it is!
“Don’t worry, Dad. It’s safe.”
“Good boys. Good boys.”
You son of a bitch. I want to tear this thing out of my body with my own two hands. I want to reach into my chest and squeeze until it lets go of me. But I’m not really at home anymore, am I? It’s going to use me, and it’s going to keep me back here against my skull while it takes my body and my voice and my sons to do something terrible. And I’m going to be trapped here with nothing to do except provide color commentary.
Oh my God. I mean those words in a way that might have made Jim proud. It’s toying with me. I wonder if this is how POWs feel, trapped in bamboo cages, waiting helplessly for a cavalry that would come if only it knew where to lead the charge.
I was drinking a fair bit when we stayed at Mike’s, so there were no dreams. There’s one that started right after we left, though, and I’ve had it a million times since them. I’m at the grocery store for Spaghetti-Os. I buy a couple cans and a comic book for Dean. I pick up an extra pack of diapers. I get back in the car. I think about stopping for something to drink. I remember that I have two boys I should be taking care of. I buy a bottle of Jack anyway. A spare, for the trunk. Then I drive back to Mike’s place. Except Mike’s place isn’t there. I look for the house on their street, but it’s gone. I drive up and down every street in Lawrence, Kansas, but that house is gone I can just feel it. And my boys are gone. And I know that I will never find them. I fucking hate that dream.
I’ve seen my sons hurt before. I saw Sammy break his leg once. I carried him two miles back to the car. I saw Dean take a bullet, heard him dislocate his shoulder. I popped it back in myself, a couple times. But that was different. I’m here, but not really there, watching from the back of my head while someone tries to beat Sam to death.
Dammit, Dean! If you’re going to kick a man in the face, make sure you follow through. Fuck! Dean, get off the car. Get off the car and help your brother. You’ve got to put your hands-
Don’t you do it, Dean. Don’t you pull that fucking trigger.
And then he does. Sam’s beat all to hell, but he’s had worse before. Dean’s on the shit list now, though. How many bullets does he think we have to spare? Zero. Exactly zero bullets to spare. It’s wasteful. One shot, one kill, and the only kill that matters is the demon currently in possession of my body.
“Sam, come on! Come on! Come on. We gotta get out of here.”
Dean has the gun. If I can see the gun, the demon can see the gun. Fuck.
This is another weird one. I wake up in whatever apartment we’re staying in. Dean’s already got the coffee going; I can smell it. I pull some clothes on. I go out into the little kitchen and pour myself a cup. Dean’s sitting at the counter eating cheerios. He can’t be more than ten. Mornin’, I say, ready to go? I like it when I’m around and I can drive them to school. I like pulling up in that carpool line in the Impala in between minivans and station wagons. I look around the place, check the sofa. Where’s Sammy? I ask him. Who? Dean says. Sammy, I say, your rug rat little brother, yea tall, likes Lucky Charms. Dean looks at me like I’m crazy. Who’s Sammy? Then I wake up.
This cabin would be a great place to stay if one of us weren’t possessed. My head is clear now. The demon may have me trapped in my own mind, but it is my mind after all. And the sad truth of that is that scarier things have happened to me than this. So, yeah, if I have to ride shotgun in my own skin for a while, I’m going to make it work for me.
“How is he?” I’m possessed, numbnuts, how do you think I am?
“He just needed a little rest, that’s all. How are you?”
“I’ll survive. Hey, you don’t think we were followed here, do you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. I mean, we couldn’t have found a more out-of-the-way place to hole up.”
If I could physically hit my forehead against the wall, I would be doing it right now. There’s gotta be a way. I have to tell them. I have to tell them. I listened to Caleb’s throat being slit and now... I have to warn them.
“You know that guy I shot? There was a person in there.”
You didn’t have a choice, son.
“You didn’t have a choice, Dean.”
“Yeah, I know, that’s not what bothers me.”
Then what?
“Then what does?”
“Killing that guy, killing Meg. I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t even flinch. For you or Dad, the things I’m willing to do or kill, it’s just...it scares me sometimes.”
That’s good, I want to say. That little spark of fear is painful, Dean, it burns and it hurts. But it is what makes us human and them the monsters. Hang on to that.
“It shouldn’t. You did good.”
It’s back and it’s using my voice and it’s lying to my children. And it’s really starting to piss me off.
After Sammy left, I had a new one. Dean and I come back from a hunt--I don’t know what, but it doesn’t seem to matter--and he’s hurting. I tell him to suck it up, it’s a long piece back to the motel. He says no, Dad, I’m really hurting. And I say tough shit, but while I’m driving I’m reaching over with my free hand to check his head for lumps. Dean says why did you do it, Dad, what made you fucking do it. I can’t pull over--I don’t know why--and I have to keep my eyes on the road. I check his front, and I feel it there: a big sucking chest wound, and still I can’t take my eyes off of the asphalt in front of me. He’s screaming now like the time in Provo, and I keep my hand over the wound. He says what made you pull the trigger, Dad, I wasn’t even in the way, I did everything like you said, what did I do wrong. And then I feel the slug, and I know right away that it’s my own .44, and I hit the brakes HARD. When the car stops and I look over there’s nothing in the passenger seat at all.
“You’re not mad?” Fuck yes, I’m mad.
“For what?” Wasting a bullet!
“Using a bullet.”
“Mad? I’m proud of you. You know, Sam and I, we can get pretty obsessed. But you - you watch out for this family. You always have.”
This is the mistake, right here, I realize. It shouldn’t have done this. It shouldn’t have let me watch. It shouldn’t have lied to my sons. It’s my voice and these are my words and they might be true, but they’re not from me. And nobody speaks to my boys in my place. Not Jim, not Bobby, not nobody.
“Thanks.”
Dean sounds...surprised. That smarts, but it might be useful. The demon doesn’t know us, not like we know ourselves. Things get blurry for a second while I start digging in. It’s hard for me at first, because there’s nothing tangible to hit. So I imagine that bamboo cage again. Maybe if I can give my trap here a name, maybe if I can find my own way out...
“Dean, you got the gun?” it asks.
“Yeah.”
“Give it to me.” The tone is off, though, and I know it. This is how I talk to Sam. It’s not how I talk to Dean. Dean’s gonna know. He’s gotta know.
“Dad, Sam tried to shoot the demon in Salvation. It disappeared.”
“This is me. I won’t miss. Now, the gun, hurry.” Please, son, please figure it out. “Son, please. Give me the gun. What are you doing, Dean?” He’s backing up and being smart. Put that in your pipe and fucking smoke it, you demonic son of a bitch. I raised my boys right.
“He’d be furious.”
“What?”
“That I wasted a bullet. He wouldn’t be proud of me, he’d tear me a new one.” Amen to that. And we’ll be discussing it just as soon as I get my body back. Believe you me.
“You’re not my Dad.”
If I had my body back, I feel like I might actually choke up here: relief, pride, I don’t even know. Dean.
This one is probably just a hallucination. Probably the white light at the end of the tunnel, endorphins flooding your brain right before you die or lack of oxygen or whatever the hell rationale they have for it now. Not long after I started hunting, I got seriously fucked up by a wendigo. It was a rookie mistake, and I still don’t like to talk about it because it’s so goddamn embarrassing. Anyway. I’m lying flat on my back in the woods, hoping that Jefferson’s going to find me in time, and I see her again. Not a dream, not a vision, but her. She’s wearing the classy little number she married me in--I remember the dress because the zipper was hidden on the side and it took me a couple tries to get at it. Mary kneels next to me in the dirt and the blood and she looks me over. Well, Winchester, she says, you really stepped in it this time. Then she kisses me on the forehead and suddenly I don’t feel so much pain anymore. Give my love to my boys, she says, you’re going to be okay.
“Dean, it’s me.” No it’s not, you fucker, and he knows.
“I know my Dad better than anyone. And you ain’t him.”
“What the hell’s gotten into you?” You lose, asshole.
“I could ask you the same thing. Stay back.”
“Dean? What the hell’s going on?” Shit. Sammy, please don’t blow it.
“Your brother’s lost his mind.”
“He’s not Dad.”
“What?”
“I think he’s possessed. I think he’s been possessed since we rescued him.”
“Don’t listen to him, Sammy.”
Listen to your brother, Sammy. Listen to the kid that fed you and changed you and bathed you and checked your homework and walked you to school and back. Listen to Dean.
“Dean, how do you know?”
“He’s .... he’s different.”
“You know, we don’t have time for this. Sam, you wanna kill this demon, you’ve gotta trust me.” And Sam does. Sam needs to kill this demon maybe as badly as I do. But he’s looking at his brother and even before it speaks again, I know what Sammy’s decision is.
“Sam?”
“No. No.” God. All those years I spent trying to teach him how to follow his gut instinct. But he couldn’t have picked a better time to pull his shit together, that’s for damn sure.
“Fine. You’re both so sure, go ahead. Kill me.” Please, Dean, please pull that trigger. We can end this now. My life...Dean, it doesn’t matter. We can end this right now. But no way is Dean going to pull that trigger and we both know it.
“I thought so.” Yeah, me too.
Sam makes a run at me, but it throws him up against a wall in the cabin. Dean, too. It slams my son hard enough that he drops the gun. And Dean never drops his gun. I made sure of that myself. I watch my own two hands pick up the Colt.
“What a pain in the ass this thing’s been.”
You have no idea.
I had a dog when I was little. He was a mutt and he was a good dog. His name was Crockett. Yes, after Davy Crockett. In this dream I’m on the front porch of the house I grew up in. Two dogs, totally identical, run up to the porch. One of them is Crockett, and the other one is vicious, baring his teeth and barking like he wants to eat me alive. I run inside the house and shut the screen door. Now I have to choose which one to let in, but suddenly it’s not so easy to tell. I don’t know what to do. And while I’m trying to figure out which dog is which, the mean one turns on Crockett and rips him limb from limb right in front of me. I wake up scared and guilty and every time I miss a dog that’s been dead for thirty some years. I wish I knew what this one meant.
“Your Dad - he’s in here with me. Trapped inside his own meat suit. He says ‘hi’, by the way. He’s gonna tear you apart. He’s gonna taste the iron in your blood.”
So this is where the taunting comes in. Guess what. It’s working. He spills one drop of their blood, and there is no limit to how far I will go. I lose a little of the conversation here while I focus on breaking out. It’s my head, goddammit. But nobody ever taught me how to fight inside it.
“What? You’re the only one that can have a family? You destroyed my children. How would you feel if I killed your family?” He’s smiling at Dean with my face. “Oh, that’s right. I forgot. I did. Still, two wrongs don’t make a right.”
He’s provoking them, and he’s provoking me, and it helps. It gives me something to cling to, a toehold to claw at. I’m hanging on now, I have a grip.
“You know, I never told you this, but Sam was going to ask her to marry him.” Sam. I didn’t know. “Been shopping for rings and everything. You want to know why? Because they got in the way.”
“In the way of what?”
“My plans for you, Sammy. You...and all the children like you.”
Don’t tell them. Holy shit, don’t tell them. Not now. Not like this. They should never even have to know. That’s my burden. Don’t tell them.
“Listen, you mind just getting this over with, huh? Cause I really can’t stand the monologuing.” Thank you, Dean. Thank you again.
“Funny, but that’s all part of your M.O., isn’t it? Masks all that nasty pain, masks the truth.” Here comes the armchair psychology bullshit portion of this evening’s program. It never fails with the demons.
“Oh, yeah? What’s that?” This should be good.
“You know, you fight and you fight for this family, but the truth is they don’t need you. Not like you need them. Sam - he’s clearly John’s favorite. Even when they fight, it’s more concern than he’s ever shown you.”
I have killed for a lot less than this. I can’t even. We need him. I need him. I’m pretty sure the world needs him. Hearing this in my own voice. I have killed for a lot less than this.
“I bet you’re real proud of your kids, too, huh? Oh wait, I forgot. I wasted ‘em.”
You’re goddamn right you did. You’re my son, and I taught you how to do it. Dean’s smirking at me. I feel so close to him just now. I am close to him. If only I could reach out and put a hand on his shoulder- Then my oldest son starts screaming.
“Dean! No!”
There is blood pouring from his chest. Sam’s straining like a wild animal in a trap but he’s getting nowhere. I can feel panic soaking into me now, like contaminated groundwater.
“Dad! Dad, don’t you let it kill me!”
Jesus Christ. I can’t--I can’t feel anything. I can’t fight. I’m trying, but I don’t have anything to hit. There’s nothing to touch, to kill. It’s still smiling with my face and my son is still bleeding. It’s trickling out of his mouth, now.
“Dean! No!”
“Dad, please.”
Dean’s gone.
I’m starting to wonder what Dean dreams about. I try not to think about Sammy’s dreams. Finding out about the visions was the icing on the shit cake that was Chicago. I can’t...no, I don’t want to think about that. Not right now, anyway. But Dean. Part of him has always been a little inscrutable. He reminds me of Mary, in that way: never cheats, but always keeps his hand pretty fucking close to the vest. We’re as different as we are alike, really.
So I can’t help wondering what he dreams about, now that he’s finally got the chance to sleep a little. Maybe he dreams about our family before. Probably he dreams about the fire. Probably he dreams about every hunt gone wrong, every time he’s had to stitch me up, every broken bone and every scar his little brother ever earned. I know for a fact he has dreams about Sam leaving. For months after he left for Stanford, Dean woke up in the middle of the night. Sat straight up in bed, in a cold sweat, shaking like a leaf. And I...I sent him off on solo hunts just so I could get some fucking sleep.
I’m pretty sure that what happened yesterday was worse than any nightmare he could ever have had in his life.
“Dean!”
Stop it. Sam is screaming his name and I am, too, screaming his name from the inside out. Stop it. It’s more than anger, it’s terror, and it’s sweeping through me like a tidal surge. I can feel it pooling in my joints and in my chest. Stop it. It crests and breaks right behind my eyes. Stop it. Shortly after that, just like there might actually be a God like Jim always said, my hands move a little of my own volition.
“Stop.” It’s me. It’s me. Sam drops from the wall. “Stop it.”
Sam’s got the gun now and it’s trained on me. I know he’ll pull the trigger. If I can just give him a chance- It’s turning my head without my permission again.
“You kill me, you kill Daddy.” That’s kind of the fucking point.
“I know.” Then pull the trigger, Sam.
It hits me in the leg and I drop like a stone. I can feel the bullet shorting out in my body--it feels just like it looks. The demon wants out of me now. Over my dead body. It’s back to the smoke trick again but that’s an easy one because I can feel it. I’m not sure what I’m using, but I am hanging on to it.
“Dad? Dad?”
There’s Sam again, right above me. He should be checking on his brother. But he’s pulled the trigger once. I can make him do it again.
“Sammy! It’s still alive. It’s inside me, I can feel it. You shoot me. You shoot me! You shoot me in the heart, son! Do it now!”
“Sam, don’t you do it. Don’t you do it.” I can barely hear him. And now we’ve got a problem. Because you can’t ride two horses with one ass. And Sam never, ever believed me over his brother.
“You’ve gotta hurry! I can’t hold onto it much longer! You shoot me, son!” I hate the fact that I sound like I’m pleading. But I am. “Shoot me! Son, I’m begging you! We can end this here and now! Sammy!”
“Sam, no.”
Dean, goddammit.
“You do this! Sammy! Sam.....”
It’s too late. It hurts even more leaving my body than it did coming in. It’s payback is what it is. It feels like somebody made me drink kerosene and then threw in a match. It hurts. And Dean looks like he’s in trouble. And all I can do is glare at my son because he didn’t follow through. He had the chance and he should have put a bullet in my fucking heart.
I never considered what Hell would be like before. I always thought that maybe on some giant cosmic scale my good deeds would just about level out the bad ones, and I’d make it to someplace like purgatory. Spend some time atoning for my sins. Then head on upstairs. I know I’ve made some really shitty mistakes raising my kids. And I can be a real bastard. But I thought that maybe all the things that I killed and all the people I saved, raising my boys to do the same, I thought that might be enough to keep me out of the pit. The irony is, it probably would have been enough. Maybe just barely. But enough.
“Look, just hold on, alright. The hospital’s only ten minutes away.”
The leg hurts like a bitch and Sam’s face would scare small children, but that’s not the most pressing issue, and we both know it. I can’t look in the back seat. I helped Sammy put his brother in the car, and I haven’t looked back there since. Don’t you let it kill me, he said. Jesus Christ, what if I did?
“I’m surprised at you, Sammy. Why didn’t you kill it?” I would be dead, but it would be, too. And better that than this. “I thought we saw eye-to-eye on this? Killing this demon comes first - before me, before everything.”
“No, sir. Not before everything.” He looks into the back seat. And I can’t. It's crushing. They’ve been better fathers to one another than I could ever be.
“Look, we’ve still got the Colt,” Sammy says. “We still have the one bullet left. We just have to start over, alright? I mean, we already found the demon-“
This is the great thing about hospitals, besides the drugs and the jello: you have all this time to think. How does anybody ever get better in these places when all they can do is think and sit in their stupid wheelchairs and wait for the next round of painkillers to come? How does anybody recover while they sit and watch their son’s body slowly give up the ghost? How am I supposed to fix this now? What the hell kind of father am I?
Because there are some sins no man can atone for. And the Catholics can go fuck themselves because they wouldn’t know a real sin if it was ass up on an altar boy. I’m not talking about the lust and the avarice and the pride. I’m talking about grievous wrong, inalterable transgressions, wounds that will never heal.
I thought killing the demon was more important than my family--I fucking believed it--and I said so in front of my children. And I wanted them to believe it, too. As far as I know, that’s probably good enough to take me to hell anyway. Dean is dying.
“Oh, I don’t want to trap you. I want to make a deal.”
I have a plan.