fic: supernatural//these crimes of illusion (chapter 1.5) [R]
Oh. My. God. This chapter threw me for a loop. Not only did I have to re-write an entire section (5 pages!), but had to fix a few things later on. Whoah. Took me forever; this chapter would have been posted days ago if not for my need to revise, revise, revise. I can't post anything that isn't at least a third draft; one day, it's gonna kill me. That's what I'm all about, quality for you readers.
As always, thanks to koyote19 for her awesome beta skills. And my dear girls, you know who you are, who helped me figure out how to end everything. I'm getting right on that. Really. Right now.
These Crimes of Illusion
Dean finds himself in the clutches of a fae, only to find the aftermath's more difficult that he expected when a price has been put on his head. There's only so much help a father can give...
This fic is rated R for language and violence.
Previous Chapters can be found here.
These Crimes of Illusion
Chapter 1.5
John watches and waits.
Papers take his attention; eyes scan pages, frantic mind searching for clues between the lines and doubting the very existence of substantial evidence. He reads by lamplight even during the day; the heavy curtains are drawn against invading sunlight, casting the room in gloomy, suffocating darkness.
When he has the chance, usually late in the day when his eyes begin to burn, John sits back in his chair and looks in the general direction of his son. The outline never moves; Dean is a constant in his life, in more ways than one, and while John sits there in the dark, he wonders if this is how the world now appears to Dean.
One day passes, and John's focus shifts. Instead of reading over fire department reports, he's pouring over weathered books near the single lamp, reading up on topics only brushed upon in the haste to start hunting; to find whatever it was that invaded their home and lives. Now, he reads slowly, tempted to take notes in his journal on anything he can find about fae and the sicknesses they inflicted upon humans.
He quickly discovers many blights of the past were blamed on fae; anything from strokes to mysterious bruises could be attributed to their influence. It makes his search difficult, but in those lethargic hours of early morning, his eyes stray to the prone figure on the bed and he finds his strength renewed.
Twice, he’s sitting there reading when Dean struggles to breathe.
The first time, John’s halfway through a chapter on the various protections against fae, mentally translating the Latin of a longer verse, when he hears rough rattling. It takes a moment for him to process what he’s hearing, and when he’s ruled out the air conditioning unit on high or cars outside, he’s at Dean’s side without even remembering how he crossed the room.
Dean’s body struggles, but only reflexively; his diaphragm jolts up and down as that primal need for oxygen is suddenly threatened, mouth gaping, sucking in what it can. In the darkness, it could be mistaken for hysterical sobbing or hyperventilating, those shuddering breaths.
John knows better.
He slides a hand up under Dean using the gap created by the larger jolts to gain leverage, and pulls him upright. The movement wakes Dean; breathing once regular in its struggle now speeds up as panic sets in. John pulls Dean close, a hand resting on his chest, and catches sight of those eyes so filled with panic and fight as Dean’s head lolls against his chest.
“Calm down,” John orders. Practically screams for Dean to take it easy and let his lungs work for him. He banks on the last experience, caused by Dean’s inability to recognize his own weakness -- never able to see when he should just sit the inning out -- and how his body righted itself after Dean passed out.
But this time, as John should have known by now, was not like the last. Dean’s awake, working to calm himself down, eyes the only indicators he’s there, fighting. His body buckles in John’s arms, battling whatever ailment cast upon Dean.
John tries again; he was never the one for helping his sons through sickness -- Dean inherited Mary’s gift to bring comfort, to heal with words and soft touches. John is all rough words and even rougher hands, and while he tries his best, Dean continues to struggle until those eyes, so pained, slide closed.
Chaos gives to silence.
Panic rises in John. No longer does Dean move; he sags, deathly still, against John’s chest as he did when younger after those long car rides. Of his two sons, Dean’s always been the one to find comfort in his family, and while in his later years he’s developed an aversion to any sort of familiar touching, often fell asleep while near someone else.
This, however, is not sleep.
He counts the seconds in his head as he lays Dean back upon the bed and pushes against his chest -- that bruised, battered chest -- against broken ribs still healing. He doesn’t pull back, though. Let Dean feel sore for a few more days. Let Dean feel; John tilts his head back and tries breathing for him.
Twenty-seven, twenty-eight. From Caleb, he learned five minutes is all it takes for brain damage, and hell if he’ll let this go that long. Breathes again, thumps Dean’s chest. Doesn’t care if he’s doing things in the right order, or even correctly. His mind focuses on the task at hand, at the lack of breath coming from his son. Tries again against blue lips. Forty-two, forty-three. Again.
All steel reserve and clinical. Thumps and breathes and tries again and again until the seconds in his head begin to mount into dangerous numbers. For all the horror he’s seen in this world, John still believes and prays to God -- prays as he ticks off the seconds and thumps and breaths and --
Deep coughs break through the fractured rhythm John’s settled into, jarring him back to reality. He scoops Dean up into his arms and hugs him close, feels the shuddering of his body as he coughs and wheezes through a recovering throat.
“Jesus, boy, don’t do that again,” John mutters into Dean’s hair as he continues to cough and recover and breathe.
The second time, Dean fights back. Fights so hard, it never reaches that point of no return, of lazy idleness and near-death.
It frightens John all the same.
Sunlight reflects off the surface of the water, small waves making it look like giant gems from below. Water sloshes as someone moves by; the waves grow and beams of sunlight shine down through the darker water underneath, intensified by diamonds above.
Everything moves fluidly as people swim -- the water shifts and accommodates everyone easily. There’s no resistance from any side; Dean floats just under the surface, staring up at the world distorted by flow. A tree grows and shrinks with the waves, as do the clouds, morphing from one fuzzy animal to another. He’s like the water, going with the flow, lying there without a care in the world. Not air, not time; no panic over how long he stays there without opening his mouth and taking a breath.
It’s oddly satisfying, this reversal. No longer is he struggling to breath -- he doesn’t need to. The world passes by in a shade of light blue, almost transparent, never clear; it’s changed, distorted, an illusion he struggles to decode.
So he simply stops trying.
Water sloshes and his body re-discovers buoyancy. It floats to the top, breaking through the surface with the shock of skin hitting cool air; he shivers, but blinks and revels in the clear world awaiting him. Trees have solid shapes like those in children’s books, green on top, brown on the bottom, TREE printed in large, black letters.
He’s reminded of all those motel pools he snuck out to in the middle of the night, floating there, letting all his soreness ebb away into the water.
The clouds swirl above, then shift into one giant cloud, grey overcast blocking out the sunlight. A chill fills the air. He shivers. The white descends on the world, an ever-darkening mist and oh crap he remembers where he is and what’s going on just as the blackness consumes him --
Awareness comes with a shock. In limbo, Dean can move and see without hindrance, without pain. His brain comes to in a symphony of pain, aches and sharp daggers alike splicing through his entire body until it all becomes muddled into one large mass of discontent.
He groans and throws an arm over his eyes, more out of habit than anything else, and waits for things to calm down before doing much else.
Of the last few days, he remembers little. A flash here and there pull him from his dreams of swimming pools and dark chambers, but they’re like exposed film -- blank spots of black among color photos. Of the holes in his dreams, he remembers the sensation of drowning, that lack of breath and control that grows into intense panic. His dad’s voice is in there somewhere, but sounds like the grown-ups on Peanuts; the tone is there, but not the words.
The bed sags under the weight of his dad -- the scent of which isn’t the best for Dean’s growing sensitivity to smell -- before he says anything.
“What time is it?” Dean asks, rather, grumbles, letting his arm fall next to him on the bed.
“Almost three,” John replies promptly.
Something round and cool to the touch is placed against Dean’s bottom lip. He figures it’s a cup of something -- hopefully coffee -- when his dad uses his other arm to shift Dean up against the headboard.
He’s sipped a bit before he realizes it isn’t coffee. Or anything resembling it.
“What the hell is this?” he says. His face wrinkles with distaste. “It tastes like grass.”
“And you would know,” John remarks. “You ate it by the fistful when you were three.” He tilts the cup again, but Dean won’t have it. His right arm still sits splinted at his side, so he grabs the coffee mug with his left and holds the concoction away from himself.
“Seriously.”
“What’s the last thing you remember, Dean?”
It’s the tone that tips Dean off that something big happened while he was off swimming and walking through deserted hallways as screams echoed around him. His dad has never been a tender person, at least not in the way he remembers from those scattered memories of childhood, but at times, he softens a bit.
Rare occurrences when the great John Winchester admits to being afraid.
With this confusion, Dean frowns and scans his memory. “You telling me what a fucking idiot I was for pushing myself. Great parenting, by the way.”
“And after that?” John pushes on.
“Nothing. Just,” -- he breaks off and shakes his head.
“What?”
“I kept dreaming I was drowning, that’s all. Which is odd cause I’m an awesome swimmer.”
His dad hmms in that appraising way he has when things don’t go as he’d planned.
“What happened?” Dean asks, voice as on edge as his nerves. “Dad.”
“I’ve been doing research. After your brilliant display of stupidity -- “
“Yeah, yeah.”
“-- you were out for awhile. Twenty hours. And then you stopped breathing.”
The way his father speaks doesn’t support the simplicity he’s trying to convey. Dean works past that, though, to the heart of the matter -- those blank spots are starting to fill in, if not with movement and color, with sound and fury and panic. Memory crashes into him and he winces physically at the onslaught of pain and chaos, even if they are only echoes.
“Christ, what happened?”
John shifts. “From what I can figure, you got hit by some sort of Faerie Wind. It paralyzes humans through some sort of contact. You remember an icy wind or cold touch of any kind?”
“Yeah,” Dean breathes.
“What I can’t figure is why you were able to escape and were fine for awhile.” John pauses there, thinking. “Drink the tea, Dean.”
“Maybe her influence wore off,” Dean offers. He sips at the tea, wincing as the hot liquid goes down his throat, and wonders when that happened. It warms him from the inside out in that comforting, whole kind of way even if it does taste like grass.
“What do you mean?”
Dean sips at the tea again. “When I killed her. Maybe her magic wore off.” After another sip, he’s had enough. “This stuff is awful. Can I get some coffee?”
“Pace yourself. That tea should help counteract the effects of the Wind. Jesus, Dean, do you even know what I had to go through?”
“Yeah. You said I stopped breathing. No biggie. Something like that isn’t going to get me.”
A hand rests on his broken arm, the touch waking up content nerves running up and down the damaged appendage. “You didn’t just stop. You suffocated. I had to...”
“Oh, man,” Dean groans. “Don’t say you had to kiss me, dude.”
The way John doesn’t answer gives him all the information he needs.
Dean spends the day alternating between sleeping and listening to the television; at first, not seeing the action annoys him, frustrates him into uncoiling and slamming a fist against the headboard. The movement, no matter how small and insignificant Dean may think it is, causes his father to stop whatever he was doing and thrust another cup of the foul-tasting tea into his hand with a warning to take it easy.
He grows used to it, though, and begins filling in the holes in his head. While his eyes are open, he’s focusing on the thoughts in his head, giving the pretty sounding girls faces of those he’s met on the road. Even dresses them how he’d like, and soon enjoys creating his own visuals for the dialogue he can hear.
Moving is difficult, all his limbs sluggish and reluctant to respond to his commands. His dad tells him it’s the after effects of the Wind, that for those twenty hours Dean was completely paralyzed.
“And how’d I get un-paralyzed?” Dean asks in one of those commercial lulls between shows.
“Time,” John answers, “and a few other things I found out.”
He doesn’t say more. Dean snuggles farther into his blankets and listens to the theme song to another show starting.
Nights are spent under the light of the waxing moon protected by cold iron. Days give the company of daytime television and tea; John spends most of the day and some of the night out at libraries and bookstores, or interviewing people, leaving Dean to tend to himself.
Boredom sets in the second day he’s lucid and awake. There’s only so much court television one can take in a steady flow in front of them, but they only get five or six channels, and it’s better than the alternative. Dean sets to solving cases before the judge, listening to the stories to hear when people are lying, and by the forth day, he’s ten for ten and quite proud of himself. Drinks his tea and tries not to sleep; there’s something about the feeling of air on his eyes, though he’s never felt it before and doubts he’ll notice it again when everything returns to normal.
The pair goes through the motions like the wheels of a clock. John returns home, exhausted but hopeful, and returns to the scarred circular table in the corner of the room to go over more notes, more photocopies -- whatever he’s brought back from his day out. Dean can hear paper rustle and a pen scratching on paper and once and awhile his father sighs.
On the sixth day, Dean finally tries to speak once again. “What happened to the Banshee?”
“I took care of it,” his father briskly answers. “You hungry?”
“Naw,” Dean replies. “I’m good.”
They return to their respective parts in this play. Each day, Dean feels more and more useless, and on a few occasions, tries to push himself up and out of that God-damned bed to actually do something. Each time, he feels more and more control over his own body, and by the ninth day, he can sit at the table with his dad over take out Chinese.
“What are you working on?” Dean asks over some noodles. They slip and slither off his fork, and he stabs wildly at the world around him until he feels some more grab on.
“Nothing important. How are you feeling?”
Dean learned deflection from his father, that subtle art of changing the subject on a dime and making it sound natural. Conversations are rivers to be guided, and he’s learned how to change the flow.
“Don’t try that crap on me,” Dean retorts a bit sternly. “You come in at God knows when, don’t even talk to me, and leave all day. What the hell are you working on and why aren’t you letting me in on it?”
John sighs and his fork hits his plastic plate -- Dean’s started to notice things like that. “It’s a lot of research,” he says slowly, pained. “A lot of reading.”
Dean feels anger swell up inside him. Anger at himself for being so fucking stupid and not escaping sooner, before Estrella marked him for everyone to see. Angry at his father for ditching him every day because he’s -- “Is that it? I’m a fucking invalid, so you have no use for me anymore? What, are you keeping me around out of pity, or is it duty?”
“Is that what you think?” John says. “That you’re useless?”
“Hell, yeah. Actions speak louder than words, and I’ve been hearing I’m a useless fucking wounded soldier you’re about to write off if this ‘tea’ and shit doesn’t work.”
“It just takes time -- “
“Time, yeah,” Dean scoffs. “I’m still here and I can still do shit if you’d let me. Don’t give me that crap that ‘it’s a lot of reading;’ you’ve been all secretive about what you’re working on for weeks. Why the hell do you think I needed to get out of here? You cut me out of everything a long time ago -- hell, you’re probably glad you have a reason, now, aren’t you?”
Dean’s breath is coming fast, inflamed by anger. His chest heaves against still-healing ribs, and he feels small sparks of isolated pain shooting all across his torso, but keeps his face a mask of anger. It distracts him, if only for a little bit, and he holds onto it.
“Thank God Sam left before you could toss him away, too. You’ll just push everyone away and sit there and sulk because they left you instead of the other way around.”
“That’s not fair, Dean.”
“Yeah, and neither are you. You treat me like crap, then leave me to sit here. Nothing new; you left me to sit there for days!”
They sit in silence. Dean lets his breathing slow, John thinks over his response.
“I found something in Maryland that -- “
“Don’t lie to me,” Dean cuts in. Those days spent listening to truth and lies comes in handy; his father’s voice rises too soon, stumbles over just the right pauses. “You can leave me here all you want and go do your thing, but don’t lie to me.”
“Dean, I just, I’m trying to do what’s best for you. If I tell you what I’m working on, you’ll just want to join me, and you can’t. You can’t see yourself, son, but -- “
“I’ve been hurt worse before, you know that.”
“No, you haven’t. Jesus, Dean, I had to watch you suffocate. You scream in your sleep, you, God, I...” His dad takes a moment to compose himself. “Forgive an old man for trying to protect his son?” There’s a smile in his voice. “You’re not useless, Dean. Sometimes, you need to know when to work through it, and when to sit one out.”
“Since when has that been your philosophy?”
“Do you really think you can watch my back, Ace?” John asks. “Be able to defend yourself if something comes after you?”
“Hey, I’m getting better at hearing stuff.”
“Hearing things and seeing them are two different things.”
A hand drops onto Dean’s shoulder. “You’re not useless. And you’re not a soldier, you’re my son.”
“Hard to know the difference sometimes.”
“That’s my fault, and I’m sorry. But I wouldn’t be able to do anything, any of this, without you.”
Dean shrugs off the hand. “God, you’re getting all mushy.”
“You done yelling?”
“Yes, sir.”
And that was day nine.
Day ten passes without incident. John hovers a bit, remembering Dean’s outburst from the day before, reminded of those mistakes he’s made in the past and how fathers are supposed to act. Brews more of the tea John discovered and practically pours it down Dean’s throat. It’s helped allow him to move around the room, albeit a bit slowly, but his vision hasn’t returned.
They watch a movie together, Dean on one bed, John on the other; one watching, one listening. When Dean laughs, it’s shallow and short-lived. He launches into coughing fits twice before John says something, another time before the television’s turned off and both turn in.
John finds himself lying awake until two am, when Dean’s screams break through the night and the phone rings; it’s the front desk, wondering if everything’s alright. The horror movie excuse is getting old, but they accept it, again, and he hangs up.
Dean screams again, and thrashes around in his sleep.
John sits on the edge of his bed and watches, head balanced on his hands, struggling between moving over to comfort his son, and leaving him to suffer on his own -- to learn and toughen his skin.
Father versus hunter.
At 2:28am, the father wins out. He caves, just a bit, and moves to sit on the edge of Dean’s bed, hand brushing across a sweat-covered forehead, wondering what’s going on in Dean’s dreams.
When he cries out again, John puts a hand over his mouth. The phone stays silent. John feels a bit of himself break; he could have saved Dean, could have saved them all, if only...
If only, indeed.
After four attempts, John gives up trying to sleep.
He swings his legs over the side of his bed and settles for a moment, eyes on Dean sleeping on the other bed. He watches for anything out of the ordinary, the memory of coaxing Dean back to life after suffocating still fresh in his mind.
Things, he tells himself, can’t remain this way. Hunting is their life now, and while he speaks to the contrary, keeps him occupied. There’s a thrill that comes with chasing after a creature not of this world, a boost of adrenalin and ego he’s only found in one other place on this Earth, and it’s nowhere he’ll be returning to any time soon.
Sitting still for so long is testing his patience, and he’s finding his tolerance isn’t very high. They’ve been in the same place for too long, settled into a routine, something neither has done since Sam’s last year of high school, when they stayed in town just long enough for him to get his diploma.
John stifles a yawn and scrubs his face with his hands. A beard’s started to grow after all these sleepless nights and days spent with paper and a blind son; the look’s grown on him even if the feeling of it against his hands hasn’t. Dean slumbers somewhat peacefully, well enough to shift in his sleep. He twists and turns, winces, and returns to his original position at least twice while John watches.
The tea’s been helping, but it isn’t enough. That, John knows. He’s always been the type of man to handle things on his own -- no need to bring others into his twisted world and risk their lives -- but enough is enough. Just as Dean needs to realize there’s a time and place for fight and rest, John realizes he can’t go about this one on his own.
He grabs his journal from the table, slips on some shoes and a jacket, and steps outside onto the cement walkway spanning the front of the no-tell motel.
The air is crisp and cool in those long hours before daylight when the world slows just a bit. A car drives by, speeding down the highway, headlights flashing by in a streak of questionable light. Existence can be questioned when the time is right, when the world’s illuminated by faint rays. In a few hours, the highway will be full of cars driving here and there, but for now, John’s alone.
Scrawled on a page in the back of the journal, past blank pages yet to be filled, sits a list of phone numbers to be called ‘in case of emergency.’ John’s definition of ‘emergency’ includes being near dead or out of options.
In this case, it’s the latter. His finger runs down the list of numbers until it settles on one written in pencil near a rubbing of a gravestone he’d been in the middle of studying when the number’s owner happened upon him. The rubbing’s only half finished, a few letters spelling out someone’s name, and damn if he can’t remember whose grave it was.
The phone rings twice before John remembers it’s about four in the morning, rings again and someone picks up just before he reaches to hit ‘end.’
“Better be damn good,” says the voice on the other end.
“You still know that fae doctor up in Whitehall?” John asks.
A rustling at the other end. “Thought you swore you’d never call me.”
“Do you or don’t you? I don’t have time for small talk.”
Another car blazes past, headlights blending into the rising sun. John considers hanging up there and then, but remembers why he called in the first place.
“Fine. But he won’t come for free. You know how it works.”
“Yeah,” John says. Unfortunately, he does.
On day eleven, one of the shows Dean usually watches is a re-run. He groans and shuts the television off, preferring ambient noise to the chattering of lying defendants and infomercials. Cars zoom by on the nearby highway, people chat outside on the balcony, and a few children run, laughing. There’s a hum coming from the TV that starts to buzz, then grow louder until he can’t take it anymore. Dean stands, teeters awkwardly, and feels around for the TV.
His hands brush against old cups of coffee and tea, past a lamp, until they finally rest on the top of the set. Dean reaches around and yanks on the cord.
The buzz continues.
Dean frowns and pauses. Listens. What he thought was coming from the television is emanating from his left, near the table his dad spends all his time at when in the room and the door.
Contentment is the enemy. It brings false comforts and lax defenses, throwing the world into a pattern of day and night, awake and asleep, lulling one’s instincts into a gentle slumber. And so, Dean believes the buzz he hears is something in his environment, something he can find and turn off, relieving himself of it. He wanders around the room he’s mapped in his head, listening like it’s a game of hotter, colder, trying to sense when he’s close to the source.
His hands pass over the surface of the table and the papers left there -- his father would never leave his research in view had Dean the ability to see -- over the back of the chair he sits in when they share meals together, to the windowsill. Runs his hands over there -- the windows are closed, and the sound is a bit softer -- then traces the wall to the door.
All the locks are in place -- John left early, before Dean even awoke -- and he passes from those to the knife he knows has been lodged in the doorjamb since his father carried him into the room eleven days ago. His hand touches the knife.
It’s vibrating.
The blade cuts into the wood and metal surrounding the door, bouncing back and forth at such a speed, it could easily be mistaken for an electric buzz.
Dean cups his hand around it, but the blade doesn’t stop moving, just cuts into his skin, attempting to open old wounds. Part of him resists, tells him to take his hand away and leave the knife to do whatever it wanted, but another is curious. Why is it vibrating?
Blood leaks down his wrist, and enough is enough. Dean yanks it out of the doorframe before his brain has any time to warn him not to --
-- and that’s all it takes.
The door smashes inward, knocking Dean from his feet. He lands haphazardly on the ground, bits of splintered wood showering down around him. A few pieces bounce harmlessly off his body, but that’s not the problem. The force of the push jars his ribs and still-healing body, and the air’s been knocked out of him.
When he can see what smashed the door, Dean knows he’s in trouble.
Wolves, with ears as bright red as a polished cherry, burst through the remains of the door, four of them, with snarling mouths and large claws. Dean jumps up and feels for the doorframe -- why the fuck did he take the knife out? -- only for one of the wolves to jump on him, sending him back to the floor with a painful jolt to the back. A piece of wood from the door digs into tender flesh, and he can’t help but grit his teeth and mutter a swear.
“What the hell are you supposed to be?” Dean asks. Moisture drips onto his face, burning with each droplet that plinks onto his skin. It’s the only answer he gets, and figures that’s enough. Whatever pins him to the ground and drops acid onto his face can’t be a friendly.
The others gather around him, one on each side, another above his head. He can’t see the world around him, something that seriously hinders his ability to plan an escape. Just the wolves and their red ears and shiny teeth surrounding him in a tempting blackness he’d become friends with over the past eleven days.
There’s a paw on each shoulder, but none on his legs. Dean kicks up in one fluid motion, two feet slamming into the wolf’s midsection. It doesn’t whimper, and Dean gives him props for that, just stumbles back. Dean uses the momentum from the kick to pull himself out of the range of the others. They jump at the same time, practiced moves at the same moment, all moving to converge on his back. He spins around -- ignores the lurch of his stomach -- and feels the table next to him.
A palm lays flat on the surface. It’s an old-fashioned stand-off -- them against him, all waiting for the clock to strike twelve and break the tension.
Gravel shifts outside. A foot twisting on the uneven surface. The wolves leap at the sound, launching themselves at him just as Dean takes the table, feeling around the edges, and knocks it in their direction. It hits two straight on; they fall, crushed by the weight of Formica and months of research. The others come at him, teeth bright as they bar them. Dean leaps to the right but miscalculates and hits his hip on the dresser. He winces, but rolls to the side.
The television’s up there somewhere. His lungs are on fire now, grasping at straws, but he ignores them -- tells them to shut up -- and pushes at the TV with his good hand. He swings around just in time -- another one of the wolves leaps at him and only gets a head full of glass and wiring.
There’s one wolf left, the leader, the one who threw him to the ground and pinned him there. There’s no hesitation on either side -- for once, Dean can see something, and he revels in the moment before the wolf growls and takes a step forward, just daring Dean to make the first move.
They move at the same time, Dean ducking towards the beds, the wolf over the prone body of a comrade now eating glass on the floor. There’s no collision, just the sickening squelch of a knife slipping easily through the chest of the wolf, but not before he gets in a swipe of his own.
The animal collapses against Dean, pushing him against the nightstand. He takes a deep breath, or as deep as he can with aching ribs and a demon wolf pressing him into the nightstand, and hesitates a moment before sliding the knife from under his pillow from the wolf’s chest. It slides easily, coated with blood that burns his hand; he pushes with what strength he has left and smiles with satisfaction when the wolf lands to his right with a thud.
Chest heaving, Dean wipes the blood on the nearest thing he can find -- probably his own sheets, but he can’t imagine they’ll stay much longer after all this -- then his hand, and swears again when the cloth rubs against raw skin.
He feels more blood and rubs desperately to get it off before he realizes it’s his own, leaking with some force from a wound where his shoulder meets his neck; a thick, long gash running down a few inches onto his chest. There’s no way to know which parts of the sheet are clean and which have the acid blood on them, so he takes a chance -- grabs a chunk in his hand and wrenches it from the bed to press it against his neck.
The temperature drops a few degrees -- or is it just him -- and he forgets he can’t see for a second and tries a sweep of the room. A face looms right in front of him, but he can’t scoot back fast enough, white teeth snapping at his clothes. The sheet rips as he pushes himself backward, back thudding against the other bed, and he remembers the discarded knife; reaches out wildly in a blind panic, literally, and feels his fingers brush against the blade. But it’s too late, the wolf’s upon him, and fuck, it’s not supposed to go this way.
“Dean!”
A shotgun blast echoes through the room, then another, and there’s red rain falling everywhere. The wolf lands on the other bed in pieces; the glow slowly fades, then there’s nothing to look at but his own hands, and even they’re fading from view.
There are hands on his face, his neck, pressing against that gash that’s leaving him lightheaded and woozy.
“Damnit, Dean, why did you take the knife out of the door?”
Thank God it’s his dad and not some passer-by, because the mess would be hard to explain.
“It was moving,” he replies, unable to grasp bigger words. Things are getting a bit fuzzy around the edges, even in that place where dreams are seen -- he re-creates the image of his father kneeling in front of him to keep himself sane. Dean holds up his hand as if to offer up proof: See? I cut my hand.
“Can you stand? We have to get out of here.” There’s less of a command and more of a question there, and it’s damn good to have his dad back.
The next hotel is only a few towns over, far enough to keep inquiring police off their trail, but not far enough to keep Dean propped up in the passenger seat for too long.
There’s just enough color in his face for John to be sure he’s still alive, still fighting against the odds stacking up against him. Leaving him alone was an amateur mistake; a knife of cold iron could stave off Fae blood for only so long, but there are creatures out there far more powerful than metal and muttered words, those that relish at the opportunity to break through barriers. To believe Dean could not only escape, but kill a Fae without attracting negative attention was foolish at best, though John could think of more choice words to describe himself for putting his research ahead of whatever had befallen his son.
“C’mon, Dean,” he says, keys dangling from the quiet engine. “Time to get up.”
A grumble, then Dean turns to face him, head swinging slowly. He keeps a hand pressed firmly against his neck. There’s no vocal answer, just sad resolve painted across pained features, and before John can reply, or even get out of the car, Dean has the passenger door open, feet planted on the weathered motel parking lot.
John doesn’t research out to help him -- men need to learn to stand on their own two feet -- instead, he touches his arm, as to say ‘stay put, I’ll get a room.’
Then he thinks again, remembering the sight of a destroyed door, splintered remains hanging like a monster’s teeth. Fool me once...
Dean must have heard his feet crunching over the leftovers of fall; he rubs a hand over his face and mumbles into it.
“Don’t start this again,” Dean says. “I’ll be fine in the car for two minutes.”
“There’s no telling how they found you in the first place,” John reminds him, standing in front of the sun, casting a shadow over Dean.
“Yeah. So lay off for at least an hour.”
“We could track this trail in less than that.”
Dean looks up, skin as unnaturally light as his eyes. “So why’d you stop?”
“I have to patch you up.”
His son snorts and shakes his head.
“This isn’t a discussion, it’s an order. Until your sight returns, you’re not staying alone.”
“I fought them pretty damn well on my own.”
John lurches forward and gasps Dean’s shoulders. This blasé attitude may be a device of his invention, but enough is enough. Disregard for his own life is more acceptable than Dean’s, Dean, his son, still a child to protect no matter how old or independent he may become.
“This isn’t a broken arm or bruised rubs,” he nearly shouts. “You don’t walk this off after sleep. Damnit, Dean, you can’t even watch your own back. Don’t you realize how dangerous that is?” John shakes his head. “Sometimes,” he continues, softer, “being a good hunter means knowing when to step back.”
“And who’s going to watch yours, huh?” Dean snaps back. Even then, his voice is rough around the edges, worn down metal rubbing against metal, scratchy and uneven. It reminds John of Dean’s teenage years, when his voice cracked and wavered before it caught up with who Dean was mentally.
It’s time for that choice he made while out earlier, when he left the room early because he couldn’t stand the sight of Dean, of his failure at protecting his family. Personified there, sleeping soundly after so many nightmares throughout the night, John found it almost unbearable to stay.
A jacket lays discarded in the backseat. John crouches down in front of Dean and reaches past him to grab it, folding the arms inside out before grabbing one of Dean’s hands. “You don’t have to worry about that, Ace,” he says softly, pulling an arm through the jacket. Dean’s five years old, again, itching to go play in the snow, jumping with excitement as John tugs on a thick, winter jacket. There’s less resistance now, though Dean’s frowning a bit.
He doesn’t smile nearly as much as he did as a child.
John pulls the jacket around Dean’s back, careful to avoid brushing bruises and healing cuts, then pulls the other arm through.
“No way,” Dean says, now wearing his blue coat inside out. “You’re not going to take a break.”
“We have bigger things to hunt, now,” John replies, straightening the lapels sticking out from under the coat. “Something is obviously after you.”
“You think?” He brushes his father’s hands away. “What about the deaths in New York?”
“They can wait. Let the local police investigate it for a bit, rule out the normal theories.”
Dean nods, eyelids drooping. His grip on the towel at his neck loosens a bit, slipping down to reveal the top-most sliver of red, swollen skin around the wound. There’s no sign of infection -- John notices that first, his mind conditioned to work in a certain order -- he breathes a sigh of relief at that, but not at the slow trickle still leaking through the broken skin.
Time to patch things up, get Dean healthy enough to help him figure out what exactly is going on. There are questions John never intended to ask -- better to let things lie -- and now he knows there’s no room for privacy in this line of work. It tugs on John, needing to make Dean relive what happened.
“Stay put,” he commands, patting Dean’s knee before standing. “I’ll get a room.”
It’s a small concession, but one that keeps them on even ground.
John gives one more glance in Dean’s direction, frowns at how small and weak he looks in the passenger seat, and wonders: why so many flashes to Dean’s childhood when he knows his son’s a adult?
Chapter 1.6 >>
As always, thanks to koyote19 for her awesome beta skills. And my dear girls, you know who you are, who helped me figure out how to end everything. I'm getting right on that. Really. Right now.
These Crimes of Illusion
Dean finds himself in the clutches of a fae, only to find the aftermath's more difficult that he expected when a price has been put on his head. There's only so much help a father can give...
This fic is rated R for language and violence.
Previous Chapters can be found here.
These Crimes of Illusion
Chapter 1.5
John watches and waits.
Papers take his attention; eyes scan pages, frantic mind searching for clues between the lines and doubting the very existence of substantial evidence. He reads by lamplight even during the day; the heavy curtains are drawn against invading sunlight, casting the room in gloomy, suffocating darkness.
When he has the chance, usually late in the day when his eyes begin to burn, John sits back in his chair and looks in the general direction of his son. The outline never moves; Dean is a constant in his life, in more ways than one, and while John sits there in the dark, he wonders if this is how the world now appears to Dean.
One day passes, and John's focus shifts. Instead of reading over fire department reports, he's pouring over weathered books near the single lamp, reading up on topics only brushed upon in the haste to start hunting; to find whatever it was that invaded their home and lives. Now, he reads slowly, tempted to take notes in his journal on anything he can find about fae and the sicknesses they inflicted upon humans.
He quickly discovers many blights of the past were blamed on fae; anything from strokes to mysterious bruises could be attributed to their influence. It makes his search difficult, but in those lethargic hours of early morning, his eyes stray to the prone figure on the bed and he finds his strength renewed.
Twice, he’s sitting there reading when Dean struggles to breathe.
The first time, John’s halfway through a chapter on the various protections against fae, mentally translating the Latin of a longer verse, when he hears rough rattling. It takes a moment for him to process what he’s hearing, and when he’s ruled out the air conditioning unit on high or cars outside, he’s at Dean’s side without even remembering how he crossed the room.
Dean’s body struggles, but only reflexively; his diaphragm jolts up and down as that primal need for oxygen is suddenly threatened, mouth gaping, sucking in what it can. In the darkness, it could be mistaken for hysterical sobbing or hyperventilating, those shuddering breaths.
John knows better.
He slides a hand up under Dean using the gap created by the larger jolts to gain leverage, and pulls him upright. The movement wakes Dean; breathing once regular in its struggle now speeds up as panic sets in. John pulls Dean close, a hand resting on his chest, and catches sight of those eyes so filled with panic and fight as Dean’s head lolls against his chest.
“Calm down,” John orders. Practically screams for Dean to take it easy and let his lungs work for him. He banks on the last experience, caused by Dean’s inability to recognize his own weakness -- never able to see when he should just sit the inning out -- and how his body righted itself after Dean passed out.
But this time, as John should have known by now, was not like the last. Dean’s awake, working to calm himself down, eyes the only indicators he’s there, fighting. His body buckles in John’s arms, battling whatever ailment cast upon Dean.
John tries again; he was never the one for helping his sons through sickness -- Dean inherited Mary’s gift to bring comfort, to heal with words and soft touches. John is all rough words and even rougher hands, and while he tries his best, Dean continues to struggle until those eyes, so pained, slide closed.
Chaos gives to silence.
Panic rises in John. No longer does Dean move; he sags, deathly still, against John’s chest as he did when younger after those long car rides. Of his two sons, Dean’s always been the one to find comfort in his family, and while in his later years he’s developed an aversion to any sort of familiar touching, often fell asleep while near someone else.
This, however, is not sleep.
He counts the seconds in his head as he lays Dean back upon the bed and pushes against his chest -- that bruised, battered chest -- against broken ribs still healing. He doesn’t pull back, though. Let Dean feel sore for a few more days. Let Dean feel; John tilts his head back and tries breathing for him.
Twenty-seven, twenty-eight. From Caleb, he learned five minutes is all it takes for brain damage, and hell if he’ll let this go that long. Breathes again, thumps Dean’s chest. Doesn’t care if he’s doing things in the right order, or even correctly. His mind focuses on the task at hand, at the lack of breath coming from his son. Tries again against blue lips. Forty-two, forty-three. Again.
All steel reserve and clinical. Thumps and breathes and tries again and again until the seconds in his head begin to mount into dangerous numbers. For all the horror he’s seen in this world, John still believes and prays to God -- prays as he ticks off the seconds and thumps and breaths and --
Deep coughs break through the fractured rhythm John’s settled into, jarring him back to reality. He scoops Dean up into his arms and hugs him close, feels the shuddering of his body as he coughs and wheezes through a recovering throat.
“Jesus, boy, don’t do that again,” John mutters into Dean’s hair as he continues to cough and recover and breathe.
The second time, Dean fights back. Fights so hard, it never reaches that point of no return, of lazy idleness and near-death.
It frightens John all the same.
Sunlight reflects off the surface of the water, small waves making it look like giant gems from below. Water sloshes as someone moves by; the waves grow and beams of sunlight shine down through the darker water underneath, intensified by diamonds above.
Everything moves fluidly as people swim -- the water shifts and accommodates everyone easily. There’s no resistance from any side; Dean floats just under the surface, staring up at the world distorted by flow. A tree grows and shrinks with the waves, as do the clouds, morphing from one fuzzy animal to another. He’s like the water, going with the flow, lying there without a care in the world. Not air, not time; no panic over how long he stays there without opening his mouth and taking a breath.
It’s oddly satisfying, this reversal. No longer is he struggling to breath -- he doesn’t need to. The world passes by in a shade of light blue, almost transparent, never clear; it’s changed, distorted, an illusion he struggles to decode.
So he simply stops trying.
Water sloshes and his body re-discovers buoyancy. It floats to the top, breaking through the surface with the shock of skin hitting cool air; he shivers, but blinks and revels in the clear world awaiting him. Trees have solid shapes like those in children’s books, green on top, brown on the bottom, TREE printed in large, black letters.
He’s reminded of all those motel pools he snuck out to in the middle of the night, floating there, letting all his soreness ebb away into the water.
The clouds swirl above, then shift into one giant cloud, grey overcast blocking out the sunlight. A chill fills the air. He shivers. The white descends on the world, an ever-darkening mist and oh crap he remembers where he is and what’s going on just as the blackness consumes him --
Awareness comes with a shock. In limbo, Dean can move and see without hindrance, without pain. His brain comes to in a symphony of pain, aches and sharp daggers alike splicing through his entire body until it all becomes muddled into one large mass of discontent.
He groans and throws an arm over his eyes, more out of habit than anything else, and waits for things to calm down before doing much else.
Of the last few days, he remembers little. A flash here and there pull him from his dreams of swimming pools and dark chambers, but they’re like exposed film -- blank spots of black among color photos. Of the holes in his dreams, he remembers the sensation of drowning, that lack of breath and control that grows into intense panic. His dad’s voice is in there somewhere, but sounds like the grown-ups on Peanuts; the tone is there, but not the words.
The bed sags under the weight of his dad -- the scent of which isn’t the best for Dean’s growing sensitivity to smell -- before he says anything.
“What time is it?” Dean asks, rather, grumbles, letting his arm fall next to him on the bed.
“Almost three,” John replies promptly.
Something round and cool to the touch is placed against Dean’s bottom lip. He figures it’s a cup of something -- hopefully coffee -- when his dad uses his other arm to shift Dean up against the headboard.
He’s sipped a bit before he realizes it isn’t coffee. Or anything resembling it.
“What the hell is this?” he says. His face wrinkles with distaste. “It tastes like grass.”
“And you would know,” John remarks. “You ate it by the fistful when you were three.” He tilts the cup again, but Dean won’t have it. His right arm still sits splinted at his side, so he grabs the coffee mug with his left and holds the concoction away from himself.
“Seriously.”
“What’s the last thing you remember, Dean?”
It’s the tone that tips Dean off that something big happened while he was off swimming and walking through deserted hallways as screams echoed around him. His dad has never been a tender person, at least not in the way he remembers from those scattered memories of childhood, but at times, he softens a bit.
Rare occurrences when the great John Winchester admits to being afraid.
With this confusion, Dean frowns and scans his memory. “You telling me what a fucking idiot I was for pushing myself. Great parenting, by the way.”
“And after that?” John pushes on.
“Nothing. Just,” -- he breaks off and shakes his head.
“What?”
“I kept dreaming I was drowning, that’s all. Which is odd cause I’m an awesome swimmer.”
His dad hmms in that appraising way he has when things don’t go as he’d planned.
“What happened?” Dean asks, voice as on edge as his nerves. “Dad.”
“I’ve been doing research. After your brilliant display of stupidity -- “
“Yeah, yeah.”
“-- you were out for awhile. Twenty hours. And then you stopped breathing.”
The way his father speaks doesn’t support the simplicity he’s trying to convey. Dean works past that, though, to the heart of the matter -- those blank spots are starting to fill in, if not with movement and color, with sound and fury and panic. Memory crashes into him and he winces physically at the onslaught of pain and chaos, even if they are only echoes.
“Christ, what happened?”
John shifts. “From what I can figure, you got hit by some sort of Faerie Wind. It paralyzes humans through some sort of contact. You remember an icy wind or cold touch of any kind?”
“Yeah,” Dean breathes.
“What I can’t figure is why you were able to escape and were fine for awhile.” John pauses there, thinking. “Drink the tea, Dean.”
“Maybe her influence wore off,” Dean offers. He sips at the tea, wincing as the hot liquid goes down his throat, and wonders when that happened. It warms him from the inside out in that comforting, whole kind of way even if it does taste like grass.
“What do you mean?”
Dean sips at the tea again. “When I killed her. Maybe her magic wore off.” After another sip, he’s had enough. “This stuff is awful. Can I get some coffee?”
“Pace yourself. That tea should help counteract the effects of the Wind. Jesus, Dean, do you even know what I had to go through?”
“Yeah. You said I stopped breathing. No biggie. Something like that isn’t going to get me.”
A hand rests on his broken arm, the touch waking up content nerves running up and down the damaged appendage. “You didn’t just stop. You suffocated. I had to...”
“Oh, man,” Dean groans. “Don’t say you had to kiss me, dude.”
The way John doesn’t answer gives him all the information he needs.
Dean spends the day alternating between sleeping and listening to the television; at first, not seeing the action annoys him, frustrates him into uncoiling and slamming a fist against the headboard. The movement, no matter how small and insignificant Dean may think it is, causes his father to stop whatever he was doing and thrust another cup of the foul-tasting tea into his hand with a warning to take it easy.
He grows used to it, though, and begins filling in the holes in his head. While his eyes are open, he’s focusing on the thoughts in his head, giving the pretty sounding girls faces of those he’s met on the road. Even dresses them how he’d like, and soon enjoys creating his own visuals for the dialogue he can hear.
Moving is difficult, all his limbs sluggish and reluctant to respond to his commands. His dad tells him it’s the after effects of the Wind, that for those twenty hours Dean was completely paralyzed.
“And how’d I get un-paralyzed?” Dean asks in one of those commercial lulls between shows.
“Time,” John answers, “and a few other things I found out.”
He doesn’t say more. Dean snuggles farther into his blankets and listens to the theme song to another show starting.
Nights are spent under the light of the waxing moon protected by cold iron. Days give the company of daytime television and tea; John spends most of the day and some of the night out at libraries and bookstores, or interviewing people, leaving Dean to tend to himself.
Boredom sets in the second day he’s lucid and awake. There’s only so much court television one can take in a steady flow in front of them, but they only get five or six channels, and it’s better than the alternative. Dean sets to solving cases before the judge, listening to the stories to hear when people are lying, and by the forth day, he’s ten for ten and quite proud of himself. Drinks his tea and tries not to sleep; there’s something about the feeling of air on his eyes, though he’s never felt it before and doubts he’ll notice it again when everything returns to normal.
The pair goes through the motions like the wheels of a clock. John returns home, exhausted but hopeful, and returns to the scarred circular table in the corner of the room to go over more notes, more photocopies -- whatever he’s brought back from his day out. Dean can hear paper rustle and a pen scratching on paper and once and awhile his father sighs.
On the sixth day, Dean finally tries to speak once again. “What happened to the Banshee?”
“I took care of it,” his father briskly answers. “You hungry?”
“Naw,” Dean replies. “I’m good.”
They return to their respective parts in this play. Each day, Dean feels more and more useless, and on a few occasions, tries to push himself up and out of that God-damned bed to actually do something. Each time, he feels more and more control over his own body, and by the ninth day, he can sit at the table with his dad over take out Chinese.
“What are you working on?” Dean asks over some noodles. They slip and slither off his fork, and he stabs wildly at the world around him until he feels some more grab on.
“Nothing important. How are you feeling?”
Dean learned deflection from his father, that subtle art of changing the subject on a dime and making it sound natural. Conversations are rivers to be guided, and he’s learned how to change the flow.
“Don’t try that crap on me,” Dean retorts a bit sternly. “You come in at God knows when, don’t even talk to me, and leave all day. What the hell are you working on and why aren’t you letting me in on it?”
John sighs and his fork hits his plastic plate -- Dean’s started to notice things like that. “It’s a lot of research,” he says slowly, pained. “A lot of reading.”
Dean feels anger swell up inside him. Anger at himself for being so fucking stupid and not escaping sooner, before Estrella marked him for everyone to see. Angry at his father for ditching him every day because he’s -- “Is that it? I’m a fucking invalid, so you have no use for me anymore? What, are you keeping me around out of pity, or is it duty?”
“Is that what you think?” John says. “That you’re useless?”
“Hell, yeah. Actions speak louder than words, and I’ve been hearing I’m a useless fucking wounded soldier you’re about to write off if this ‘tea’ and shit doesn’t work.”
“It just takes time -- “
“Time, yeah,” Dean scoffs. “I’m still here and I can still do shit if you’d let me. Don’t give me that crap that ‘it’s a lot of reading;’ you’ve been all secretive about what you’re working on for weeks. Why the hell do you think I needed to get out of here? You cut me out of everything a long time ago -- hell, you’re probably glad you have a reason, now, aren’t you?”
Dean’s breath is coming fast, inflamed by anger. His chest heaves against still-healing ribs, and he feels small sparks of isolated pain shooting all across his torso, but keeps his face a mask of anger. It distracts him, if only for a little bit, and he holds onto it.
“Thank God Sam left before you could toss him away, too. You’ll just push everyone away and sit there and sulk because they left you instead of the other way around.”
“That’s not fair, Dean.”
“Yeah, and neither are you. You treat me like crap, then leave me to sit here. Nothing new; you left me to sit there for days!”
They sit in silence. Dean lets his breathing slow, John thinks over his response.
“I found something in Maryland that -- “
“Don’t lie to me,” Dean cuts in. Those days spent listening to truth and lies comes in handy; his father’s voice rises too soon, stumbles over just the right pauses. “You can leave me here all you want and go do your thing, but don’t lie to me.”
“Dean, I just, I’m trying to do what’s best for you. If I tell you what I’m working on, you’ll just want to join me, and you can’t. You can’t see yourself, son, but -- “
“I’ve been hurt worse before, you know that.”
“No, you haven’t. Jesus, Dean, I had to watch you suffocate. You scream in your sleep, you, God, I...” His dad takes a moment to compose himself. “Forgive an old man for trying to protect his son?” There’s a smile in his voice. “You’re not useless, Dean. Sometimes, you need to know when to work through it, and when to sit one out.”
“Since when has that been your philosophy?”
“Do you really think you can watch my back, Ace?” John asks. “Be able to defend yourself if something comes after you?”
“Hey, I’m getting better at hearing stuff.”
“Hearing things and seeing them are two different things.”
A hand drops onto Dean’s shoulder. “You’re not useless. And you’re not a soldier, you’re my son.”
“Hard to know the difference sometimes.”
“That’s my fault, and I’m sorry. But I wouldn’t be able to do anything, any of this, without you.”
Dean shrugs off the hand. “God, you’re getting all mushy.”
“You done yelling?”
“Yes, sir.”
And that was day nine.
Day ten passes without incident. John hovers a bit, remembering Dean’s outburst from the day before, reminded of those mistakes he’s made in the past and how fathers are supposed to act. Brews more of the tea John discovered and practically pours it down Dean’s throat. It’s helped allow him to move around the room, albeit a bit slowly, but his vision hasn’t returned.
They watch a movie together, Dean on one bed, John on the other; one watching, one listening. When Dean laughs, it’s shallow and short-lived. He launches into coughing fits twice before John says something, another time before the television’s turned off and both turn in.
John finds himself lying awake until two am, when Dean’s screams break through the night and the phone rings; it’s the front desk, wondering if everything’s alright. The horror movie excuse is getting old, but they accept it, again, and he hangs up.
Dean screams again, and thrashes around in his sleep.
John sits on the edge of his bed and watches, head balanced on his hands, struggling between moving over to comfort his son, and leaving him to suffer on his own -- to learn and toughen his skin.
Father versus hunter.
At 2:28am, the father wins out. He caves, just a bit, and moves to sit on the edge of Dean’s bed, hand brushing across a sweat-covered forehead, wondering what’s going on in Dean’s dreams.
When he cries out again, John puts a hand over his mouth. The phone stays silent. John feels a bit of himself break; he could have saved Dean, could have saved them all, if only...
If only, indeed.
After four attempts, John gives up trying to sleep.
He swings his legs over the side of his bed and settles for a moment, eyes on Dean sleeping on the other bed. He watches for anything out of the ordinary, the memory of coaxing Dean back to life after suffocating still fresh in his mind.
Things, he tells himself, can’t remain this way. Hunting is their life now, and while he speaks to the contrary, keeps him occupied. There’s a thrill that comes with chasing after a creature not of this world, a boost of adrenalin and ego he’s only found in one other place on this Earth, and it’s nowhere he’ll be returning to any time soon.
Sitting still for so long is testing his patience, and he’s finding his tolerance isn’t very high. They’ve been in the same place for too long, settled into a routine, something neither has done since Sam’s last year of high school, when they stayed in town just long enough for him to get his diploma.
John stifles a yawn and scrubs his face with his hands. A beard’s started to grow after all these sleepless nights and days spent with paper and a blind son; the look’s grown on him even if the feeling of it against his hands hasn’t. Dean slumbers somewhat peacefully, well enough to shift in his sleep. He twists and turns, winces, and returns to his original position at least twice while John watches.
The tea’s been helping, but it isn’t enough. That, John knows. He’s always been the type of man to handle things on his own -- no need to bring others into his twisted world and risk their lives -- but enough is enough. Just as Dean needs to realize there’s a time and place for fight and rest, John realizes he can’t go about this one on his own.
He grabs his journal from the table, slips on some shoes and a jacket, and steps outside onto the cement walkway spanning the front of the no-tell motel.
The air is crisp and cool in those long hours before daylight when the world slows just a bit. A car drives by, speeding down the highway, headlights flashing by in a streak of questionable light. Existence can be questioned when the time is right, when the world’s illuminated by faint rays. In a few hours, the highway will be full of cars driving here and there, but for now, John’s alone.
Scrawled on a page in the back of the journal, past blank pages yet to be filled, sits a list of phone numbers to be called ‘in case of emergency.’ John’s definition of ‘emergency’ includes being near dead or out of options.
In this case, it’s the latter. His finger runs down the list of numbers until it settles on one written in pencil near a rubbing of a gravestone he’d been in the middle of studying when the number’s owner happened upon him. The rubbing’s only half finished, a few letters spelling out someone’s name, and damn if he can’t remember whose grave it was.
The phone rings twice before John remembers it’s about four in the morning, rings again and someone picks up just before he reaches to hit ‘end.’
“Better be damn good,” says the voice on the other end.
“You still know that fae doctor up in Whitehall?” John asks.
A rustling at the other end. “Thought you swore you’d never call me.”
“Do you or don’t you? I don’t have time for small talk.”
Another car blazes past, headlights blending into the rising sun. John considers hanging up there and then, but remembers why he called in the first place.
“Fine. But he won’t come for free. You know how it works.”
“Yeah,” John says. Unfortunately, he does.
On day eleven, one of the shows Dean usually watches is a re-run. He groans and shuts the television off, preferring ambient noise to the chattering of lying defendants and infomercials. Cars zoom by on the nearby highway, people chat outside on the balcony, and a few children run, laughing. There’s a hum coming from the TV that starts to buzz, then grow louder until he can’t take it anymore. Dean stands, teeters awkwardly, and feels around for the TV.
His hands brush against old cups of coffee and tea, past a lamp, until they finally rest on the top of the set. Dean reaches around and yanks on the cord.
The buzz continues.
Dean frowns and pauses. Listens. What he thought was coming from the television is emanating from his left, near the table his dad spends all his time at when in the room and the door.
Contentment is the enemy. It brings false comforts and lax defenses, throwing the world into a pattern of day and night, awake and asleep, lulling one’s instincts into a gentle slumber. And so, Dean believes the buzz he hears is something in his environment, something he can find and turn off, relieving himself of it. He wanders around the room he’s mapped in his head, listening like it’s a game of hotter, colder, trying to sense when he’s close to the source.
His hands pass over the surface of the table and the papers left there -- his father would never leave his research in view had Dean the ability to see -- over the back of the chair he sits in when they share meals together, to the windowsill. Runs his hands over there -- the windows are closed, and the sound is a bit softer -- then traces the wall to the door.
All the locks are in place -- John left early, before Dean even awoke -- and he passes from those to the knife he knows has been lodged in the doorjamb since his father carried him into the room eleven days ago. His hand touches the knife.
It’s vibrating.
The blade cuts into the wood and metal surrounding the door, bouncing back and forth at such a speed, it could easily be mistaken for an electric buzz.
Dean cups his hand around it, but the blade doesn’t stop moving, just cuts into his skin, attempting to open old wounds. Part of him resists, tells him to take his hand away and leave the knife to do whatever it wanted, but another is curious. Why is it vibrating?
Blood leaks down his wrist, and enough is enough. Dean yanks it out of the doorframe before his brain has any time to warn him not to --
-- and that’s all it takes.
The door smashes inward, knocking Dean from his feet. He lands haphazardly on the ground, bits of splintered wood showering down around him. A few pieces bounce harmlessly off his body, but that’s not the problem. The force of the push jars his ribs and still-healing body, and the air’s been knocked out of him.
When he can see what smashed the door, Dean knows he’s in trouble.
Wolves, with ears as bright red as a polished cherry, burst through the remains of the door, four of them, with snarling mouths and large claws. Dean jumps up and feels for the doorframe -- why the fuck did he take the knife out? -- only for one of the wolves to jump on him, sending him back to the floor with a painful jolt to the back. A piece of wood from the door digs into tender flesh, and he can’t help but grit his teeth and mutter a swear.
“What the hell are you supposed to be?” Dean asks. Moisture drips onto his face, burning with each droplet that plinks onto his skin. It’s the only answer he gets, and figures that’s enough. Whatever pins him to the ground and drops acid onto his face can’t be a friendly.
The others gather around him, one on each side, another above his head. He can’t see the world around him, something that seriously hinders his ability to plan an escape. Just the wolves and their red ears and shiny teeth surrounding him in a tempting blackness he’d become friends with over the past eleven days.
There’s a paw on each shoulder, but none on his legs. Dean kicks up in one fluid motion, two feet slamming into the wolf’s midsection. It doesn’t whimper, and Dean gives him props for that, just stumbles back. Dean uses the momentum from the kick to pull himself out of the range of the others. They jump at the same time, practiced moves at the same moment, all moving to converge on his back. He spins around -- ignores the lurch of his stomach -- and feels the table next to him.
A palm lays flat on the surface. It’s an old-fashioned stand-off -- them against him, all waiting for the clock to strike twelve and break the tension.
Gravel shifts outside. A foot twisting on the uneven surface. The wolves leap at the sound, launching themselves at him just as Dean takes the table, feeling around the edges, and knocks it in their direction. It hits two straight on; they fall, crushed by the weight of Formica and months of research. The others come at him, teeth bright as they bar them. Dean leaps to the right but miscalculates and hits his hip on the dresser. He winces, but rolls to the side.
The television’s up there somewhere. His lungs are on fire now, grasping at straws, but he ignores them -- tells them to shut up -- and pushes at the TV with his good hand. He swings around just in time -- another one of the wolves leaps at him and only gets a head full of glass and wiring.
There’s one wolf left, the leader, the one who threw him to the ground and pinned him there. There’s no hesitation on either side -- for once, Dean can see something, and he revels in the moment before the wolf growls and takes a step forward, just daring Dean to make the first move.
They move at the same time, Dean ducking towards the beds, the wolf over the prone body of a comrade now eating glass on the floor. There’s no collision, just the sickening squelch of a knife slipping easily through the chest of the wolf, but not before he gets in a swipe of his own.
The animal collapses against Dean, pushing him against the nightstand. He takes a deep breath, or as deep as he can with aching ribs and a demon wolf pressing him into the nightstand, and hesitates a moment before sliding the knife from under his pillow from the wolf’s chest. It slides easily, coated with blood that burns his hand; he pushes with what strength he has left and smiles with satisfaction when the wolf lands to his right with a thud.
Chest heaving, Dean wipes the blood on the nearest thing he can find -- probably his own sheets, but he can’t imagine they’ll stay much longer after all this -- then his hand, and swears again when the cloth rubs against raw skin.
He feels more blood and rubs desperately to get it off before he realizes it’s his own, leaking with some force from a wound where his shoulder meets his neck; a thick, long gash running down a few inches onto his chest. There’s no way to know which parts of the sheet are clean and which have the acid blood on them, so he takes a chance -- grabs a chunk in his hand and wrenches it from the bed to press it against his neck.
The temperature drops a few degrees -- or is it just him -- and he forgets he can’t see for a second and tries a sweep of the room. A face looms right in front of him, but he can’t scoot back fast enough, white teeth snapping at his clothes. The sheet rips as he pushes himself backward, back thudding against the other bed, and he remembers the discarded knife; reaches out wildly in a blind panic, literally, and feels his fingers brush against the blade. But it’s too late, the wolf’s upon him, and fuck, it’s not supposed to go this way.
“Dean!”
A shotgun blast echoes through the room, then another, and there’s red rain falling everywhere. The wolf lands on the other bed in pieces; the glow slowly fades, then there’s nothing to look at but his own hands, and even they’re fading from view.
There are hands on his face, his neck, pressing against that gash that’s leaving him lightheaded and woozy.
“Damnit, Dean, why did you take the knife out of the door?”
Thank God it’s his dad and not some passer-by, because the mess would be hard to explain.
“It was moving,” he replies, unable to grasp bigger words. Things are getting a bit fuzzy around the edges, even in that place where dreams are seen -- he re-creates the image of his father kneeling in front of him to keep himself sane. Dean holds up his hand as if to offer up proof: See? I cut my hand.
“Can you stand? We have to get out of here.” There’s less of a command and more of a question there, and it’s damn good to have his dad back.
The next hotel is only a few towns over, far enough to keep inquiring police off their trail, but not far enough to keep Dean propped up in the passenger seat for too long.
There’s just enough color in his face for John to be sure he’s still alive, still fighting against the odds stacking up against him. Leaving him alone was an amateur mistake; a knife of cold iron could stave off Fae blood for only so long, but there are creatures out there far more powerful than metal and muttered words, those that relish at the opportunity to break through barriers. To believe Dean could not only escape, but kill a Fae without attracting negative attention was foolish at best, though John could think of more choice words to describe himself for putting his research ahead of whatever had befallen his son.
“C’mon, Dean,” he says, keys dangling from the quiet engine. “Time to get up.”
A grumble, then Dean turns to face him, head swinging slowly. He keeps a hand pressed firmly against his neck. There’s no vocal answer, just sad resolve painted across pained features, and before John can reply, or even get out of the car, Dean has the passenger door open, feet planted on the weathered motel parking lot.
John doesn’t research out to help him -- men need to learn to stand on their own two feet -- instead, he touches his arm, as to say ‘stay put, I’ll get a room.’
Then he thinks again, remembering the sight of a destroyed door, splintered remains hanging like a monster’s teeth. Fool me once...
Dean must have heard his feet crunching over the leftovers of fall; he rubs a hand over his face and mumbles into it.
“Don’t start this again,” Dean says. “I’ll be fine in the car for two minutes.”
“There’s no telling how they found you in the first place,” John reminds him, standing in front of the sun, casting a shadow over Dean.
“Yeah. So lay off for at least an hour.”
“We could track this trail in less than that.”
Dean looks up, skin as unnaturally light as his eyes. “So why’d you stop?”
“I have to patch you up.”
His son snorts and shakes his head.
“This isn’t a discussion, it’s an order. Until your sight returns, you’re not staying alone.”
“I fought them pretty damn well on my own.”
John lurches forward and gasps Dean’s shoulders. This blasé attitude may be a device of his invention, but enough is enough. Disregard for his own life is more acceptable than Dean’s, Dean, his son, still a child to protect no matter how old or independent he may become.
“This isn’t a broken arm or bruised rubs,” he nearly shouts. “You don’t walk this off after sleep. Damnit, Dean, you can’t even watch your own back. Don’t you realize how dangerous that is?” John shakes his head. “Sometimes,” he continues, softer, “being a good hunter means knowing when to step back.”
“And who’s going to watch yours, huh?” Dean snaps back. Even then, his voice is rough around the edges, worn down metal rubbing against metal, scratchy and uneven. It reminds John of Dean’s teenage years, when his voice cracked and wavered before it caught up with who Dean was mentally.
It’s time for that choice he made while out earlier, when he left the room early because he couldn’t stand the sight of Dean, of his failure at protecting his family. Personified there, sleeping soundly after so many nightmares throughout the night, John found it almost unbearable to stay.
A jacket lays discarded in the backseat. John crouches down in front of Dean and reaches past him to grab it, folding the arms inside out before grabbing one of Dean’s hands. “You don’t have to worry about that, Ace,” he says softly, pulling an arm through the jacket. Dean’s five years old, again, itching to go play in the snow, jumping with excitement as John tugs on a thick, winter jacket. There’s less resistance now, though Dean’s frowning a bit.
He doesn’t smile nearly as much as he did as a child.
John pulls the jacket around Dean’s back, careful to avoid brushing bruises and healing cuts, then pulls the other arm through.
“No way,” Dean says, now wearing his blue coat inside out. “You’re not going to take a break.”
“We have bigger things to hunt, now,” John replies, straightening the lapels sticking out from under the coat. “Something is obviously after you.”
“You think?” He brushes his father’s hands away. “What about the deaths in New York?”
“They can wait. Let the local police investigate it for a bit, rule out the normal theories.”
Dean nods, eyelids drooping. His grip on the towel at his neck loosens a bit, slipping down to reveal the top-most sliver of red, swollen skin around the wound. There’s no sign of infection -- John notices that first, his mind conditioned to work in a certain order -- he breathes a sigh of relief at that, but not at the slow trickle still leaking through the broken skin.
Time to patch things up, get Dean healthy enough to help him figure out what exactly is going on. There are questions John never intended to ask -- better to let things lie -- and now he knows there’s no room for privacy in this line of work. It tugs on John, needing to make Dean relive what happened.
“Stay put,” he commands, patting Dean’s knee before standing. “I’ll get a room.”
It’s a small concession, but one that keeps them on even ground.
John gives one more glance in Dean’s direction, frowns at how small and weak he looks in the passenger seat, and wonders: why so many flashes to Dean’s childhood when he knows his son’s a adult?
Chapter 1.6 >>