Sam had been stumbling to get towards the beach when he heard that there was a man there from people who took walks there and were talking about some new guy, just out there. His breathing was hard and he felt like all he could hear was his heartbeat in his ears, his breath pounding hard as he sprinted the whole way from the hut to the beach, skidding to a stop and almost tripping when he found him.
It was him.
"Dad?" Sam asked, breathless, with his cheeks flushed from the exertion of running.
It wasn't Mary. It was Sam. Sam was there and John knew that meant he hadn't gone to where he thought he had. He must have...just climbed out, just like that.
The last time he had spoken to Sam, his boy had been railing at him, angry and intense like he could get and John had been so tired. He had been so tired of fighting because he didn't have much time, not that Sammy had known that.
But it had been worth it, sacrificing himself so Dean could live. If Dean looked half as good as Sam, John could go back down to hell if he had to and serve out his sentence with a clean conscience.
Nodding, John stared at his youngest son with eyes that began to sting from the heat and the moisture wetting them.
"Sammy," he said throatily, his mouth curving in a nostalgic, hangdog sort of smile.
Sam was basically speechless, standing there and staring at a man that was supposed to be dead, according to Dean and his own notes and he wandered towards him slowly, barely able to see out of his eyes as he wiped them with the back of his hand. "Dad," he got out, clearing his throat and giving something of an ugly sound, setting his jaw as he got stable. "Dad, I..." He didn't believe it.
He could understand it, but he couldn't really believe it.
"When did you get here?" was all he could manage. "I uh, if I'd known..." Hell, he didn't know what he'd do.
John's smile grew more poignant, more everything, as he watched his boy stumble toward him. When Sammy stopped in front of him, John reached a hand out and clasped his shoulder. It was just as broad as he remembered, and likely still had that chip on it, too. Sam's muscles were tense beneath his hand, and John squeezed his shoulder reassuringly.
"Just now. Just now and you're the first thing I saw." Ducking his chin a little, John shook his head, the smile turning into the slightest of bemused grins. If Dean were here, John just knew there would have been some crack about Sammy's wide eyes and almost angelic air; he'd heard his boys bicker enough to recall some of Dean's ammunition from over the years.
Lifting his chin, he gazed over firmly at his son. "How are you?" is what he probably should have asked, but instead John said, "Is it done? Did you boys do it?"
So, I'm really not what you'd call a music connoisseur. I'm one of those uncultured shleps that listens to a lot of Top 40 radio, and I like it. I am unafraid to admit that. I actually like Casey Kasem, so sue me.
The thing with island radio is that there's only the one station, and who knows what the hell you'll get on it. It could be Mozart or yodeling or heavy breathing. Most of the music I'll listen to, though, because when I'm out on the beach working on something, it's nice. Nostalgic, in a way. And sometimes, if I'm really lucky, whoever's DJing will play something that I know.
Today was one of those days.
There wasn't anybody around when the song started. I want to make that perfectly clear. Also, there is nothing wrong with Janet Jackson. I'd been trying to affix my mast onto my sailboat, but abandoned it because come on! Who doesn't want to jump up and dance when they hear "Give me a beat
( ... )
The girl was definitely not Mary. Although John was disappointed (oh, how disappointed he was), he couldn't help but to smile as he watched her. It was obvious she thought she was alone, which she had been until he'd climbed out of Hell.
"Hello," John greeted, his voice low and rumbling from lack of real, honest use. "You've got quite the moves there."
Just as quickly as he'd been intrigued in a genuine way about the whole thing, John closed himself off. Countless demons had escaped Hell right in front of him and around him. She could be one of them. He had to make sure she wasn't, though he was definitely lacking the usual materials he used to figure that kind of thing out.
My laugh was a bit more tinny than normal because I was thoroughly mortified that anyone had to witness my bad dancing, but the smile that accompanied it was genuine. "That's one way of putting it, thanks," I replied with a flippy little motion of one hand, like I could wave my embarrassment away. "Um, am I just really unobservant, or were you not there a second ago?"
John glanced behind himself but didn't see anything resembling gates or doors, nor did he see the trail of demon ichor. The latter was just as odd as the former. Probably hundreds of demons had escaped Hell before him. Surely there should have been some sign of them?
Crouching down, John ran the tips of his fingers over the sand beneath him. That's all it was. Sand. No traces of sulphur that he could see, feel, or smell.
However, the jury was still out on the girl. He couldn't trust her.
Faith was on the beach, taking it easy. Her gut was mostly healed, jst a little tender when she pushed herself too hard, and getting bouncy with anyone was out of the question. But like hell was she gonna go soft.
In the soft sand, she was moving slow through some Tai Chi she'd picked up in murder rehab, and so she didn't feel like she was pussing out, she had a stake in her hand. Her hair was in a ponytail, leaving the scar from Angelus's bite for all to see. Wasn't like she was ashamed of it or anything.
Head still reeling from what Sam had told him about this place, John headed did what any good soldier would have done to get their bearings -- go back to familiar ground to regroup. Eyes scanning the horizon, categorizing his surroundings, John went to the beach. That's where he arrived and that could be where he could start to put some of the pieces of the puzzle together.
As he approached, he saw a woman around his boys' age practicing forms. When he got closer, he saw the stake in her hand. His brows raised slightly. Another hunter? Or just a girl looking to protect herself? Were there vampires on this island? He shook his head as the gap between them closed. To think, at one time he'd believed vampires to be extinct. Not anymore.
"They'll be sleeping now, lying low," he offered, nodding at the stake. "You have a couple hours before that'll come in handy."
"If only," she replied with a smug grin. "There aren't any here. No vamps, no demons, no magic. Place is fucking Pleasantville."
She spun the stake in her palm with a flourish and dropped her guard. It was getting easier to do as the weeks went by and the only people who fucked with her were the ones she fucked with first.
"I'm Faith. What are you, a Watcher?" she asked, the Boston ringing in her voice.
John held his hands out, palms-up. Shrugging noncommittally, he said, "So I heard, but I'll hold the jury out until I've seen it all with my own two eyes."
Talk was cheap, and John Winchester had always had to see things for himself.
Judging by the way she commanded that stake, John was beginning to think she was a hunter. No regular girl would have moves like that.
"I'm John. I'm a hunter." He hadn't ever heard of Watchers, though he gathered it was someone who knew the sorts of things he did.
Veronica didn't often get caught in a stare. She stared plenty, but not like this, with a sudden stop and her mouth hanging slightly open, eyes gone wide as she - and this, she didn't do often either - hesitated.
She'd seen Sam's pictures. She could have been remembering wrong, but she'd seen the pictures and she had a good memory for detail. And now she wasn't sure if she wanted to be right this time.
Didn't matter. She shook herself out of it, walked closer, smiled a little. "You new in these parts?" God, she hoped this one didn't pull a gun on her. Everyone from Sam's world seemed to think playing pin-the-bullet-on-Veronica was a good time.
John was sitting on the beach, staring out at the sea. His fingers itched; he needed to write down everything he knew about this experience and this island so far, but he didn't have his journal. He didn't have anything save for what he'd died wearing and carrying.
Until he found something to serve as a new journal, John would simply commit each detail to memory. As the sounds and smells of the surf washed over him, John's mind turned over details both great and small...
Until a voice broke his concentration.
John turned toward the voice, eyes lifting to its speaker, a girl maybe a little younger than Sammy.
"Yeah, I suppose I am." He gestured to her clothes and her tan. "But you're not."
"Unless you're from somewhere that considers a year and a half still new," Veronica said, shrugging, "then no, I'm not."
She was hesitant still, but covering it better. Long practice had made a half-decent actress of her and a better liar. She smiled, moving close enough to offer a hand. "I'm Veronica. Mars."
And I think I might be dating your son. No, scratch that. Announcing that kind of think might not be the best way to start the conversation. Either way, there's no harm in being polite.
"A year and a half in some place isn't new," John agreed.
Seeing as how the girl continued to speak to him, John figured it'd be polite to stand, so he did. After wiping granules of sand off his palm against the side of his jeans, he accepted hers. Giving it a firm shake, he smiled just enough to be considered pleasant. "I'm--" Elroy. McGillicudy. No, people already knew Sam here and this girl gave him no reason to lie. "--John. Winchester. Nice to meet you, Veronica."
Ellen hadn't spent much time on the beach since she'd first arrived. She'd been content to wander the jungle, the compound, the Hub. It felt nearly like home. But, for whatever reason, she felt pulled to the ocean today, and spent near on an hour walking the shore, her boots abandoned by the treeline near the compound. She wandered the beach in her worn jeans, the cuffs rolled up, and a tank top. The breeze felt good, felt new and clean. She pressed her face to the wind; turned it up to the sky.
She turned to the beach ahead of her again, her feet sinking into the sand. A little over ten yards away, out of nowhere, a man walked out onto the beach, fading from home and into this reality. As he gained his bearings, he unfolded an all-too-familiar frame, and Ellen stopped in her tracks.
The salt-and-pepper hair, the broad shoulders, the defensive stance... And then, of course, he asked for her. For Mary. Ellen's breath caught in her throat like a demon in a Devil's Trap, and she steadied herself in the sand.
It couldn't be what he thought it was. He'd asked for Mary and gotten Ellen Harvelle instead. Had John not just climbed out of Hell, he would have thought he was still there, still being punished as his body broke down over and over again.
The last time he had set eyes on Ellen Harvelle had been the day John told her he'd watched Bill die. The way she had looked at him, the subtle way her frame and center of gravity had shifted...it still weighed on his conscience.
She couldn't really be there, on the beach approaching him.
This had to be another trick somehow. Something was bending his thoughts or warping his perceptions or...
Those eyes. Those big eyes of hers were staring straight at him, unyielding. As much as John wanted to believe it wasn't her, his gut told him otherwise.
Yes, Ellen Harvelle really could be there on the beach approaching him. She was.
"Ellen," he said evenly, her name sounding strange and foreign somehow to his ears, as though he ought not dare speak her name, not after what he'd done.
Her mouth parted, taking a shallow breath. She licked her lips quickly, taking a slow step toward him. She knew he wasn't a demon, wasn't a mirage. She knew how this place worked, and he wasn't just a trick of her twisted imagination. He was here, standing in front of her, flesh and bone.
"John--" She came to stop a few feet from him, taking it all in. He looked... Dammit, he looked just the same. A little more careworn, a little ragged, but still John Winchester, in all his glory. "You're--" She blinked, hard. He was dead, dammit. He was the one who had told her Bill was dead. He had been there when Bill had died. Had left her to tell Jo that her father wasn't coming back. She had let that anger die long ago, but... Seeing him reminded her of Bill, reminded her of home. She realized how much she missed Bill.... How much she had missed them both, really.
She took a ragged breath, smiling softly as she blinked back a few stray tears that she refused to let fall. "You look good, John."
As much as it hurt to look at her (hurt to think about Bill. hurt to remember what had happened. hurt to remember what he'd done.), John found he couldn't look away. Same old Ellen with the damnable air about her, the one that compelled him to hold her gaze and challenge her to up the ante.
She looked good. Ellen Harvelle had aged a few years since he'd last seen her, but she had aged gracefully. The years had been kind to her. More than kind. She had always been a striking woman, but somehow she was even moreso than before.
"So do you, kid." He nodded, hooking one thumb into the pocket of his jacket. His free fingers splayed out against the canvas, drumming lightly.
Comments 62
It was him.
"Dad?" Sam asked, breathless, with his cheeks flushed from the exertion of running.
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The last time he had spoken to Sam, his boy had been railing at him, angry and intense like he could get and John had been so tired. He had been so tired of fighting because he didn't have much time, not that Sammy had known that.
But it had been worth it, sacrificing himself so Dean could live. If Dean looked half as good as Sam, John could go back down to hell if he had to and serve out his sentence with a clean conscience.
Nodding, John stared at his youngest son with eyes that began to sting from the heat and the moisture wetting them.
"Sammy," he said throatily, his mouth curving in a nostalgic, hangdog sort of smile.
Reply
He could understand it, but he couldn't really believe it.
"When did you get here?" was all he could manage. "I uh, if I'd known..." Hell, he didn't know what he'd do.
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"Just now. Just now and you're the first thing I saw." Ducking his chin a little, John shook his head, the smile turning into the slightest of bemused grins. If Dean were here, John just knew there would have been some crack about Sammy's wide eyes and almost angelic air; he'd heard his boys bicker enough to recall some of Dean's ammunition from over the years.
Lifting his chin, he gazed over firmly at his son. "How are you?" is what he probably should have asked, but instead John said, "Is it done? Did you boys do it?"
Reply
The thing with island radio is that there's only the one station, and who knows what the hell you'll get on it. It could be Mozart or yodeling or heavy breathing. Most of the music I'll listen to, though, because when I'm out on the beach working on something, it's nice. Nostalgic, in a way. And sometimes, if I'm really lucky, whoever's DJing will play something that I know.
Today was one of those days.
There wasn't anybody around when the song started. I want to make that perfectly clear. Also, there is nothing wrong with Janet Jackson. I'd been trying to affix my mast onto my sailboat, but abandoned it because come on! Who doesn't want to jump up and dance when they hear "Give me a beat ( ... )
Reply
"Hello," John greeted, his voice low and rumbling from lack of real, honest use. "You've got quite the moves there."
Just as quickly as he'd been intrigued in a genuine way about the whole thing, John closed himself off. Countless demons had escaped Hell right in front of him and around him. She could be one of them. He had to make sure she wasn't, though he was definitely lacking the usual materials he used to figure that kind of thing out.
Reply
Reply
John glanced behind himself but didn't see anything resembling gates or doors, nor did he see the trail of demon ichor. The latter was just as odd as the former. Probably hundreds of demons had escaped Hell before him. Surely there should have been some sign of them?
Crouching down, John ran the tips of his fingers over the sand beneath him. That's all it was. Sand. No traces of sulphur that he could see, feel, or smell.
However, the jury was still out on the girl. He couldn't trust her.
Reply
In the soft sand, she was moving slow through some Tai Chi she'd picked up in murder rehab, and so she didn't feel like she was pussing out, she had a stake in her hand. Her hair was in a ponytail, leaving the scar from Angelus's bite for all to see. Wasn't like she was ashamed of it or anything.
Reply
As he approached, he saw a woman around his boys' age practicing forms. When he got closer, he saw the stake in her hand. His brows raised slightly. Another hunter? Or just a girl looking to protect herself? Were there vampires on this island? He shook his head as the gap between them closed. To think, at one time he'd believed vampires to be extinct. Not anymore.
"They'll be sleeping now, lying low," he offered, nodding at the stake. "You have a couple hours before that'll come in handy."
Reply
She spun the stake in her palm with a flourish and dropped her guard. It was getting easier to do as the weeks went by and the only people who fucked with her were the ones she fucked with first.
"I'm Faith. What are you, a Watcher?" she asked, the Boston ringing in her voice.
Reply
Talk was cheap, and John Winchester had always had to see things for himself.
Judging by the way she commanded that stake, John was beginning to think she was a hunter. No regular girl would have moves like that.
"I'm John. I'm a hunter." He hadn't ever heard of Watchers, though he gathered it was someone who knew the sorts of things he did.
Reply
She'd seen Sam's pictures. She could have been remembering wrong, but she'd seen the pictures and she had a good memory for detail. And now she wasn't sure if she wanted to be right this time.
Didn't matter. She shook herself out of it, walked closer, smiled a little. "You new in these parts?" God, she hoped this one didn't pull a gun on her. Everyone from Sam's world seemed to think playing pin-the-bullet-on-Veronica was a good time.
Reply
Until he found something to serve as a new journal, John would simply commit each detail to memory. As the sounds and smells of the surf washed over him, John's mind turned over details both great and small...
Until a voice broke his concentration.
John turned toward the voice, eyes lifting to its speaker, a girl maybe a little younger than Sammy.
"Yeah, I suppose I am." He gestured to her clothes and her tan. "But you're not."
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She was hesitant still, but covering it better. Long practice had made a half-decent actress of her and a better liar. She smiled, moving close enough to offer a hand. "I'm Veronica. Mars."
And I think I might be dating your son. No, scratch that. Announcing that kind of think might not be the best way to start the conversation. Either way, there's no harm in being polite.
Reply
Seeing as how the girl continued to speak to him, John figured it'd be polite to stand, so he did. After wiping granules of sand off his palm against the side of his jeans, he accepted hers. Giving it a firm shake, he smiled just enough to be considered pleasant. "I'm--" Elroy. McGillicudy. No, people already knew Sam here and this girl gave him no reason to lie. "--John. Winchester. Nice to meet you, Veronica."
Reply
She turned to the beach ahead of her again, her feet sinking into the sand. A little over ten yards away, out of nowhere, a man walked out onto the beach, fading from home and into this reality. As he gained his bearings, he unfolded an all-too-familiar frame, and Ellen stopped in her tracks.
The salt-and-pepper hair, the broad shoulders, the defensive stance... And then, of course, he asked for her. For Mary. Ellen's breath caught in her throat like a demon in a Devil's Trap, and she steadied herself in the sand.
He was dead. The last time ( ... )
Reply
The last time he had set eyes on Ellen Harvelle had been the day John told her he'd watched Bill die. The way she had looked at him, the subtle way her frame and center of gravity had shifted...it still weighed on his conscience.
She couldn't really be there, on the beach approaching him.
This had to be another trick somehow. Something was bending his thoughts or warping his perceptions or...
Those eyes. Those big eyes of hers were staring straight at him, unyielding. As much as John wanted to believe it wasn't her, his gut told him otherwise.
Yes, Ellen Harvelle really could be there on the beach approaching him. She was.
"Ellen," he said evenly, her name sounding strange and foreign somehow to his ears, as though he ought not dare speak her name, not after what he'd done.
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"John--" She came to stop a few feet from him, taking it all in. He looked... Dammit, he looked just the same. A little more careworn, a little ragged, but still John Winchester, in all his glory. "You're--" She blinked, hard. He was dead, dammit. He was the one who had told her Bill was dead. He had been there when Bill had died. Had left her to tell Jo that her father wasn't coming back. She had let that anger die long ago, but... Seeing him reminded her of Bill, reminded her of home. She realized how much she missed Bill.... How much she had missed them both, really.
She took a ragged breath, smiling softly as she blinked back a few stray tears that she refused to let fall. "You look good, John."
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She looked good. Ellen Harvelle had aged a few years since he'd last seen her, but she had aged gracefully. The years had been kind to her. More than kind. She had always been a striking woman, but somehow she was even moreso than before.
"So do you, kid." He nodded, hooking one thumb into the pocket of his jacket. His free fingers splayed out against the canvas, drumming lightly.
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