![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nightspear) wrote2008-03-02 07:27 pm
Finding Home (5/?)
Title: Finding Home (Main Post and Chapter List)
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Nothing you recognize is mine. I gain nothing of materialistic value from this.
Pairings: Mostly gen. Briefly, Sam/Jess
Note: I'm not going to pretend I'm not nervous about this chapter. Anyway...
XXXXX
“I was just going to college. It was Dad who said if I was gonna go I should stay gone.”
(“Pilot”)
XXXXX
In the short time Dean was out of Sam’s dorm room, Dad had gotten in the building and found his way to the room.
Dean stopped short at the doorway, his dad standing by Sam’s generic, wooden desk while Jessica and Steve looked so uncomfortable—or downright scared, really—it was almost funny.
But only almost, because John Winchester turned immediately toward his sons. Dean heard Sam’s soft gulp behind him.
“Don’t stand in the hallway,” was the first thing he said.
Dean’s “Yessir” was automatic, but he was a little surprised to hear Sam echo it.
John stared at Sam, eyes fixing on the discolored patch on his cheek. Sam tried to burn holes in the side of his bed with his eyes and did this weird shifting thing where he seemed to be trying to stand straight and hunch down behind Dean at the same time. Dean cleared his throat.
“I interviewed the witnesses,” John said without preamble. Dean raised his eyebrows at the phrasing. Dad was clinical, but this was a little formal even for him. He had the ridiculous thought that this wasn’t how a dad was supposed to grill his baby son’s first girlfriend, except, if it hadn’t been for the hunting, yeah, it might have gone something like that anyway.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sam stiffen and he rolled his eyes, stifling a groan.Here we go…
“They’re still in the room, Dad.”
Dad’s attention turned back to the other two students. “You two have homework to do or something?”
Sam’s mouth dropped open, but Steve flinched visibly and Jessica nearly tripped over a book on the floor as they scrambled out.
When the door closed behind them, Sam said, incredulously, “I can’t believe you just dismissed them from their own room like that.”
Dark eyes turned onto the two younger Winchesters. “You want them in here?” They all knew it wasn’t an option if they wanted to avoid further trauma or whatever.
“You could have been a little nicer.”
Dean almost winced.
“Nice, Samuel?” Samuel was a bad sign. Worse was the tone that said John was a few sentences away from shouting.
“Dad, as far as they can tell, you attacked them last night!”
Wait, what? Dean thought. “I thought it was a shapeshifter,” he said for the third time since getting to Stanford.
Sam’s blasted the look on him. “Oh, of course, because they’re so used to shapeshifters. I didn’t even know what it was until it threw Steve six feet with one arm.”
“But—”
“I found the body,” John’s voice cut through. “Some of the skin was still intact. That wasn’t my face it was wearing.”
“Not anymore,” Sam muttered.
Dean’s head reeled. “So it turned into Dad? You didn’t tell me that.” This added a new level to the crappiness, and the crap had been piling pretty friggin’ high already.
Sam looked a little surprised, as if he hadn’t realized he’d left that detail out. “Well, who’d you think it looked like?”
“How should I know, Einstein? Coulda been anyone. I didn’t see it—wait, Dad, whose skin was it wearing when you found it?”
John looked at him. “Yours, son.”
Dean tried to backtrack over the conversation he’d had with Sam that morning, wondering whether anything would have made more sense knowing that.
But something else was bothering him. “Dad and me, that’s who it used? And you just…happened across it? Me and Dad are hunting this sonuvabitch and he hops across county lines to have a chat with you?”
John seemed to agree, though his expression barely changed. “It does seem unusually specific. What I don’t understand is why it was so intent on killing you.” He reached behind him and pulled out a silver knife from somewhere hidden. “Or why you would have left your weapon out in the open like that, Samuel.” Dean raised his eyebrows and glanced toward his brother.
Sam didn’t return the look this time—was deliberately avoiding it, actually. “I didn’t get a chance to take care of the corpse. I thought it would be safer to leave the silver in its body in case I hadn’t killed it.” It didn’t sound unreasonable, but Dean knew right away that it was a lie. For whatever reason, Sam had been damn sure it was dead last night.
John didn’t know that, though, so he simply narrowed his eyes and grunted.
Sam’s eyes were fixed on the floor. Dean saw the muscle in his jaw twitching, which meant he was holding back whatever storm was waiting to unleash itself on their dad. That he was trying at all struck Dean as a good sign, although not that good because he knew it wouldn’t last two minutes. “I…don’t think it was trying to kill me, sir.”
“You want to explain that?”
Sam looked like he would crack his teeth holding back his first response—it was an order, not a question. “It said so.”
Dean rolled his eyes, because that sounded stupid even to him. Sure enough, Dad growled, “You didn’t stop to think that, just maybe, it was lying?”
The defiance pushed through. “What’s the point in lying about something like that, if it really wanted to kill me?”
Dean kind of wished people would stop talking about something with his face killing Sam.
“Any number of reasons, Samuel! To confuse you. To distract you. To—”
“It was telling the truth about some things.”
“You know that, do you?”
Sam unclenched a fist and wiped it across his pant leg in what Dean recognized as a nervous gesture. “Did Mom die in a fire?”
All three of them went silent. John looked as if he couldn’t understand the question, so Dean answered, “What the hell, Sam? Yes, it was a fire. You know that.” It was practically the only thing Sam knew about Mom, in fact.
Sam didn’t take his gaze from their dad’s face, though. “It said she was…sliced open.”
Dean turned away with an angry grunt and kicked Sam’s chair because otherwise he might start swinging at someone—if Dad hadn’t been there, Sam would’ve been a pretty good candidate.
So he was surprised when Dad sat down hard in the abused furniture.
“I never told you that,” the older man said in a near-whisper. “I’ve never…not even Dean knew.”
“So it’s true,” Sam said. The triumph that had so often accompanied those words in the past was replaced by confusion and something else that Dean might have been able to identify if he’d been less busy trying to wrap his head around this whole thing. “But…she…I remember the fire…”
Dean’s head snapped up. “You were a baby, Sam; you can’t possibly remember that.” Dean did. He hadn’t seen it happen, but the heat, the sound of Mom’s scream. He was surprised at how defensive his tone was. I remember. You don’t have a clue what that’s like.
Sam’s expression was uneasy. For someone as keen on sensitivity and talking things out, he’d never been comfortable talking about Mom, as if he wasn’t sure how to think of her. “I know that. I mean, I used to have dreams about fire. Right, Dean? When I was really little, still. Even before you told me how she died. Those must have been memories, right?”
Pinned to the ceiling, Dean remembered his dad telling him. Burst into flames.
John’s voice cut in. “There was a fire. But it wasn’t just the fire that killed her. She…whatever killed your mother…there was a...an incision in her stomach. Like she’d been…”
Sliced open, they all heard.
“You never told me,” Dean said, not quite accusing; more in question. And since Dean had been the one to explain it to seven-year-old Sammy, his brother couldn’t have known either.
John gave him a look and stood, taking on what Dean thought of as his field commander stance. It was back to the case. “But I knew. So the shapeshifter knew. That’s not a surprise.”
“That’s not all it said,” Sam protested.
“If it said something without pulling it from our memories, we can’t confirm that, either. We have to assume it was lying.”
Sam laughed softly. Dean watched him warily, because it was that same short, desperate laugh he’d let out before in the church. Also, because nothing good ever came of Sam laughing while talking to Dad. “I think, in this case, maybe we should assume it was telling the truth.”
His dad apparently wanted to have a staring contest with Sam—and Sam was the goddamn king of the glaring game—so Dean threw his hands up and broke in, “What the fuck, Sam?”
“He…It said that it was working with the demon that killed Mom.”
Dean was still thinking through the improbability of that when Dad snapped sharply, “Demon? The demon that killed…?”
Dean realized what he should have before: they’d been looking for her killer with little progress for years. For their whole lives, basically. And Sam was saying—had said at least two or three times now—that it was a demon.
“Yeah,” Sam answered. “A demon, it said. You didn’t know that, did you?”
John was still staring, his face emotionless but with wheels clearly turning in his head. “No, I didn’t. And we still don’t know it. It could have been lying.”
Sam’s voice began to rise. “It said the demon was after me, Dad. Said they’ve been watching. Hunting us back.”
Dean’s head was shaking already. “Shifters can’t even hunt in packs without trying to off each other. No way this one let itself be some demon’s bitch.” Sam snorted, amused by that for some reason.
Dad scowled at him, less amused at his language, but let it slide. “Your brother’s right. It doesn’t work that way. Demons and shapeshifters are on complete opposite ends of the spectrum.”
“Dad, holy water worked on it. You ever see that in a creature? In anything besides a demon?”
When Dad answered, the only thing he said was, “I’m surprised you had holy water on you. I thought you were done with that.”
Uh oh. “Dad,” Dean started, recognizing where this was going.
John hadn’t finished, though. “It’s a good thing you did, but you can’t be sure it really worked—not the way it works on demons.”
Sam’s face was twisted into outraged disbelief. “I can’t be sure? Sir, I’m not completely incompetent—I know what I saw!”
The sir used to pop up spontaneously whenever Sam tried to prove he could do the job. It had mostly disappeared recently, as Sam had tried to prove he didn’t want to do the job, but here it was again. “Sam,” Dean tried, “maybe we should—”
His brother whirled on him, now. “I know what I saw, Dean!”
“No one’s saying you don’t, Samuel!” Dad had taken a step closer and trying, as always, to loom over a son who was taller than himself. “Maybe it just flinched from surprise. It was dark. It was snowing. Everything was confused; you might have—”
“Everything was confused?” Sam repeated. “You mean, I was confused. Jesus, Dad, the water boiled off its skin. That’s why I thought it was possessed to begin with!”
“Your roommate said you started an exorcism,” Dean jumped in, trying to figure out whether it was more important to finish this hellish debriefing or stop his family from punching each other. Then again, one would probably lead to the other, so... “Did it work?”
Sam was silent for a few minutes, muscles tight around his jaw. “No,” he admitted grudgingly, quietly. Dean looked closer and realized Sam was breathing faster than usual, not just from anger, but from some other emotion, too. “But. But, Dad, that’s not all. What if... It could have been involved with the demon somehow. It knew things; you didn’t hear what it—”
“It doesn’t matter,” John dismissed, and Sam looked down, exhaling sharply. “Our job is saving people. Saving humans, Sam. If it’s supernatural, we kill it. That’s it. Doesn’t matter what its reasons were.”
Sam looked up, and Dean swore he was about to say something but stopped himself before it came out. Normally, this was completely fine, since usually Sam did this when he wanted to have say some chick-flick thing, but even Sam never tried that with Dad.
Still, he didn’t complain, because the faster this discussion ended, the better.
Sam wasn’t quite done yet, though. “Dad. What it said about Mom…”
John snapped. “Samuel!” he growled, advancing on the youngest
By now Sam was backed against his desk with their dad’s face inches away. Dean moved forward, about to force them apart, when he heard Sam’s whisper, soft but sharp with fury. “Because it was my fault, isn’t that right, Dad? If it hadn’t been for me, your wife would have lived, and your favorite son wouldn’t be--”
Dean didn’t stop, pushed between them anyway. “Back off,” he said, shoving them hard, “both of you back the hell off!” Standing between them now, he looked from one to the other. Sam was breathing hard, tense, fucking trembling, and there was no mistaking that other emotion this time. As Dean watched, Sam lowered his gaze.
John, uncharacteristically, was staring at the floor, too. “Dad?” Dean asked, stepping away so he could see both at once. “Am I hearing this right? Did you...?”
He looked up, then, and spoke softly, tightly. “Sam. I...we both said things we didn’t mean. Did things we didn’t mean.”
“You believe it, though,” Sam said. “You’ve been thinking it. Just needed to be said.”
Something clicked into place. “S’this about the damn shapeshifter?” Dean said, and they both snapped their heads around to stare at him, as if they’d forgotten he was there. “Sam, for God’s...it was lying. It was screwing with your fucking head, and obviously it knew how to do it pretty well. That doesn’t mean it was true.”
“Yeah?” Sam answered. His gaze fixed on Dean’s eyes before sliding away, and Dean remember with a jolt that the bastard had worn his skin, too. Christ. Dad suspected that shapeshifters could do some freaky shit to a person’s head—if it could suck thoughts out, maybe it could nudge them in, too.
“What exactly did it say to you, Sam?” he asked carefully, trying to make his brother look up at him.
“That discussion we had before I left?” Sam said, looking at John instead. “Did a little replay of it. Nothing I haven’t heard before.”
John’s expression had hardened. “You talk back to it the way to did to me?”
“Why? Wanna take another swing?”
That was over the line. “Sam!” Dean snapped. “That’s—” But from the corner of his eye, he saw John’s minute flinch, and he stopped, staring. “Dad?”
The older man’s jaw was clenched, the same way Sam did when he was uncomfortable. “Sammy, I didn’t...I didn’t mean...”
Dean didn’t have to hear it to know. “You hit him?” he hissed, instinctively stepping between Sam and his dad. “Dad, you said that...and you actually...?” He looked at the bruise on Sam’s face, saw John’s eyes flick toward it and away again.
It never came to blows between them. Between Dean and Sam, sure, like any other brothers raised to fight the way they had been. But with Dad...punishment was PT, extra time cleaning the guns and sharpening the knives, hours spent reciting Latin. He wasn’t afraid to hit them, but only as a direct lesson to teach them to fight harder, run faster.
“You done this before?” Dean asked, suddenly horrified that he could have missed something like this, at the thought of his Sammy... “You been trying to control him by beating—”
“He didn’t beat me, Dean.” The answer was quick and came from Sam, who was, incredibly, defending Dad. “Don’t think...I’ve taken worse than a punch before. From both of you,” he reminded.
“That’s not what I’m talking about, Sam. Dad, how could...”
“Enough, Dean!” John snapped. “You heard your brother; you heard me. You’re going to start questioning both of us now?”
“It was just that one time,” Sam added, looking torn between terror and defiance and embarrassment.
Disturbingly, it reminded Dean of a girl he’d fucked once. Picked her up from this bar where some guy—her boyfriend—had been pushing her around. He doesn’t usually, she’d said told him as they left. Just once or twice. He’d gone back to the bar later and let the bastard know why he shouldn’t push women around.
Now, faced with his dad and his brother, he heard himself said, “Okay.” Then, because he couldn’t stop it, “Is that why you left?”
Sam bit his lip, lowered himself onto the edge of his bed, and shook his head. “No. That wasn’t why.” Dean could hear the truth in the words and hated that he could forgive his father his action, as long as it hadn’t driven Sam away.
Dean took the chair his dad had vacated, not knowing what to say and not wanting to look either in the eye. Finally, when the silence had taken another step through awkward territory, he remembered the conversation they’d had in the church. “Uh, Sam, what we were talking about before, with the holy water. You said you’ve always been able...”
He stopped. Sam’s eyes were wide now, fixed on his, darting for less than a second to their dad. Not here, they screamed. Not in front of Dad.
And because Dean was too tired to keep trying, he finished, “...to, uh, to get enough to have some with you. You should probably keep carrying some on you. Just in case.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
John hadn’t even noticed the exchange that lay beneath the words. He was already walking toward the door. “So. We finished the shapeshifter. Come on, boys. The car’s a few blocks down.”
“I gotta take a leak, Dad,” Dean said, not looking away from his brother, who had stiffened. Had heard the implicit, Back to the road. Both of you. “Meet you there in ten.”
Their dad nodded and didn’t say goodbye as he left.
XXXXX
“I can show you where the bathroom is,” Sam offered feebly. Dean gave him the you’re-a-stupid-idiot look, and Sam sighed and dropped it. “I was almost hoping me and Dad would...you know.” He gestured vaguely.
“Talk it out, say sorry, and be best buddies?” Dean finished. “Yeah, right.” He didn’t mention that he’d been hoping for it, too.
Sam snorted, hunching down, tightening his fist around a handful of bed sheet. “Yeah.”
“I talked to your friends a little,” Dean said, his voice stiff even to his own ears. “They, uh, they seem like good kids.”
“Dean, I’m sorry—”
“Don’t.” He took a breath. “I’m glad you have friends here.”
It hurt to see relief vying for a place in Sam’s expression. “You mean...”
“You wanna come with us, Sam?” Dean was immensely proud of the neutrality he forced into the tone.
“Dean. I...” Sam swallowed and raked a hand through his hair. “I don’t know if...I can’t...”
“Your arm okay? Your face?” Dean interrupted.
Sam bit his lip at the change in topic. “It’s fine. I’m serious, man, it wasn’t that big a deal.” Sam fidgeted. “It wasn’t just him, you know, that night. I said some stuff...”
“I know the pattern,” Dean cut him off. Then, as if pulling out his own entrails, he said, “Maybe it’s a good idea to...have some space. You know. Cool off a little.”
Oddly, there was no relief in Sam’s face now. His eyes were dry and blank, but his voice shook as he breathed, “Dean...”
Clearing his throat, Dean stood. “I’ll talk to Dad.” He hesitated as he passed his brother’s slouching form. “I’ll call,” he said, reaching down to cup a hand around Sam’s neck. “Pick up, huh?”
“I will,” Sam whispered. “I will.”
Dean’s hand squeezed gently once, then lifted away, brushing the moisture off Sam’s cheek as he left.
XXXXX
A/N: John might be a little out of character. In my head, he's actually not that much of an ass. While I'll make an effort to make him more three-dimensional, he might well stay flatter than our two boys, who are the focus of the story, simply because of lack of pages devoted to him.
no subject