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nightspear) wrote2008-03-18 02:42 pm
Finding Home (15/21)
Title: Finding Home (Main Post and Chapter List)
Rating: PG-13/R for language, mostly
Disclaimer: Nothing you recognize is mine. I gain nothing of materialistic value from this.
Pairings: Gen.
Notes: Oh, dear. Another John/Sam/Dean scene—can we avoid a confrontation? And how much trouble do I have with those scenes? I’ll give you a clue: I have a lot of trouble.
XXXXXXXXXX
“Yeah, well maybe that worked when we were kids, but not anymore, alright? Not after everything you and I have been through, Dean. I mean, are you telling me you’re cool with just falling into line and letting him run the whole show?”
“...If that’s what it takes.”
(“Dead Man’s Blood”)
XXXXXXXXXX
“Vampires?”
“They’re real,” John assured. “And they’re nasty.”
Dean had never figured out just how his father managed to tower over both of his kids even when they stood while he sat. It was a normal configuration for them, Dad paging through sheets of gathered intel even as he filled them in on a case. There was no crap among the three of them about stand at attention or saluting, but there was also no doubt which of them was the commander here. Dean didn’t mind being relegated to a subordinate again.
Okay, so it had been good to be working just with his brother, as an equal (and since he would never not be the oldest, he totally got last say, which was pretty sweet). But part of him that he’d pushed aside a year ago was practically quivering with anticipation at being second-in-command to his dad again, not in charge but trusted to do his part. It would be nice to be able to drop the responsibility that came with calling the shots. It would.
If there was another part that was reluctant to break the rhythm he’d established with his brother...well, he made that part shut up. This was Dad. They’d been hoping for this all year.
Sam might not agree. One look at his brother told Dean that he wasn’t okay with this situation, not at all. He was practically quivering, too—though not with eagerness—but he’d stayed respectfully quiet so far. Well, silent, really, but still. Better than yelling. Gift horses, Dean reminded himself. He wished Sam would stop slouching, though, and just act a little more focused until this hunt was over. Whatever was going to blow up here could wait until after they’d killed the...
Vampires. Seriously...vampires?
“You’d think we’d’ve noticed Dracula stalking the streets at night,” Dean commented.
“They look just like humans, most of the time, and they’re almost extinct,” John said. “In fact, I thought they were extinct, until Daniel...” John sighed, and Dean noticed for the first time how tired the man looked. “I’ve been in contact with other hunters, and they told me about his death. I heard you two were out here covering the case.”
“Why’d they go after him?” Sam spoke up, and some of the tension trickled out of Dean to hear the alertness in his brother’s tone. “It wasn’t a random attack.”
John barely paused before answering, “Daniel Elkins was a good hunter, and a good man. He taught me everything I know about fangs. The best vampire hunter of his time. They must have known hunters would hear and come looking around.”
“Wait, he wasn’t still hunting them, was he?” Dean asked. Elkins had been old, more than any active hunter Dean had ever seen. Which meant the man knew his stuff, but Jesus...he suppressed a shudder at the thought of making it to old age like that.
“Daniel had been laying low for years—not quite in hiding, but keeping off the radar. I thought he’d just gone into retirement—” (which, whoa, Dean had never thought of happening with a hunter)—“but that wasn’t it. He knew they’d want him dead—knew they’d want the Colt.”
“The Colt?” Dean repeated. “That old revolver you were talking about? Why?”
“Yes,” John said simply, pointedly not answering the question. “We’ve got to pick up their trail.”
Sam stilled. “You want us to come with you?”
“We can help, Dad,” Dean said quickly, not sure whether he was trying to stave off John’s protest or Sam’s argument. He needn’t have worried, though.
“I’ll need it,” John told them. “We have to get that gun, and taking it back from under their noses won’t be easy.”
“So we can’t just draw them out somewhere where sunlight will hit them?” Sam asked, wheels clearly whirring in his head.
John shook his head. “Most of vampire lore is crap. Sunlight will only give them a bad sunburn. The only way to kill them is to cut off their heads.”
Dean grinned at the thought. “Well, hell, you know I’m in.”
“Hold on,” Sam cautioned. “How many are we talking about?”
“A lot,” John answered. “Vampires almost never travel alone, especially now that there are so few of them left. And if they dared to pull something like this on a hunter like Daniel...we’ll have to assume we’re walking into a full nest. Ten, maybe a dozen.”
“So...walking in probably isn’t the best option.”
“Actually,” John said, a feral gleam lighting his eyes, “that’s exactly what we’re going to do. We’ll need to cover our scent, though, in case they went back to Daniel Elkins’ place; they can track by smell like bloodhounds.”
Dean exchanged a look with Sam. Sam tilted his head thoughtfully as Dean smirked. “Tiptoe through the daisies it is,” he said. Sam raised his eyebrows at him.
“If that’s what you call it, Dean, then I don’t know what you think you’ve been tiptoeing through all these years, but they probably weren’t daisies.”
“Bloodsucking, supernaturally strong daisies with noses like bloodhounds,” he amended. Sam snorted.
Both of them seemed to remember at the same time that their father was in the room and turned to look back at him. John was staring at them, though the stony expression he wore wasn’t one of anger, or even impatience. Uncomfortable trying to decipher it, Dean asked, “So, um. When’re we going?” Sam looked away and cleared his throat.
John dropped his eyes down to his papers and shuffled them for no apparent reason before looking back at them, his face once again the composed, confident hunter’s. “We’ll wait ‘til around noon. They sleep during the day, but that doesn’t mean they won’t wake up—I want the sun as high as possible in case they do.” He stood and said, “There’re a few hours left before daybreak. Get some rest.”
“Yessir,” Dean said, but he remained where he was.
He shifted awkwardly in place. Sam and John hadn’t moved. John’s gaze was fixed on Sam and Sam’s on the floor, and Jesus Christ, this as was starting to look like a goddamn repeat of that day at Stanford...
No. Not a repeat. It was different now. After a year—after everything—it had to be different.
“Sam,” John started, then stopped. Dean watched him warily, knowing what his job was if they got in each other’s faces—again—but disconcerted in the face of his father’s uncertainty.
Sam looked up, and Dean realized the tension he’d seen earlier wasn’t anger at all. His brother’s stance was like that of a twelve-year-old Sam, eyes moist and head hanging after his first hunt gone sour, not the bold, stubborn twenty-year-old hunter Dean had become accustomed to. That fallout that never happened...Sam had been waiting for it, too. Finally, he wet his lips and said, “Yeah, Dad.”
“The last time we saw each other, we...” John sighed and rubbed distractedly at his forehead. “This was never the life I wanted for you. Or you, Dean,” he added, including Dean in his gaze. “I wish to hell neither of you had to go through all this. You should have gone to college, should have grown up with a home. With...with a mother.”
Sam’s eyes were assessing and confused, not quite comprehending.
Dean understood, though—he’d been the guardian of his baby brother’s innocence until there’d been no choice but to explain. Sam didn’t remember that time when their dad had been something more than a drill sergeant. Dean still held a few memories of John Winchester’s carefree, happy face smiling at him as he played, and he knew their dad hadn’t chosen this life any more than Sam. Now, with Dean and Sam both grown and past the age when they could hide from the monsters in the dark...there was no going back, and sometimes he thought he would sell his soul if it could buy that peace of mind back.
“Then why...” Sam started, then cleared his throat. “Why’d you get so mad when I wanted to stop hunting?”
John shook his head. “I lost sight of it, Sammy. After your mother died and I started hunting...I...” He laughed, soft and ironic. “I forgot. I forgot what it was like to do anything else, and I forgot that you might want something...different from what I wanted for you. You have to understand. That demon took my life away from me, and all I had left was you boys. I didn’t even stop to think that you could still have the life you wanted.”
Sam looked up sharply, pain written into his face. “Not anymore,” he corrected. “The demon’s taken too much. I can’t want that life. Not anymore.”
Dean’s jaw tightened. ‘I can’t want...’ Part of Sam still did want to go to college and leave hunting behind, but it wasn’t possible. He knew—all of them knew it. Not anymore.
“I’m sorry, Sammy,” John said, the words stiff but sincere. He lifted his hand hesitantly, as if unsure of what to do with it. Sam let out a shaky breath and stepped forward, and then they were embracing. They clung to one another as more than just father and son—as two men fighting together, and with an ache, Dean realized that he couldn’t remember the last time his father and brother had shared a hug before Sammy had become a soldier in this war.
“It’s been too long,” John breathed when the broke apart. “My boys.” He reached to Dean, then, who clasped his arm in camaraderie and stepped in to wrap his other arm around his father’s neck.
“Good to see you again, Dad,” he said, not caring about how tight his voice was. John pushed away gently and held him at arms length, searching his face. What he saw must have satisfied him, because he gave a tiny smile and a single nod. Dean stood straighter.
“You boys are both all right?”
“Yessir.”
The moment when the three of them all untangled themselves was, by Dean’s standards, supremely awkward.
“So,” he said, after an appropriately uncomfortable number of seconds, “I’ll move my stuff off that bed and share with Sam.”
Normal protocol, when they stayed in a room with two beds. It had been so long—more than a year, before Sam had left for college—since he’d had to think about it. It was weird how something so tiny could make everything feel so right.
He and Sam kicked and shoved continuously at each other once they’d settled in (because dude, Sam’s legs were freakishly long and clumsy and the motel beds weren’t exactly the biggest in the world), and even the furiously whispered arguments couldn’t wipe the grin from his face. Even the fact that they were about to walk into a next of vampires the next day...
He smothered a laugh.
“What?” Sam hissed. "I'm trying to sleep, here."
“Vampires.” He chuckled again. “Gets funnier every time I think of it.”
Sam snarled quietly and pushed him off the bed.
XXXXXXXXXX
Dean had nothing against plans. In fact, he even came up with plans sometimes. Sam really liked the whole organized thing, but Dean didn’t mind it either, especially if it involved something blowing up at one point or another. And, okay, sneaking around a dark warehouse at high noon didn’t sound that exciting, but no one could deny that sneaking around the sleeping vampires was a pretty big adrenaline rush.
Still, there was that little problem about plans never really working.
But hey, this time it wasn’t even his fault. Sam was the one who decided to poke at a goddamn sleeping vampire.
“You know,” Dean told him as they fled into the sunlit clearing, “there’s a trick to tiptoeing through bloodsucking, supernaturally strong daisies...”
“Shut up,” Sam snapped from beside him.
“...you’re supposed to fucking tiptoe.”
“How the hell was I supposed to know she’d been turned?” Sam asked, panting slightly from the run. “You would’ve done the same.”
True, Dean thought. But the point was that he hadn’t, so it was still totally Sam’s fault.
Their dad joined them a few seconds later, his face darkened with rage, and both of them sobered. “What was that?” he growled, stalking toward them.
“Dad...”
“Get in the car,” he ground out. “Back to the motel.”
Terrific. This would be fun.
XXXXXXXXXX
“I almost had it,” John told them. “It was in my hand when... What happened to providing backup?”
Sam flinched a little but jutted his chin out. “There was a girl they’d taken prisoner,” he defended. “I wanted to get her out of there—”
“They’d already turned her!”
“Well, I know that now!”
“Why would you even consider doing something like that?”
Their dad’s voice was at a shout now, with Sam’s rising to meet it. “She was tied to a post and covered in blood! Was I supposed to leave her there?”
“Covered in blood, Samuel!” John roared. “In a vampire nest! That on its own should have told you she’d been turned!”
“How, Dad?” Sam’s words were low, now, and furious. “How was I supposed to know that? You said vampire lore was all wrong; we had nothing to go on. For all we knew, the undead didn’t even have blood. We went in on your word, looking for a gun that you said was important without explaining why, and tried to face off with a pack of creatures you’ve never told us about.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“You can’t keep treating us like this!”
“Like what, Samuel?”
Dean edged forward. “Sam...”
“Like children!” Sam burst out over him. “You won’t tell us shit, and you expect us to obey you without question!”
“You are my children! I’m trying to protect you, but if I say I need you to watch my back, that means you suck it up and keep the goddamn monsters off my back! Or is that too much for you to handle?”
“Well, make up your mind, Dad, ‘cause if you keep trying to protect your sons by hiding the truth, and then send us out to fight like your soldiers, sooner or later someone’s gonna get killed!”
“Sam, stop it!” Dean shouted, angry himself now, shoving them apart. “I’ve had it! I’m sick of you two always at each other’s throats. What is wrong with you?”
Sam had the grace to look ashamed. John still looked livid. He nodded and started to turn away, saying, “You need to keep your brother in line, Dean.”
Fire snapped back into Sam’s eyes at that. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? After everything we’ve been through. We just fall into line and let you run the whole show.”
Dean found himself saying, “And I was talking to you, too, Dad.”
John stopped and turned back. “Excuse me?”
For an instant, Dean was frozen in place, John in front of him and Sam at his side, almost unable to believe that he’d openly contradicted his father.
When he recovered the ability to speak, he said, “We’ve been looking for you for a year, Dad. We’ve been running for months on nothing but trust in you and hope that you weren’t lying dead somewhere. You gotta throw us a bone here. Please.” He heard the pleading note in his words and carefully cleared his expression. “Sir.”
John grimaced. “I’m trying to protect you and your brother, son,” he repeated.
Dean swallowed. “Protect us? You drove across who knows how many states for Elkins but the best you could do for us was a couple of text messages. We needed you, Dad; I called you when Sammy was in the emergency room, and you knew what was going and couldn’t give enough of a damn to call us yourself. I know Sam called you when I was dying in
Their father was silent. Dean didn’t look up to see what expression he was wearing.
Then Dean felt a surreptitious hand at the small of his back—offering or seeking strength he didn’t know—before Sam spoke from beside him, quieter now, but no less forceful. “If you say this gun is so important, then we believe you. But you have to give us something. Sir. We can’t take things just on faith, isn’t that what you taught us?” There was something bitter in his words, and they both knew John would hear it, too—Sam used his weapons well, including words.
When Dean was sure his expression was neutral, he looked back up, to where John stood with his back to them. He’d placed his hands flat on the desk and leaned on them, head hanging and eyes closed.
“This isn’t just your battle, Dad,” Dean added. Then, more terrified of saying the words than he’d ever been of a monster, he said, “She was our mom, too. This demon's hurt all of us.”
“Dean. This fight won’t be an easy one. I can’t ask you to—”
“You don’t have the right to stop us,” Sam interrupted, his tone unrelenting. “It came for me when I was a baby, it found me at college—it almost killed Dean there, for God’s sake! And now it's flipped this switch on in my head, and it’s making me watch people die...” He exhaled hard. John had turned and was watching him without comment. Their father knew about the visions, but Dean suspected he didn't have a clue about the kind of toll it was taking on Sam--on both of them. “We have a right to this, Dad. If you don’t let us help you...we’re not going to stop looking for it.”
John’s eyes flicked to Dean at that. Dean didn’t meet his glance but didn’t move from Sam’s side, either.
After several tense moments, John sighed heavily and asked, “You boys really want to know about this gun we’re after?”
Dean’s eyes sought out Sam, who shifted and glanced back, his expression somehow still making him seem to be looking up despite the height difference. “Yes, sir,” Dean answered for both of them.
John nodded, his head down, before looking up and standing straight. “I may have found a way to kill the demon,” he began. “Not just exorcize it, but really kill it—forever." He took a breath. "Back in 1835, they say Samuel Colt made a gun...”