To Lift Any Burden (supernatural fic)
Title: To Lift Any Burden
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: It all belongs to Kripke & CW.
Summary: John is surprised after coming home from a hunt.
Word Count: 679
It's about five in the morning, too early for the winter sun to be up, so it’s cold. John struggles to unlock the door with fumbling hands-hands numb and slick with a blood who's origin he can no longer identify. That’s a good thing though; if he thinks about it, he’s fucked. Blowing off the head of a possessed man, who looks like any one of your old army buddies can do that to you.
Without warning, the door opens, Dean standing behind it--his eyes shadowed with concern. He starts to say something but thinks better of it. Letting his father inside, he instead runs ahead and grabs a glass out of their only recently stocked cupboards, bringing it back full of water-two aspirins in the other hand.
John takes them without a smile or a glance. His hands shake when he raises the glass to his lips. If Dean notices, he makes a point not to show it and John supposes in some distant way he’s grateful for that. But the glass in his hands slips through the slick film of blood that he hasn’t washed off, and he has to concentrate just to put it down on the coffee table before he can allow anything beyond primitive observations in his mind right now.
Dean doesn’t need to be told to go up to his room, or to turn off the lights behind him. Again, John has distant ideas that he wants to say something like ‘thank you,’ but from some deeper place in him, he recognizes that his son does not need to hear what will happen to his voice if he tries to speak now.
Lucky for him, Dean is already gone so it’s a nonissue tonight.
That is, until his son returns with a pillow and a thick blanket, which he leaves on the couch next to John.
While John stares at the objects blankly, he hears Dean moving things in the kitchen. A few seconds later the microwave dings. And a few moments after that, his son returns with a plate of food.
It’s steaming a bit, the macaroni and cheese cooling off slowly in the dark living room, giving John something to concentrate on-something to take away the thoughts that creep up when he blinks and sees black for an instant.
“Dad.” His son’s hand light on his shoulder, John blinks thoroughly and nods.
“Go to bed Dean.” If he believed in prayer, John would thank the man upstairs for keeping his voice steady. As it is, he’s still struggling to keep it that way when he lies, “It’s fine.”
Dean hesitates like he wants to do more, yet he won’t understand just how more he does for his father by nodding and walking away, leaving it alone. With the subject dropped, John can do the same with his wall, breaking apart in the privacy of his shit-hole living room-a grief so silent it feels almost nonexistent.
---- ---- ---- ----
In the morning the boys are gone with their backpacks, and the bikes they bought at that rummage sale two days ago.
Rubbing his face carefully, John stands and looks down at the plate of food he never touched, from where his son so thoughtfully left it.
It strikes him that maybe what his son was going to say last night was not, “Dad, are you okay?” to which he had so thoughtfully responded-or rather, interrupted.
Instead, he imagines his son wanted to say something like, “Dad, you weren’t here,” or “Dad, Sam was asking about you,” maybe even “Dad, I was worried,” which is so wrong because isn’t John supposed to worry? Isn’t that a father’s job? Or is it to shoot down the possessed bastard that was driving toward his house at two in the morning-head full of secrets about the Winchesters-horrible intentions for the up and coming hunter's family.
He knows something of the life he could start by making it home for dinner. It’s a short life, and in a short time it ends with him coming back home to absolutely nothing at all.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: It all belongs to Kripke & CW.
Summary: John is surprised after coming home from a hunt.
Word Count: 679
It's about five in the morning, too early for the winter sun to be up, so it’s cold. John struggles to unlock the door with fumbling hands-hands numb and slick with a blood who's origin he can no longer identify. That’s a good thing though; if he thinks about it, he’s fucked. Blowing off the head of a possessed man, who looks like any one of your old army buddies can do that to you.
Without warning, the door opens, Dean standing behind it--his eyes shadowed with concern. He starts to say something but thinks better of it. Letting his father inside, he instead runs ahead and grabs a glass out of their only recently stocked cupboards, bringing it back full of water-two aspirins in the other hand.
John takes them without a smile or a glance. His hands shake when he raises the glass to his lips. If Dean notices, he makes a point not to show it and John supposes in some distant way he’s grateful for that. But the glass in his hands slips through the slick film of blood that he hasn’t washed off, and he has to concentrate just to put it down on the coffee table before he can allow anything beyond primitive observations in his mind right now.
Dean doesn’t need to be told to go up to his room, or to turn off the lights behind him. Again, John has distant ideas that he wants to say something like ‘thank you,’ but from some deeper place in him, he recognizes that his son does not need to hear what will happen to his voice if he tries to speak now.
Lucky for him, Dean is already gone so it’s a nonissue tonight.
That is, until his son returns with a pillow and a thick blanket, which he leaves on the couch next to John.
While John stares at the objects blankly, he hears Dean moving things in the kitchen. A few seconds later the microwave dings. And a few moments after that, his son returns with a plate of food.
It’s steaming a bit, the macaroni and cheese cooling off slowly in the dark living room, giving John something to concentrate on-something to take away the thoughts that creep up when he blinks and sees black for an instant.
“Dad.” His son’s hand light on his shoulder, John blinks thoroughly and nods.
“Go to bed Dean.” If he believed in prayer, John would thank the man upstairs for keeping his voice steady. As it is, he’s still struggling to keep it that way when he lies, “It’s fine.”
Dean hesitates like he wants to do more, yet he won’t understand just how more he does for his father by nodding and walking away, leaving it alone. With the subject dropped, John can do the same with his wall, breaking apart in the privacy of his shit-hole living room-a grief so silent it feels almost nonexistent.
---- ---- ---- ----
In the morning the boys are gone with their backpacks, and the bikes they bought at that rummage sale two days ago.
Rubbing his face carefully, John stands and looks down at the plate of food he never touched, from where his son so thoughtfully left it.
It strikes him that maybe what his son was going to say last night was not, “Dad, are you okay?” to which he had so thoughtfully responded-or rather, interrupted.
Instead, he imagines his son wanted to say something like, “Dad, you weren’t here,” or “Dad, Sam was asking about you,” maybe even “Dad, I was worried,” which is so wrong because isn’t John supposed to worry? Isn’t that a father’s job? Or is it to shoot down the possessed bastard that was driving toward his house at two in the morning-head full of secrets about the Winchesters-horrible intentions for the up and coming hunter's family.
He knows something of the life he could start by making it home for dinner. It’s a short life, and in a short time it ends with him coming back home to absolutely nothing at all.