Supernatural Fic: Freaks and Monsters (2/3)
Okay, here's the second part ...
Title: Freaks and Monsters (Part 2 of 3)
Author:
dodger_winslow
Challenge: Firsts Chart: First Kiss
Rating: R for language and mature themes (take that seriously)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Series
Parings/Characters: No pairings. John, Dean and Sammy are the focus
Word Count: 24,000
Spoilers: None
Disclaimer: I don't own the boys, I'm just stalking them for a while.
Summary: John closed the door to the bathroom behind him. The reflection he saw in the mirror looked like death warmed over. The man he saw there looked like a fucking idiot. "God, I miss you, Mary," he said. "Sometimes this shit is so far beyond me I feel like I’m drowning, and I’m pulling them down with me."
Part 2
He sat with her in the hospital every day after school, reading comic books and watching TV when she was asleep, and talking with her about everything except why she was there when she was awake. Because Dad was on a hunt and had been since the day before Laney hurt herself, he took Sammy with him when he went, which was fine with Laney, and just about the best thing ever for Sammy. He even brought his Risk game so they could play if Laney felt up to it. Sometimes she did. More often than not, she didn’t.
After the first time they visited, Sammy asked him about her wrists. Dean said it wasn’t any of his damn business, and to shut up about it, and not to open his big blabberhead mouth to Dad. Sam didn’t ask about it again.
Laney’s mom was there the second time they visited. She looked up when they walked in. Her eyes were empty. They didn’t focus very well, and when they did, they didn’t really seem to get what they were seeing. To Dean, they made her look like she was hollow, like she wasn’t anything but a shell filled with cold air.
Laney told her mom who Dean was, but she still didn’t get it. She looked at him dully, then turned back to Laney like he wasn’t even there. She just looked away, like there was no one there, like nothing was happening, or if was, she didn’t notice or didn’t care.
After that, he and Sammy left whenever her mom showed up, which she did sometimes, but not as often as Dean thought she should. A few times, they spent her visit killing time in the cafeteria or hanging around the lobby until they were sure she was gone. But after the first couple of days, Sammy started dragging him to the nurses’ station so he could pester whoever was on duty into giving him pudding from the private stash they kept in the nurse’s lounge.
They had all kinds of crap in there: every flavor of pudding under the sun, twelve different kind of chocolate, soup, crackers, milk, cookies … even toxic orange crackers and peanut butter. And they had enough coffee to put Juan Valdez’s twelve kids through college.
All Dean ever asked them for was coffee, but Sammy loved all of it, the more sugar, the better. And the nurses thought Sammy was a hoot, especially after he showed them his Sammy dance, which he did every time one of them asked him to, even though Dean had asked him at least twice that many times not to be such a geek in public.
Most days, even when they weren’t hanging out at the nurses’ station until Laney’s mom left, the nurses tried to give them handfuls of crap. Especially Dean. Something to wash down with his coffee, they said; even though at least once a day, one of them would lecture him on drinking too much coffee at his age. It was like they didn’t think he got anything to eat at home or something, which he found out later is what Sammy told them because it made them dote on him like a lost puppy instead of looking at him like some pain-in-the-ass kid who was getting in their way. He also told them his brother was a junk food junkie, which is why the secret hobby of every nurse in the pedes ward became trying to feed Sammy’s brother’s junk food habit until he slipped into a sugar coma and died.
Which you’d think would be irresponsible of nurses to do, but they did it anyway.
Sam encouraged their generosity by asking for a cookie for his brother every time they gave him a cookie; or a pudding for his brother every time they gave him a pudding; or some cheese and peanut butter crackers for his brother every time they gave him some cheese and peanut butter crackers. By the time they left the hospital on the days Laney’s mother visited, Sammy’d be hauling a backpack so full of snacks that most of them were smashed beyond recognition by the time they got home.
As often as Laney’s mom came to visit, her dad only showed up once. When Laney saw his car pull into the parking lot from her window, she asked Dean and Sammy to go home and not come back until tomorrow. Dean didn’t ask her why she wanted them to leave, he just did it, touching her hand before he went, leaving his comic books on her nightstand in case she got bored later.
Her father was coming up the hall when they left her room. He stopped them, demanding to know who they were.
"We’re just friends," Dean said.
"You’re him, aren’t you? That boy she’s been spending time with."
Dean bristled at his tone. Laney’s dad was glaring at them, his expression clear about what he thought of his daughter spending time with Dean.
"Hey, Sammy. Go get me a pudding, will you?"
"What flavor?" Sam asked, his voice unsure.
"I don’t care. Whatever they’ve got."
"Well?" her father demanded once Sam walked away. "Are you?"
"What if I am?" Dean answered calmly.
He put a finger in the middle of Dean’s chest and tapped it there several times, hard enough to leave a bruise. "You stay away from my daughter," he said. "You just stay the fuck away from her, you hear?"
Dean smiled. "Touch me again, and I’ll break your head," he said quietly.
Her dad blinked, startled. He digested that for a moment, then took his finger off Dean’s chest and stepped back. "Stay away from her, or I’ll call the cops." Treating his parting shot like it was some kind of mortal blow, he walked past Dean and into his daughter’s room, closing the door behind him.
Dean didn’t go visit Laney for three days after that. He thought maybe it was better if he stayed away. He got it in his head that whatever made her want to cut her wrists was something he’d done, something her father knew he’d done, something everyone knew he’d done except him.
And once he got that in his head, he couldn’t get it out.
He didn’t know what he’d done, but he figured it had to be something, because otherwise she wouldn’t have tried to kill herself right after he kissed her the second time because he was too fucking stupid to learn from what happened the first time. And her dad wouldn’t think it was his fault. He wouldn’t act like Dean was some monster who fucked his daughter so badly she tried to kill herself.
"Are we going to go see Laney today?" Sam asked for the fourth day in a row. Dad had called twice since he left, just to check in; but he still wasn’t home, and Dean had no idea how much longer he’d be gone. It was Sunday, and Sam had been restless all day long, asking about Laney, wanting to call Laney, wanting to visit Laney, wanting to talk about Laney …
And Dean had had enough.
"No, Sam," he snapped. "We’re not going to go see Laney. Not today, not tomorrow, not the next day. Okay?"
Sam just looked at him. "Why not?"
"Because I don’t want to."
"I do."
"I don’t care what you want, Sam. Laney’s my girlfriend. If I don’t want to go see her, we’re not going to go see her."
"She’s my friend," Sam said.
"She lets you win at Risk," Dean countered.
"I know."
That wasn’t the answer he was expecting. "What do you mean, you know?"
Sammy looked at his brother calmly, the expression on his face years older than the time he’d had to practice it. "She likes my Sammy dance. She lets me win so she can see it."
Dean snorted. "You are such a major geek," he said.
"At least I’m nice to her," Sam retorted. Then, without another word, he turned and walked away.
Dean ordered pizza that night, but Sammy wouldn’t eat it. He sat and read a book in the living room, but wouldn’t watch TV with Dean, even when Dean turned the channel to the Thundercats marathon he’d been talking about for almost a week.
Just about the time Dean was ready to give in and say they’d go visit Laney if that’s what he wanted, Sam went to bed and closed his door behind him.
Dean waited until almost three o’clock in the morning before he went into Sammy’s room and sat down on the edge of the bed. Sammy rolled over and looked at him like he’d never even gone to sleep.
"We’ll go see her tomorrow," Dean said.
"After school?"
"Yeah. After school."
Sammy nodded his approval. He kept watching Dean, like he was waiting for something more.
"That’s all I wanted to tell you," Dean said, pushing to a stand.
He walked across the room and was closing the door behind him when Sammy said, "Leave it open, okay?"
"Okay." Dean pushed the door back to full open. "Night, Sammy."
"When’s Dad coming home?"
"I don’t know. Soon, I guess."
"I hope so. Do you miss him when he’s gone?"
Dean smiled at his brother in the darkness. "Goodnight, Sammy."
"Night, Dean." When Dean turned to walk away, Sammy added, "She didn’t do it because of you."
Dean stopped, but he didn’t say anything for several seconds, and he didn’t turn around. When he finally did speak, it was to ask, "Do what?"
"I’m not stupid, Dean."
Dean nodded. He still didn’t turn around. "Did she tell you that?"
"No."
"Then how do you know?"
"I just know."
"What? You’re Psychic Boy all of a sudden?"
"I just know, Dean. She didn’t do it because of you."
Dean didn’t answer for a moment, then he said, "You are such a geek."
"Bitch," Sam returned.
"Whoa!" Dean turned, staring at his brother in surprise. "Where’d you come up with that one? Never mind. I know where you came up with it. But you’d better not let Dad hear you say it until you’re over twenty-one and at least four inches taller than he is."
Sam grinned in the darkness. "Made you look," he said.
*
She was gone when they got to her room. The nurses told them her father checked her out the day he came to visit.
***
John was so damned tired by the time he dragged himself in through the garage door he could have dropped trau right there, fallen bare-ass naked on the couch and slept for a week. Pretty sure that, wherever she was, Mary wouldn’t approve of such slovenly behavior, he settled instead for dropping his duffel of weapons on the kitchen table as he passed, then tossing his duffel of clothes over near the laundry room door before trudging his way through the living room, utterly duffelless, in pursuit of the bed that called from the back of the house like some damned succubus intent on giving him everything he wanted if he just closed his eyes and let her have him.
He didn’t turn on the light as he walked down the hall. Sammy’s door was ajar, so he peeked in, smiling at the twist of his youngest son knotted into his sheets in a way that would give a grown man terminal arthritis in every joint in his body. When he turned back to the hall, he brushed the door with his elbow, and it creaked so quietly it made almost no noise at all.
Sammy’s eyes popped open. He grinned when he saw his dad and sat up in bed like he was ready to take on the day, even though it was only four o’clock in the morning.
"Go back to sleep, Sammy," John whispered from the hallway. "We’ll talk in the morning."
"I’m not sleepy," Sammy lied.
"Don’t argue with me, son. Go back to sleep, and I’ll see you in the morning."
"Okay" Sammy fell back into his bedclothes and was asleep again before John pulled the door closed behind him.
Dean’s door was shut, so even though he would have liked to check on him, he left the boy to his privacy and a good night’s sleep. It was hard enough being that age without waking up to find your Dad checking up on you like some kid who needed a nightlight just to keep from pissing in his own bed.
He hadn’t meant to get in so late; but after almost three weeks of mind-numbing boredom and ball-busting car sitting, the whole damned flock of those black-hearted bastards showed up all at once, but there were only half as many as he expected, and they weren’t near the problem he’d been led to believe they would be.
All things considered, in fact, they’d been pretty accommodating about dying quick and burning fast, so he checked out of his flea trap motel room and headed home, figuring Dean could stitch him up faster, and with a hell of a lot fewer questions, than the local hospital would. The night crept up on him those last 200 miles though, so since most of the worst of the gashes and cuts and bites had quit bleeding and were more-or-less scabbed over by the time he hit town, he figured it wouldn’t hurt to put off the needle and thread work until morning.
Or at least if it did hurt, he’d be too damned asleep to notice.
Since he had no intention of doing one thing more than absolutely necessary, he didn’t bother to turn on the light as he stripped down to his boxers, leaving his clothes on the floor where they fell even though he knew doing so would stain the carpet past any hope of ever getting his deposit back. Right now, he didn’t really give a rat’s ass about anything other than putting his battered, cut-up, bird-bat-bit ass into bed and sleeping himself back into a state of caring whether or not he died of blood loss, infection or just being too damned tired to keep pulling the air in and pushing it back out again.
The shift of shadows in his bed as he sat down on the edge of the mattress to peel off his socks damned near gave him a heart attack right there on the spot. He was on his feet, tripping over his clothes and boots and God knows what else in a startled backpedal when he realized who the gathering of dark angles and shapes had to be.
"Jesus, Dean!" he snapped, leaning against the bedroom wall in a slag of relief and exhaustion. "You scared the shit out of me, boy. What in the hell are you doing in here, hiding in the dark like that?"
"Sorry," Dean mumbled. "Guess I fell asleep."
"In here?"
"Yeah. Sorry." Dean crawled out of his dad’s bed and started for the door.
As he passed, John reached out and caught him by the arm. "You okay?" he asked, studying the slump of his son’s posture that, even in the darkness, seemed wrong and out of place and very much not Dean.
"Yeah," Dean lied. "I’m fine. I just … I guess I just … ah, hell, I don’t know. I missed you, I guess. I came in here to sit for a while, and I must have fallen asleep or something."
"Do you normally sleep in my room when I’m gone, son?" John asked.
"No," Dean lied again.
John shook his head. "You’ve really got to work on that lying thing, Dean," he advised. "Some day, you’re going to need to convince a cop who’s got you dead to rights that you really aren’t the guy he’s looking for, even though you’ve got a body in the trunk and half a gallon of blood on your hands. And I gotta tell you, if this is all the sell you’ve got to offer, Sammy’s going to be a hell of a lot better at the camouflage part of the job than you are, and his lies are as transparent as cellophane wrapped around a jellyfish."
"I’m just tired, Dad," Dean said.
John snorted again. "Yeah. And I’m not. Sit down, and we’ll talk about it while I get cleaned up a bit."
"We can talk in the morning," Dean said.
"Or we can talk right now," John countered. "And since I’m the dad and you’re not, I vote we talk when I say we talk. Turn on the light a sit down. I’ve got some shit that needs stitching, and since you’re already awake, we might as well do it now."
They talked about everything except what was bothering Dean while they shared the duty of cleaning wounds, John working with the ones he could reach and Dean taking care of the rest. By the time they’d gotten to shots and antibiotics and stitching, Dean had run out of ways to avoid the subject John kept bringing up if they talked, so he’d fallen to silence as he worked, turning open gashes to water-tight seams with steady, practiced hands.
"So?" John prompted, gritting his teeth against the small, intense pains of his son sewing his skin back together in a patchwork of scars and dissolvable thread.
"So, what?" Dean asked, studying the task at hand far more intently than such routine first aide required.
"Oh, for Christ’s sake, son. I could be half an hour asleep by now. Quit pussyfooting around it and tell me what’s on your mind."
"Nothing’s on my mind," Dean lied.
"Is it that girl you’re seeing? Son of a bitch, Dean! Watch what you’re doing."
"Sorry." Dean dabbed gently at the line of blood trickling down his dad’s back. "Guess I went a little deep there."
"A little deep?!? Felt like you were trying to dig to China."
"What did this to you? It looks like … I don’t know what it looks like."
John glanced over his should, checking out the wound Dean was working. The purple and black bruises near the base of his neck were punctuated by several deep punctures wounds. Dean had already debrided the whole set and stitched most of them closed, but he could tell by the way the whole back of his shoulder ached that the trapezius was ruptured, which meant a couple of weeks, minimum, before he could get back to work.
"That’s what happens when a bird-bat roughly the size of a small Volkswagen grabs hold of you and tries to fly off," John said, turning back so Dean could resume working on the last few wounds that still needed closing. "Don’t ever let it do that, if you get the option. Hurts like hell."
"Looks like he got you pretty good," Dean agreed.
"Yeah? Well, you should see the other guy, son. He looks a hell of a lot worse than I do, trust me. Now quit changing the subject and tell me what’s going on."
"There’s nothing to tell."
"Damnit, Dean …" Like a stick snapping in a way that couldn’t be unsnapped, John lost his patience suddenly and irrevocably. "All right. Fine. I’m not going to beg you." He indicated the final puncture wound Dean was stitching closed with a small jerk of his chin. "That’s good enough. Tie the damn thing off and get out."
"You’ve still got another one right ---"
"I said you’re done. Tie it off and give me the needle."
Dean did as he was told.
"When you’re ready to talk," John said, grabbing handfuls of ointment and antibiotic and other first aid supplies off the bed to dump them back in the metal case they came from, "you know where I am. In the mean time, get the fuck out. I’m too tired to have you playing Betsy Ross on my back if it isn’t even going to buy me the simple respect of you not lying to me like you think I’m too damn stupid to notice."
"I don’t think you’re stupid," Dean said quietly.
John slammed the lid and latched it shut. "Yeah. Right. Whatever. Go to bed." Wincing as he leaned over, he put the first aid case flat on the floor, then slid it across the carpet hard enough to gouge the woodwork when it hit the wall.
"Do you want me to make you something to eat?"
Wadding up the collection of damp, bloody towels near his hip into manageable balls, John tossed them, one after another, through the open bathroom door where they could fuck up linoleum rather than carpet. "I said go to bed," he repeated, easing himself horizontal on the bed as he spoke. "Turn the light off on your way out."
Dean stood in the middle of the room like he wasn’t quite sure what to do.
"Am I not speaking a language you understand, son?" John asked. "Because I’ve been beat to shit for the last eighteen hours, and I am plum tired to the bone, but that doesn’t mean we can’t dance if that’s what you’re looking to do." He waited a beat for Dean to answer. When he didn’t, John prompted, "Is that what you’re looking to do, boy? You wanna dance with me tonight?"
"No, sir," Dean said quietly.
"Then I suggest you do what I told you to do."
"Yes, sir." Dean walked to the door. His hand on the light switch, he hesitated, turned back. John’s eyes were already closed. He looked more dead than asleep.
"Dad?" Dean called softly.
John didn’t open his eyes. "What."
"I … um, I’m ready to talk now."
"Yeah? Well I’m not. You had your chance, and you pissed on it. So get out, and we’ll talk about it when I wake up. Unless you’re out of the mood by then, in which case, we won’t."
Dean’s expression twisted. His fingers trembled where they lay against the light switch.
John waited a full ten seconds before he opened one eye and fixed it on his son.
Dean turned off the light.
"Close the door behind you."
Dean did as he was told. He pulled the door shut. The quiet click of it closing between them echoed in the darkness as Dean turned and walked away.
*
John woke -- sore, tired, sore and sore - to the sensation of being watched. He lay still for a long moment, then opened his eyes despite the sure and certain knowledge that doing so doomed him. Sammy was sitting cross-legged on the floor by his bed, both hands gripping the edge of the mattress, his chin propped between them as he watched John sleep from a distance of less than eight inches, nose to nose.
"Hi, Dad."
Despite the temptation to respond in a completely different way, John said, "Hey, Sammy. How’s it hanging, son?"
Sam grinned. "Hanging good, sir."
John studied his youngest son’s face for a moment, marveling at how that kid’s smile could light up the whole world like a 40,000 candle watt halogen. He was going to be a heartbreaker in another couple of years. Probably have a whole herd of girls waiting in a line outside the front door, just to get a glimpse of that sweet, dopey grin.
"I know I’ve been gone for a while, Bud," John said. "But would you mind giving me another couple hours of shut-eye before you roust me out of my rack? I’ve had me a week, and I’ll tell you all about it; but right now, I’m not sure I wouldn’t fall asleep right at the exciting part and drown to death in my wheaties."
"Okay." Sam said.
"Good man." John closed his eyes again. "You want to stay home from school today so we can talk later, that’s fine by me."
"It’s Saturday," Sam said.
"Is it? Well that’s convenient then. You can stay home, and I can be a good dad, all at the same time."
"Can I ask you something before you go back to sleep?"
John sighed. "Sure."
"Where’s Dean?"
John opened his eyes. "What do you mean, where’s Dean?"
Sam started to answer, then hesitated. His guileless eyes told John everything he was thinking about not saying.
"It’s not narking, if you’re talking to me, Sammy. We’re family. We have to look after one another, else who will? Now tell me what you mean. Is Dean not in his room? Or is he not in the house?"
"Um. Not in the house."
"Are you sure? Did you check the basement … the back yard?"
"Um hmmm."
"Did he leave a note?"
"No."
"Did you look?"
"Uh huh."
John sighed again, more heavily. He closed his eyes, saying, "Great. Just great." For a moment, he just laid there, picturing all the many ways he was going to kick Dean’s ass once he verified the little bastard hadn’t been snatched by a demon or spirited off by a Volkswagen-sized bird-bat.
"Maybe there’s a note," Sam said suddenly. "I didn’t look that good. I’ll go look again."
John didn’t open his eyes. "If you bring me something you wrote, I’m going to know it," he said.
"Oh."
"But you wouldn’t do that anyway, right? Cause as much as Dean might get himself in hot water by taking off without leaving me a note, you realize you’d be pretty much fried on a stick if you gave me something you wrote and tried to pass it off as his, don’t you?"
Sam didn’t answer.
John sighed. Pushing himself to a sitting position on the bed, he scrubbed at his filthy hair with one hand as he studied his younger son through squinted eyes. "Hell of a disrespect to your old man to lie to him, Sammy," he said. "I’d think you’d know that by now."
"I didn’t lie to you," Sam said.
"But you were going to, weren’t you?"
Sam hesitated. John watched the wheels go round in his head as he tried to figure a way out of that one without lying about not intending to lie.
"Maybe," Sam said.
John didn’t grin, but he didn’t manage not to by much.
"Maybes don’t cut it on this subject, little man," he said as sternly as he could. "I know there are times in this world when you have to lie. I think I’ve been fair in raising you boys with some leniency on that subject. But when it comes to you and me - or to Dean and me - I also think I’ve been pretty clear there’s not much wiggle room in the way I see things. You lie to me, you’re saying you don’t respect me enough to tell me the truth. And you show me you don’t respect me, it’s my job, as your father, to teach you why you should. Do you understand that?"
Sam blinked at him. He swallowed hard, nodding.
"Good. So tell me again: Do you think there might be a note somewhere you missed before?"
"No," Sam said quietly.
John nodded. "That’s kind of what I figured. Do you have any idea where your brother might have gone, being as he didn’t see fit to leave me a note telling me as much?"
Again, Sam hesitated. Again, his little-boy eyes gave him away.
"Maybe," he said after a long, long moment.
"That girlfriend of his?" John asked.
Sam nodded.
"What’s her name again?"
"Laney."
John nodded. "Laney. Well, I hope Laney has a really high opinion of him, because I’m pretty sure it’s going to put a hell of a dent in his cool to have his old man show up at her door to drag his stupid ass home."
John stood and headed for the bathroom.
"What happened to your back?" Sam asked.
John looked over his shoulder at the scattering of gashes and punctures Dean stitched up the night before. "Your brother’s not much of a seamstress," he said.
"Can you not go drag him home, please?"
"Sorry, Sammy. Certain level of discipline has to be maintained. He knows the rules. If I’m here, I need to know where he is. And he knows I’m here."
"But aren’t there exceptions sometimes?"
John studied the boy before him. For such a short shit, he had a hell of a quick mind and a keen understanding of what made his daddy tick. "Sometimes," he agreed. "Why? You think this might be one of those times?"
"Definitely," Sam said.
"Well make your case then."
"Um. It just is."
"That’s not much of a case, Sammy."
"I promised him I wouldn’t talk about it."
"Talk about what?"
Sam hesitated. "It."
John tried hard not to be too impressed. Damn quick mind. "We talking about the girl again?"
"Maybe."
"Okay. Without telling me anything you promised Dean you wouldn’t tell me, what about the girl makes this an exception to him needing to go by the rules?"
"She … uh … she’s really sad. And … uh … I think maybe he went to cheer her up. Because we went to the hospital yesterday, but she wasn’t there any more. And that made Dean pretty mad because … uh … we’ve been … mmm … he told her he’d visit her, and then we didn’t, because he thought maybe … uh … I think he thought he was the reason she was sad. But now he knows he isn’t, and so we were going to go see her, and now we can’t, because her dad doesn’t like Dean, and Dean said he’d never let us see her now if she’s home again, which he doesn’t know if she is or not, but he thinks she is. Which is why you shouldn’t make him look stupid in front of her. Because he really likes her, and I like her, too. And … uh … it would be bad to make her sad again."
John ran a hand across his mouth. Every muscle he owned was screaming bloody murder, but he didn’t really notice.
"Did this girl hurt herself, Sammy?" he asked quietly.
"Um. She’s really sad."
"All right, son. I’m going to take a shower and get dressed, then we’ll go get your brother. You know where this girl lives, right?"
Sam nodded. "But you’re not going to drag him out, are you?"
"No. I’m not going to drag him out."
Sam grinned. "So it is an exception," he announced triumphantly.
"It’s not an exception. But it is a reason. A pretty good reason. And I’m just enough of a dumb ass not to listen when the boy is trying not to talk to me."
"You’re not a dumb butt, Dad," Sam said as his father walked away.
"Ten minutes, Sam. Then I’m going to want to go."
He closed the door to the bathroom behind him. The reflection he saw in the mirror looked like death warmed over. The man he saw there looked like a fucking idiot.
"God, I miss you, Mary," he said. "Sometimes this shit is so far beyond me I feel like I’m drowning, and I’m pulling them down with me."
The mirror didn’t answer, but he was pretty sure it agreed.
*
Dean sat quietly, just watching her house. He’d been there for about six hours now. He still couldn’t tell which window was hers. Or if she was even there. Or what he was going to do, once he figured out which window was hers and whether or not she was there.
He had no idea what he was doing. He didn’t know how to proceed, or even what he thought he was proceeding against. He just knew he had do to something.
Just do something.
He felt eyes on him - a prickle of sensation on the back of his neck - before he heard the quiet rustle of footsteps approaching from behind. He tensed, ready to spin, ready to attack, ready to defend. Adrenaline flushed his system. He focused his every sense, balling his hands into fists.
"It’s just me, son," John said from directly behind his right shoulder. The rush of relief was so intense, Dean almost lost his balance. "That’s where she lives?"
"Who?"
"Laney."
Dean’s expression flexed. "Yeah."
"You see her yet?"
"No."
"You know which room is hers?"
"No."
"Okay. Sammy’s in the car. Let’s go get some breakfast."
"It’s two o’clock in the afternoon." It came out before he realized how disrespectful it would sound. Once he said it, there was no pulling it back, so he turned to face his dad, standing a little taller, a little more squarely balanced, as he braced for what he figured was due.
For a long moment, John just looked at him. "I know a place that still serves breakfast at this hour," he said finally. "Let’s go."
"I don’t want any. Thanks. You and Sammy go without me."
Dean flinched when John dropped a hand to his shoulder. "It wasn’t a request, son," he said quietly.
They drove to the iHop in absolute silence, Dean riding shotgun, Sammy uncharacteristically docile in the back seat. When they got there, John sent them on in while he stayed outside to smoke.
"I didn’t tell him anything I wasn’t supposed to," Sammy said the moment the glass door swung shut behind them.
"Don’t worry about it," Dean said.
"Are you mad at me?"
"I said don’t worry about it, Sammy. I know how he is. There’s not much you can do, once he starts asking questions."
"I’m sorry, Dean."
"Yeah." Then to the greeter, he said, "Three."
For the most part, they ate without speaking. Sammy tried to chatter once or twice, but even he couldn’t keep a conversation going without a little help. The drive home was equally quiet.
"Nice out today," John noted as he pulled the Impala into the driveway and shifted it out of gear. "Why don’t you take your bike out for a spin, Sammy. Stay close. Don’t cross any busy streets."
Sammy looked miserable. He nodded, never taking his eyes off Dean.
John swung the garage door open so Sam could retrieve at his bike. When Dean didn’t walk in, John gestured him on through, saying, "I think it’s time we had that talk, don’t you?"
"I’m not really in the mood," Dean said.
It was so coldly, blatantly, openly defiant that it took John a moment to decide how to respond. "Get in the mood," he said finally.
Dean stood his ground for a moment longer; then capitulated like a punctured balloon folding in on itself. He stepped into the garage with his dad right behind him. Together, they headed for the door to the house.
"Sam," Dean called, turning backwards as he walked. Sam eyes snapped up, almost as full of hope as they were of apprehension . "Don’t forget to wear your helmet, Geek Boy."
Sammy nodded, the tension of his expression easing to a relieved smile.
The two of them sat in the kitchen across the table from one another. Dean still hadn’t said more than a handful of words since he climbed into the Impala and they left Laney’s house in the rear view mirror.
"So." John opened when it became apparent his son wasn’t going to make this easy.
Dean just looked at him, his expression blank, but not empty.
They’d been sitting in silence for almost ten minutes when John stood suddenly, a movement so abrupt in made his son flinch. He walked to the refrigerator, opened it, leaned down to look inside. He studied the contents for a moment, then pulled a cold can from the door.
"Catch," was the only warning Dean got, but he caught the coke can easily. John pulled a beer out for himself, closed the refrigerator and re-joined his son at the table.
"I’d rather have a beer," Dean said.
"I’m sure you would," John replied. He popped the top on his beer and took a long draw before setting it back to the table. "So how much longer are we going to sit here and stare at each other, son?" he asked.
Dean looked down at his hands. He started turning the coke can slowly, exactly thirty degrees with each turn.
"She cut her wrists," he said finally. It was an obvious effort just to get the words past his teeth.
"You know why?"
Dean shook his head.
"Sammy said you thought it might be your fault."
"Sammy’s just a kid."
"Pretty smart kid."
"Still just a kid."
John nodded. "Okay. What do you think?"
Dean shrugged. He popped the top on the coke and took a drink.
"No theories at all? She just decided to see what the inside of her wrists looked like one day?"
"She’s not like that."
"Not like what?"
"A freak. She did this, she had a reason."
"All right. You know her, so I’ll take your word on it. Tell me about her dad."
Dean’s eyes snapped to him. Every muscle in his face was working to keep his expression neutral, but his eyes betrayed him. "Why?" he managed after a long moment.
John took a drink of his beer. "Call it curiosity. Have you met him?"
"Once."
"How’d that go?"
"He’s an ass."
"What makes you say that?"
Dean looked back down at his hands. He started turning the coke can again. "He just is."
"Ah. I see."
"He told me to stay away from her," Dean elaborated after a long beat of silence.
"Before or after?"
"After."
"Did he threaten you?"
"He put his finger in my chest. I told him if he touched me again, I’d break his head."
John’s features flexed with appreciation. "How’d he take that?"
Though Dean didn’t look up, one corner of his mouth pulled to the ghost of smile. "Like he believed me."
"Okay. What else?"
"Nothing else."
"Are you sure?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean are you sure there’s nothing else. No reason he might have told you to stay away from her that you haven't mentioned."
Dean didn't respond.
John would have liked to let that stand, but he couldn't. He didn't. "Did he say why he wanted you to stay away from her?" he pressed instead. "Do you know why he said that? Did he have any reason to say that?"
"I don’t know what you mean," Dean repeated. His phrasing changed only negligibly, but his inflection was different. The thirty degree turns of his coke can lost their precision. They became twenty-eight degree turns, thirty-seven degree turns, twenty-one degree turns. It was as clear a tell as John had ever seen.
He wanted to let that stand, too, but he couldn't. He didn't.
"Have you slept with her?" he asked. Dean looked up, then down again almost as quickly. "Easy question, Dean. Yes or no."
"No," Dean said, his voice so quiet John could barely hear it.
He leaned forward, studied Dean for several seconds before saying, "Look at me, son." Dean obeyed; met his gaze squarely. "Have you had sex with her?" he asked again, asked more directly this time.
"No," Dean repeated.
John nodded. Relaxed. Forced himself to accept the weight of what that answer meant. "Okay."
"I don’t know what to do," Dean said suddenly.
"What do you want to do?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean what are you looking to accomplish here, son? Do you have something in mind, or are you just casting around, trying to make yourself feel better by taking action, even if it isn’t productive action?"
"I want to help her."
"Sounds like you are helping her. You’ve visited her in the hospital. You’ve been her friend. You’ve sicced Sammy and his Sammy dance on her."
"I want to protect her. I don’t know what to do to protect her."
"Protect her from what?"
"I don’t know. Whatever made her cut herself, I guess."
"And if nothing made her cut herself? If she just did it for no good reason, or no reason you and I are ever going to know?"
"She’s not a freak, Dad!" Dean gritted his teeth, said more calmly, "She has a reason. I know she has a reason."
"Has she told you what it is? Talked about something you think it might be?"
"No."
"Do you know what it is?"
Dean hesitated one beat too long before saying, "No."
"I can’t help you if you won’t talk to me, son."
Dean shook his head. "I don’t know," he repeated. He looked up, met John’s eyes. "I’m not sure."
"Is that the problem? Not that you don’t know, but that you’re not sure?"
"I don’t know what to do," Dean said again miserably.
"I’ll help you figure it out. But you’re the one who’s been tracking this, Dean. You’re the one with all the context here, so you’re going to have to tell me what you’re thinking. You’re going to have to line it out for me. Catch me up to speed and make me understand why you think she needs protecting. That’s the only way I’m going to be able to help you here, son. I need to see the tracks you’re seeing: I need to see where they’re going, see where they’ve been."
Dean waited so long to respond that John’s words had gone stale between them by the time he actually spoke. "The first time I kissed her, she started crying."
"I remember."
"I just figured I caught her off guard or something. Didn’t know her very well then. I just kissed her because … I mean …" Dean shook the urge to elaborate off, went on by saying, "… anyway, I kissed her, and I figured she just freaked out a little. Too quick maybe, I thought. Wrong guy. Wrong way. I don’t know. Something."
"But you got past it," John surmised.
"She wouldn’t talk to me for three days. And not just not talk. She … she acted like I’d done something horrible. Like I was a monster or something. She looked at me like I was a … I tried to apologize for whatever I’d done wrong, and she looked at me like … like …." He shrugged helplessly.
"And that seemed wrong to you? The way she looked at you?"
"She looked at me like I was a monster, Dad. All I did was kiss her."
"All right. I’m with you. Go on."
"So, I figured, if that’s how it was, me being a monster or whatever just because I kissed her, then fuck her, I should just stay away. Not bother her. So that’s what I did. But then she apologized. Said she was just being a freak." He looked up then, "She’s not a freak, Dad. That’s what she said, but she’s not."
"Okay."
"So that’s why I thought maybe I just moved too quick or something. That I scared her, maybe. So we started hanging out together. You know, just doing stuff. Getting to know her, so I wouldn’t scare her again."
"That’s when you introduced her to Sammy?"
Dean nodded. "So she’d see I’m not a monster. I may be a freak, but I’m not a monster. And she got that. She thought it was cool I had a little brother, and she kind of took Sammy on like that. Like a little brother. So I’m thinking everything is fine, she gets it, and we’re all three spending a lot of time together doing different stuff, right? And I’m carrying her books every damn place at school and …." He glanced at his father a little self consciously. "I know that sounds kind of geeky and all, carrying her books around, but I wasn’t sure how else to, you know, make contact with her once I decided … I mean, when I realized that she was … that I liked her."
John nodded. "I carried many a girl’s books for the same reason, son," he assured Dean. "You’ve got good instincts: It is a good way to make contact."
Dean smiled a little. He straightened some in his chair, and quit turning his coke can in precise, thirty degree turns. "Yeah. That’s what I thought. Say hi, and carry her books, and compliment her shoes and stuff."
"Absolutely. Although the shoes one - that’s one I never tried. Good idea though. Wish I’d thought of it when I was your age." Then, the transition smooth, his re-direction gentle to a degree that appeared to be no redirection at all, he said, "So that’s the way you worked into it? Making her feel comfortable, making sure she knew you liked her that way, and that you weren’t someone she needed to be frightened of? That was a good plan, Dean. You did all the right things, paid attention to everything that might make her uncomfortable when you decided it was time for you to make your move again."
"Yeah." Dean looked vindicated. "Well, I thought I did, at least. But then we’re eating pizza and ice cream one night, and Sammy falls asleep on the couch, and we’re talking and stuff, and she says she knows everybody at school thinks she’s a lame freak. And she kind of laughs when she says it, but still, it sucks to feel that way. And I didn’t want her to feel that way. I didn’t want her to think I thought she was lame. So I kissed her. But I showed her I liked her, right? By carrying her books and things? I didn’t just spring it on her this time. I gave her plenty of warning, and I know she likes me, Dad. I know she does."
"So what happened?"
Dean’s face clouded. The animation he’d taken on while discussing girls and hunting strategies with his old man faded back to the uncomfortable disquiet of distress. "She just kind of freaked."
"Started crying again?"
"No, she just, she … shut down. Like boom, somebody turned off the light. I mean totally shut down. One minute, she’s laughing and joking and scooping ice cream for Sammy and the next, she’s standing there not saying anything, won’t look at me, got her arms all wrapped around herself like she’s cold or something. She says she’s not mad, says I didn’t do anything wrong. She even said she liked it. She said she liked it and was glad I kissed her. And I told her … well, I told her she kissed good for a freaky girl, but she knew I meant it as a compliment. That’s like a thing between us. An inside joke kind of. But I told her that so in case she was embarrassed, she wouldn’t be, ’cause she liked it and I liked it, which is kind of the whole point, isn’t it?"
"Yeah, Dean. It is. What happened then?"
"She left. Just left. Didn’t even wake up Sammy to say goodbye. And she always says goodbye to Sammy because it hurt his feelings the one time he thought she didn’t, but she really did, so she makes a whole big deal about it. ‘Hey, Sammy, don’t forget I said goodbye to you, okay?’ That kind of thing. Big deal, just so he doesn’t get his feelings hurt. And, too, because it makes him blush when she reminds him about being all whiny about her not saying goodbye to him that time when she totally did, and she thinks that’s just hysterical."
"She sounds like a nice girl," John said quietly.
"She is. She totally is."
"That’s the night she hurt herself?"
"No. She was fine the next day. Not mad, not anything. Just like it didn’t happen. Like it didn’t happen, Dad. Like she was totally pretending it didn’t happen. Like it never happened."
"When did she try to kill herself?"
"Three days later."
"Did you talk to her during those three days?"
"Yeah. We talked all the time. We just pretended like it didn’t happen, and it seemed like everything was okay. She said it wouldn’t work, but it did. I thought it did."
"Thought what worked, Dean?"
"Pretending like it didn’t happen."
"Pretending that you didn’t kiss her?" John asked quietly.
"I thought so. I thought that was what she was talking about, Dad. I thought we were pretending like I didn’t kiss her." His eyes were starting to panic. "I thought that’s what she meant when she said it wouldn’t work. I thought that’s what she meant."
The panic overwhelmed him suddenly, and he thrust to his feet. "I don’t want to talk about this," he said, trying to get out of the kitchen before his dad stepped in his way. He didn’t make it. "I don’t want to talk about this," he told John. "I don’t want to talk about this."
Holding his son in place, one hand on each shoulder, John said, "This isn’t your fault, Dean."
"I thought it was," he said. His voice was shaking now. He was trying so hard to hold on to it, and he was failing. He was losing it. "I thought that’s what she told me. I thought she told me I made her feel like a freak when I kissed her."
"No. That isn’t what she told you."
"She said she didn’t want to be a freak any more." He lost it then. He gasped once, and the shaking in his voice infected his entire body. "She said she was sorry she was such a freak. She’s not a freak, Dad. She thinks she’s a freak, and she doesn’t want to be a freak any more. She doesn’t want to be a freak."
John pulled his son to him, holding on to him, wrapping both arms around him as tightly as he could without crushing him. "It’s all right, son. It’s going to be all right."
"I don’t know what to do," Dean breathed.
The agony in his son’s words cut John to the bone. He remembered the fire of them in his own mouth, remembered the consuming terror of their helplessness as he trembled like a child in a church pew, the hand of a compassionate pastor he’d never met before on his back as he confessed how far beyond him this task was. How much he couldn’t protect them. How much he didn’t understand it, and he couldn’t fight it, and he didn’t know how to protect them from it because he didn’t know what to do.
He didn’t know what to do.
But Jim knew what to do. And now John knew what to do, too. Just as one day, in the not so distant future, Dean would know what to do.
But today, in this church pew of a rented kitchen, this boy who was trying so hard to be a man would stay a boy for just a little while longer. Even if just for one more day, John could protect his son from the burden of knowing what to do.
"You don’t do anything, son." John rested his check to the top of his child’s head, remembering the smell of him as a four year old, nestled in the lee of his shoulder, as of yet unmarked by the gathering evil of the world as it existed outside his father’s protective arms. Those scars would come too soon. They would mark his child forever, an indelible stain desecrating the sanctity of a child’s soul. But today, right now, for at least this one last time, he could protect his child from the monsters he did not yet know.
"This time," John whispered, holding tighter to the boy trembling in his arms, "you don’t do a damned thing."
*
(Continue to Part 3)