SPN FIC - Till Death Do Us Part
Another one for the John girls.
John’s head dipped. Not quite a nod. But good enough. Dean matched it with a real nod, took a final look at the burger and fries, shrugged, and headed for the bar. He left behind the folded twenties, money they couldn’t afford to lose, so John retrieved them and pushed them down into his shirt pocket. He sat there for a moment, eyes half closed, then gave in to the fact that his stomach wanted to agree with Dean. Not appetite, really; just common sense, just his subconscious. Eat something, or you’re no good to anybody.
Characters: John and Dean, Ellen via cell phone
Pairings: none
Rating: PG for language
Length: 3500 words
Spoilers: none
Timeline: pre-series; Sam's been gone for a month
Till Death Do Us Part
By Carol Davis
The hamburger came out of nowhere. And damn if it didn’t have a disembodied voice as a side dish.
“You should eat something.”
He should, he supposed. He wasn’t going to be any good to anybody if he keeled over from lack of nourishment. Low blood sugar. Dehydration.
No good to anybody.
No damn good on a hunt.
“Dad?” the voice said softly.
Dean, standing right there alongside the table; he’d been there all along, but John had shut him out, along with everything else: the small round table, scarred from years of carelessness and tough use, the three empty chairs, the other tables, the long bar down at the end of the room. The jukebox. The cigarette machine over by the door.
There were other people here, a dozen maybe, and he’d turned them into phantoms.
Why he’d come in here in the first place, he wasn’t sure. Not for the lights or the music. Not for the other people. Not for the warm air on a cool autumn night or the faintly dusty, beery smell. Certainly not for the food; not even for the drink, even though he was on his fourth, and he’d only been here for…
He had no idea how long he’d been here, or exactly when Dean had come in.
“Dad,” Dean said again.
John forced his eyes to focus and considered the hamburger for a moment. Some detached part of him told him it looked good: thick and juicy, tucked between halves of a toasted roll, topped with all the fixin’s he usually liked. Big pickle next to it, and a mound of steak fries. He didn’t lift his gaze, didn’t want to go looking for Dean’s face. Not when so much of it was her face.
“Yeah,” he said softly.
“You okay?”
“Fine.”
He didn’t really expect Dean to buy that, and Dean didn’t. With a small sigh Dean sat on one of the empty chairs and picked up a steak fry. He tucked it into his mouth and chewed it thoughtfully, then offered his father a fleeting smile. For a moment John was thrown back in time, back to babies in high chairs, back to games of, “Look, see, it’s gooooood. See, Daddy’s gonna eat some. Mmmmm…”
But the baby looking at him now had a day’s worth of beard stubble.
“I’m all right, son,” he told Dean.
Dean was a class-A liar when the situation called for it, but when he let his guard down, he couldn’t keep his feelings off his face worth a shit. Yeah, you’re great. That’s why you haven’t eaten anything for two days, and you spent last night sitting on the hood of the car in the rain. It was in his eyes, in the downturn of his mouth.
John found his wallet, looked inside, and slid a couple of folded twenties across the table, then nodded toward the back room where the pool tables were. “Why don’t you go -“
“I’ve got money. Not really in the mood for pool.”
“Then -“ A nod toward the bar. Had to be ladies’ night in here. Three over near the bar, a couple more sitting at tables by themselves. Most of them had already noticed Dean. Fresh meat, John thought ruefully. Time was when he’d gotten as many sideward glances and outright stares as Dean was getting now. Not tonight; he hadn’t shaved for a couple of days, hadn’t showered this morning. He’d be smelling six kinds of ripe if the weather was milder. When Dean didn’t move, John said firmly, “I just need some time.”
“Yeah. I - I can -“
The kid wanted to hug him. Make him feel better.
It was as hurtful as any other part of this godforsaken life they were leading: the way Dean could flip from almost 24 years old back to 4 in the blink of an eye, like one of those old dolls with another face on the back of its head.
Dean didn’t talk to him for the longest time after the fire. Didn’t say a damn thing, would just stare up at him out of those big doe eyes. Even then, you could see his feelings play across his face like a movie. Funny how Sam’s face had gotten less expressive as he got older - he’d dropped down to about two options, sullen or pissed off - but Dean’s had gotten more so. Made him seem girly, a little bit. Sometimes.
Made him look like her.
“Give me some time, son, all right? Go -“
Hit on somebody. Get yourself laid. Have a good time.
And wouldn’t she just love that. He could hear her, hear the edge in her voice, the disapproval. John.
“Take that,” he said, and nodded at the burger.
“No, Dad. You need some food.” Dean paused for a second, then laid out his offer. “I’ll leave you alone if you eat some of that.”
God, how often had they done that with Sammy? Just one bite. Come on, just one little bite.
John’s head dipped. Not quite a nod. But good enough. Dean matched it with a real nod, took a final look at the burger and fries, shrugged, and headed for the bar. He left behind the folded twenties, money they couldn’t afford to lose, so John retrieved them and pushed them down into his shirt pocket. He sat there for a moment, eyes half closed, then gave in to the fact that his stomach wanted to agree with Dean. Not appetite, really; just common sense, just his subconscious. Eat something, or you’re no good to anybody.
He ate half the burger and some of the fries without tasting any of it.
Dean had settled in at the bar, in between two girls Sam’s age, give or take a little. One tall, with long, thin legs and dark hair, the other short and rounder, hair chopped off and gelled so it stood pretty much straight up. They seemed to know each other, so it wouldn’t be hard for the boy to get himself a three-way if that was what he wanted.
John.
He might as well; it wasn’t like there was much else in his life that gave him any pleasure, now that Sam was gone.
Gone for…
Almost a month.
And not coming back. Because I told him not to, and he’s bullheaded enough to do what he was told, this one time. Every other time, he fought me tooth and nail. Told me to go fuck myself just on general principle. But this time…this time he’ll do what I said. Go and not come back.
Damn it, Sammy.
“Anything I can get you?”
He looked. The waitress, smiling down at him, not a hundred percent genuine. Couldn’t blame her; the unwashed hair, the wrinkled shirt, the way he was slumped in his chair - it didn’t spell anything good. Not the kind of customer she wanted. “No. Thank you.”
He’d had four already, and it was going to take a lot more to deliver him into oblivion. He was game for trying, but the thing was, he wasn’t sure if he could go straight to oblivion without detouring for a fight. He’d had that programmed into him when he was only a couple of months into this hell that passed for his life: full of pain you couldn’t piss out or puke out or get out of you in any way at all, so the only option was distraction. Like how you could forget all about a toothache if you slammed your hand in the car door. Have some stranger kick the shit out of you on the floor of some bar, or the cold asphalt of some parking lot, and you could forget about everything else.
Not for long, but you could forget.
All the things he’d hoped Dean would learn from him - that maneuver wasn’t one of them.
He ignored the waitress and let her move away to earn her tips from somebody else. Looked at the half-empty glass in front of him for a minute, then shifted his head a little, just enough to catch Dean in his peripheral vision. Dean was alone up there at the bar now; the two girls had moved farther down, although they were still watching him with little smiling glances.
Jesus, he’d wanted the boy to learn from him, be like him.
But not this way.
Didn’t want him to become somebody who’d sit alone at a bar, nursing a drink, or a dozen drinks, until there was enough of a haze in his head to allow him to lie down somewhere and sleep without dreams. Didn’t want him to cling to his old man so ferociously that it kept him from seeing the rest of the world - a world that could offer him some options. Not just a bar full of women hovering around him like pigeons anxious for breadcrumbs (and maybe they were good women, all of them; who the hell knew), but something solid, something enduring.
Something he could make promises about and know he meant to keep them.
One of the women was up close to Dean now, nodding at the jukebox, wanting him to dance, but Dean was shaking his head. The boy couldn’t dance worth crap on a stick, would turn the color of old brick every time he tried and somebody grinned at him, the look saying he was making a fool of himself. He’d give in to his own version of slow dancing if the song was right: get right up against the girl, hang on, and rock back and forth. But the juke was playing something loud and bright, meant for a lot of footwork Dean couldn’t handle.
There’d been only one person since Mary who’d convinced John to dance. “Not takin’ no for an answer,” she’d said.
Eyes were on her, on both of them, like she’d said, “Dance?” through a bullhorn.
“Old and tired,” he told her.
And she smiled. Slyly. “Bull. Get your butt up outta that chair.”
It wasn’t a slow dance; that would have torn the heart right out of him. It was something loud and bright, and it felt good - moving, letting the music carry him.
Lost in that night, that place, he didn’t hear the first couple of rings from his cell phone. Finally, grudgingly, he fished it out of his pocket and keyed it active. “Winchester,” he murmured.
“John.”
Jesus. You clairvoyant? he thought. “Yeah.”
Loud and bright, and long ago. Not long enough, apparently, if Ellen Harvelle still felt a need to track him down for a reason he knew had nothing to do with a hunt.
“Heard about Sam,” she offered.
“Hmm.”
“Dean there with you?”
“There a point to this, Ellen?”
“If you’re gonna get snappish, then maybe not. I felt like sayin’ hello. Leave it to you to act like that’s an affront.”
“It’s been a long day.”
“I imagine.”
Her voice was soft, but not pitying or sappy. She knew what notes to play; always had. “I apologize,” he told her.
“Accepted.”
“Then I’ll wish you a good night.”
“John.”
John.
He squeezed his eyes shut, tightened his grip on the phone. “I’m having some dinner and a couple of drinks. Dean’s about thirty feet away. I’m fine.”
Never kid a kidder. Never con a con man. Never…
Not enough years ago for him to be able to wipe the picture from his mind, he had cocked a gun and killed Ellen Harvelle’s husband. Didn’t really matter that it was for good reason; didn’t really matter that she’d said she forgave him. His other half was dead because of a demon, and her other half was dead because of him. Maybe the two things weren’t all that different. Either way, she knew what kind of a pit he was struggling around in. Knew what kind of torment this night was going to be. And it was pretty damned unfair to her to pretend she didn’t.
“How much you plannin’ to drink?” she asked him.
“Enough,” he said.
“You could’ve come down here.”
No, he couldn’t. He hadn’t been to the roadhouse since the day he told Ellen that Bill was gone - why Bill was gone. Talking on the phone was one thing; looking her in the eye was another. And looking Bill’s daughter in the eye was completely beyond him. Rather than give Ellen the chance to say again that she’d forgiven him, he said, “I’ll get through it.”
“Stay with Dean.”
“I plan to.”
The music on the juke changed to somebody’s cover of “Tennessee Waltz.” Ellen was quiet for a moment while it played, then said, almost like a sigh, “Huh.”
“I’m going now,” John told her.
“Remember why you came here in the first place. If we can help, come back.”
“Good night, Ellen.”
She made that small sound again, almost like a sigh. Then, with a tiny undercurrent of humor, she said, “G’night, John-Boy.” And she hung up before he could react.
He had no idea what was on his face, but it must have been something worth looking at; as he put the phone away he saw Dean watching him. Dean’s back was against the bar and he had a beer in his hand. Didn’t look like he’d drunk much of it. Maybe he figured on taking over the duty Sam had always grudgingly performed: staying mostly sober to clean up the mess. It’d been bad those last few months before Sam took off: a lot of bullshit thrown around, a lot of close calls, almost as if he was determined to provoke Sam into leaving sooner. He remembered Sam’s grip on his upper arm, the anger cut deep into Sam’s expression.
“Why do you do this?” Sam had hissed at him. “Do you want the whole damn world to hate you?”
“Let’s go,” Dean had tried to cut in. “Let’s just go.”
Let’s just go. But where the hell was there to go? Should’ve sent you with him. If he was so bent on going, should’ve sent you along.
He picked up the half-empty glass and took a long swallow.
“Dad.”
Now what am I doing? Same glass, still not empty. He hadn’t said anything to anyone, hadn’t given anyone a look that said Go ahead, see if you can kick my ass. “Thought you were gonna shoot some pool,” he said.
“Said I wasn’t in the mood.”
“Dean -“
“Yeah. Look - why don’t we go back to the room? Watch a movie.”
He looked down at the table, unable to meet those eyes. “You go. Take the car. I’ll walk back in a while.”
“Come on, Dad.”
The words came out sharp. “Stop it, Dean.”
Not that sharp, he thought, but when he lifted his gaze Dean looked away, his jaw tight, right hand balled into a fist, thumb rubbing against his index finger. He stood that way for a while, looking at nothing.
“I’d trade,” Dean muttered, his voice broken.
“What?”
He shook his head hard and headed for the door, shoving hard against it, almost stumbling out into the parking lot. John caught up with him a few steps short of the car, caught him by the arm, turned him around.
“What?” he said again.
Dean’s gaze fell to the ground and stayed there. It took a tightening of the grip on his arm to get him to say more. “Mom.” It wasn’t much more than a whisper, hard to hear over the traffic noise from the road. “I’d trade.” His eyes came up, met John’s, gave him an offer. “For her. So she would’ve made it out instead of me. So you wouldn’t have to do this.”
John tried for the word once more and coughed it out. “What?”
“Nothing.”
Dean shifted, aimed for the car, but he was like a dog at the end of a leash. He wasn’t getting any farther unless John let go.
John let go.
Dean looked at him miserably. “Can we just go?” he mumbled.
“Is that what you think? If somebody offered me a swap, I’d trade you for her?” Dean said nothing, just stood there in silence, leaving John to find his own answer. “No, son,” John said. “No. That’s -“
And damn if the boy didn’t look disappointed.
The air had a bite to it, unusually so for this early in the season. That other night, twenty-five years ago, had been mild, humid, soft. When the breeze blew it was like a gentle hand against your skin. There hadn’t been enough money for a wedding and a honeymoon both, so they’d spent their wedding night in her apartment with the windows open, listening to traffic noise and the sound of a TV coming from somewhere down the block.
Twenty-five years. Nineteen of them spent without her.
“We can go,” John said, trying to put together a smile and coming up with something that felt like his lips were being held in place by clothespins. “Watch a movie, if that’s what you want.” With a nod toward the convenience store down the road, he added, “We can pick up some snacks. Haven’t done that in a while.”
Dean’s shoulder came up a little. Half a shrug.
“Son -“
“I want her back, Dad.”
“I know you do.”
“I want her back for you.”
The rest of it went without saying: so we wouldn’t have to do this. So Sammy wouldn’t have left. So we’d have a home to go back to instead of a motel.
“If there was a way, Dean…”
There were ways. Both of them had been in the game long enough to know what they were, how they worked. But none of it was anything you’d want to get mixed up in, not unless it was the last choice you had.
“Yeah,” Dean murmured, eyes on the ground again.
Sam had been gone for a month; half of that time John and Dean had spent apart. Now they were together, and it wasn’t much different from the “apart.”
John looked off down the road, at the bright lights of the convenience store. He’d taken the boys to a thousand stores like it, let them choose snacks, let them pick the movie from anything that was showing for free on the motel TV. Had to draw the line at some of Dean’s choices until both boys were old enough to…
Somehow, Dean had gotten to be as tall as he was. Had become a hunter - a good one. Well, on the way to being good, but he’d get there, and it wouldn’t take long.
“I want him to come back, Dad,” Dean said softly, eyes on the ground.
John moved his hand to Dean’s shoulder and gripped it silently for a moment. “Ought to get an early start in the morning. Maybe a movie isn’t the best idea.”
His son gave a little half-nod. “’Kay.”
“We can stop over there at the store. Get something to have in the room - some breakfast.”
Another half-nod.
“You were a surprise,” John said.
Dean shifted, looked at him. “What?”
“We weren’t planning on it for a while. Figured we’d take a little time. Find a house, get settled. Hell, the two of us were the same age you are when we -“ He had to stop for a moment, then told his son, “She was beautiful, in her dress. I watched her coming down the aisle and I thought, ‘Dear Jesus, I hit the jackpot. How’d I do that?’”
“I’m sorry, Dad.”
“We both lost her. Both…all of us.”
“He’ll come back. Summer. You can patch things up.”
It was almost a plea. Something like Daddy, can I have a puppy? John looked at his son for a moment, then twitched a shoulder. “We’ll get some donuts or something. Have them in the room for the morning.”
He moved toward the car before Dean could respond. He could feel Dean’s gaze on him as he fished the keys out of his pocket and unlocked the driver’s door. He’d been in the driver’s seat for a minute when Dean opened the passenger door and got in.
How’d I do that, baby?
How’d I hit the jackpot…and then lose it?
How the hell did I…
“Dad?”
John stuck the key in the ignition, turned it, listened to the Impala’s powerful engine come to life.
She’d been at the wheel of this car, had sat where he was sitting, only a few hours before she died. Window open, hair fluttering around her face in the wind cutting through the car.
“Will you tell me about her?” Dean asked softly.
There weren’t any lights at this end of the parking lot. The row of shrubbery that lay just beyond the front bumper of the car was nothing more than a dark mass. It reminded him of nothing, promised nothing. John stared at it until his eyes began to grow used to the darkness, then he flipped the headlights on.
“Another time,” he said to Dean. “Not now.”
John’s head dipped. Not quite a nod. But good enough. Dean matched it with a real nod, took a final look at the burger and fries, shrugged, and headed for the bar. He left behind the folded twenties, money they couldn’t afford to lose, so John retrieved them and pushed them down into his shirt pocket. He sat there for a moment, eyes half closed, then gave in to the fact that his stomach wanted to agree with Dean. Not appetite, really; just common sense, just his subconscious. Eat something, or you’re no good to anybody.
Characters: John and Dean, Ellen via cell phone
Pairings: none
Rating: PG for language
Length: 3500 words
Spoilers: none
Timeline: pre-series; Sam's been gone for a month
Till Death Do Us Part
By Carol Davis
The hamburger came out of nowhere. And damn if it didn’t have a disembodied voice as a side dish.
“You should eat something.”
He should, he supposed. He wasn’t going to be any good to anybody if he keeled over from lack of nourishment. Low blood sugar. Dehydration.
No good to anybody.
No damn good on a hunt.
“Dad?” the voice said softly.
Dean, standing right there alongside the table; he’d been there all along, but John had shut him out, along with everything else: the small round table, scarred from years of carelessness and tough use, the three empty chairs, the other tables, the long bar down at the end of the room. The jukebox. The cigarette machine over by the door.
There were other people here, a dozen maybe, and he’d turned them into phantoms.
Why he’d come in here in the first place, he wasn’t sure. Not for the lights or the music. Not for the other people. Not for the warm air on a cool autumn night or the faintly dusty, beery smell. Certainly not for the food; not even for the drink, even though he was on his fourth, and he’d only been here for…
He had no idea how long he’d been here, or exactly when Dean had come in.
“Dad,” Dean said again.
John forced his eyes to focus and considered the hamburger for a moment. Some detached part of him told him it looked good: thick and juicy, tucked between halves of a toasted roll, topped with all the fixin’s he usually liked. Big pickle next to it, and a mound of steak fries. He didn’t lift his gaze, didn’t want to go looking for Dean’s face. Not when so much of it was her face.
“Yeah,” he said softly.
“You okay?”
“Fine.”
He didn’t really expect Dean to buy that, and Dean didn’t. With a small sigh Dean sat on one of the empty chairs and picked up a steak fry. He tucked it into his mouth and chewed it thoughtfully, then offered his father a fleeting smile. For a moment John was thrown back in time, back to babies in high chairs, back to games of, “Look, see, it’s gooooood. See, Daddy’s gonna eat some. Mmmmm…”
But the baby looking at him now had a day’s worth of beard stubble.
“I’m all right, son,” he told Dean.
Dean was a class-A liar when the situation called for it, but when he let his guard down, he couldn’t keep his feelings off his face worth a shit. Yeah, you’re great. That’s why you haven’t eaten anything for two days, and you spent last night sitting on the hood of the car in the rain. It was in his eyes, in the downturn of his mouth.
John found his wallet, looked inside, and slid a couple of folded twenties across the table, then nodded toward the back room where the pool tables were. “Why don’t you go -“
“I’ve got money. Not really in the mood for pool.”
“Then -“ A nod toward the bar. Had to be ladies’ night in here. Three over near the bar, a couple more sitting at tables by themselves. Most of them had already noticed Dean. Fresh meat, John thought ruefully. Time was when he’d gotten as many sideward glances and outright stares as Dean was getting now. Not tonight; he hadn’t shaved for a couple of days, hadn’t showered this morning. He’d be smelling six kinds of ripe if the weather was milder. When Dean didn’t move, John said firmly, “I just need some time.”
“Yeah. I - I can -“
The kid wanted to hug him. Make him feel better.
It was as hurtful as any other part of this godforsaken life they were leading: the way Dean could flip from almost 24 years old back to 4 in the blink of an eye, like one of those old dolls with another face on the back of its head.
Dean didn’t talk to him for the longest time after the fire. Didn’t say a damn thing, would just stare up at him out of those big doe eyes. Even then, you could see his feelings play across his face like a movie. Funny how Sam’s face had gotten less expressive as he got older - he’d dropped down to about two options, sullen or pissed off - but Dean’s had gotten more so. Made him seem girly, a little bit. Sometimes.
Made him look like her.
“Give me some time, son, all right? Go -“
Hit on somebody. Get yourself laid. Have a good time.
And wouldn’t she just love that. He could hear her, hear the edge in her voice, the disapproval. John.
“Take that,” he said, and nodded at the burger.
“No, Dad. You need some food.” Dean paused for a second, then laid out his offer. “I’ll leave you alone if you eat some of that.”
God, how often had they done that with Sammy? Just one bite. Come on, just one little bite.
John’s head dipped. Not quite a nod. But good enough. Dean matched it with a real nod, took a final look at the burger and fries, shrugged, and headed for the bar. He left behind the folded twenties, money they couldn’t afford to lose, so John retrieved them and pushed them down into his shirt pocket. He sat there for a moment, eyes half closed, then gave in to the fact that his stomach wanted to agree with Dean. Not appetite, really; just common sense, just his subconscious. Eat something, or you’re no good to anybody.
He ate half the burger and some of the fries without tasting any of it.
Dean had settled in at the bar, in between two girls Sam’s age, give or take a little. One tall, with long, thin legs and dark hair, the other short and rounder, hair chopped off and gelled so it stood pretty much straight up. They seemed to know each other, so it wouldn’t be hard for the boy to get himself a three-way if that was what he wanted.
John.
He might as well; it wasn’t like there was much else in his life that gave him any pleasure, now that Sam was gone.
Gone for…
Almost a month.
And not coming back. Because I told him not to, and he’s bullheaded enough to do what he was told, this one time. Every other time, he fought me tooth and nail. Told me to go fuck myself just on general principle. But this time…this time he’ll do what I said. Go and not come back.
Damn it, Sammy.
“Anything I can get you?”
He looked. The waitress, smiling down at him, not a hundred percent genuine. Couldn’t blame her; the unwashed hair, the wrinkled shirt, the way he was slumped in his chair - it didn’t spell anything good. Not the kind of customer she wanted. “No. Thank you.”
He’d had four already, and it was going to take a lot more to deliver him into oblivion. He was game for trying, but the thing was, he wasn’t sure if he could go straight to oblivion without detouring for a fight. He’d had that programmed into him when he was only a couple of months into this hell that passed for his life: full of pain you couldn’t piss out or puke out or get out of you in any way at all, so the only option was distraction. Like how you could forget all about a toothache if you slammed your hand in the car door. Have some stranger kick the shit out of you on the floor of some bar, or the cold asphalt of some parking lot, and you could forget about everything else.
Not for long, but you could forget.
All the things he’d hoped Dean would learn from him - that maneuver wasn’t one of them.
He ignored the waitress and let her move away to earn her tips from somebody else. Looked at the half-empty glass in front of him for a minute, then shifted his head a little, just enough to catch Dean in his peripheral vision. Dean was alone up there at the bar now; the two girls had moved farther down, although they were still watching him with little smiling glances.
Jesus, he’d wanted the boy to learn from him, be like him.
But not this way.
Didn’t want him to become somebody who’d sit alone at a bar, nursing a drink, or a dozen drinks, until there was enough of a haze in his head to allow him to lie down somewhere and sleep without dreams. Didn’t want him to cling to his old man so ferociously that it kept him from seeing the rest of the world - a world that could offer him some options. Not just a bar full of women hovering around him like pigeons anxious for breadcrumbs (and maybe they were good women, all of them; who the hell knew), but something solid, something enduring.
Something he could make promises about and know he meant to keep them.
One of the women was up close to Dean now, nodding at the jukebox, wanting him to dance, but Dean was shaking his head. The boy couldn’t dance worth crap on a stick, would turn the color of old brick every time he tried and somebody grinned at him, the look saying he was making a fool of himself. He’d give in to his own version of slow dancing if the song was right: get right up against the girl, hang on, and rock back and forth. But the juke was playing something loud and bright, meant for a lot of footwork Dean couldn’t handle.
There’d been only one person since Mary who’d convinced John to dance. “Not takin’ no for an answer,” she’d said.
Eyes were on her, on both of them, like she’d said, “Dance?” through a bullhorn.
“Old and tired,” he told her.
And she smiled. Slyly. “Bull. Get your butt up outta that chair.”
It wasn’t a slow dance; that would have torn the heart right out of him. It was something loud and bright, and it felt good - moving, letting the music carry him.
Lost in that night, that place, he didn’t hear the first couple of rings from his cell phone. Finally, grudgingly, he fished it out of his pocket and keyed it active. “Winchester,” he murmured.
“John.”
Jesus. You clairvoyant? he thought. “Yeah.”
Loud and bright, and long ago. Not long enough, apparently, if Ellen Harvelle still felt a need to track him down for a reason he knew had nothing to do with a hunt.
“Heard about Sam,” she offered.
“Hmm.”
“Dean there with you?”
“There a point to this, Ellen?”
“If you’re gonna get snappish, then maybe not. I felt like sayin’ hello. Leave it to you to act like that’s an affront.”
“It’s been a long day.”
“I imagine.”
Her voice was soft, but not pitying or sappy. She knew what notes to play; always had. “I apologize,” he told her.
“Accepted.”
“Then I’ll wish you a good night.”
“John.”
John.
He squeezed his eyes shut, tightened his grip on the phone. “I’m having some dinner and a couple of drinks. Dean’s about thirty feet away. I’m fine.”
Never kid a kidder. Never con a con man. Never…
Not enough years ago for him to be able to wipe the picture from his mind, he had cocked a gun and killed Ellen Harvelle’s husband. Didn’t really matter that it was for good reason; didn’t really matter that she’d said she forgave him. His other half was dead because of a demon, and her other half was dead because of him. Maybe the two things weren’t all that different. Either way, she knew what kind of a pit he was struggling around in. Knew what kind of torment this night was going to be. And it was pretty damned unfair to her to pretend she didn’t.
“How much you plannin’ to drink?” she asked him.
“Enough,” he said.
“You could’ve come down here.”
No, he couldn’t. He hadn’t been to the roadhouse since the day he told Ellen that Bill was gone - why Bill was gone. Talking on the phone was one thing; looking her in the eye was another. And looking Bill’s daughter in the eye was completely beyond him. Rather than give Ellen the chance to say again that she’d forgiven him, he said, “I’ll get through it.”
“Stay with Dean.”
“I plan to.”
The music on the juke changed to somebody’s cover of “Tennessee Waltz.” Ellen was quiet for a moment while it played, then said, almost like a sigh, “Huh.”
“I’m going now,” John told her.
“Remember why you came here in the first place. If we can help, come back.”
“Good night, Ellen.”
She made that small sound again, almost like a sigh. Then, with a tiny undercurrent of humor, she said, “G’night, John-Boy.” And she hung up before he could react.
He had no idea what was on his face, but it must have been something worth looking at; as he put the phone away he saw Dean watching him. Dean’s back was against the bar and he had a beer in his hand. Didn’t look like he’d drunk much of it. Maybe he figured on taking over the duty Sam had always grudgingly performed: staying mostly sober to clean up the mess. It’d been bad those last few months before Sam took off: a lot of bullshit thrown around, a lot of close calls, almost as if he was determined to provoke Sam into leaving sooner. He remembered Sam’s grip on his upper arm, the anger cut deep into Sam’s expression.
“Why do you do this?” Sam had hissed at him. “Do you want the whole damn world to hate you?”
“Let’s go,” Dean had tried to cut in. “Let’s just go.”
Let’s just go. But where the hell was there to go? Should’ve sent you with him. If he was so bent on going, should’ve sent you along.
He picked up the half-empty glass and took a long swallow.
“Dad.”
Now what am I doing? Same glass, still not empty. He hadn’t said anything to anyone, hadn’t given anyone a look that said Go ahead, see if you can kick my ass. “Thought you were gonna shoot some pool,” he said.
“Said I wasn’t in the mood.”
“Dean -“
“Yeah. Look - why don’t we go back to the room? Watch a movie.”
He looked down at the table, unable to meet those eyes. “You go. Take the car. I’ll walk back in a while.”
“Come on, Dad.”
The words came out sharp. “Stop it, Dean.”
Not that sharp, he thought, but when he lifted his gaze Dean looked away, his jaw tight, right hand balled into a fist, thumb rubbing against his index finger. He stood that way for a while, looking at nothing.
“I’d trade,” Dean muttered, his voice broken.
“What?”
He shook his head hard and headed for the door, shoving hard against it, almost stumbling out into the parking lot. John caught up with him a few steps short of the car, caught him by the arm, turned him around.
“What?” he said again.
Dean’s gaze fell to the ground and stayed there. It took a tightening of the grip on his arm to get him to say more. “Mom.” It wasn’t much more than a whisper, hard to hear over the traffic noise from the road. “I’d trade.” His eyes came up, met John’s, gave him an offer. “For her. So she would’ve made it out instead of me. So you wouldn’t have to do this.”
John tried for the word once more and coughed it out. “What?”
“Nothing.”
Dean shifted, aimed for the car, but he was like a dog at the end of a leash. He wasn’t getting any farther unless John let go.
John let go.
Dean looked at him miserably. “Can we just go?” he mumbled.
“Is that what you think? If somebody offered me a swap, I’d trade you for her?” Dean said nothing, just stood there in silence, leaving John to find his own answer. “No, son,” John said. “No. That’s -“
And damn if the boy didn’t look disappointed.
The air had a bite to it, unusually so for this early in the season. That other night, twenty-five years ago, had been mild, humid, soft. When the breeze blew it was like a gentle hand against your skin. There hadn’t been enough money for a wedding and a honeymoon both, so they’d spent their wedding night in her apartment with the windows open, listening to traffic noise and the sound of a TV coming from somewhere down the block.
Twenty-five years. Nineteen of them spent without her.
“We can go,” John said, trying to put together a smile and coming up with something that felt like his lips were being held in place by clothespins. “Watch a movie, if that’s what you want.” With a nod toward the convenience store down the road, he added, “We can pick up some snacks. Haven’t done that in a while.”
Dean’s shoulder came up a little. Half a shrug.
“Son -“
“I want her back, Dad.”
“I know you do.”
“I want her back for you.”
The rest of it went without saying: so we wouldn’t have to do this. So Sammy wouldn’t have left. So we’d have a home to go back to instead of a motel.
“If there was a way, Dean…”
There were ways. Both of them had been in the game long enough to know what they were, how they worked. But none of it was anything you’d want to get mixed up in, not unless it was the last choice you had.
“Yeah,” Dean murmured, eyes on the ground again.
Sam had been gone for a month; half of that time John and Dean had spent apart. Now they were together, and it wasn’t much different from the “apart.”
John looked off down the road, at the bright lights of the convenience store. He’d taken the boys to a thousand stores like it, let them choose snacks, let them pick the movie from anything that was showing for free on the motel TV. Had to draw the line at some of Dean’s choices until both boys were old enough to…
Somehow, Dean had gotten to be as tall as he was. Had become a hunter - a good one. Well, on the way to being good, but he’d get there, and it wouldn’t take long.
“I want him to come back, Dad,” Dean said softly, eyes on the ground.
John moved his hand to Dean’s shoulder and gripped it silently for a moment. “Ought to get an early start in the morning. Maybe a movie isn’t the best idea.”
His son gave a little half-nod. “’Kay.”
“We can stop over there at the store. Get something to have in the room - some breakfast.”
Another half-nod.
“You were a surprise,” John said.
Dean shifted, looked at him. “What?”
“We weren’t planning on it for a while. Figured we’d take a little time. Find a house, get settled. Hell, the two of us were the same age you are when we -“ He had to stop for a moment, then told his son, “She was beautiful, in her dress. I watched her coming down the aisle and I thought, ‘Dear Jesus, I hit the jackpot. How’d I do that?’”
“I’m sorry, Dad.”
“We both lost her. Both…all of us.”
“He’ll come back. Summer. You can patch things up.”
It was almost a plea. Something like Daddy, can I have a puppy? John looked at his son for a moment, then twitched a shoulder. “We’ll get some donuts or something. Have them in the room for the morning.”
He moved toward the car before Dean could respond. He could feel Dean’s gaze on him as he fished the keys out of his pocket and unlocked the driver’s door. He’d been in the driver’s seat for a minute when Dean opened the passenger door and got in.
How’d I do that, baby?
How’d I hit the jackpot…and then lose it?
How the hell did I…
“Dad?”
John stuck the key in the ignition, turned it, listened to the Impala’s powerful engine come to life.
She’d been at the wheel of this car, had sat where he was sitting, only a few hours before she died. Window open, hair fluttering around her face in the wind cutting through the car.
“Will you tell me about her?” Dean asked softly.
There weren’t any lights at this end of the parking lot. The row of shrubbery that lay just beyond the front bumper of the car was nothing more than a dark mass. It reminded him of nothing, promised nothing. John stared at it until his eyes began to grow used to the darkness, then he flipped the headlights on.
“Another time,” he said to Dean. “Not now.”