SPN FIC - Your Call Cannot Be Completed As Dialed
Still chugging merrily along. Have a third one!
Remember Sam's phone call to John in Faith? That John didn't respond to? Um...sure. NFW.
Characters: John, OMC, mentions of Sam and Dean
Pairings: none
Length: 1287 words
Rating: PG for language
Spoilers: up through Faith
Disclaimer: Not mine. Kripke's. No money hereabouts.
Your Call Cannot Be Completed As Dialed
By Carol Davis
“Somethin’ wrong?”
John looked down the length of the bar at the man who’d poured him a beer half an hour ago. Wally, the guy’s name was. He meant nothing but kindness, nothing but a little honest curiosity. “No,” John told him. “Nothing wrong.”
Hey, Dad. It’s Sam. You probably won’t even get this, but…it’s Dean. He’s sick, and the doctors say there’s nothing they can do. But they don’t know the things we know, right? So don’t worry, ‘cause I’m gonna do whatever it takes to get him better. All right, just wanted you to know.
No, nothing wrong.
And that was Sam. Gonna handle it. Just putting you on notice, so you’ll know you’re still a fuck-up and all of this is your fault.
“Sammy,” he said softly.
When Dean had called a few weeks back, the message had been different. I need you, Dad. Please come.
The years, the miles, had evaporated when he heard Dean’s voice.
Daddy?
Skinned knees, bumped noses, bad dreams.
A small face pinched and stoic, trying for bravery, not quite getting there. Lower lip vanished into the grip of small rows of teeth. Green eyes lost behind a film of tears.
I don’t know what to do, Dad.
John’s lips formed words, kept them silent. Neither do I, Dean.
Just the one beer: that was all he was allowing himself. It was the middle of the afternoon, and he and Wally were alone at the bar. Alone in the bar, except for one guy slumped in a booth in the back, making some serious headway toward liver disease, if he hadn’t reached that destination already. Could be me, John thought. There but for the grace of God.
There but for my own goddamn stubbornness.
That’d be Sam’s interpretation: Drop it, Dad. Walk away from it. None of it’s going to bring Mom back.
And that’s what you want, isn’t it? You don’t want to avenge her. You want her back.
His gaze landed on Wally’s left hand, pushing a damp, frayed rag back and forth across the surface of the bar. Gold ring on his third finger. Something about Wally’s face said the man was at peace with himself, with his life. He owned this place, for sure - wasn’t just an employee. And that was a good deal: his own business. Calling the shots. Putting up with the crap. A parade of souls coming by every day, some new, some familiar.
Could’ve been that way. Dean’d be working at the garage now, maybe. Always wanted that.
Can I help? Daddy, can I help? I can fix it.
Please. I need your help, Dad. I don’t know what to do.
Don’t worry, ‘cause I’m gonna do whatever it takes.
Wally switched on the TV and thumbed the remote until he found the Jerry Springer show. He kept the volume too low for John to hear, but across the bottom of the screen were the words Tisha and Erica. Mom Is Pregnant With Son-in-Law’s Twins.
A hiccup of humorless laughter got out of John’s throat.
“Somethin’, huh?” Wally said, head swiveling back and forth.
“Somethin’,” John echoed.
Walk away from it, Dad, his mind said in Sam’s voice. This is Dean. Give up all the crazy bullshit you’ve been fixated on for my whole life and come find us. We need you. And I’d rather be struck by lightning and fried like a fucking hamburger where I stand than say that to you.
“You ever do something, sign yourself up for something you couldn’t let go of?” he said quietly.
Wally looked at him, thought it over, and shrugged. “Been in over my head a few times. But you figure out how to manage.”
“Do you,” John mused.
“Been a few times with this place when I couldn’t figure out how I was gonna handle the bills. Cut it pretty close once or twice.”
“But you managed.”
“Yeah.”
On the TV screen, Tisha - or maybe it was Erica - launched herself out of her chair and collided with Erica - or Tisha - solidly enough to knock her to the floor. With Springer, microphone in hand, standing far enough away to avoid being pulled into the melee, the two women began tearing at each other’s hair.
It’s Dean. He’s sick, and the doctors say there’s nothing they can do.
“You have kids?” John asked.
Wally nodded, eyes on the TV. “Three daughters.” He watched the Tisha/Erica fracas for a minute, then turned back to John. “You?”
“Two sons.”
“Not going around knocking up their mothers-in-law, I hope.”
“Not so far.”
He’s sick, and the doctors say…
“Good for them,” Wally smiled.
Two of Springer’s people were attempting to separate the hysterical women as John stepped away from the bar. Nodding a “be right back” to Wally, he stepped out into the glare of California desert sunshine. The lack of mercy of it made him grind his eyes shut.
There but for the grace of God.
Or absence of grace.
Or something.
Hey, Dad. It’s Dean. He’s sick.
Daddy?
If you could get here…I need your help.
The dry wind pushed at him, parched his skin, filled his lungs with dust. Threaded in it he could smell hot asphalt, exhaust, the dull old reek of smoke and sweat and mildew from a thousand ugly motel rooms and cheap apartments.
The sweet baby smell of the children he had bundled into the back seat of an old Chevy.
Her smell, musky and warm and clean.
And sulfur.
John’s hand slid into his pocket and curled around his cell phone, the small box of plastic and circuitry and metal and wire that held captive the voices of his children like some ancient conjurer’s vessel.
Hey, Dad.
Daddy?
I need your help, Dad.
He lifted the phone up so that eyes straining against dust and heat and lack of sleep could focus as he scrolled through the list of names and numbers. The one he wanted was near the end. Nodding, he pressed tiny buttons with his thumb and listened to the call ring through at the other end. After the fourth ring he heard, “Hello?”
“Joshua. John Winchester. Need to ask a favor.”
“All right.”
Cautious. They were all cautious with him these days. Didn’t know what would set him off. “Need you to call my boy Sam. Tell him you heard from Jim Murphy that there’s a problem. Want you to give him a name, a place to go.”
Again, Joshua said, “All right.”
“And you don’t tell him you heard from me.”
Don’t send him looking for me.
“Can you do that?”
Jim might have asked questions, demanded details. The rest of them: Joshua, Bobby, Caleb - they were wary of him. They’d been bit too many times to do anything but respond with “all right,” as long as the request seemed reasonable. Better to go along with him than say “no” and get bit again.
“Give me the number,” Joshua agreed.
A few more seconds of conversation and it was done. John ended the call with a murmured “thank you,” then cut the connection and stood under the hammer of the sun staring at the little phone.
I need your help, Dad.
I need…
I don’t know if it’s the thing that killed Mom or not, but…I don’t know what to do.
I don’t know what to do, Dad.
With a single glance though the screen door, through which he could see the flicker of the TV screen, John left behind the beer and the bar, got into his truck, and followed the scent of sulfur across the California desert.