[SPN]: Five things.
I always get such an adrenaline rush when I finish a fiction. :D
Five things.
Rating: PG-13; Gen.
Characters: Dean, John, and a bit of Sam (with a side mention of Jess and an OMC and OFC)
Words: 955
Warnings: mention of character death. spoilers only if you haven't seen up to 2.01.
A/N: Mostly pre-series. One of those "five things person 'A' knew about..." kind of thing. I guess you could say the whole title is Five things John never realised Dean knew. Anyway.
Disclaimer: I'm such a good girl, but Santa as never brought me them to claim as my own.
Summary: Dean knows his father. As well as he knows Sam. John never knew that.
*
1.
Mary’s been gone one month, six days, eighteen hours and about forty-two minutes. Dean nestles Sam into the pillows of the double bed in Uncle Mark and Aunty Rachel’s guest bedroom and crawls into the bed beside Sam. Tomorrow they’re leaving, Daddy said, to talk to a man named Jim who can help them more than Uncle Mark and Aunty Rachel can.
Dean watches his daddy get up off his knees and wipe the tears from his face. He smiles gently and tucks Dean in, before kissing Sammy on the forehead. He goes and sits on the small camp bed next to the wall and watches over Dean until he falls asleep. John doesn’t pray anymore after that night.
2.
When Sammy turns ten, his only birthday wish is for Dad to see his soccer game. It’s the first time they’ve stayed in a town long enough for Sam to be involved in anything, and though Dean’s not particularly sure why John said yes in the first place, he’s glad he did. Because Sam’s on a team and he’s happy. But Dad’s got a hunt up more than a few states over, and he tells Sam gently that he won’t be able to make it to the game, but when he does get back they can go out for dinner and Sam can tell him all about it. Sam’s not too thrilled with the arrangement, but the thought of eating somewhere else outside a motel room, diner or house that isn’t theirs cheers him up enough that he doesn’t argue.
Much.
It isn’t until later, after Sam scores the winning goal and turns to Dean with a smile as wide as his ears that Dean spots a leather jacket by a black car. John has a smile on his face to rival Sam’s, and though he tells them he just got back, Dean knows that he had been standing there from the beginning.
3.
The night Sam leaves, John has a love affair with a bottle of scotch. He cries and throws chairs around the room, and tells the scotch that he’s so damn proud of Sammy, it hurts. He tells the scotch he’s scared shitless something bad will happen to Sam and he or Dean won’t be there to protect him and he passes out at the table apologising to the scotch for not raising his boys the way he should have. In the morning he wakes up under sheets, his boots removed. He thinks that at some point he woke up and stumbled to the bed- and Dean won’t ever tell him otherwise.
4.
John visits Stanford every four months. He sits in his truck and watches Sam move from the dorm to his classes, to the coffee shops and back. He watches as Sam is tackled in the park by friends with footballs and a few times by a pretty blonde girl. He watches Sam change residences, and celebrate the end of semesters. He occasionally breaks into the records to track Sam’s academic progress and once-just once- he breaks into Sam’s apartment, just to check if it’s safe enough. He always spends just one day watching, and leaves at the end of them with a smile on his face. The Stanford visits are the only time Dean sees that smile- the smile that says everything’s okay.
Dean sees, because he watches John watching Sam. He knows about the pretty blonde, and the new apartment and the result of the mid-term test the professor lost and had to send through in the mail. Dean knows John’s reaction to every event he witnesses on those days. He’s pretty sure John doesn’t know Dean’s following him- he’s exceptionally good at covering his tracks and John has never indicated that he knows Dean’s there too. Until October.
He’s meant to be there on the twenty-eighth- an unwritten rule that has just become routine- the twenty-eighth day of every four months is daddy’s school visit, so Dean always bunks in on the twenty-seventh. Until October. Because John doesn’t show. Dean hangs around for a few days just in case, and it’s on Halloween that he panics. He doesn’t need to ring his Dad to know something’s wrong, but he does anyway, for the purpose of evidence. And bang. There’s the damn evidence layered under his father’s voice. So he hops in the car.
He’s only two blocks from Sam’s apartment.
5.
John didn’t die simply so that Dean could live. Dean knows his father as well as he knows Sammy, knows his thoughts and feelings and actions before they’re even decided. He knows that for all the arguing and animosity that goes between them, John loves Sam. He’s proud of Sam and he’s proud of Dean and he loves them both more than anything. It’s why he’s dead now.
Dean doesn’t remember much about being a spirit, but he does remember Sam. Sam’s fear, Sam’s desperation, Sam’s anger. He was terrified that Dean would die and could do nothing to stop it. Dean can remember how Sam felt, as if he had been sharing Sam’s body and it was pain and rage and loss. And knowledge. If Dean had died, Sam would not have been that far behind him. And John loves them more than anything.
Dean forgets everything that happened while he was mist matter- but he knows in his heart exactly what John did. He knows his father. Knows his thoughts and feelings and actions before they’re even decided. John died, so that Dean could live. John died, because he knew that Sam wouldn’t be able to cope if Dean never woke up.
John died because he loves them- more than his own life.