A man's not dead (while his name's still spoken)
>>A man’s not dead (while his name’s still spoken)
TITLE: A man’s not dead (while his name’s still spoken)
AUTHOR:
ultraviolet9a
SPOILER: ranges from pre-series but has spoilers for IMToD and AHBL.
GENRE: Gen.
CHARACTERS: John, Dean, Sam, Bobby, Ellen, Deacon, YED, Missouri, and other minor ones and OCs.
SUMMARY: Title sums it up and builds up and leads to…eh… a finale. Climax. You name it. Cuz John Winchester left a print in the world.
RATING: PG-13
FEEDBACK: Dude…duh.
DISCLAIMER: Own them? Any of it? Oh I wish. Still, wordweaving’s mine.
NOTE: Written for my second
poorboyshufflesong challenge: I won’t back down song (lyrics here) Song by Tom Petty, though I’m having the Johnny Cash version in mind (that was pointed out by omg she’s so awesome
hiyacynth, who also caught plenty mistakes and comas in this fic. Thanks, sweetheart. I’ll be sending you lots and lots of pics, you know that, right?). In combo with two facts: I’ve been haunted by a phrase in Going Postal by Terry Pratchett. So I used it as a title and built up a whole fic around it. Best way to salt and burn it I reckon. Now throw some of my cultural background into the mix and here it is.
Well I won't back down, no I won't back down
You can stand me up at the gates of hell
But I won't back down
“Well, check that off the to-do list.”
“You did it.”
“I didn't do it alone.”
Cameron
Cameron likes fishing. It’s peaceful down the lake, with the trout and the dragonflies. There was a time people avoided the lake, the elders say, but he can’t really remember it, cuz he was really young back then; but on the Fourth of July his father always took him to the lake and told him the same ghost story all over again, about the girl drowning while folks were staring at the fireworks in the sky, about the lake claiming one two three people each year. About the lake almost claiming him. Cameron can’t remember. He was too young his daddy said, still every Fourth of July he would take him to the lake and would break a 16 year old malt and make a libation to the water. Then he’d pour some in two plastic cups and give one to Cameron.
“John Winchester,” his father would say, toasting the air and then he’d sip, and Cameron always followed suit. Malt scalding his throat, but the name John Winchester pouring off easily, like every year on the ritual he’s shared with his father.
“Don’t tell your mum about the malt,” dad would always say, and Cameron would reply
“Tell me the story, Dad.”
“There was a dead girl…”
Now his father has been gone for four years. Doesn’t matter. Cameron breaks out the malt.
“Here’s to you, Dad,” he says, pouring malt down the water then his throat.
“John Winchester,” he mouths, and he’s old enough to know the story by heart.
The Johnsons
Sonny Johnson never liked moving around. He grew up in a tight family, in the same town till he was 17. But he’s a military man, and military men get the life of a gypsy. Those days are past him now. He’s been retired for over a decade, finally throwing roots with Rosy. He dabs his eyes with a handkerchief. It’s her death anniversary, five long years since his Rosy’s gone.
“I miss you, darlin’,” he whispers. There would have been a reply three years ago, a whisper, a shadow getting darker, a whiff of her Anais Anais perfume.
“’S not right,” the man had said. Military man, Sonny’s been born and bred in that, and despite the stubble and the ragged jacket, the dark haired man is one too. Takes one to know one.
“’S not right,” the man said again. “It’s not your Rose anymore.”
“How would you know?”
“Cuz you’re scared of it. You’d never be scared of Rose, the real Rose. You got to end this.”
“I can’t. I miss her. You can’t know.”
“Lost my wife too,” he said, and his face darkened. “You got to end this. Or let me end this, but if you’re the man I think you are, Mr Johnson, you’ll want to do it yourself. You been to war. You know you got to do whatever it takes.”
So he had.
House seems too empty nowadays. Sometimes he thinks he hates the emptiness, but deep inside him the emptiness is right.
“What’s dead should stay dead, eh, Winchester?” he whispers to the empty house and waits for time to claim him.
Edward
“Where’d you get that scar?” Becky says, fingers tracing his abdomen. She smells of strawberries and sex and as far as Edward’s concerned, that smell ranks higher than his mum’s apple pies. Smells strong enough to drown other scents out. Like blood. And shit. And terror.
He dreams a lot about those five days. They were blank at first, but memory is one harsh bitch.
“It’s not your fault,” the man said. “You weren’t the one doing it.”
Knife slicing through throats, taste of blood in mouth and nostrils and somewhere there, a weight pushing him down not letting him breathe, his own body a dark cave and he receding, receding as something strange, something dark and ancient and alien and oh so knowing and terrible crawled and grew inside of him, letting him feel only what it wanted him to feel, like its own knife gutting Edward’s body.
The pain and terror was all for him, tied up; he remembers hearing Latin, he remembers black smoke draining out of him like liquid, smoke that was somehow alive, and then Edward was alone again, and the man with the hard eyes and the strong hands was trying to keep him alive.
“It’s alright, son,” the man said, “You’ll be alright.”
He wanted to ask who the hell he is, but blood was gurgling in his throat.
“I’m John and I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
Intensive care unit and a world full of dark layers and John, serenely answering the police questions, talking about a non-existent guy that had gutted Edward and almost killed John himself and then the police left and all was quiet and John explained what those world layers were. The truth. Just the truth, more terrible than any knife.
“I’m going insane,” Edward said and giggled, still doped on morphine and then John grabbed his arm and held it down, forced him to look in his eyes, told him that he’d get better, that life would go on, that he shouldn’t waste it no more, understand, boy?
Edward understood. He still does. He’s still having nightmares, lots of nightmares even after all these years, but there’s Becky now.
“So where’d you get it?” she insists, poking him.
“I got it when John saved my life,” he murmurs and then turns on his side and tries not to think of darkness.
Faithy
“John Winchester,” Faith whispers in front of the mirror, forcing her mind to open, trying to reach out, to see. Mirror is stubbornly silent. Has been stubborn for a long time since John’s been last around with his monster truck and his world weariness and his hunger and fear of human contact. She set him on a path and he saved her life and she’s scared because the mirror has only been hiccupping images of what has happened and she can’t make sense of them.
But she won’t lie down and die. No. John’s earned that much. So she keeps on looking in the mirror.
“John Winchester,” Faith pleads and in the silence of the attic it sounds like a prayer.
Deacon
He’s the cockiest son of a bitch he’s ever met, Deacon is sure of that, even if he’s just old enough to buy liquor. Rides and pussy, only things John says he wants out of life, but Deacon knows the type. There will be one girl and then all else will be forgotten and there will never be a spot free for another love, because that’s the way the Johns of the world are, full of air and piss till real life grinds them down and smoothes them up like the real diamonds they are.
“Come on, you son of a bitch,” Deacon rambles on, John a dead (please God no please God no) weight over his shoulder. “You haven’t met your girl just yet. Live. Live, you bastard.”
Mud is sticky and the jungle like a fly trap, but Deacon, bleeding John around his shoulders, moves on.
Years later, war left behind, belly not as tight as it used to be, grind of his life gratefully average, shit starts happening in his prison. And he can’t have that. Won’t have that. Won’t have any of his die like that.
When John’s boys show up he has a hard time pretending, because he can see John in them and wants to hug them and ask them if they too, like their daddy, have lived.
Missouri
She always lights a candle for him. John’s never had much faith in God, not since the fire swallowed his life up, so he says. And she can read him, cuz he’s so easy to read. He believes in the existence of a god, he just doesn’t like that God very much. If it was up to John, he could probably have drilled God into better shape, a shape that didn’t allow wars or fried people, a god that would do what each proper commander should, protect his own, and to hell with free will.
John’s relationship with God kind of reminds her of the relationship between John and his young one. Same thought patterns she gets from Sam, similarity so striking as if both had been dancing in the same groove.
“Oh, John,” Missouri says lighting the candle. John kept her away when the storm started to hit to keep her safe, she knows that, and to keep themselves safe, because nothing can be scarier than, say, a possessed mind reading psychic, and her strength always lay in reading minds and sensing presences, not warding demons or evil. So she stepped aside and did what he bid. She still wonders how it all played out.
In the soft scented silence of the church, she lights a candle on his behalf. John might not like God, but she has enough faith for both.
Bobby
Most of the times Bobby would have liked to kick John’s ass six ways to Sunday and he’s pretty sure he could try it, it would be worth everything just to see that stubborn son of a bitch get some sense into him. Dragging those boys into this kind of life, falling out with Sam, falling out with Bobby? Jesus Christ, John could distribute shit like a goddamn fan and Bobby had enough of it. Maybe John was stronger physically, but not even he could dodge a bullet. So. There you have it. Years of not seeing John. Thinking of John nonetheless, hearing all those stories.
And one day the boys show up on his doorstep, and all Bobby can think of is how he watched them grow and how proud Mary would have been if she could have seen them. Fine boys. Fine boys indeed. He can see their father in them, each balancing the other out.
It breaks his heart when the boys claim their father’s body and give him a hunter’s funeral. It breaks his heart, and he breaks the finest whisky he can find in turn and thinks of John and toasts in his name till sunrise.
Then he prepares for battle, because he knows that the storm’s a-coming, and if John can’t be there, then Bobby will.
Ellen
Ellen thinks of him a lot. Whenever she looks at old photographs of Bill, whenever she looks at her own daughter, whenever Sam and Dean cross her doorstep. How can she not? John was the last person to see Bill alive, and sometimes she wonders if Winchester blood holds some sort of curse, and she looks at Jo for tell-tale signs that she got mingled in the Winchester blood, but Dean is not budging, and for that Ellen is grateful. She sees John in the way Dean moves and in the way Sam’s eyes hold purpose, even if the kid doesn’t even know it.
She remembers John years back with his clipped concise stories about what happened (just the facts, ma’am), about the stories that still move around him whenever hunters talk. John Winchester. Legend. Badass. Asshole. Lunatic. Loyal. Stubborn. Hunter, each and every adjective connected to a different story. She wants to bury the bad blood, because John is just a man taunted by fate, she realizes that now, realizes it the way shit has started piling on his boys, but moments like this she wonders if maybe she had been right all along, maybe the Winchester blood is cursed.
Smoke and ash and fire is rising from the Roadhouse burning all she’s loved and known and she wonders if that’s what a fire on a ceiling felt like.
“Oh, John…” she mouths, but doesn’t even know it. Then she gets back in her car and drives to Bobby.
Sam
He missed him back in Stanford. Oh, not the endless fights and the attitude, the chain of command John had established and demanded to be followed. Sam never missed those. But he’s always missed his father. Missed the way he watched over him and Dean, the way he would talk of a mother Sam’s never known. Misses the absolute certainty that whatever monster was out there, John could get it. Except for the Demon. Not yet.
Misses the way his father tensed and his mouth was one harsh line, because he felt it on his own face whenever he had a fight with Jess or a debate in a class. The absolute confidence, certainty, belief, that he can not be wrong and the world should rotate to this fact.
A Winchester has spoken. That is the law. Full stop.
He misses family. Misses the way Dean is around Dad, the obvious love and admiration seeping through every pore. Dean wants to be just like Dad, always had, and Sam doesn’t have the heart to tell him that Dean lacks the stubbornness and coldness that Sam knows he himself carries. Dean is the hunter, no one can rival that, he’s John’s son, but the cold double edged mind? That part Sam has taken. He can disguise it all he wants in hunched shoulders and soft voice, but he knows the truth. He’s his father’s son too. And he misses him. God how he misses him.
Fight upon fight upon fight, both edges clashing. But Sam will move on. Sam is his father’s son and if John Winchester isn’t there, Sam will take up his purpose.
He’s John Winchester’s boy after all.
Dean
He misses him every single day. When Dad’s not around some part of him just…just doesn’t breathe. When Dad dies that part shuts down completely.
He re-learns to breathe just cuz Sam is there, and Sam is his purpose. Keep Sam safe. Keep the family together.
Find a way to free Dad. He loves him so much.
Every single day every problem solved thinking “What would Dad do?”, endless memories, endless everything. He misses him. He loves him. The universe can’t hold the love Dean’s got for his father, can’t hold the memories he treasures, can’t hold the bitter certainty that he’ll walk in his father’s steps.
“My soul for Sam,” he’s thinking as he goes to the crossroad. Sounds fair. That’s what John Winchester would have done too, Dean’s thinking. And he doesn’t care. At least in hell he’ll have time to find his father.
“Dad,” he whispers. “Sam.”
Then he waits for the world to rotate to his wishes.
Stan
Stan’s a very common name, that’s why the Demon likes it. He’s so close to getting what he wants now. John Winchester is dead, Sam Winchester is dead (and who would have thought, he expected more backbone less morals from that kid), and now there’s only Dean and that one is crippled. He’s so close. Years of plotting and harvesting and always John Winchester, John Winchester, John Winchester in the way.
He got the Colt. He got John. Oh yeah, Stan’s a sure winner. He’ll open the gate, he’ll have his army. So many years, and no Winchester on earth can stop it.
“Ah, John,” he’s thinking, holding invisible dialogues with the only man to go after him in all these years. “I’ll be sending your sons to you soon.”
Storm has come.
John
He tries to focus on memories. There are no words to describe what Hell feels like, no phrases to do justice to the torment and despair and everything dark Hell feels like. So he tries to focus thoughts on pleasant memories, but it’s like trying to shut your eyes when someone has cut off your eye lids, and the agony is terrible. So terrible that most of the times there are no memories at all because he’s not sure who or what he is, the noise of his mind screaming too loud for anything else.
But sometimes, just sometimes he catches glimpses of life on earth. Faces he knows well, other less yet still familiar, memories of how his own life got crossed with theirs even for a little. The glimpses last for seconds (if there’s a thing such as time in Hell), his name on their tongue and the edge of their thoughts like balm on a burn and for that short span his mind stops screaming and he remembers. He thinks of Mary then. And his sons. And his own name on their lips.
A man’s not dead while his name’s still spoken.
And a man who’s not dead, still fights.
John Winchester slips through the gate.
“Do you think Dad really...do you think he really climbed outta Hell?”
“The door was open. If anyone's stubborn enough to do it...it would be him.”
-The End.
SIDENOTE: Uhm, I kind of reversed the Greek myth that had the dead drinking from Lethe in order to forget and find peace because having people remember them made their misery of being in the nether world even harsher. Here I used the reverse concept, that remembering can actually bring you back. Concept not really consciously borrowed from Kostis Palamas, one of the greatest Greek poets, in his poem Tafos (Tomb) which he wrote mourning the death of his favourite child, in which he tells him that on his journey with the dark horseman (death) he should take nothing from his hand, nor drink the water of Lethe in the Netherworld and forget about his loved ones, but instead put marks on the road to find his way back home.
So. Memory is important. That’s what I was trying to say. And uhm. Yes, I reckon my mind does draw (irrelevant) strange connections.
Also, the part about Faith that may seem slightly weird? There’s a whole fic behind it but I haven’t submitted it yet, so there. And yes, I’m making mini ‘verses of mine. What? It’s fun. Ask Steven King.
PS tiny dialogues in the beginning and end are from All Hell Breaks Loose part 2. Between Dean and Sam.