Chapter Text
November 22nd, 2006
They're holed up in a run down cabin somewhere in the middle of Missouri before Dean realizes; that's not John.
Everything clicks into place and Dean's body goes numb with shock, the weight of realization sinking in. He doesn't know how long John hasn't been himself. But the man standing in front of him now, the thing leaning in so close Dean can feel the scrape of stubble from its jaw against his cheek, that isn't John. He cranes his head back against the wall, as far away as he can get.
"Aw sweetheart," it whispers, "don't be like that. You're my favorite. Well, next to our Sammy."
It smiles.
July 25th, 2003
Dean pours himself another cup of coffee. They've gone through two pots in the last five hours, the tin is empty and the recycled grinds taste like weak ash. John is sitting at the kitchen table, news clippings and computer printouts spread out over the table in a messy pile that had started out in some kind of order. More than a few bits have fallen to the floor, paper debris kicked up and left to settle in the wake of the night.
"What does it want us for?"
"I don't know," John says for the fifth time. Dean probably can't stop himself from asking, hoping for a different answer each time. "I don't know why or how. But it came for something that night. Mary interrupted it when it came to Sammy, your parents must've done the same. Collateral damage."
He rests his elbows on the table, folds his hands together and digs his thumbs into the very corners of his eyes. Shouldn't be this tired, not after a full nights sleep just yesterday. But Dean is pacing the room, bed to the door to the bathroom and back again and shaking like an addict. John's stuck trying to manage him, same way he's been managing since he pulled Dean up off the floor in the filthy rest stop bathroom and told him his parents had been murdered.
"What did- Are there others?"
"Yeah, a few," John answers without opening his eyes. Dean had spent the first few hours focused on How can you know that? and But why me? He's moved on to the others, his questions about Sammy grinding a little too close to the bone for John and Dean can tell.
"Where? What happened to 'em?"
"They lived. Some of the parents died, but not all."
"Okay, then lets go talk to them. Maybe one of them knows why this is happening, they probably want answers as much as we do. Come on, where's the nearest fire kid?"
"Dean-"
"You can't tell you don't have a list somewhere in that pile, names and addresses. How many-"
"Dean." They haven't ever talked about this, not in anything other than the vaguest of details. Dean had a vague sketch; the fire, the dark figure, and Mary already out of reach. John had spent the night filling in the ugly details, Mary's death serving as a sick mirror image of what probably happened to Dean's parents. And the details all match, at least as far as Dean knows from his foster kid file.
John's always known there were other kids out there, hard to miss when you're researching nursery fires. But he's never much cared, anyone that'd been effected was already in the rearview mirror and this thing had already moved on. The ones targeted lived or died, and John found out too late to do anything about it. He'd focused instead on the other signs - the weather patterns, the electrical storms that followed the demon around like flies.
Dean's not wrong, it's possible that these kids might know something, but after twenty years on its trail it's hard to admit that he's maybe been chasing down the wrong path. The fire kids, he calls them. A twisted baptism that leaves them dark and hardened.
God, he hopes not.
"Okay," he says finally. Pushes aside his notes until he can dig out his journal. "Nearest I've got is Scott Carey. Grew up in Indiana, no idea if he still lives there."
Dean rubs his palms together and looks at John like he can't believe he got his way. "Okay. Okay yeah, lets go."
They're packed and in the car in a matter of minutes, Dean shoving all the notes back into their ratty envelope and tossing them on the bench seat between them. John cranks up the radio, can't stand the silence and doesn't want to deal with more questions. Dean gets the idea, pokes through the envelope carefully reading and re-reading every clipping.
The roster of fire kids reads like a list of the damned and dispossessed. Entry one is Sammy Winchester; mother dead before he could walk and raised with a shotgun in his hands before his voice had dropped. The last entry is Dean. But somewhere in between is a record spanning generations.
It starts in the early 70s, the earliest records John can find that match. A rash of electrical storms coinciding with house fires, all families with newborns. Two, three weeks out of the hospital newborns, and that had thrown John at first - taken him years to piece together the related pieces out of thousands of tragedies that just didn't quite fit the mold. He was sure, now. Whatever it was it was doing, the demon had started out with even younger kids.
All of them had died within weeks of the fire; all with unexplained illnesses and sketchy diagnoses.
The survival rate improved slightly in the next batch. The success didn't last. Of the eleven children targeted in '75, only two had lived to adulthood. Three had set themselves on fire, barely old enough to be in kindergarten, five more had been committed at around the same age, evidence of horrific crimes stacked up against them and a shuffled into a system incapable of handling them. The two still alive were both in long term care for severe mental illness. The diagnoses were as varied and as unhelpful as John could expect. Psychosis, multiple personalities, schizophrenia; a buffet table of disorders to pick and choose. John hadn't been able to get access to any of them, but he'd talked to enough of the former nurses and guards to know that not all the hallucinations had been imaginary. Bad shit followed these kids around like a shadow, either caused by them or channeled through them.
It's not until the early 80s that the kids started reliably living to adulthood, safe and mostly sane. There are a few outliers that throw the curve, but the overall pattern is clear; whatever the demon is doing differently, it's a matter of degree, not inclination.
He doesn't tell Dean any of this. As far as Dean is concerned, his generation was the first and John has no other clues to go on. He keeps the list of the dead folded up and hidden in his wallet behind one of his few remaining pictures of Mary.
Scott Carey is too pale and too thin. He rubs his hands together and then shoves them in his pockets, looking around like he expects someone to jump out any second. They're sitting in the car about half a block down from where Scott lives with his father.
"Well, that's reassuring. Fuck, tell me we're not all friggin' rejects."
"Sammy's at Stanford."
"Yeah, but we both know you were 'roiding his wheaties or something. Kid's a giant, with a giant head. Those of us who grew up without special Winchester benefits need a morale booster here." Dean waves his hand at Scott, making his way down the street with his shoulders hunched and head jerking around trying to look in every direction at once. "Think he's a tweaker?"
"Could be."
"Looks like a tweaker."
"Lets find out."
They call the house line and no one picks up, John figures it's safe enough to slip inside for a quick look around. They cut through the neighbor's lawn and slip in the back, nice neighborhood like this and no one bothers too much with heavy duty locks, so John stands watch and lets Dean get in a little practice with the pick. It only takes a few seconds, Dean is getting better at it faster than John can track.
The house looks normal enough, cheap and worn furniture but well kept. Boring middle class with a side of plaid, and fuck, Dean's way of describing things is rubbing off on him. Scott's room is a different story. There are clothes piled everywhere, dirty dishes stacked on the dresser and a tangle of video game wires trailing from the tv to the bed.
"Huh. Life without complimentary cleaning service."
"Life on mind altering drugs," John says. The nightstand has a miniature pharmacy of little orange pill bottles on it. Sedatives, anti-depressants...anti-psychotics. Shit.
Dean picks up one of the bottles to examine it and John watches him. "Awesome," he says and shoves the bottle back on the table. "So where's the crazy finger painting of the clown strangling puppies or whatever it is crazy people are supposed to do?"
The room does look otherwise normal. Messy, but in a typical young guy way; the way John's first apartment looked before he and Mary'd gotten their first place. Dean is already half under the bed, pulling out shoes and dusty magazines but nothing shocking. Dean starts wriggling out from under the bed and John turns away to open the closet. He stops dead.
"Man, I'd steal his porn but it's crap. What- "
John hears the second Dean sees it, a sharp intake of breath and the floorboards creak as he stops walking. He wants to look back, check on Dean but he can't tear his eyes away from the sight of dozens of sick yellow eyes staring back at him, plastered all over the back of the closet wall. John hears Dean take a couple of steps back, soft thunk as his heels hit the bed and he sits down with a thump.
"Mister Mayor," he says, and John finally snaps out of it and turns around.
"Who?"
"Mister Mayor. He- oh crap. Nevermind." There's an unbelievable second when he thinks Dean is going to try to brush it off and move on, but Dean clears his throat and goes on. "When I was really little, I had these dreams. This guy came to me, he always looked different but it was always the same guy, you know? He'd tell me how to do things, stupid stuff, like. How to con the teacher into giving me an extra cookie, or how to climb out my window into the tree outside. I forgot about him.
"He had yellow eyes," Dean says, almost an afterthought.
"It was the demon." It could have been just a kid's harmless dream, but he looked different but it was always the same guy, you know? The demon, slipping inside Dean's head when he was young and getting kicked around the foster system. "And he just left?"
Dean swallows. "Yeah. I just stopped having those dreams, no warning. Nothing."
John can't help feeling like they've dodged a bullet. If those dreams had continued, what? Dean would've ended up like Scott, worse probably; no family to care for him he would've ended up dead in the street somewhere before long. But John's still waiting for the other shoe to drop, no one just walks away from the demon's plans scot-free.
He wonders if Sam ever had dreams about a yellow-eyed man.
November 17th, 2006
Sammy is tough and smart, sure. But Dean? Dean is adaptable. I gotta say, John, I like him; never thought he'd amount to much but then he just kept soldering on. Good boy. Then he bumped into you and you've been training him up real nice, thanks for that. Strange coincidence, isn't it, you running into him in that bar all those years ago?
Life is funny that way, sometimes.
August 1st, 2003
John books it out of Lafayette, Indiana over Dean's objections. "We didn't even talk to the guy!"
"Carey's on so many drugs, you think anything he says is going to be useful to us? We'd be wasting our time. There are others, we'll find them."
Dean still looks a little shaky and unconvinced, but he doesn't push it. He pulls the thick envelope out of the dashboard and starts flipping through until he finds the abbreviated list of kids. "Alright then, who's next?"
"There's one in West Virginia. I don't remember the town - see if you can find her on the list."
"Nimmi Proctor. Buckhannon, West Virginia."
"Looks like we're going to Buckhannon." John guns the engine and sends up a quick prayer that Nimmi is a nice, normal girl.
Nimmi looks like a normal enough girl. College kid, lives in an apartment just off campus with a couple roommates and wears those knit ponchos that remind John of the 70s and the smell of patchouli. But normal enough. Her and her friends all head out late one Friday night, dressed up and already looking a little tipsy. Dean catches the door to the building before it closes as they leave and lets John in a few minutes later. They've both got building code inspector badges clipped to their shirts. Dean is barely old enough to pull it off, John figures if anyone asks he'll tell them Dean is in training or some shit.
The apartment is unapologetically girly. Dean stands in the middle of the combo kitchen/living room looking like he's afraid to touch anything. There are posters of actors and bands on the walls, scarves and cutesy pillows on every flat surface, and a life-sized cardboard cutout of Aragorn from those movies. He's wearing a tiara.
"So, we're not gonna stay long right? I think I can feel my testicles trying to crawl back inside just looking at this."
"Focus, Dean. We need to check Nimmi's room and then we're out of here."
"You mean we need to check Nimmi's closet for any creepy art projects," Dean mutters.
"What are you doing here?"
They both spin around at the sound of another voice and see Nimmi standing just inside the apartment, looking upset and completely furious.
"I'm calling the cops," Nimmi says but doesn't make any move towards the phone. John looks at her, and at the closed door behind her. He didn't even hear it open. Dean is already trying to pitch their cover.
"Please just listen, ma'am. We're building code inspectors, working for the county. We've had some complaints about - "
"You're lying. Why were you going to look in my room?"
Nimmi still hasn't moved, and there's something about the way she's standing that's bugging the hell out of John. He's missing something big here, and if he could just figure it out then their lack of a any good reason to be here would be irrelevant.
Dean still hasn't stopped talking. "We're undercover. There's a seriel killer that's been targeting young people like yourself, we have a couple of questions for you if we could have just a moment of your time. Have you had any contact with a man with yellow eyes?"
Nimmi takes a quick step backwards, strappy heels clacking on the wood flooring and it hits John. She doesn't have a shadow. The only light on is the harsh fluorescent one on the kitchen ceiling, leaving dark, clear shadows behind everything but Nimmi. John reaches forward, hunter's instinct overriding the concern that she'll bolt. And feels nothing.
They all pause.
"You're dead," Dean says blankly.
"I am not." She sounds almost offended at the suggestion. Folds her arms over her chest and rolls her eyes. "Astral projection, ever heard of it? I could feel you yahoos breaking into my apartment and I came to check it out."
"So, you can- Where the hell is your body?"
"Like I'm going to tell you. I'm still waiting for an explanation, by the way."
"You've seen the yellow-eyed man, haven't you?" John takes over the questioning; Dean is still standing there eying Nimmi like he expects her to dissolve at any moment.
Nimmi shrugs. "Sometimes. So?"
"In dreams or in real life?"
"Maybe both. If you're looking for him, I can't help you. Haven't seen him in months. Not like we're BFFs or anything, but I'd totally buy that the guy is nuts. He kept talking about a coming war and how I was chosen or some bullshit."
"Then what?"
"Then nothing, I haven't seen him in months. I figured he was a dreamwalker or something, maybe he got stuck in someone else's head."
Not likely, John thinks.
Dean steps forward and leans against the kitchen island. "How long have you been able to," he waves a hand, "project yourself?"
"That's not really any of your business. Now look, I've got nothing against the whole X-Files thing you two've got going on here, but I don't want to be any part of your freak investigation. So just a heads up, my body called the cops about three minutes ago, so you might want to hustle off before you end up spending the night in jail."
Dean spends the next sixty miles staring intently at the dashboard. John is lost in his own thoughts, wondering why the hell the demon is after kids with special abilities and whether or not Sam and Dean have any he just hasn't noticed yet. Nimmi is about the same age as Dean, only a year and change older than Sammy and that means shit could start hitting the fan any day now.
What bothers him more is why the demon seems to have gone quiet in the past few months. It hasn't contacted Nimmi and John hasn't picked up on any of the signs or omens that usually follow the demon's movements.
Which is why it takes him a while to realize what Dean is doing. John slams on the breaks and the tires squeal as he pulls over.
"Dean, goddammit! Are you stupid?" He gives Dean's shoulder a hard smack and the kid jumps, blinks at John like he can't remember where he is.
"Jesus, what?"
"Astral projection isn't something you mess around with. It's sure as fuck not something you try in a moving car. What if you couldn't find your body again? What if you couldn't get back in once you'd left? Did you even think about that?"
"Uh."
"Bad answer."
"I just wanted to see. It'd be useful as all hell on a hunt."
"First rule of hunting, kid. You're not useful if you're dead. You're not trying that shit again."
"Fine."
"Say it."
"Fine, I won't try to use my super special mutant powers that I may or may not even have."
"Good enough."
Of course Dean doesn't let it go that easily. "But you have connections right? You know people that might know something about this stuff, could maybe help me out."
"No."
"It's like a superpower. You can't say no to a superpower."
"You can when a demon is after kids with superpowers."
"Right. But-"
"Dean. We're not talking about this."
Ryan Anders turns out to be a street hustler, running small money scams on the one-way side streets of New York. Dean and John stand back to watch the crowd, transfixed at the elaborate display as Ryan flips and twirls the cheap plastic cups, scrambles them around until even John has lost track of which cup has the marble in it. He slams the cups back down with a flourish and a cocky tilt of his head, broadcasting try me, I dare you to the audience.
A young woman steps forward and then hesitates, finger swinging back and forth between the cups. She takes a breath and decides, jabs a finger at the cup on the left and bites her lip in anticipation. She wins.
"Oh man, you got me girl. Bad luck, I don't think I can let you play anymore, you'd just drive me outta business." He hands over a few crumpled bills and the laughs with her friends as she takes them. The next guy who tries isn't nearly so lucky. He loses twice in a row and has to be talked out of a third go by some of the more reasonable members of the audience.
It goes on like that for half an hour, and John has to admire the elegance of the hustle. Ryan lets people win just often enough that everyone keeps trying, eyes on the wad of cash slowly collecting in the shallow cardboard box in front of Ryan's makeshift table. What John can't figure out is how Ryan is tipping the odds; the choice of cup is always up to the audience member, there's no way Ryan has control over that unless he's misleading them somehow. Giving them a glimpse of the marble in the final flourish and then acting surprised and disappointed when he loses a few bucks. He's still racking up a pretty sweet profit.
Eventually the crowd thins out and Ryan packs up his cardboard 'table,' stuffing his winnings deep in a pocket and giving a friendly wave to few stragglers still around. John and Dean tail him from a distance, walking along in a casual stride. Ryan must spot him though, barely a block away and he spins around to look right at them. John and Dean stop in their tracks.
"Is it just me or do we suddenly suck at the sneaky thing?"
"Or he has some ability that made us easier to spot," John answers under his breath.
Ryan takes a few steps back towards them. "You got a problem?"
"Just wanted to ask you a few questions. Are you Ryan Anders?" John asks.
"I might be. Are we done? Great." Ryan turns around and starts walking away.
"Hold up, c'mon man, we just want to talk to you," Dean says, running after him. "Please. We can pay you," he offers, and John raises his eyebrows. We can? Dean looks back at John and winces, hey, whatever works.
Ryan grins, warming up to them a little. "Five bucks a question, and if this shit gets weird, I'm walkin'."
Dean pulls out his wallet and blows out a slow breath.
"Okay. Have you ever seen a yellow eyed man? And- " he rushed to finish before Ryan can speak. "If you have, when and what did he say to you?"
"First off, I'm counting that as like three questions. Second? No. I haven't seen any 'yellow eyed man' and I don't know any samurai who smells like sunflower seed neither, in case that was your next question. Now pay up."
Ryan holds out hand, but Dean isn't done.
"How'd you rig the game?"
"Man, I'm not answering that. What, you think I'm stupid?"
"We're not trying to steal your gig, we don't even live in this city. And were not cops. I just wanna know how you did it."
Ryan looks at them closely, sizing up John and then Dean. "I'll talk. But only to him," he nods towards Dean. "You remind me of my paps, and I hate that fucker."
Dean looks back at him, amused. "Okay."
"Dean-"
"Yeah yeah, be careful, don't talk to strangers. We'll be fine, right?"
"Yeah man, don't worry. Your boy ain't in any danger with me."
They walk down another side alley and sit down on the concrete steps of an old loading dock. Dean looks up to see John watching from around the corner and waves him off. John turns away, leans against the crumbling brick and tries to remember why he quit smoking. Now would be a perfect time for a cigarette, something to do while he waits so he doesn't look like hobo waiting on the street corner. He looks down at the faded flannel of his shirt and the rips in his jeans, yeah cigarette or no he'd probably still look like a hobo. Mary would've smacked him for leaving the house like this.
Dean tells him he looks like a friggin' hick, but since Dean generally goes around looking like rough trade he doesn't have much of a leg to stand on.
Twenty minutes later Dean comes back and Ryan is nowhere in sight.
"So?"
"So- " Dean shoves his hands in his back pockets, "he can manipulate chance, or something. He just like, focuses his mind and usually things turn out his way. People don't really have a clue which cup the marble's in, so there's about equal chance they'll pick any one. He changes that, somehow."
"Just by thinking about it?"
"Yeah. I mean, apparently."
They start walking back to the parking garage. Twenty bucks for a few hours, it's freaking highway robbery but there's no way John was leaving the Impala out on the street in the middle of the city. Dean is off somewhere else, thinking so loud John can practically hear the gears turning. He hopes Dean isn't stupid enough to be trying out Ryan's power. Messing around with that shit can only lead somewhere bad.
"And he's really never seen the yellow-eyed demon?"
"Nah, he had no fucking clue what I was talking about. Didn't seem like he was hiding anything."
"Doesn't fit the pattern."
"Nope, but you know what does? Nimmi wasn't the exception, the fire kids have powers. Some of 'em anyway. Must be why the demon is after them, right?"
"We don't know that."
"Uh, yeah we kind of do. It told Nimmi she was special, chosen. It must want us for something."
"It ever tell you anything like that?"
There's a hitch in Dean's step that John doesn't miss. "Not really. It was more like, if I could con my way into getting something extra, then I must have deserved it. If I was smart enough, if I was sneaky enough, I could be special. He never said anything about a war, but uh. I was really little, maybe that chapter was a little heavy for the kiddies."
"Maybe."
"You think Scott had a power?"
"If he did we didn't see it. Or he's too far gone to have any control over it, who knows what effect all those drugs have on things."
"Yeah."
They spend two years cris-crossing the country, tracking down the fire kids and hunting down anything they run into along the way. John keeps an eye on Dean, watching for any sign of power brewing; strange dreams or unexplained coincidences. He comes up with nothing. Tells himself he has to stay sharp, not get complacent just because everything has been so quiet and that's why he catches himself watching Dean sleep all the time.
Dean looks impossibly young when he sleeps, the years slip away and he becomes the shivering scared boy clutching a mirror to his chest. Quieter and calmer now, out of immediate danger but he still sleeps with one hand tucked up under his pillow clutching his knife and the other tangled in the leather cord of his pendant. He's put on some weight too, still slim but solid muscle head to toe. The first time Dean manages to flip him and get him in a solid hold in a sparring session he's so surprised he laughs out loud.
"Getting old, old man."
"I was impaired by all the fumes coming off your head," John pokes a finger into the gelled up spikes of Dean's hair.
"Oy!" Dean's mouth twists into a frown as he runs his fingers through his hair, trying to spike it back up again.
"It's okay, I get it. Trying to make yourself look taller. I gotta say, kid - it's not exactly subtle."
Dean rolls his eyes but doesn't really look all that pissed. He isn't actually all that short and he's long since gotten used to John making fun of his height. John is pretty sure he only has maybe an inch on the kid, but it's not like he's going to tell Dean that any time soon.
November 4th, 2005
Dean wakes up with a grunt when he feels the warm blankets ripped away. John shakes his shoulder until Dean reaches around and smacks his hand away. "Dean, get up. Now."
"M'up, I'm awake," he mutters. "What, where's the fire?"
Dean looks around blearily and sees John hustling around the room, ripping the newspaper clippings off the walls and stuffing them in a worn manila envelope. "Up now, we're leaving. You've got five minutes."
"What happened?" he asks, but John is already out the door carrying two of their duffels.
Shit. Dean rolls out of bed and pulls on his clothes from yesterday. Probably another hunt, he thinks, and tries to remember if it's close to the full moon. Ever since he found out werewolves were real he's been hankering for the chance to see one in the flesh. He's gotten used to random changes in direction, drifting along in John's wake the past three years and trusting John to set the course. He doesn't much care anyway, one crappy motel room the same as the next and two lane highways are the same the whole country over. But Dean is still really hoping for a werewolf.
He knows it isn't the second he gets in the car. John's jaw is clenched tight and his knuckles are white on the steering wheel, there's no coffee and no paper bag of donuts sitting ready on the passenger seat, just the rumble of the engine and they're off. He breaks after an hour of silence, usually wouldn't bother asking and just wait it out until John's ready to tell him, but John's mood is scary bad. He's usually pretty cool, almost distant, and Dean's gotten used to that. It's comfortable. But right now John is seething, eyes glaring holes in the blacktop ahead and forehead wrinkled in concentration.
"What happened?"
"Sammy."
"He okay?"
Dean's never actually met Sam, but they make a trip out to California every few months; swing by campus and spend a day or two parked a block away from his apartment. They stay just long enough to a get a couple good looks at Sam but not long enough to draw any unwanted attention. But Dean cares, if only in a distant second-degree kind of way he hopes to hell the kid is okay. And he knows he'll be the one picking up the pieces if he isn't.
"He's in the hospital. His girlfriend burned."
"Fuck."
"Yeah."
They drive straight through, twenty-something hours running on beef jerky and only stopping for gas. Dean steals his cell phone without asking and starts calling every hospital in the Stanford area, impersonating reporters and close family members all desperate for information. John has an entire section of his journal dedicated to shit in Stanford, all in the same cryptic, messy writing it'd taken Dean a full year to learn how to decipher.
SW, hos-rbn ddn
It's like trying to read a bunch of friggin' scrabble pieces. Dean rolls his shoulder to stretch out the crick in his neck and wedges the phone under his ear again to call Robin, who's either the deputy director of nursing or neurology, it's difficult to say. Whatever, he can fudge it. Four calls later and he doesn't have anything solid, patient confidentiality is a bitch sometimes.
He finally gets a hit when he manages to sweet talk a bored nurse into confirming they had a young guy check in late last night with moderate burns on his hands and arms. The clerk on the phone assures him the burns were treated and the patient is recovering well, but refuses to give out any more details.
"Sounds like he got out okay. I mean, nothing that won't heal."
John grunts. Dean doesn't know what's going to happen when they get to Palo Alto, but it sure as shit isn't going to be pretty.
Sammy is asleep, bandaged hands resting on top of the covers. John hovers in the doorway, caught between the need to go into the room and the clawing desire to get the fuck out of there. Sam is pale with dark bruises under his eyes, and there's a shallow gash on his cheek that's been cleaned but not bandaged. The first men on the scene'd had to drag Sam out of the house, hands and arms burned and blistering from trying to pull his girlfriend off the ceiling.
She was already long dead by that point, John knows. God, does he know.
He wonders if anyone has told Sam yet; if he's woken up long enough for it to sink in, horrible and empty. John's had twenty years to prevent something like this, and he's failed on every level. Sammy is hurt, can't even defend himself and probably doesn't want to, not anymore. Sam made his choice and John hopes to god he sticks with it, grieves and moves on and stays the hell away from hunting. It's too dangerous; John plans to wade right into it.
He's been fucking around, distracted by other lesser evils. Distracted by Dean. That ends now.
"You're kidding me."
"Dean-"
"No, you've gotta be fucking kidding me!" Dean isn't taking the news well. "He's hurt, and something is after him, and we're gonna leave him here?"
"Whatever is after him, it doesn't want him dead or he'd be in the ground already." John's voice breaks on that last part but he ignores it. Cold hard facts. "This thing is powerful, it could've killed Jess any way it wanted. But it replicated Mary's death exactly. It wants to pull him back in, it's pushing him. The farther away from hunting he is, the better."
"You don't think maybe he needs his Dad right now? What kind of father are you?"
John snorts. "Because you know so fucking much about family. Shut up and get in the car, Dean. This isn't up for discussion."
Dean looks pissed, eyes flashing with anger and mouth screwed up in a snarl. It's not an emotion John is used to seeing on him; grouchy, snarky, afraid, he's used to all those. But never pure, flat-out anger.
"Not up for discussion," John repeats. "I'm going after this thing, no more fucking around. You're in or you're out, make a choice."
He doesn't have to state the obvious; if you're in you follow my orders and you don't fucking second guess me. Dean should know better by now, John knows he'll remember just as soon as he calms down a bit. Dean stares off to the side, breathing heavily and hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. Finally he nods.
"I'm in. Sir," he adds, an afterthought. First time he's done that without laying on the attitude.
November 7th, 2006
Ever wondered why you never bothered to pick up sweatpants for him? I have. He's still wearing yours, isn't he, Johnny-boy? He likes them, he thinks it means you care. Now isn't that sweet.
But I don't think you do. I think you like seeing him in castoffs. Keep the brat in his place, right? You never taught him to drive, never let him take the lead, never let him go off alone. No lies between close friends, John. We all know why you do it. Keep him all nice and dependent on you for everything.
But then what happens to poor orphan Dean-o when you've checked out? Let's find out, shall we?