Chapter Text
a plague which cuts off the young, a rootless phantom which has
no mercy for fair countenance.”
— Jeuan Gethin
The plague walks out of a laboratory on the twelfth day of February, 1991. It’s just after four in the morning when it wanders out of its carefully controlled environment to the sound of blaring alarms. It scurries to the four corners and the little directions in between, carried on paws and in the folds of clothes, the tight strands of dreadlocked hair. It even catches a ride on a faux quail feather in the band of a hat; a touch of whimsy for sure. Those carrying it are in a hurry, the ones with two feet anyway, so its escape is a speedy one.
It runs off into the night, across a blacktop parking lot and down a grassy hill. It crosses the street and darts quick as a streak into the shadows thrown by young poplar trees. It burrows into a pile of soggy leaves, seeking warmth even as its host sneezes bloody foam, leaving it squirming on the moldy soil. The plague careens around a merry-go-round and underneath a swing set. Then it’s off again, through another stand of trees and down another hill as an engine roars into the night, away from the place of its imprisonment.
One of its hosts drops dead beside a small stream with a bloody gurgle and one last kick of feet. A fish eats a piece of the plague as it flounders in the water, a tiny speck on the burbling surface of the brook. Another piece hops onto a passing groundhog. The flea it lives in bites the groundhog’s back. The flea is starving. No matter how much it feeds, it is never full anymore. It regurgitates blood from its infected foregut into the miniscule wound like a tiny hypodermic needle full of death. Then it bites again. Again. It’s so hungry.
The sound of sirens wailing fills the air and the groundhog, unhappy with the sudden racket, ambles off after a quick scratch of its side. Policemen climb out of their patrol cars and shine their bright, bright lights at the wide open door. The beam of one flashlight pins a rat in its glare. It carries on its slow way, staggering along like a drunken sailor. Beads of blood glitter in its whiskers like tiny garnets. A policeman sees the rat and tries to catch it. Who knows what experiments they’re doing in the lab? He doesn’t want anything getting out into the public. His rationale, while good intentioned, is poorly executed with very little thought past him maybe being called a hero.
The rat, sick and confused with fever, bites the concerned officer for his troubles. In retaliation, the officer curses as he crushes the rat’s fevered skull in with a small crunch. Plague oozes out all over the ground and the officer goes to let another policeman help him tend his wound. While they do that, about twenty starving fleas hop free of the rat’s already cooling corpse. Thanks to the speedy response time of local law enforcement, the plague catches a few more rides.
Dawn will bring panic and quarantine measures, but it’ll be too late and the people in charge will know it. They’ll curse themselves for what they’ve done and they will try, try, try to fix it. They will all fail—they’ve accomplished what they set out to do incredibly well. It would be a cause for celebration if the end result wasn’t so tragic. All they can do is sit back and count down the hours until the first case is reported.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Another flutter deep, faintly painful in his chest makes his mouth twitch with annoyance and discomfort. He wipes sweat off his warm cheek and clears his throat again. The wings fluttering in his chest with an itch-like ache unfurl completely and the boy begins to cough. Blood sprays from his mouth and he has a split second to be horrified before his stomach gives a mighty heave and he vomits. That, too, is red with blood and his insides feel like they’re full of powdered glass. He is terrified and wants to cry out for help, but his throat is full of blood and he can’t. He falls to the ground and his hat topples from his head to go rolling off into the crowd that’s gathered around him.
That day, courtesy of the young man in the hat, the plague catches flights to France, England, Italy and Germany, not to mention all over the United States and a few places in Canada. It is getting a chance to revisit old stomping grounds in Europe though. Ah… the nostalgia beckons like an old flame. Europe’s not exactly the playground of its youth—it’s far too old for the 14th century to make it feel young—but damn, it had one hell of a good run there. It settles in and enjoys the in-flight movie, breathes in and out of the closely confined air and toward the end of its journey, two of its new hosts begin to cough.
In a little while, as his plane taxis down the runway, a man from Milan will notice a tingling in the ends of his fingers. A look at them will show they’re a touch darker than they should be and they feel cold. He already suspects he’s coming down with something, he just hopes it isn’t too bad. On a different plane out there, a woman from Munich feels a similar sensation in the tips of her toes. A couple headed home to Honolulu will begin to feel a bit feverish about halfway through their flight.
The plague is being scattered to the four corners on a global scale. It couldn’t be happier. It is February 14th, Valentine’s Day. No one knows it yet, but forever after, Valentine’s Day will have nothing to do with love and everything to do with death.
~*~*~*~*~*~
By the end of the week, three times the first wave of 85 will be dead in Massachusetts. Connecticut will be desperately playing catch up. In New York City, someone will notice a tingling in the ends of their fingers. In Trenton, New Jersey, a single mother of two will check on her youngest child who is coughing in her bedroom. She will get blood spatter all over her face. In less than two days, their whole little family will be dead, huddled together in the mother’s bed because no doctor would see them.
As the plague begins its swift crawl across the eastern seaboard, borne along expeditiously by humans that share with the local rodent populations along the way, even more people will begin to feel a touch ill. More mass hysteria will follow and the National Guard will be sent to try and control the crowds. At least until the soldiers start getting sick, too. Then they’ll be dropping dead on patrol or abandoning their posts in terror. Many, many people will think they can outrun it, but the plague will hop right along behind them like Pepé Le Pew chasing a paramour.
By the end of the month, the streets of Boston will take on a haunted, desolate look. The wailing of terrified survivors and the cries of the dying will echo down its streets. Yersinia Pestis has come a’calling with a thirsty vengeance thanks to the good scientists that kept it locked up in their laboratory. The nice men and women in lab coats made it stronger and faster; they helped to restore some of its previous glory. They reminded it in good time how to disrupt the nervous system and drive people mad even as they lay dying. Frankly, they reinvigorated it to its utmost potential and then they gave it a dose of high potency vitamins. If the plague could talk, it would say, Thank you so very much! I just want to kiss you all! The scientists did their part, now the plague has to keep up its end of the deal. Since it can’t speak, it’ll have to show its gratitude in other ways.
On that ill-fated Valentine’s Day, John watches the evening news. He obviously doesn’t know any of that yet, but what he sees is enough to have him wanting to hug his children close. His youngest son, Sam, reads a book he got from the school library while his oldest, Dean, stares at the television screen. Dean doesn’t completely understand what the news lady is saying, but he gets the general idea fine: something very, very bad is happening.
The anchorwoman’s eyes are wet and wild looking as she says, There has been a rare outbreak of bubonic plague in Massachusetts as well as several European countries and China. Although there are cases of bubonic plague and pneumonic plague being reported, there are also several reported cases of an even rarer strain of the plague called septicemic plague. We’ve received reports from Boston, London and Munich confirming this. Italian and Chinese officials have confirmed instances of plague outbreak, but have yet to release official statements. People are being urged to stay indoors and to keep away from any unfamiliar animal, particularly rodents. More on this story as it develops.
John watches the news with a knot of dread in his gut. He understands what all the news shows are saying and he’s scared shitless. But when Sam glances up from his book long enough to catch a glimpse of the newscaster and asks John why the news lady looks so scared, he only shushes the boy. He doesn’t want to scare his sons, not yet, so he just wrangles them up to come help him make supper. Sam doesn’t want spaghetti and so, he’s thankfully distracted and doesn’t ask any more questions. Dean is quiet until they sit down to eat and then he makes a game out of it to try and cheer Sam up. It works a little bit, but John knows they’ll be sneaking around the kitchen later tonight so Dean can give Sam the Fruity Pebbles he really wants. Sam’s giggling always wakes him up. He’ll lie in bed, listening to their whispered voices coming up through the floor vent and smile tiredly, wishing Mary was there to listen as well.
He puts his boys to bed earlier than usual. Dean and Sam both protest it, but a stern look from John quiets Dean. Sam follows suit, but he glares. His youngest son has a temper already, one that John recognizes as being a lot like his own, so he lets him slide on it some. He thinks once the boy becomes a teenager he’s going to regret not taking a firmer stance now. He puts them to bed earlier because he wants to watch the nightly news without them asking questions or becoming afraid. John’s not been able to shake his creeping uneasiness since watching the first report, and if what seems to be happening is happening, then he needs to know all he can. If for no other reason than to keep his children as safe as possible.
The nightly news report is bleaker than the evening news was. John watches the reports on every channel and feels that knot of dread growing larger with every bit of commentary he sees. None of the strains of plague that are presenting are proving responsive to antibiotics. There is, in short, no hope for survival of this thing that carries very little hope with it to begin with. John sits in front of the television with horror like a tumor growing inside of him as each new report adds a layer of terror the one before it didn’t. He learns a lot—more than he ever wanted to know—about the plague.
It’s worse than any scary story he could ever read. It’s happening, right now in 1991 and there doesn’t seem to be a damn thing anyone can do about it. It’s downright medieval, one man from the CDC says in an interview. He’s trying to be humorous, but the grim, drawn look on his face sucks any humor there would’ve been out of it. The plague isn’t exactly good fodder for making jokes.
By dawn, John is exhausted and his eyes feel dry and gritty. He hasn’t looked in a mirror, but he feels pale now that he’s heard all the news he can stomach. He’s made up his mind though: he’s not sending the boys to school, even if they are open today. All along the east coast, school has been cancelled and while the Midwest still appears plague-free, the basic gist of it is that it won’t be for long. He’s not up for risking the lives of his children so they can go learn to read see Jane run or whatever it is they’re being taught. They’re probably too old to read see Jane run, now that he thinks about it. They are too young though to see the news broadcasts. It’s the same story on every channel: As the sun rises around the planet, the world slowly starts to fall to its knees.
More information is being reported every hour on the hour. John has heard all about how physicians can only quarantine the sick. He’s heard how they can only watch with horrified fascination as, one after another, people die from it. He now knows that septicemic plague victims have roughly 14.5 hours to live once the first symptoms show and in many cases, the time between exhibiting symptoms and death is much quicker. Even if the antibiotics worked, every single one of those people would probably die anyway. Y. pestis is at its most lethal when it chug-a-lugs through the blood and turns the extremities black.
Bubonic victims can linger for upwards of a week, but most only last four days, so the ones with the buboes are still hanging on for now, John reckons. Pneumonic victims are dead within hours in some cases, with 48 hours being about all the time they have left. Reports of doctors intentionally overdosing some patients with morphine have become common in the news reports after only one day. One physician they interviewed called it an act of mercy. The authorities disagreed, so they arrested him for it. He probably won’t make it out of the local jail alive, but then again, neither will many other people, inmates or guards.
John doesn’t know yet what he’s going to do, not exactly, but he’s going to protect Sam and Dean. Even if that means keeping them locked inside the house until the plague burns itself out like it always has. He is prepared to do that just like he is prepared to put a bullet in anyone who dares come coughing around their door. If there are risks to be taken then he’ll be the one taking them. He doesn’t want his kids to have a 14.5 hour life expectancy thanks to this… this thing, this conqueror worm that is eating its way through humanity at an alarming rate already.
When John finally turns the television off at a quarter to seven, he feels sick in a way that has nothing to do with plague—thankfully. He rises from his chair to go rouse the boys and break the news that they won’t be going to school today. Dean will be thrilled, but Sam probably won’t be. He loves school too much to be excited about a surprise day off from learning reading, writing and arithmetic. Dean’s favorite subject at this juncture in his life is pulling pigtails.
John smiles faintly as he starts upstairs. He has to stop halfway up to shake his head. He’s trying to rattle loose the last word he heard an exhausted official from the CDC mutter from beneath his drooping mustache: Pandemic. As John resumes his way upstairs, it dances around in circles through his mind.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Inland, after glutting itself on the close-packed bounty of the upper east coast, the plague slows down a bit and peruses the options more. It’s a smorgasbord to choose from, a real delight of a feast and it wants to take its time a little now that its initial hunger has been sated. It was nearly starved though, so its piggishness can undoubtedly be forgiven. Still, it reins itself in and begins to delicately nibble its way cross country after one last binge in Vermont.
Survivors from the east coast are running scared now. They leave states all along the eastern seaboard with their cars packed tight with belongings and loved ones. The interstates back up for miles and traffic can stall out for hours—even a day or two. People get out and mingle, share their worries and fear with each other. Survivors hug and hold hands, say prayers together and smear bacteria all over each others skin. It’s a regular love-in. The plague watches it all and touches as much as it can. It really can’t help itself as it crisscrosses interstates and state lines with all of these poor, scared people. They all think they can get away from the plague if only they go to another state or to Canada. Or out across the ocean, they slide across borders into neighboring countries. Hallo, Liechtenstein! Saúdos, Galicia! And a wạn thī ‘dī kạb khuṇ, too, Thailand!
It rides shotgun with many of the would-be escapees-slash-refugees. It looks out the windows and enjoys the passing scenery. If it doesn’t manage to hitch a ride to a new location, it’ll likely be waiting when they get there and if not, well, it’ll probably be along soon. The plague is ready to venture out and get back into the swing of things. Travel has always been something it enjoys. It gets to see new places, make new acquaintances and sample the local and regional delicacies of each place. Yes, travel is very exciting indeed and it can’t wait to see what’s next. It burbles away in buboes, full to overflowing with excitement as it spreads its wings. It has been away for far too long.
~*~*~*~*~*~
The bread basket of America is right in the middle of a pestilence that’s eating its way up and down either coast and that’s the bottom line for John. It’s cutting a swath of death through Europe and Asia. It has touched down in parts of Australia, Hawaii and Alaska and is creeping around eastern Canada like a thief. The plague is ducking through cracks in doors and slipping into basements to kiss the rosy cheeks of sleeping children and adults alike. The worldwide terror and panic is profound and it is leaving John with less and less sleep. He has nightmares about petechiae on the backs of the ill; all of God’s tokens scattered across sick, greyish flesh. Every time one of the boys coughs or sneezes, he jumps. Going out for supplies now is an act of bravery even though the Midwest has barely been touched. So far.
John leaves the television on almost all the time now unless the kids are in the living room. Day and night he has watched national and international correspondents disappear to be replaced by new ones until even those are gone. If they haven’t run away hoping for safety then John has no doubt they’re either sick and dying or are already dead. The news still comes, but it’s all over the wire now and the reporters remaining don’t want to be out on a disease infested location shoot anymore than most people. Doomsday cults and singular fanatics, on the other hand, are having a blast. They’re disgusting and almost as scary as the plague itself. One night a week before, John watched a whole group of them descend on a hospital in London because they hoped to get sick. It was the last video footage from England he has seen.
He’s let down all the blinds and drawn all the curtains. There are boxes of De-Con hidden in every nook and cranny he can find. His paranoia is growing with each passing day as he thinks about how Kansas has lots of grain and rats love grain. It’s not a rational thought, not really. However, once he’s had the thought, he can’t shake it. He can spend hours thinking about the rustling of rats in a wheat field, bloody snouts twitching in the cool night air as the plague crawls all over their insides. So far there have been no reported cases of plague in Kansas or anywhere north of the state, but it has dropped in for a nice visit right next door in Colorado. Soon though, people and rats alike will be crossing into Kansas if they aren’t already and with them, they will bring death.
The boys are going stir crazy being cooped up inside all the time and because of it, they are driving John crazy, too. He’s drinking again and the stress coupled with the liquor is making him snappish. He’s spanked them both more than he has in a long time. Sam quietly sulks and Dean slinks around like a kicked dog after a spanking, but before long, they’re up and at it again. They’re kids and they want to go outside and play. Sam wants to know why he can’t go to school and Dean wants to go out to his tree house and read the comics he has stashed there. John tells them truthfully now that school has been cancelled and when Dean knocks a bowl off the counter and breaks it one afternoon, John uses that as an excuse. He grounds him from going outside because he was careless, he says. He feels like the world’s biggest asshole for it, but he has to do something to keep them in line. Right now, keeping the kids in line (inside) is more important than trying to win Father of the Year.
That same evening, he fixes their supper and afterward he lets them watch a video. Since they’re not tired and are bored to tears—almost literally—after the movie, he asks if they want to play a board game. Of course they say yes and John tells them to go pick one. He hears them quietly bickering over it and Dean calls Sam a baby for wanting to play Candy Land. Sam snarls something back and before long, they’re shoving each other lightly. All it takes is a quick, sharp bark of, “Boys!” to call them under again. Grudgingly, they resume picking a game to play. John listens to them with one ear and sips from the flask he’s got tucked between his thigh and the arm of the sofa.
When Dean comes to him with the game they’ve settled on, John almost laughs. It’s Life. Instead, he says, “Good choice, you guys. Go set up the board and I’ll be there in a minute.”
“Sure, Dad,” Dean tells him with a grin. “Come on, Sam,” he calls to his brother. John watches them trot off then pulls out his flask for another swallow. When he’s done, he gets up and goes to the kitchen to partake in the game of irony called Life.
It’s a good game and for a little while, John lets himself relax and simply enjoy being with his children. Playing Life with them makes it easy to forget that out there in the great big world, everything is falling apart and they won’t be exempt. By the time they’re done playing, Sam is yawning and droopy-eyed. Dean is valiantly attempting to look alert, but he’s slumping in his seat more and more. John knows two tired kids when he sees them, so he gets them up from the table and hustles them upstairs to brush their teeth.
“Double time, boys,” he says as he lightly gooses Sam to make him giggle.
“Race ya to the top, Sammy,” Dean says. There’s not much enthusiasm in the suggestion because it’s mangled by a yawn.
Sam just shakes his head and trucks on, only looking around to grin at Dean when he slings an arm over his shoulders.
John watches them go and feels his heart swell with affection even as his gut twists with dread about what the future will probably hold for them. He knows he can’t keep them in the dark forever, there is simply no way. After a point, protecting them from the reality that’s coming to pass in the world may end up doing more harm than good. They saw the first newscasts and John figures they’ve maybe gleaned a snatch or two of other reports. So far it hasn’t been enough for them to start asking questions though. Although they have started to look at him a little sideways lately, the past couple of weeks in particular. They may not know exactly what’s going on, but all they have to do is take a look at their dad to know something’s not right. It’s making them uneasy and eventually, they’re going to ask questions. Or get rebellious and sneak outside without John there to watch over them.
John still doesn’t know what to do other than everything in his power he can to protect Sam and Dean. If that means sitting them down and telling them what’s happening out there then that’s what he’ll do. That’s the tricky part though; the question with the most elusive answer. Maybe it’s such a hard question to answer because there is no answer. It still doesn’t stop him from trying to solve the Why is a raven like a writing desk? quandary he’s found himself in.
He puts them both to bed and then goes back downstairs to the television and his flask. Morbid curiosity has John itching to see what else has gone to hell in the few hours he hasn’t been watching. The certainty that it’s only going to be bad news on his screen has him taking a drink to fortify himself before flipping the set on.
The local station is halfway through a report about more riots in Los Angeles and new ones in San Diego and up in Seattle. They show clips of angry mobs looting, pillaging and generally running amok. There’s been a riot at least every other day in major cities all over the world, so that’s no surprise. The diminished size of the crowds in all three cities isn’t necessarily a surprise either, but it’s still stunning. The first riot in Los Angeles had about four times as many participants.
Watching the footage, John sees a man stop in the process of throwing a trashcan through a shop window. He doubles over coughing and the can clatters to the sidewalk. Leaning forward in his seat, John watches as blood sprays in a thick mist from his mouth and he goes to his knees. The corner of his mouth turns down in a disgusted frown as he watches, unable to look away. The cameraman doesn’t flinch from the sight and the newscaster’s voice says the obvious: the man on the sidewalk is sick and it “looks to be” pneumonic plague, which is characterized by a hacking, bloody cough.
It’s only a moment before other rioters notice the sick man and turn away from their mindless destruction to close in on him. They gather around him like a pack of hyenas, makeshift weapons raised above their heads and fear in their eyes. As they begin to beat the man to death right there on a public sidewalk, the scene cuts off and goes back to the anchorwoman in the studio.
Another disturbing scene tonight in Los Angeles, the anchor says.
She says more after that, but John doesn’t listen to a word of it. He can only stare at her pretty, drawn face and note that her eyes aren’t the least bit sorry. He thinks maybe she’s glad they killed the man. She probably thinks that by killing him, they stopped one more person out there from spreading the disease. That’s not thinking with her head on straight at all. He can, in a way, understand her logic—her so-called reasoning—but it’s appalling to think that she’s at least temporarily forgotten the number one most important thing about pneumonic plague: It is spread by coughing, by spraying infected sputum into the air. There were hundreds of people out there and at least fifty that closed in on him to beat him to death. That one sick man just killed a whole street full of people, give or take maybe a handful.
Wiping a hand over his mouth, John closes his eyes and tries to give himself one moment’s calm respite from all the worry and death that’s tromping through his mind. When he opens his eyes again, it’s to footage from last week of Manhattan while the reporter talks in the background about cleanup efforts supposedly beginning tomorrow. All the dead lying in the streets look like fallen dominoes. There is a cat sitting on the back of a dead woman, delicately mincing away at her flesh through a hole it has chewed in her shirt. In another shot, it’s a similar situation, but it’s of a Vietnamese pot-bellied pig noshing on the face of what was probably its owner.
Amongst all of that is one lone survivor, a half-naked woman walking down the middle of a street. She stumbles blindly over a body and ping-pongs into one stalled car then another. Her left arm is raised as though she is perpetually in the act of propping on something. Beneath it, even from that distance, the egg-shaped swelling in her armpit is visible as a jutting deformity; the thing that is wrong with this picture.
“Jesus save us,” John mutters as he fumbles out his flask again. He’s seen some hellaciously disturbing and graphic footage, but the shots of Manhattan are definitely the top of the heap.
He’s drinking when he hears, “Dad, why are all those people laying in the street?”
John jerks his head around to find Dean standing in the living room doorway. “What are you doing up?” he asks him.
“I’s thirsty, that’s all,” Dean says.
He blinks his big green eyes, wondering if he’s done something wrong. Dad’s never said anything before about them getting up for water because, well, it’s just water. Dean looks away from his father’s scowling face and back at the television, to the woman stumbling around all the people lying down. He wonders if it’s some kind of movie.
Rubbing at his eyes, Dean asks John, “Are you watching a zombie movie?”
“No,” John says. He stands up and blocks Dean’s view of the television. “Go back to bed, Dean. I’ll bring you some water.”
“I can get it, it’s not a—” Dean starts.
“Do as I say,” John snaps at him, voice low and commanding.
“Yes, sir,” Dean says as he takes an unconscious step backwards.
He eyes John worriedly before turning to go back to his room with his head tilted in confusion. There’s a little prickle of fear at the base of his spine, too and he doesn’t know if it has to do with his dad or with the stuff that was on the TV. Dean thinks it was the local news maybe, but he can’t be sure, so he decides not to think that.
Dad’s been weird lately though, really weird and he’s starting to worry Dean a lot. Sam’s getting scared a little bit, too and Dean doesn’t like that. When Sam gets scared, a lot of the time he gets mad because of it and then he smarts off. Which gets him spanked and then he cries or gets even madder or sometimes he does both. Dean doesn’t like that either. He hates seeing his little brother unhappy, so he’s started putting himself between Sam and their dad a lot lately without even realizing it.
~*~*~*~*~*~
After giving Dean his water, John peeks in on Sam through the crack in his bedroom door. The tell-tale glow of a flashlight from under the blankets tells John that his youngest is reading instead of sleeping. John backs away and leaves Sam to it. For a moment, he stands in the middle of the hallway and listens to the small, reassuring sounds of his children in their rooms on either side of him. Across the hall, he hears the light thunk of Dean putting his water glass on the nightstand. From Sam’s room comes the telling whisper of a page turning. One of them sighs and there is the squeak of bedsprings as Dean rolls over.
John feels like a giant hand is pushing down on his shoulders and he sags under the pressure. Unwanted, he imagines Sam coughing blood in the middle of a riot he’s gotten caught in and can’t find a way out of. He sees an angry mob closing in on him with baseball bats and lengths of two-by-four, ready to beat his head in for being sick. He sees Dean stumbling down a street lined with the dead, his arm cocked at a strange angle, like he’s looking for something to prop on. A scream threatens to go climbing up out of his throat and his eyes prick with unwanted tears. With a deep, shaking breath, John composes himself and moves away from his little sentry post outside the bedrooms of his sons to go back downstairs. He’s got some serious thinking to do.
The plague is right across the state line, he reminds himself and soon, it’ll be paying a visit to Kansas. It’s probably already there, if he’s being honest about it, sniffing around in fields, looking for a speck of grain or a dropped crumb from a farmer’s lunch. It’s going to come to Lawrence, sooner rather than later and John has known it all along. John decides then and there that they won’t be there to greet it when it does. There’s not so much as a murmur about it from farther up north so far, not in Nebraska, Montana, Wyoming or the Dakotas. John’s only interested in South Dakota right now though. He knows a guy up there, a friend and he hopes like hell he’s not about to waste a phone call. They won’t be able to hide even there, but it’s a little farther away and will hopefully buy them more time.
John picks up the receiver to the phone beside the sofa and dials the number he keeps on a scrap of paper that does double duty as his address book. It’s late, but Bobby has always kept odd hours and John has no doubt he’s glued to his own television.
“What?” is the greeting John receives after the fourth ring.
“Hey, Bobby, how’re you doing?” John asks.
“Well, I ain’t dyin’ of the plague if that’s what you’re askin’,” Bobby replies. “You and the boys okay?”
“Yeah… Yeah, we are for now,” John tells him. “Glad to hear you’re all right, too.” He hesitates for a second then sucks it up and says, “Look, I was wondering if—”
Bobby snorts softly in his ear. “Pack up and come on, you don’t need to ask.” It’s his turn to hesitate then, but like John, he soldiers on. “If you get sick on the way though… I’m sorry to say it, but—”
“I understand, Bobby,” John says. He does understand, too. Any other time that would have been a powerfully shitty thing for someone to say, but when a person mentions being sick, they’re not talking about a cough due to cold anymore. Staying away from the sick is about a lot more than avoiding a few days of discomfort now. “Same goes for you though. If you get sick while we’re on our way…”
“I swear I’ll be polite and go die somewhere nice and quiet. Out of the way, you know,” Bobby says, voice dry as dust.
“Not what I meant,” John says. “Try to leave us a sign or something if you’re able. That’s all I ask.
“Well, no shit that ain’t what you meant. I know what you meant,” Bobby says.
It’s only then that John realizes he was making a joke. It’s been weeks since much of anything amused John Winchester, save the boys squabbling sometimes. More and more often though even that’s only grating on his tightly wound nerves.
“Sorry, Bobby,” John says. “I’m about out of my mind here and I’m exhausted to boot.”
“I know,” Bobby says, dismissing John’s snappishness. He shrugs and glances over at his own television set. He’s got the sound turned all the way down, but all the pictures are worth more than anything he’d be likely to hear. He’s waiting for the day he turns on the TV and finds nothing but snow to keep him company. “I’ll leave ya some kinda something in way of a warning. I don’t know what it’ll be, but I guarantee you won’t be likely to miss it.”
“All right then,” John says. “We’ll see you in a few days.”
“When’re you headin’ out?” Bobby asks.
“As soon as I can get the boys packed and ready,” John says.
Bobby whistles low, but doesn’t argue with him about it. “Just be careful. It’s late, you’re tired and there’s crazies all over the damned place.”
“I’ve got a gun,” John tells him. His voice is drop-dead matter of fact when he says it. There’s no mistaking what he means.
“Good to hear it,” Bobby says.
South Dakota is quiet as can be on the plague front for now, but he’s taken to carrying a shotgun around with him all over the house and he’s got a nine millimeter tucked in the back of his pants as an extra safety measure. The bullets aren’t just meant for any loonies that may happen on his place either. They’re for squirrels or mice or rats or rabbits or damn well anything that looks like it may be feeling a bit under the weather. There’s one he’s saving special for himself, too, should he get to coughing up blood or wake up with a tingling in his fingers or an egg shaped lump in his groin.
John’s still on the line and Bobby blinks himself out of his thoughts enough to say, “Drive safe,” before dropping the phone back in its cradle.
John hangs up after Bobby then gets up to go drag Sam and Dean out of bed to pack. He doesn’t think they’ll argue much, they’re tired of being cooped up in the house and although they’ve only met Bobby a few times, they like him a lot.
Sam’s still awake and reading under his covers when John goes to his room. He looks shamefaced, but defiant when he comes out. He thinks he’s in big trouble for not going to bed like he was supposed to. He tried and he was even tired, but he couldn’t sleep, so he decided to read. Sam’s surprised when John just goes to his closet and gets the duffel bag he used for camp the one time he went.
“Pack as many clothes as you can fit in this bag and use your backpack to bring anything else you really want to keep,” John tells him as he places it on the foot of his bed. “We’re going to stay with your Uncle Bobby for a little while.”
“Why?” Sam asks.
“Because we are,” John says.
“That’s not an answer,” Sam says with a frown. “Why?”
“Because we are,” John says right back. He’s already almost out of patience with Sam. They don’t have time for this. “Pack your stuff, Sammy and stop pestering me. I said we’re going and that’s it.”
“It’s ‘cause of the news, huh?” Sam asks him.
“What? How do you know about that?” John asks.
“I sat on the stairs night ‘fore last and listened,” Sam says. “It was scary though, so I didn’t sit for long. But that’s it, huh?”
“Pack your stuff, Sam,” John tells him again. Sam’s already started figuring it out and yet, here he is, still trying to hide the ugliness and fear of the situation from him.
Sam frowns again, but this time he nods. “Okay, Dad,” he says. He climbs out of bed to take the bag and goes to his dresser to start getting his clothes.
John watches him for a minute before leaving the room to get Dean. He doesn’t have to go far, Dean’s right outside Sam’s door. He must’ve heard them talking and got up. “Why are you standing there, Dean? If you’re awake enough to eavesdrop then you know you ought to be packing your stuff.”
Dean blinks at him then peers around him into the bedroom to check on Sam before he nods. “Yes, sir,” he says before turning around to go back in his room.
Sam didn’t tell him about sitting on the stairs and listening to the news. Dean wonders if Sam thought he’d rat on him or something. Dean’s no rat. He gets his own once-used camp duffel out of his closet and thinks Sam’s a total goober if that’s what he thought.
Once he’s satisfied they’re doing what he’s told them to, John goes to pack his own belongings. Looking around his bedroom, John sighs and says a silent goodbye to all the memories that live in here. It’s been a lonely room for a long time now and saying goodbye to it isn’t as hard as he would’ve thought. Without Mary to lie beside him anymore, it’s not really a room that has any meaning or use other than as a place to sleep.
John packs quickly and quietly, all of his military efficiency coming back to him as he goes. He manages to cram a lot of stuff in his old duffel bag and while it’s heavy, he doesn’t mind. He’s got all he needs, he thinks, but then he looks up at the wall and sees the photographs in a collage frame hanging to the left of the dresser. There’s twelve pictures, each one a little scene from their life together. Their wedding picture is dead center and all around it are pictures of the boys. There’s one of Mary holding Dean as a baby right outside the hospital the day they brought him home. She looks tired, but happy in it and there’s a similar one of her with Sam on the other side of it. There’s a picture of John with Dean in his t-ball uniform and of him napping on the couch after work with Sam asleep on his chest.
John takes the frame down from the wall and swallows around the lump in his throat. There is a reason he doesn’t look at these pictures anymore and hasn’t since the night he found Mary dead in the rocking chair in Sam’s nursery. She had looked so peaceful in the moonlight streaming through the blinds that for a split second, John had thought she was asleep. He’d known better though, deep down. As Sam had started to cry, a thin, distressed wail, John had thought that the cancer that’d been eating away at her for the last two months had finally run its course.
The doctors had given her a fairly good prognosis of a year left, but when it came to cancer, doctors weren’t ever totally sure. Except they’d known it would ultimately be the death of her and treatments would only prolong the inevitable. So, Mary had decided against treatment. If I’m going to die anyway, John, why would I want to be miserable during the time I have left? That’s what she had asked him the day she told him she wasn’t going to do chemo. He’d exploded, but her calm steadiness had eased him a little. It wasn’t long though that he’d found himself standing in the doorway of Sam’s nursery—now his bedroom—looking at her and thinking, We were supposed to have a year.
Dean, attached to his brother from the day they brought him home, had come out of his room at the sound of Sam’s crying. John had hidden his heartbroken grief long enough to go into the room and get the baby. He’d handed him to Dean and told him to take his brother downstairs and wait. Then he’d sat down on the floor beside the rocking chair and held Mary’s cold hand as he cried like a whipped baby himself.
It wasn’t until later, after the cloud of grief in his mind had cleared enough for him to really see, that John realized it hadn’t been the cancer that had killed his wife. It had been her doing, by her own hand because she hadn’t wanted to be a burden. She’d left her own version of a suicide note that doubled as a will all over the house—little notes dictating who got what and short messages to the recipients taped to the bottoms of the objects. That night when she was done, she’d gone into Sam’s room to tell her baby boy goodbye. Realizing that had broken John’s heart all over again.
Every single one of the pictures he carefully takes from the frame is a reminder of that loss for him. Each one a moment that is gone forever and with Mary dead, there’s no one there to remember them with him. He can’t leave them behind though because they are reminders, pieces of the good times, even if they are touched with sadness. John takes each photograph from the frame and packs them with his other things. He pauses to touch Mary’s tired, smiling face and her bright, young, hopeful face in turn. It was a life cut short, but John likes to think he gave her a happy one, at least most of the time.
When he’s finally done packing his things, he sits on the side of the bed and listens to the boys while he makes a mental list of other things they need to bring along. Down the hall, Sam calls for Dean to come get him something off the shelf beside his closet because he can’t reach. John smiles to himself and wonders if the boy is ever going to grow much. He’s mighty little for his age and it gets him teased at school. Well, he figures, even if Sam ends up topping out at no more than 5’5”, he won’t have to worry about being bullied for it anymore. He’s got to find the bright side somewhere in this mess.
He groans though when he catches an argument already in progress. He tuned out a bit and missed what started it, but he hears Dean say, “Least I don’t pick my nose while I do my homework.”
“That’s ‘cause you don’t do your homework,” Sam argues back. He’s working himself up to outright yelling. All John can think is, fun, when he considers he’s going to be cooped up in the car with them for days on their way to Bobby’s. “‘Sides, you eat your scabs!” Ah, there’s the yelling. John knew it was coming.
“Do so do my homework! I just do it so fast you don’t never see me. And I don’t eat my scabs, you booger eater!” Dean yells back. “Take it back!”
“You do so eat your scabs, I saw you!” Sam cries. “You’re gross, Dean and I won’t take it back. No!”
John rolls his eyes and thinks that if Dean does eat his scabs, that really is pretty gross. Then again, he can’t say much, he did it when he was a kid, too.
He gets up from the bed and goes to call them under anyway because they need to be packing, not fighting. “Both of you stop it right now,” John says when he comes into the room. Sam looks mad enough to pop Dean one and Dean’s about as puffed up as his brother. The last damned thing John needs is for them to actually tie up and fight. It’s rare for them to take it that far, but it does happen and right now they’re tired, confused and stressed, which has made them tetchy.
“But, Dad, Dean’s being a jerk!” Sam tells him. He’s mad enough to spit nails and all over a little remark about nose picking.
“Nuh-uh, Sam’s being a jerk!” Dean says. “He started it, too!”
“Did not!”
“Did so!”
“Boys, that is enough!” John yells over the both of them. “I don’t care who started it, but it stops right now. Do you understand me?”
They look ready to argue with him about it, both convinced in their own stubborn way that the other is to blame and a great wrong has been done here. They nod though, and Sam stomps off to go get a stack of books off the floor by his bed.
“Yes, sir,” he mumbles as he yanks open the zipper on his backpack to start cramming his books inside.
“Dean?” John asks.
“Yes, sir,” Dean says.
“Good, now go back to your room and finish packing,” John says. “Sam, if you need anything else, come get me and leave your brother alone. Same for you, Dean.”
“I can reach the top shelf,” Dean says sulkily. “I don’t need that big baby’s help.”
“I meant for you to just leave Sam alone for right now,” John says. “Now stop sulking and go do what I told you to.”
“Yes, sir,” Dean says again. He turns to scuff out of the room, still mad about whatever they started out arguing over. He’s likely to be fine in a few minutes though. Sam’s the one that holds grudges.
“That’s better,” John says as he follows Dean out. He stops in the hallway and looks between the two open doors. “I don’t want to hear another word about nose picking or scab eating either, got that?”
“Yeah,” Sam says.
“What’s that?” John asks him.
“Yes, sir,” Sam says, correcting himself with an unhappy slump to his shoulders.
Dean smirks, feeling triumphant on that front. John lets him have it and just walks away. He needs to go down to the kitchen and pack up some food supplies. Then he thinks he needs to put together a first aid kit for them as well.
“Don’t forget to pack your toothbrushes,” he reminds them as he walks away.
Neither one says anything, but he knows they heard him and that’ll do for now. John decides if they’re not done packing by the time he has the food and first aid kit ready to load up then they’re going to be done anyway. Time’s wasting and they need to hit the road.
It’s after two in the morning by the time they get everything in the car and leave their house, their lives, behind. The boys are too exhausted to argue with each other about anything and fall asleep halfway across town, both of them slumped down under the quilt John gave them to cover up with. He’s got the heater on in the Impala to chase away the night chill and it makes him drowsy, too. He’s got a thermos full of coffee though and he refilled his flask before putting the other four bottles in the trunk, so he thinks he’s set for a while, at least until he’s over the state line into Nebraska.
He checks the rearview mirror and sees his sons huddled together, snuggling under the quilt to fight the chill of the leather seats. With grim determination, he turns his eyes back to the empty road stretching out in front of him and presses down on the gas. The sooner they’re out of Kansas, the better John will feel because to his mind, that means his boys will be, if not safe, then at least safer. He’s borrowing time and he knows it, but it’s enough—barely—for now.
~*~*~*~*~*~
“No, oh, no,” Maeve mutters under her breath, her voice thick with tears. “No, no, no!” she chokes out as she hits the steering wheel with both hands. She yanks the wheel and pulls over to the shoulder to look in the backseat. She can’t hold back her sob when she meets her little girl’s glassy eyes and sees the blood spattered all over her sweet face.
Rebekah starts to cry then and says, “Mommy,” around a mouthful of blood. It slides down her chin in a thick, glossy stream as she reaches for Maeve’s hand.
Maeve reaches behind her seat to take her daughter’s sweaty, feverish hand and sobs again. “No,” Maeve moans as she slumps in the seat, too weak with grief to move. She hoped they would be safe, that Nathan would recover and that no one would start to cough. It’s over now though. They’re all dead because Rebekah’s tiny lungs are full of sickness. It’s in the car with them now, big as life and small as a speck of dust.
Not knowing what else to do, Maeve pulls back onto the highway and listens to her daughter cough while her husband’s dead body sways beside her in the passenger seat. In the storage area behind the backseat, the family’s beloved guinea pig, Cola, lies dead in his cage. His mouth is ringed with drying, bloody foam.
Just outside of Dodge City, Maeve will begin to feel a tingling in her fingertips. With a tearing cry in her throat, she will press down on the accelerator and aim the station wagon at the rail of the bridge they’re approaching. Her son, Nathan Jr., will sleep through it all.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Dewitt leaves the tragic scene shaken, afraid and working alive with the plague two different ways. He goes back to the little hobo town he’s calling home until the next train runs and shares his awful story with his fellow hobos. There, the plague flies through the air with the greatest of ease, a disgusting little acrobat with an impishly demonic sense of mischief. It lovingly caresses the hand-painted sign that welcomes it to Silver Belle, the name given this place by the hobos who use it as a way-station and makes itself comfortable. It’s a lovely name for an impoverished shit hole that reeks of cheap liquor, human waste and desperation. The plague feels right at home, taking up company with the rats and humans alike. It even makes the acquaintance of a few squirrels, who then share its company with their fellow arboreal rodents.
Its visit is an unfortunately short one though and in less than a week’s time, it has chewed its way through the human population of Silver Belle. It is, however, spreading like a hot new trend among the rodent populations. Most of Silver Belle’s inhabitants lay dead on their pallets, covered in blood that has leaked from their noses, mouths and anuses. Their limbs are black as tar and stiff as iron wood where they haven’t rotted. One woman lays with blood caked so thickly around her mouth it looks like dirty cherry pie filling.
The kind scientists who reawakened the plague made it special in many ways; namely in that it’s more common bubonic form has become its most rare. How charming, the plague thinks as it flits from human, to flea, to human body lice thanks to the toxicity it creates when septicemic, then back again. It’s a charming little ping-pong match amongst vectors and the plague is having an absolute ball.
One poor soul by the name of Catfish LaCroix makes it out of Silver Belle. He heads for the nearby rail yard and finds an unlocked freight container hauling dry grains. He has a cousin that works in the yard and can always count on him to take care of him and his friends—when his friends were still alive.
Catfish hauls out of there, scared shitless, but confident he’s safe for now; he beat it. He doesn’t say a word to anyone about what happened back in Silver Belle. The lice living in his hair and his beard know all about it though. The plague rides the rails with a sense of wonder. Travel by train is yet another marvel of 20th century transportation. Never before has it had so much fun and ease of travel. Planes, train and automobiles shuttle it from one place to another almost as quick as a blink. It settles into the freight car and enjoys this ride as well. It sure does beat the old ways of getting around by horse and cart or by foot.
Eventually, too many people will be sick to ferry it to and fro like this. Or the scared humans will get a clue and ground flights, put a halt to trains and buses, they will try to block off roadways. For now though, the scared humans are too scared and every emergency plan they’ve ever had lies forgotten in dusty folders while they all scramble and climb over one another seeking a plague-free safe zone. The plague whistles merrily and wishes them luck with a glug and burble of ooze-filled buboes.
When the train makes its last stop outside of Topeka, the people who open the compartment door will learn about their new visitor. The plague will greet them with the stench of rotting flesh and the hungry, hungry fleas it lives in now. Dead eyes will watch as it hops from the floor of the car to the flesh of the men who’ve discovered it. The plague is so glad to be getting out of the freight car. It sure does hate being cooped up.
People from Dodge City to Wichita and on along the railroad line everywhere in between are coughing up blood or watching their fingers and toes turn black by the time John is halfway across Nebraska.
Meanwhile, across the ocean, the plague is making like a bacterial Godzilla and laying waste to Tokyo. It has the collective memory of billions of souls inside of its small cell walls and everyday, it adds something new. Birthdays and anniversaries, births and deaths, happiness and heartbreak, art and pop culture; it all becomes a part of the plague. It is the tiny, voiceless historian for the ages. If humanity knew half of what it knows, it would fall to its knees before the plague in awe as well as in fear.
~*~*~*~*~*~
After another stop to refuel just before he hits South Dakota, Sam finally breaks the silence after John’s gotten back in the car and handed out snacks. It starts as a whisper, “You ask ‘im, Dean.”
“Nope. You wanted to know, so you ask ‘im,” is Dean’s reply.
John listens to this back and forth for about six miles before he can’t take it anymore. They’ve also graduated to lightly jostling one another, which is always a precursor to escalation. So, with that in mind, he says, “Somebody damn well better ask me whatever it is or you two can find something else to talk about. Shit or get off the pot, boys.”
Sam huffs and screws his eyes closed for a second. Then he pops them open again with another huff and meets John’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “Dad, are we going to get sick and die, too?”
His mouth is stained bright red from the cherry Ring Pop John bought him at the gas station and it’s not a sight he likes to see at all. It’s just candy, John reminds himself. His traitorous imagination tries to make it something else though and mostly it succeeds.
“Not if I can help it,” John says. He tries on a smile for his two scared sons. “I swear to you both right now that I won’t let anything bad happen to you so long as it’s in my power to stop it.”
Dean nods almost immediately and smiles at him. He has nacho cheese Doritos stuck in his teeth, but it’s the greatest damned smile John has ever seen. Sam takes a minute longer, but finally nods, too. John’s no fool though, Sam doesn’t look nearly as sure as Dean does. He can only sigh and let it go. Sam’s always been the least trusting of the two, more into cold, hard facts than he is something like a person’s word. Sam would’ve probably grown up to be a scientist or a lawyer, but now college is out of the question and John has no idea what either one of his boys will grow up to be. But he’ll be damned if they won’t get the chance to grow up. That has become something like a prayer with him since Valentine’s Day.
“Told ya he wouldn’t let us get sick, didn’t I?” Dean whispers to Sam a mile or so later.
“Yeah,” Sam says back.
John glances at them in the rearview mirror again and sees that Dean is holding Sam’s hand. They’re both watching John like he alone can make this all go away and make them safe again. He hates to break it to them—so he won’t—but there isn’t a damned thing he can do other than what he’s already doing. It’s not enough, it never will be enough, but for now… For now…
That becomes the mantra to go with his prayer as he at long last turns onto the road that will take them to Bobby’s.
~*~*~*~*~*~
He met John Winchester and his boys four years ago and they took to each other like a couple of long lost pals. They’d met by way of a trade magazine—John was advertising from Kansas all the way up to North Dakota and Montana for a ’67 Impala bumper. Seems he had bent his all to hell one night while backing out of a bar parking lot. Bobby hadn’t known it then and wouldn’t for another two years after meeting him, but John had kissed the front end of the GMC while his two kids waited for him at home alone.
He’d later tell Bobby about coming in to find Dean standing on a stepstool to wash the supper dishes. Sam had been asleep on the couch, covered up with the quilt they kept draped across the back of it. “It was the saddest damn thing I’ve ever seen, Bobby,” John had told him with a deep frown as he’d poured another drink. “There I was with blood all over my face from kissing the steering wheel and there was Dean, washing dishes and apologizing for not waiting. He said Sam was hungry and they couldn’t wait anymore. I felt like such a shit.”
“And yet, here ya are in my kitchen gettin’ drunk,” Bobby had pointed out. “When’s the last time you were sober, John?”
That had sparked one hell of an argument right then and there and the next morning John had been gone with the boys. Bobby hadn’t heard a word from him since, but the kids sent him Christmas cards each year after that. He took that as some kind of good sign. All wasn’t well on the friendship front, but John didn’t hate his guts either, he reckoned, since he let his kids send him cards. Then a few days ago, John rang him up and Bobby thinks things are about square between them now. He still doesn’t fail to notice the smell of liquor on John’s breath. But hell, he ain’t gonna say anything. He’s about two and half sheets, headed for three, himself. It’s late and he ain’t got a goddamned thing to stay sober for, not lately especially.
He’s had their rooms ready since he got off the phone with John the other night and doesn’t waste any time showing them upstairs to their quarters. Sam falls right into bed with a huge yawn and after a couple of minutes spent bouncing on his—the squeaky springs are funny to him—Dean quiets down for bed, too. Satisfied they’re all tucked in and safe, John goes back downstairs with Bobby to the kitchen where they have a few more drinks.
John’s pouring his fifth or sixth drink since arriving when he stops and says, “I did quit you know.”
Bobby is reclining in a chair at the table, fingers idly tapping at a 17th century sketch of a plague doctor, but stops when John speaks. “Oh yeah?” he asks, eyebrows raised beneath the bill of his cap.
“Yeah,” John says a bit snappishly. He never has been a patient man, not even close, though God help him he does try. “Right after we left here that last time. What you said… about when I was last sober… that struck a hell of a nerve. Pissed me off fine and good, too, but it made me think. So, I quit. Except…”
He trails off and gestures at his whiskey glass before turning it up to gulp down half of it in one go. Bobby watches him drink and picks up his own glass to sip his whiskey.
“Fallin’ off the wagon’s a bitch,” Bobby says. “I wasn’t judgin’ you though, I ain’t nobody to judge. If I did judge you for anything, it wasn’t for the drinkin’, John, it was for leavin’ your kids alone like that.”
John snuffs softly and looks down at his hands folded on the tabletop in front of him. “Do you know that sometimes I could barely look at them? Especially Sam. I found Mary in his room and I… I don’t know. I had to get away from them because every time I looked at them… Bobby. Fuck. I’m a sonofabitch.”
“Naw, you ain’t,” Bobby says. Then he stops. “Well, I reckon you are a little bit, but you got your shit together.”
“And then lost it again about a week after the news reports started coming in,” John says with a grimace.
John raises his glass in a silent, mocking toast and then drains it. He busies himself pouring another and Bobby doesn’t say anything. Truth is, no, he doesn’t think John Winchester is the best daddy in the world, especially not back in the days when he was leaving two really young kids at home alone. John tries though. He picked himself up by his bootstraps and put his big boy pants on and he’s giving it all he’s got now. He may’ve fallen off the wagon, but he’s still looking after his sons the best he can in a world that’s going to hell without even the courtesy of a hand basket.
Bobby rises after another couple of minutes to get some ice for his whiskey, and when he walks by, he claps John on the shoulder. “Fall off the wagon, you did, but you’ve still got most of your shit together. That’s more than I can say for most folks.”
“Thanks,” John says with a soft laugh.
They drink in silence after that, listening to the wind curl around the eaves of the house in low, moaning whispers. About an hour into it, a scream from upstairs cuts through the quiet and scares both of them half to death. They’re up from their chairs and running before their hearts even slow down from the initial startlement.
John checks Dean’s room first and finds his bed empty, but a check of Sam’s room shows him both of the boys. Dean’s up in the bed with Sam, stroking his sweaty hair and rocking him gently. His eyes are big and scared in his pale face, the ginger dust of his freckles standing out brightly against the pallor. When he sees John, he thinks Dean gets even paler.
“It’s okay, Dad,” Dean says. John doesn’t know if the boy realizes it, but he’s working himself around so as to put himself between Sam and John and Bobby. “Sammy had a nightmare, that’s all. He’s not sick, I swear it.”
John slumps in the doorway and looks at the two of them, thinking how Dean’s always been nuts about his little brother, but after Mary died, he took on the role of mama bear as well as big brother. It’d do his heart good to see it if it sometimes didn’t break it just as bad. Part of the reason Dean’s so fiercely protective and hell bent on taking care of Sam is because of John. Because he wasn’t there to do it himself a lot of the time when it counted in the earlier years. Now Dean’s taken on the role and is reluctant to give it up—hell, he practically refuses without saying as much.
“You all right, Sammy?” John asks.
“Yeah,” Sam says. His voice sounds small. “I’m sorry. I dreamed… there were rats everywhere. Their mouths were all bloody like I heard on the news that night. They were making me sick over and over again.”
“Shit,” John says. He scrubs at his face then glances at Bobby.
Bobby looks back and shrugs. He doesn’t know what the hell to do either, he’s just damn sorry it’s happened. Being sorry can’t cure nightmares though, so he keeps quiet.
“Is there anything I can do?” John asks. He feels like a gawking jackass just standing there.
“No,” Dean answers for them both. He realizes how that sounds and smiles reassuringly at John and Bobby. “I know what to do, that’s all.” To Sam he says, “Where’s your book bag, Sam?”
“In the closet,” Sam snuffles out. He finally pulls away from Dean and swipes at his sweaty, tear-streaked face. “I’m sorry, Dad,” he says again as he looks down at his lap.
“It’s okay, son,” John tells him. He’s had plenty of nightmares in his day. Shit about Vietnam used to take up most of his sleeping hours, but nowadays the plague has a front row seat in his dream theater. “I understand. Nightmares are scary things and they’re nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Okay,” Sam says. He doesn’t sound too sure of it. He thinks he’s too old to be having titty baby bad dreams, after all.
“Here, pick a book,” Dean says as he drops the book bag on the side of the bed.
“Okay,” Sam says. He sounds a little perkier about it.
John jerks his head slightly to the side, signaling for Bobby to come on. “You boys holler if you need us, we’ll be right downstairs.”
“Yes, sir,” they answer in unison. Dean grins at him again, an oddly reassuring gesture for a twelve year old boy. Sam is distracted with rummaging through his collection of books, but given the dream he just had, John thinks that’s actually a good thing.
~*~*~*~*~*~
It’s a hell of a note to realize your twelve year old son is a better parent than you are. John is at once proud of Dean and terribly ashamed of himself for all the years he spent at the bottom of a bottle, missing out on the important little things. It’s no wonder he’s not as close to Sam, that Sam won’t let him get as close to him as he has Dean. It makes him sigh with exhaustion that has nothing to do with being tired and everything to do with yet again feeling like a complete shit. He tells himself that he’ll make up for it now. He’s been trying the last couple of years anyway. Drinking again or not, he can do this. He can bridge the gap that’s opened between him and Sam before it becomes a gulf.
He leaves his bedroom door open and sits up in bed after taking off his boots. One door down and across from his room a small rectangle of yellowish light spills out into the hall and John watches it while he sips from his bottle. He listens to Dean reading to Sam, his voice just loud enough to reach John’s ears. Still, he has to strain to catch some of the words, but he hears enough to know Dean is reading Peter Pan to Sam. It makes him smile to himself in the dark as Dean reads on around a big yawn.
“Just one more page, Dean,” Sam urges him quietly.
“Okay, but that’s all, got it? I’m falling asleep here,” Dean says.
“Okay,” Sam agrees. “But… Dean?”
“Yeah?”
“Will you stay with me tonight?”
“All right, you big baby,” Dean says.
“I am not a baby,” Sam says.
He’s not either, but he’s scared of the rats coming back into his dreams, too. Dean’s always been the best at keeping the nightmares away. He won’t tell Dean that though because Dean would probably get all cocky about it and that’s annoying. So, Sam, who has always been good at keeping secrets, holds that one close to his vest as well.
Dean sighs. “I know, Sam. I don’t think you’re a baby, not really. All right?”
“Yep,” Sam says.
“Okay then. Now shut up and lemme read this last page so we can sleep,” Dean says.
“Sure,” Sam says.
John takes another big slug of whiskey and stifles a yawn of his own. He’s grinning though, even if it is touched with a bit of regret. It should be him in there, he thinks, but damn if Dean isn’t good at this. He really is proud of the boy, he can’t deny that. He dozes off to the soft murmur of Dean’s voice and Sam’s soft encouragements, “Keep going, Dean.”
“All right, all right, I am, jeeze,” Dean grumbles. “I had to stop to breathe, dorkus.”
Sam nestles down in his blankets and grins at Dean, waiting for him to go on then. Dean reaches out and ruffles his hair. Sam sure is a little-little kid, he thinks. It’s a good thing he’s got Dean there to protect him. With that thought in mind, Dean starts reading again.
The last line of the book Dean reads to Sam that night is, Boy, why are you crying?
That line will follow Sam for the rest of his life. It will be there in the back of his mind in Dean’s softly murmuring voice every time he ever cries again. The timbre and tone of that voice will change as they grow older. It will grow up with Dean himself, but it will never be anyone else’s voice that asks Sam that. Sometimes he will have an answer for it and sometimes he won’t. That voice will always sound soft and soothing, curious, but concerned. It will only fail to calm Sam once in all the times he hears it.