Dean Winchester (_jerk) wrote in family_business, @ 2010-02-12 23:20:00 |
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Current mood: | angst! |
Current music: | Everywhere I go - Lissie |
Tell me how's the way to be. Tell me how's the way to go. Tell me all that I should know
John yelling is terrifying, no doubt about it – it must be something in the Winchester blood which dials arguments up to 11 – but that's easy to deal with at least. It's when he goes quiet that you know you're really screwed, and he goes quiet once they're outside in the Roadhouse carpark, turns his back on Dean (who is trailing dutifully in his father's wake, as ever) and leans wearily on the Impala. And Dean, who sucks at awkward silences, scuffs at the dust as John counts to ten, looking far younger than he is with his shoulders rounded self-consciously like he's trying to make himself smaller, his eyes big and round as they steal nervous glances through his eyelashes at the mountain of impenetrability he calls father.
Eight... Nine... Ten and John's fist bounces off the roof of the car, and Dean squeezes his eyes shut and takes a deep breath as the reverberations die down, lifts his head and sets his jaw as John turns back to face him because much as the floor seems really interesting he'd rather keep this as short as possible and look at me when I'm talking to you is a whole extra eight words.
“Goddamn it, Dean” it starts, same record different tune, and Dean grits his teeth, fixes his eyes somewhere beyond John, swallows hard. “You had orders.”
“Yes, sir.” His tongue is sandpaper, his mouth full of sawdust, his words gravel. Dad doesn't sound angry, not just angry at least, and that's serving to make his blood run cold; if he didn't know better, didn't know John Winchester was a fearless superhero, he'd swear he sounds scared underneath it all.
“So what, you figured you'd just ignore them?”
“No, it...” He pauses, swallows again. “No. But Ash found a lead and...” - John goes to say something, probably a scathing I see, but Dean's not ready to stop talking - “And we couldn't get through to you.” The adjustment is subtle, the angle of his jaw minutely more defiant, but John catches it the same way he catches the shift in tone – Dean is a bundle of exposed raw nerves at the best of times, after all - the unspoken accusation; where were you? We needed you and you weren't there. You're supposed to protect us from all this things Dean wants to say and doesn't want to but feels anyway mixing in with baggage that's all John in the refrain that's haunted him for the last 16 years. “And I thought -”
“You didn't think, that's the point.”
Dean knows what he wants to answer – what the hell was I supposed to do? - and stopping himself saying as much sends a chill racing down his back like someone's walking over his grave and has his hands balling into fists, his nails digging into the palms of his hands and leaving pink crescent-moons. Dad knows best, clearly (though how can he when 'best' means ignoring the fact that Sam's in trouble, leaving him at the mercy of a lunatic, waiting and knowing he could be doing something to help?) and Dean's young and inexperienced and headstrong and the million other reasons Dad trots out when Dean asks when he'll be ready to hunt properly. Clearly there's something he doesn't understand yet, some universal secret which makes taking long way around the obvious rather than stupid choice -
- it's a lesson John doesn't want to pass on – the way that the good thing, and the right thing, isn't always the thing you get to do because you have to go on, you have to protect what's yours – because learning it will kill something inside his son, his brilliant boy who's so fired up with this idealistic fervour, who's decided he's destined to save everyone from the monsters, and so it's the one he tells himself he'll leave 'til last -
- and facing that down has them both backing off because there's nowhere to go except a fight proper and while they'll spit and snarl like wildcats they're not ready for that, with Dean directing his gaze back to the floor just as John turns back to face the car, John running a hand over his face with a long sigh as Dean goes back to shuffling awkwardly. Cue another long silence.
“I don't get it.” is just about the worse thing Dean could come out with, but it's what he says...
… and John's “Dean...” is a warning and an offer all in one, a chance to retract the statement before it takes on a life of its own and becomes something neither of them really have the energy to fight right now.
“No, Dad.” - it's a knife in John's heart, the determination there; at any other time he'd be so damned proud. Right now, though, he's worn thin and the last thing he needs is a boy who's two-thirds Mary with her eyes and her freckles, her hurt and disappointment looking back at him from inside his skin, telling him exactly how badly he's failed as a father - “I don't. Maybe, I dunno, I'm too friggin' thick to hunt or something. I don't get how one minute it's all about thinking for yourself and following your instincts and now you're telling me I should've ignored all that and let Gordon have S-”
“I'm not saying that”
“That's what it sounds like from here.” Dean tags on an apologetic “Sir”, buries his hands in his pockets, but it's out there now pushing the silence beyond awkward and into heavy, dark clouds laden with the first rain of storm season.
When John finally speaks his next “Dean” is warmer, and somehow sadder – it's the first time Dean can remember his Dad sounding old, and that in itself is scary, and when he turns to face him he looks old and Dean's desperate to blurt out a frantic apology, to protest no, this isn't how you're supposed to be but it just comes out as fidgeting, nervous frenetic energy with nowhere productive to go, followed by a stunned stillness, like a jackrabbit caught in the headlights of an advancing truck, as he freezes when John lays a hand on his shoulder, warm and heavy. “You did the right thing”And John has to catch Dean's double-take because he's quick to add “You did”, to give a brief squeeze which turns into a cuff as they remember the script and the unwritten rules about being tough.
Dean's still confused, though (and who can blame him?). John sighs, heads over to and pops Truckzilla's trunk, pulls out two bottles from somewhere left of the silver shavings and north of the slot the 1911 used to occupy before Dean decided it was his favourite gun. He counts himself lucky that he never had to have any of 'the talks' with his boys – Dean educated himself, and John's glad he doesn't know the specifics when it comes to how but he suspects it was a mix of television and magazines and pestering older boys, and passed on the 'safe' version to Sam – and maybe this is payback, because while 'normal' parents can complain about installing a moral compass in their little darlings the whole 'good and evil' thing is somewhat less literal where they're coming from. He waves Dean over, hands him one of the bottles; the beer's warm, of course, and cheap, and tastes like stale water, but it's a beer with Dad however weird the circumstances and Dean does his best to look like he's enjoying it as they both pull up pews leaning back on the bonnet of the Impala.
“It's just...” - John sighs, and takes a long draught from the bottle, grimaces slightly at the bitter after-taste, runs his thumb along the edge of the label as he tries to find the right words to start explaining the Big Truth. Dean might look like a man now (has done since he was about 15, who's John kidding?) but his shoulders are still too narrow for the mantle fate or destiny or whatever has decided belongs to their bloodline, his back not strong enough for the load - “Look. Sometimes 'the right thing' isn't the best thing, right?” - It's not really a question, and John keeps talking so Dean won't have a chance to cut in - “I know, that's not what Pastor Jim would'a told you boys. Hell, it's not what I raised you to believe in. But it's a fact. There's 'right' and there's what does the least harm, and someday you're going to have to face up to that and not just run in guns blazing, common sense be damned.”
And Dean still doesn't get it. John loves the boy but he can be dense sometimes, especially when it comes to things being any more complicated than neat black-and-white divisions. Kid probably half expects demons to turn up twirling ridiculous moustaches and laughing evilly while they strap women to railway tracks or something.
(Which is what you get, probably, when you let cartoons and grainy old horror films serve as more education than you'll ever give a child yourself, but that's a guilt trip best saved for another time – preferably when he's on the road alone with only dark stretches of tarmac to judge him).
But yeah, Dean doesn't get it, and his furrowed-brow and half-pout is as close to defiance as is ever thrown at John, and he's never more like his mother than when he's being stubborn. “So when you said 'look after Sammy' you meant 'as long as there's no actual danger'?”
“Jesus Christ, Dean, have you even been listening to -” Sure, now there's yelling. But at least the yelling's easy to deal with.
“Yeah, I have. And it doesn't make any sense”
“You're just going to have to accept that yeah, it does. You just don't unders-”
“-understand yet? Damn right I don't, Dad”
“You're -”
“ - not old enough? Is that it? 'Cos if getting old means being okay with Sam d- with something happening to Sammy then I sure as hell hope I ...”
“Would you just shut up and listen? How the hell you expect to understand squat when you keep shouting your mouth off...” That does the job, skirts close enough to a direct order to stall Dean pretty damn efficiently, to have him stop talking and skirt closer to cowering. John pinches the brow of his nose, takes a deep breath. “Look. God gave you a brain for a reason. Just... use it once in a while, okay? You rushed in today, could've got yourself killed – Ash, Ellen. Jo too. I trained you better than that, damn it.”
“So that's what this is about, Sir?”
“... yeah. That's what this is about.”
“So, Sam...”
“Just forget everything else, okay?” John's clipped tone is another sort of warning, and Dean's wise enough to pick up on it and used to settling for not asking awkward questions or pushing matters once they've run out of steam and come to a sort of resolution. “All I'm saying it, you have to think once in a while. Our line of work, people end up depending on you. You rush in without thinking, without seeing the bigger picture, and they die. You get it?”
“Yes, Sir. Sorry. I'll... I'll do better next time.”
“Good. You do that.”
They finish the beers in silence, out of obligation more than anything; once Dean's down to the last bitter inch or so, holding the bottle up to the light to see how much more of this he's expected to choke back, John nods to him - “Go get your brother” - and he doesn't need telling twice.
And John's left leaning on the Impala's bonnet in the late afternoon sun wondering whether he said too much, or not enough, whether Dean's ever going to be ready for even a little bit of what the world has planned for him or whether a mix of the decisions John made and the ones that got made for him have wrecked him for that. If this were John's world then bull-headed determination and that sort of ridiculous no-sacrifices love would be enough, but he's not an idiot and doesn't fancy giving whatever's out there another excuse to put him back in his place so he keeps that to himself, buries it down underneath the guilt and the whiskey in the pit of his stomach and lets the road stretch out infront of him.