Dean Winchester (godsfave) wrote in madisonvalley, @ 2021-02-13 21:13:00 |
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Ever since his return from back home a couple of months ago, Dean had been staying with Lisa and Ben. Though he enjoyed playing house with Lisa, who was still, just a friend, he had to move on with his life, and he had two options. Attempt to settle down with Lisa, for a second time, or find a place for him and his mother to live. While Dean had yet to say anything to Castiel, he had already started to look at listings online. Buying a house felt incredibly surreal and he had no idea what he was doing. It was much easier to stick with Lisa, but he was trying not to make things any more complicated than they already were. Sam was ready to make a commitment while Dean was still trying to figure out what the hell to do with his life. He had been in Madison for months now and he was finally starting to accept that this was his new normal. It was mid-afternoon and the streets were fairly busy as he drove the car to work. As he turned down a side street, he saw a man that looked incredibly familiar. Dean sped up a little and passed the man to get a better look, and he nearly crashed the car. It was him. He pulled the car over into the first available spot he could find and hurried towards the other man. "Dad?" He called out from where he was, hoping that it wasn't another doppelganger, like the zombie place. Fuck, he hoped it wasn't that son of a bitch either. The past twenty-four hours had been nothing but a major mind fuck and, truthfully, John wasn't sure he wasn't losing his mind. The last actual thing that John remembered doing from his actual life before he'd been pulled here, was standing in the middle of a backroad, staring down at the still smoking Colt, a now all dead vampire at his feet. The relief he'd felt at the Colt working as he'd heard it did, was translated into a small smile as he heard footsteps of the rest of the vampires in that particular nest hurrying away. And like magic, or some insane fever dream, this place, a random street and buildings materialized around him. A long honk and a shout from a car that had barely missed him as they sped around alerted John that he needed to move, and he dodged a few other cars as he jogged over to a sidewalk that seconds before hadn't been there. Being welcomed into a place that he was forcibly dragged to had been strange, the explanation of the place had been no better and he was positive that he'd pissed a few people off, but still, he had been given keys to an apartment and a debit card and sent on his way to figure out how to live beyond that. What the fuck? Where were his boys? Where was he? The flip phone in his pocket didn't work. It wouldn't even turn on, and he couldn't remember the numbers he had stored in there to try to call anyone on the one he had been given. His first instinct had been to try and blast his way out of this place, as he had no weapons save the bowie knife in his boot and the colt in his waistband - that was a suicide mission. So for the moment... he had no choice but to accept this. The apartment wasn't so bad, it was a place to sleep. Not that he slept. And he had to eat. So it was mid-morning the next day that he ventured back out in the light of day, his first purchase being a cinnamon roll from a bakery he had passed and a bottle of orange juice that he took to go. Everything he passed seemed like something you'd find in Any Town, USA, and the people he passed by looked like average folks, not like people with nefarious plots on their minds. He wasn't sure how long he had been out, a few hours maybe, A rumbling car engine in the distance drew his attention first, he could tell when it was idle and when pressure had been applied to the gas, familiar sounds that he was sure that he would know anywhere. Dean and Sam were looking for him. They had to be. When the Impala finally came into sight, John had nearly lost his cool and flagged it down, but he stayed where he was and followed the car with his eyes, the near-crash - and Dean. John held his hand to the side as if to say 'what the hell?', about the situation in general. "Boy, am I relieved to see you." When his father responded positively, Dean let out a sigh of relief. "Dad, you-" it hadn't been that long ago since he last saw his father, and he looked exactly the same. "I-" it wasn't like the last time, though. Where he had wished for him and the world itself had changed. No. They were all in Madison. Together. With nothing holding them back this time. They wouldn't have to break up the family again and maybe they could finally be together. Of course, there was the whole issue of John being about thirty years older or so than Mary, but maybe she wouldn't care. "It's so good to see you again, Dad." Dean hurried towards him and hesitated only a moment before he threw his arms around the older man for a hug. He squeezed him tightly and inhaled deeply, comforted by his presence. "I can't believe you're here. I have- so much has happened, Dad. It's insane even by our standards." He held on for longer than he might have in the past and took a few steps back, a smile on his face as he looked at John. "Sammy and I have been here for a while, Sam longer than I have. It's only been a few months for me and Sam, I think he's been here almost two years now? He was here before and then he was pulled back and-" Mary, how was he supposed to explain that? "Are you okay? Have you been here long? Maybe we should go somewhere and sit down. I know an amazing burger place, if you're hungry." ...see you again... Something was wrong with Dean. John didn't sense anything bad from him, no, it wasn't that. But from when his son had spotted him on the sidewalk, to the minor sputters, to the embrace they were now sharing, it seemed like John being here was more of a surprise to Dean than it should have been. It was just a day or two difference, right? They were in the same place, they could fix this. Time or space travel wasn't exactly in their areas of expertise, but they could figure this out together. Any hope of that started to fade when Dean pulled away and continued to talk. He had been here a few months? Sam had been here two years? What the hell was going on? When Dean stopped talking, with these things whirring around in his head as he attempted to make some sense of them, John stepped forward and put his hands on Dean's shoulders. "I need to take a breath after all of that,” he said, trying to appear as calm as he was trying to sound. "But I'm okay. Me, you and Sammy are all here, and we're all okay, and that's the most important thing right now." After decades of hunting this demon down, John just knew that this, whatever this was, didn't feel like him at all. This was different. Freaky, absolutely, but this was a whole new basket of weird. "I trust your judgment on good burger places," he chuckled a little. "So I'm game. And starving. So, do we walk or do you wanna drive?" Dean completely understood that it was a lot for his father to handle. As far as Dean was aware, John had no idea that multiple universes and different realities existed. Hell, his father probably wasn’t even aware that angels existed. “It’s okay, Dad, I get it. It’s- well, it’s a tough pill to swallow.” That was putting it mildly. He didn’t want to throw everything at his father at once, but at the same time, he wanted to make sure he knew everything that was important. “It’s like two blocks over, so we can just walk.” He turned to head down the street and waited for John to start following before he picked up the pace. “So, did you already go through the welcome to Madison ritual, where they tell you what’s going on and give you a place to stay?” As they walked the short distance he couldn’t help but wonder how he was going to break the news about Mary. “You know this is...we’re in the year twenty twenty one, right?” His father had to be from before he died, which meant he was still back in the early two thousand’s. John turned behind Dean and was shortly walking beside him. Just a casual stroll down this average street in this average-looking town to get a burger with his son, as though his life wasn't uprooted and smashed to bits last night. There had to be some kind of angle. This was all too much, a brand new life (that he didn't want, he was so close) for nothing; no money, no deal, no - nothing. "That - yeah, they told me all that. Gave me an apartment, I guess whatever they do with the other people they essentially kidnap and bring here." How many others were there? Judging by the faces he saw he doubted that the Winchester trio were the only ones brought here. Dean had been here for months, Sammy for years, and it didn't look like Dean was trying to fight his way out. "Hold on," John stopped walking, almost speechless. Had the year been told to him last night and he had just had too much information being spit at him to realize it? "You're saying that this year is two thousand and twenty-one. That's about fifteen years from where I was -," Being in a different reality was one thing, he had heard that things like that might be possible but had chalked it up to nonsense talk. But the future? That was something he'd never thought about. Not once. Not ever. "That's what it is about you," he said, starting to walk again, his fists clenched at his sides. He needed to do something to keep calm and not fly into a million little pieces. "Your hair's longer on top. You sound a little different. So what else did I miss in the last decade and a half? We got the thing that killed mom by now, I hope?" Dean stopped walking and looked at his father, listening to what he had to say. “That is exactly what I’m saying, Dad. I just turned forty two, so yeah, I’m a bit older. Oh, and just so you know, there’s this punk ass kid who looks just like me. It’s really freaking weird, but he’s younger, so don’t let him try and tell you he’s another version of me.” He figured his father was smart enough to know the difference between him and an imposter, but he wanted to give him a heads up beforehand. “Yeah, we got the thing that killed mom. What’s the last thing you remember?” Obviously, he was from before the car crash or he would have been surprised to see Dean just walking around. He could tell that John was a little tense now and Dean felt himself stiffen in response, standing up straight and at attention. He stopped at the door of Hinkles and pulled it open to step inside, requesting a table for two. They were seated swiftly and Dean slid into the booth, his fingers tapping idly against the menu. “This place is-” how did he tell his father that he didn’t make it? “There’s just so much to tell you, I don’t even know where to start. Like I said, we killed Azazel, the yellow eyed demon. Shot him with the Colt.” They were some of the years of his life that he had filed away in the depths of his mind and their retrieval was causing him to feel things he wanted to avoid. Like the fact that his father didn’t make it because he sacrificed himself. Dean was starting to wonder if maybe they should have gone to the Tap Room instead, so they could have had something stronger than beer. John stood quietly for a few seconds trying to absorb everything Dean had just said to him before he noticed the opened door and Dean going inside the place they were going to eat. It was a lot. A lot, a lot, and he wondered what else was missing from his memory regarding those fifteen or so years that he didn’t remember. Had Dean finally gotten a real, normal life and a home, a place where he could be stable and not always on the road or living out of some cheap motel? Was the kid that Dean said looked like him, his kid? Was he a grandfather? Had Sam finished school? Was he some big lawyer now - or anything he wanted to be that didn’t involve being in the hunting life? He had regrets about the way he had raised them, big ones, and how he had made his obsession theirs, too. He had seen the worst, evil and demonic, everywhere he looked and in everything that was bad or went wrong, and he wanted his boys - everything he had in this world - to be safe. To know how to fight and to hunt and how to protect themselves and everything and everyone they loved. Still, he couldn’t help but smile a little when Dean told him they killed the demon with the yellow eyes. “Azazel,” he said, looking at the menu but not really seeing it yet. They had gotten the demon, and the key the entire time had been the gun in his pocket. “So the thing had a name.”John just nodded. It wasn’t in his life, not the one he had just come from, they had just gotten the Colt the night before, but it was sometime, and all that mattered was that they had stopped it. He finally looked up at Dean. “You don’t have to rush through and tell me everything, I don’t think I’m going anywhere,” he said, looking finally at what the menu offered, hoping they had some really strong alcohol in this place because he really needed a shot or three of something strong. “Last thing I did, what we were doing, was getting the Colt off of a nest. I had just given the gun a little test on the vamp that was holding Sammy to see if it really worked the way we thought it would.” Dean couldn’t even begin to imagine what must have been going on in his father’s head, but he was sure they weren’t happy thoughts. “People do disappear, but I don't think any of it is voluntary. I mean, if it were, I wouldn’t be here still.” Or, maybe he would be, given that Mary was there. He wondered how his father would respond after finding out that Mary had grown up in the life, and that it had always been in John’s future. Or, the fact that his wife was there, only she was about twenty two instead of the age she was when she died. The man sitting across from him had no idea about the car crash, how he had died and how John had traded his life for the Colt. It wasn’t something he wanted to explain to his father, but if the man asked about how he died, Dean would have no choice but to tell him. “I don’t know what to tell you without overwhelming you, but still keeping you informed of everything.” He admitted with a sigh and reached for his glass of water to take a long drink. Like, when was he supposed to mention Mary? The waitress approached and Dean ordered them two beers, sending her back off. “Things have been…” he closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, trying to prevent himself from breaking down completely. “It’s been hard, Dad. I’m not going to lie about that. Nothing has been easy, but then again, when is it ever for us Winchester’s?” Speaking of Winchester’s, there was Adam to mention as well. Was it really his place though? "I know you might not remember that far back, and a lot might have happened since then, but -." John paused, unsure of what he wanted to know. Killing yellow eyes and avenging Mary had been his main goal, the biggest driving force in his life, ever since he was thirty years old. After that, beyond that, John wasn't sure what he wanted to do. Retire? Keep on hunting? Take a break? Let them finally meet Adam? And after the demon was gone, all of Sam's - extra abilities would go away with it. They had to. Life wasn’t going to be perfect and full of sunshine and rainbows, but it had to get better. John wasn’t sure he could dream anymore, and being that free was a dream, but by the look on Dean's face, he wasn't sure that it was one that had come true. And he wasn't dumb, he knew there was a strong possibility that he didn't make it; he had sort of gotten the feeling from Dean that they hadn't seen each other in a long time, even before Dean had found himself here. "What did you and Sammy wind up doing after we got the demon? Start there." he asked, looking up and giving the waitress a small nod when she brought back their beers. "Settle down somewhere nice, or was life just more of the same, same shit different day?" "We're still at it, dad. But, we're so damn close to ending it all, and I-" almost instantly he thought of Cas and how the last thing he had seen before coming back was him being swallowed whole by The Empty. "You don't make it," Dean finally admitted and reached out to grab his beer, taking a long swig from the glass. His gaze dropped to the table and he just laughed, though it was far from funny. "Sorry, it's just been so damn long and I buried that shit." Dean paused only a moment before continuing on. "We got in a car crash, courtesy of our demon friend and I- it was bad, I died, actually." His voice fell soft and he reached up to wipe his hand over his face to clear the tears. "In order to save me, you made a deal with Azazel. The Colt, and your soul, and he took you shortly after I came to. I woke up, you sent Sammy out of the room and you told me about how I might-" his fingers tightened around the bottle and he took a deep breath. "Anyway, you make a comeback after the gates of Hell are opened and with your help, I manage to shoot and kill the son of a bitch and then that part of the saga is over." “What do you mean ‘ending it all’? Did everything get worse?” Was Azael just a stepping stone to bigger and badder things? Did monsters even get worse? All John knew to do was release the deep breath slowly that he felt like he had been drawing in ever since Dean had started talking. His first instinct told him to reach for the whiskey, but he had none, so the bottle of beer he did have would have to do. There had been part of him that knew he had died somewhere along the line, he had just had that thought, but actually hearing it - and hearing that he had made a demon deal - with the demon… at least the bastard had kept his word and saved Dean, as was clearly evidenced by Dean sitting across from him. And at least his own final act had been one that was borne out of love. Saving his son was worth twenty Colts and a hundred of his lives. There was no price. “I did get to come back to help you kill him, so that’s a silver lining,” John said, his eyes glossy from what he had just heard and from watching Dean struggle with his emotions to get that part of the story out. There was so much of that that he could take apart, so many follow up questions he had, but he could be patient if he needed to be. “You don’t have to dredge it back up, it can stay buried if you want it to, and you can tell me more when you’re ready to. But I need to ask - I’m guessing that what I told you, that I sent Sam away for, it was… about him. After the demon was gone, that got fixed too, didn’t it?” “Dad, you have no idea how bad it’s been, and none of it has been your fault, so don’t blame yourself for any of it. I’m pretty sure it would have all happened even if you were around. I mean, you’re tough and all, but-” he didn’t want his father thinking that they had suffered because he wasn’t around. Dean didn’t blame him for any of it, and he was happy to have him back. Hopefully, he’d be able to stick around for longer than a few hours, like the last time. “It was so much bigger than Azazel, he was just a small part of it.” The waitress returned and Dean went ahead and ordered them two specials, along with another round of beers. Maybe after eating they would go to the White Wyrm or someplace that had whiskey. “Once Azazel was gone though, everything with Sam and the visions and whatnot seemed to disappear. But, there are a few important things that you need to know that can’t really wait.” He hesitated for a moment, his gaze on the table while he sorted his thoughts out. “We know about Adam, and he’s here too. But, most importantly…” he shifted in the booth and reached into his pocket to retrieve his cell phone, opening up the gallery to pull up a picture of him and Mary together from Christmas. “Mom’s here, but she’s only about twenty two years old.” Dean handed him the phone so he could see the picture for himself. John didn’t comment. He knew if he’d been around that he might have been able to do something. Maybe stop the boys from going further into this war that he had been the one to start. It was him, after all. Dean could say and believe that he wasn’t to blame for the road they were on and had stayed on, but it was his burning need for revenge that had started it. If he had just let Mary go like so many other men had to do with their wives. But everything with Sam had ended when Azazel died, Sam was safe, at least in that regard. Dean lived and Sam was safe, and Azazel was dead - and he had seen it all happen. Things turned out alright, at least for a minute. When he heard Adam’s name from Dean’s lips, he shouldn’t have been as surprised as he felt. It had been… what, a decade and a half since last night had happened, Sam and Dean probably knew all his secrets by now. He was about to ask how they had found Adam, and ask how he was - God, seeing him, Sam and Dean, all three together, he was sure that was more than he could take. He hadn’t been expecting anything good to come from any of this, but there it was. Dean was still talking though, John was looking at him and his son’s lips were moving, but all of John’s thought processes were set in slow motion. “Did you say,” he trailed off as he took the offered phone, for a split second thinking that Dean was joking, or John had misunderstood. At first he couldn’t take his eyes off of the figures on the phone. His hand loosely covered his mouth to keep his gasp or his sob or whatever sound he was going to make, in, but he could feel a single tear slip from his eye and roll down his cheek to splash on the back of his hand. “Mary,” he said, voice cracking and muffled by his hand. She was so young, so beautiful, so alive. “She looks like - everything I ever dreamed of.” After a minute, he finally glanced up at Dean. Was she remarried? Seeing someone else? “Is there a reason why you didn’t take me to see her already?” “I-” Dean cleared his throat and looked back at John with a slightly stunned expression. “Well, Dad, I’m not really sure where she is right now.” Which was only a small part of the reason why, since he could have easily called or sent her a message. “But, you do realize there’s…” how the hell old was his father anyway? “She’s twenty two, and you’re, well-” he motioned at his father, as if the waving of his hands made sense. He sat there trying to figure out the math in his head, subtracting from the important dates that he could remember. “Seventy five? No, that can’t be right. Fifty five, sixty...forty five, maybe?” If he’d had a pen and paper he might have been able to come up with the right number, but there was too much swimming around in his head for him to get it straight. “I just thought that maybe you would-” of course, he wanted to see his wife and not sit there and shoot the shit with him. Maybe after, sure. “I wanted to fill you in on everything, or at least most of the things? No, some of the things, because there is just so much more. I haven’t even-” Dean stopped himself as he realized he was getting a little carried away. “Right, Mom. I can give her a call and ask her where she is? We can take the food to go and go home and wait for her? I know where she works, the Electric Lady, she might be there.” Without a word, John just sat there and let Dean continue to talk, almost amused by his stunned expression as he was clearly trying to figure out his age, before John thought it was about time to help him out. "Right now, 52. Here I'd be about 67. And so would your mom." He didn't see what it would matter. He'd thought Dean, of all people, would have been excited to actually get his parents together. The family was all-important to him, it was a great deal of what he talked about, and now John's age was the big thing getting in the way of him taking him to and seeing his wife. Did Dean think he would want something else as soon as he learned Mary was there? "What does a little thing like age got to do with any of it? She's my wife. Don't you think I was surprised to see her so young, Dean? Do you think I care?" Mary was Mary, to him. Maybe she wouldn't feel the same way, but after everything - he thought he deserved to at least hear it from her that she wasn't interested in him as an older man. "Don't bother calling her, I'll go to where she works." He picked up his bottle and drained it and reached around into his back pocket for his wallet and threw down a few twenties, he didn't know if they took cash here or if cash was any good anymore here, and slid out of the booth. Family was everything to Dean, and more than anything he wanted his to be whole again. If his parents could be together, he was all for it. “I don’t know, I just thought-” he sputtered, feeling like a fool now. When his father dropped the cash on the table he finished off his beer and stood as well, walking after him. “I’ll drop you off there?” It wasn’t that far away, but it was easier just to drive him in the car. Briefly, he wondered what his father would think of the Electric Lady. “She’ll definitely be surprised to see you.” Could his family really be together again? It seemed impossible, yet here they were, all together again. It was too good to be true and he didn’t want to get his hopes up, but it was hard not to feel a little excited. |