Long as I can see some light (I'll be coming home)

[ultraviolet9a]

>> Long as I can see some light (I’ll be coming home)

 

TITLE: Long as I can see some light (I’ll be coming home)

AUTHOR: ultraviolet9a
SPOILER: none. It’s pre-season.

GENRE: Gen.

CHARACTERS: John Winchester, Dean and Sam (wee to teen), minor players

SUMMARY: It isn’t always a supernatural freak they come up against. Sometimes all it takes is a fire. (Or how I view the bond between Dean and John, Dean and Sam and Sam and John, structured around the four elements. I love the boys in family mode.)

RATING: PG-13
FEEDBACK: Dude…duh. 
DISCLAIMER: I could own them I reckon. No, really. Except, I don’t. At all. And make no profit either. (But Mr. Kripke, can you at least let me hug them?)

NOTE: Plot bunny was sitting around, and then I signed up for poorboyshuffle. One of the songs I asked for and got was Long as I can see the Light by CCR. And it all came together.

 

 

Guess I've got that old trav'lin' bone,
'cause this feeling won't leave me alone.
But I won't, won't be losing my way, no, no
'Long as I can see the light.

-Creedence Clearwater Revival-

 

 

 

Fire

 

The sirens are no longer wailing but still spill their luminous flare around them in a beat that years ago would have reminded John of a disco strobe light. Now it only makes something clench tight in his chest as he eases the Impala on the opposite pavement.

 

“Don’t leave the car, boys,” he says shutting the door of the Impala behind him.

 

He’s tired. Not from the hunt and not from the miles it took to get to Bobby’s, not from helping him out with a hunt and getting back here again, to the house rented for another three months he’ll never call home. It’s still there, chipped and frayed, looking every bit as tired as he’s feeling.

 

The house across the street doesn’t. It’s burnt. It was a pretty pale yellow house, with roses in the garden and the cliché white fence, almost proverbial, and it had looked like home. Not his home, no, his home burnt years ago, but a home of other people throwing roots and leaving their own life print in this house.

 

Now all that remains of the house are debris, blackened, charred. It doesn’t feel like home anymore, fire the uncanny servant stripping souls away.

 

It’s windy. John knows that an hour earlier sparks would have crackled in the air, and the wind would carry them, but now what it carries are small flakes of soot. Of what once was a family. Life. Home. And John’s thinking of the Westons across the street, thinking of a home in Kansas and how the Westons didn’t have children and how they loaded Sammy’s bag with sweets on Halloween and how sometimes Dean would buy grocery for them because Mrs Weston was suffering from severe arthritis in her hands crippling her, and Mr Weston was white haired with skin like dry paper, almost biblical, and how he and his wife were so similar like pebbles smoothed in the same river, and how he still cut roses and handed them to his wife sitting on the porch. John remembers smiling wistfully when he first saw that, remembers aching, thinking that that should have been him and Mary waiting on a similar porch.

 

Dean and Sammy would always greet and sometimes Mrs Weston –Call me, Agatha, dear, and I’ll call you John, much simpler that way, don’t you think?- would bring over some home-made cake or cookies when she had one of her good days, one of those days were having fingers didn’t feel like being in a torture chamber.

 

Sammy had started calling them grandma and grandpa and John hadn’t objected to that yet. He wanted normalcy for his boys, even if it meant Sammy broken-hearted when they had to move again, and Sammy had been in full glee when they came to watch him in his Christmas play and told him they’d never seen a prettier snowflake than him. And when Dennis asked Dean why that old lady was hugging him, Dean looked questioningly at John who only nodded and so Dean told his classmate she was his grandmother and Mrs Weston –Agatha for her dears- had sparkly eyes for the rest of the evening.

 

“I’m a friend of the family,” John says feeling the words catch in his mouth along with his breath, and the fireman shakes his head.

 

“I’m sorry, sir, no one survived.”

 

“Dad,” Dean says, and John realizes that his son is standing there with wide eyes. He’s just in that in between state, not kid, not man, both and nothing at the same time, light and shadow, and he realizes that if Dean disobeyed his order of staying in the car, it’s bad.

 

He lets his hand rest on his son’s nape, warm, heavy.

 

“Let’s get to our house, Dean, alright?”

 

His sons are smart.

 

They don’t talk about it at all, not even Sammy. He cries between his brother and his father but his sobs are silent and quickly turn to sniffles, too quickly for a child his age, and John knows Sam will be waking up from nightmares this night onwards, but they still don’t speak.

 

It’s amazing how many things are being told in that silence, and John remembers how easy it had been for Mary to fill it.

 

Dean quietly helps his father set the table, Sam milling about and John’s thinking of the fire and his boys and loss. He’s worried. His boys need to be hardened just enough to be tough, not prone to cracking.

 

No one finishes their take-out, except for Sam, who is young and processes loss differently, even if his chin is still wobbly. With a stomach full he falls asleep in front of the television on the couch.

 

The older Winchesters don’t move from the table. John thinks he can witness the food going stale as the clock ticks away.

 

“Dean,” he says after a while. “This…it just…life…”

 

Dean’s voice comes out so low and blade-like John almost jumps up.

 

“You think it was the demon?”

 

John shakes his head.

 

“They were an elderly couple. No. Not every fire has to do with the demon.”

 

“Coincidence then?”

 

“Yeah. Do you want to talk about it, Dean? I know they were fond of both of you. I know you were fond of them, too.”

 

“People die,” Dean simply says.

 

“Dean…”

 

He shrugs again.

 

“People die,” he says and starts moving the dishes in the sink.

 

John leans with his elbows on the table. Tries not to think how his children will never be children. Tries not to feel the taste of ash bitter and too familiar in his mouth choking him.

 

 

Earth

 

Later that night Dean is unable to sleep. Sammy’s breath is soft and even on the bed across, and Dean thinks of the fire that burnt the place up. Thinks of grandma Agatha with her cinnamon cookies and her hands and fingers all bent in the wrong angles. Dean’s still a kid but he’s his father’s son and so he watches for what matters. Mrs June, his teacher, doesn’t matter even if she’s damn pretty and always comes to class on time, because she doesn’t care. Sure, she’s decent, but not once has there been a curious look in her eyes about the stories Dean’s been telling whenever he shows up bruised, and she never touches him. The only time her eyes twinkled was when his father first showed up in school to pick him up cuz he had fever, and then Mrs June was all smiles and had actually caressed Dean’s hair. Grandma Agatha always passed her hands through Sammy’s and his hair, and Dean knows that she didn’t always have a good day and it must have hurt like hell, but she still did it. And that matters.

 

And grandpa Avery matters, the way he smoked sitting on the porch in his overalls looking at the roses and didn’t yell when Dean asked him if he could smoke too.

 

“If you want to smoke, Dean, I can’t stop you,” grandpa Avery said, brushing ash away from his beard. “Because it’s got to be your choice and hell, I was younger than you when I started smokin’ and a lot more stupid. But, Dean,” and his calloused, nicotine yellow hand was warm and papery against Dean’s neck, “if you’re asking about what would make an old man happy, it would be if you didn’t. But it’s your choice.”

 

And that mattered, too.

 

So Dean can’t sleep. He’s thinking of Agatha and Avery Weston and things that matter. Thinks of his mother and fire trailing after them like some god damn beast.

 

And he thinks of the house across the street, open and empty to the winds and the rains, all soot. Blackened. Thinks of it standing alone there, all alone, no one inside, mourning the loss of the people that lived in it and took care of it.

 

Sammy whimpers in his sleep, so Dean inches bit by bit out of the bed so that it won’t creak, goes to his brother and touches his hand gently and speaks his name telling him that everything is alright. Sam mumbles something and his sleep is again even and quiet. Dean pulls the blanket on his brother, strokes his hair and sits on the edge of his own bed. He can’t sleep.

 

He can’t stop thinking of the house across the street, wounded and defenceless against the world.

 

He knows he’s not allowed to, but he gets up quietly, picking up his shoes and a jumper and moves inch by inch in the house so that he won’t make a noise. Then he takes what he needs and sneaks out. He puts his shoes on outside the house, the jumper over his Batman pyjamas. It’s chilly.

 

Sky is clear. Stars overhead, crisp, so crisp, the trees swaying in the wind, solitary night sounds that aren’t a threat, not to his trained ears.

 

He looks at the house across the street, gaping like a black hole of lives past, and crosses the distance between them. Then he goes past the yellow Do not cross lines without caring.

 

He sprinkles salt around the house. He knows it won’t do anything, but he feels better for doing it. Holy water too.

 

He says a prayer in Latin. There are tears rolling down his face. He’s not aware of them.

 

He steps across, palms touching the walls barely standing. He doesn’t register the blackness in his hands, as he walks further and further in.

 

Corridor, salt, holy water, prayer, tears, staircase barely standing and all is black and charred and he wonders if that’s what their own home had looked like, wonders where his grandparents died in the house, wonders if his mom was blacked and charred like the wallpaper and his hand reaches out to the banister, once a polished chocolate brown, now barely standing and soot, soot and ash everywhere and his grip tightens and his vision blurs as he takes one more step the whole world comes up in dust and ash and he starts coughing, coughing, falling

 

“DEAN!”

 

Arms wrap around him pulling him out as he tries to find breath. He blinks tears away, stars so bright and fuzzy above him. They’re in the garden. The rumbling noise dies down. There are no roses here and the thought makes Dean’s tears fall heavier.

 

 “What the hell are you doing?” John is covered in soot too, soot and rumble.

 

Dean doesn’t say anything. John looks at the holy water and the salt and his soot-covered son.

 

“I’ll finish up,” he says, hands on his boy’s shoulders. “Dean, they are rested in peace. Accidents happen.”

 

“They loved us, dad,” Dean says. Tears have slowed down. “I had to do something. It seemed right.”

 

John looks at his son. In the neighbourhood some of the houses have started having lights on, and Dean knows that in his mind his dad’s already spinning the tale of how they heard a terrible noise and came to see what was going on, just like the rest of them.

 

“Go take a shower, Dean. Before Sam wakes up and wonders what the hell’s been going on. I swear that kid’s uncanny.”

 

 

Water

 

After the general consensus about the poor Westons who were lovely people, but how fortunate it was that the fire didn’t burn any other houses and the reassurance how it was just parts of the inner house that had fallen which was only natural, the few pyjamad neighbours to wake up and check out go back to sleep.

 

When John enters his house, he can hear the shower running. Good boy. John washes his own hands and face and neck in the sink, changes the soot covered T-shirt and pyjama bottoms he’s wearing and sits on the couch. It’s three thirty in the morning according to the clock over the television.

 

When he opens his eyes again it’s four. He must have dozed off. The shower’s still running. Something is off.

 

He gets up, gently knocks.

 

“Dean?” he whispers. He doesn’t want to wake up Sam. “Everything alright, son?”

 

There’s silence for so long that he thinks maybe he needs to speak up louder when there’s a muffled No from the other side of the door.

 

“Can I come in?” he says, but in fact he’s already opened the door, grateful that he never got round to fixing the lock.

 

The bathroom is a small room. There is no bathtub, just a shower, water flowing down to the tiles into the drain. Water is so scorching the place is fogged up and humid and as his clothes cling to him John has a momentary physical memory of a jungle light years away, when he was young and fought a different war. He shakes it off. It doesn’t matter. What matters is Dean, huddled down beneath the shower, almost red from scrubbing, shoulders shaking.

 

“Dean…”

 

“It won’t come off,” Dean says. “Soot won’t come off. It won’t come off, dad. I scrub and scrub and it won’t come off.”

 

And now there’s an edge of panic to his voice and Dean looks tiny and frail and clean so clean as if nakedness has stripped every other defence away.

 

“Soot won’t come off, dad,” and now his voice holds sobs.

 

He’s just a kid, John’s thinking, cursing himself, he’s my son, he’s just a kid. I’ve fucked up, dear god, I’ve been fucking up since Mary died god help me.

 

He sits with his son under the shower, feeling water soak his clothes, his hair, his skin, eases the sponge Dean is holding tight in his fist and starts rubbing him all over with it like when he was just a wee kid that couldn’t do it for himself. When the sponge has gone every inch of his boy’s body John uses his bare fingers feeling knots and muscles, flesh of his flesh, every touch whispering I’m sorry and I love you and I’m sorry, Dean, so sorry and when Dean asks if he’s clean now, John says yes.

 

Dean leans into him. John opens his arms and just hugs him, cradles his boy –he’s just a kid- and they stay, till Sam shows up in front of the opened door, sleep-laced eyes alert as he sees them and then Sam wordlessly huddles next to his brother.

 

They stay for a long time under the water, the three Winchesters, tight against each other. They stay till the water runs cold and they still won’t move, and under the water John lets his own tears fall free and secretly, afraid that he’s been covered in soot and dust ten years now, afraid he’s been blinded and lost his way, buried under heaps of ashes and flames, afraid that he dragged his boys with him, afraid that nothing will ever come off.

 

 

Air

 

John warms up milk, pours it into three mugs, adds whiskey to all three, a few drops for Sam, heavier for Dean, the heaviest for himself.

 

They’re warm and dry and strained, and John knows that long after the kids are asleep he’ll have whiskey without the milk. He feels like drowning, like air isn’t enough, but when he opens the window to breathe in the night what he sees is the house, almost watching him across the street like a reminder of a wound that can’t heal.

 

It hurts. Everything hurts so much, but he doesn’t move a muscle, because his boys can’t know how the world John patched up around him has started to collapse.

 

“Go to bed, boys.”

 

Some time later alcohol is flowing through him but it isn’t mellowing and breathing isn’t any easier.

 

He pushes the door carefully to his boys’ bedroom. For a moment his breath hitches because Sam’s bed is empty, but his eyes are quick to adjust.

 

Sam is huddled next to his brother. He’s holding Dean tight, really tight and as John moves inch by inch so as not to wake them (like Dean had done in reverse hours back) he can see the hair of Dean’s neck move as Sammy breathes against him, his brother’s warm body pressed against his back like a safety blanket, wrapped up in peaceful sleep.

 

John stands watching his sleeping sons for a long time. He stands till tears he doesn’t register dry on his stubble. Till the world outside starts to turn translucent and the sky pink in the light of dawn. Till the house across the street is just a house, not a home, not pressure that cracks and doesn’t harden.

 

He had a home once, made of timber and stone and family.

 

He still has what matters.

 

John watches his sons sleep and breathes.

 

 

-The End.

 

 

SIDENOTE: I got a fetish with the four elements. Here’s more proof on that. Also? Shower scene is, incredibly enough, not based on Casino Royale. I wrote it long before I watched the film, and that was the main aspect of the vicious plot bunny. But boy, when I saw that scene in Casino Royale? It generated even more fantasies than Daniel Craig coming out of the ocean. *sigh*