Hector

[ultraviolet9a]

>> Hector

 

TITLE: Hector

AUTHOR: ultraviolet9a
SPOILER: IMTD and onwards, mildly though.

GENRE: Gen.
CHARACTERS: John Winchester (duh)

SUMMARY: “You never asked for a war.”

RATING: PG

FEEDBACK: Dude…duh. 
DISCLAIMER: Be mine be mine be mine. Nope, still not working. Disclaimer.

NOTE: I blame my heritage, my studies, my mother, theladyscribeand wolfpup (for the Heaven Forbid clip. Go watch it. Seriously.) .

 

You never asked for a war. All you wanted was to have your family, a wife, children, a house to call home. A life not too big not too little, just the kind of life that would make you get lost in the crowd and live happily ever after, unperturbed, just small stirs gently rocking the boat. Cuz you got your sons, you see. It’s not just about you anymore.

 

You never asked for it, not after all those battles, your whole life a soldier, duty, honour, death, life, not when you carved yourself a nice little slice of heaven in the arms of a woman you call wife. You still do. Death doesn’t make any fucking difference to how you feel about her, but it does make a difference about how you feel about God.

 

You never asked for the war. It came knocking at your door with yellow eyes and laughter that sizzled like the flames on that ceiling. You never asked for it, but surely you must have sinned before if your slice of heaven was taken from you.

 

Years later, in Jim’s house, you read Homer. You got a thing for war movies and war stories, though God knows you never invited them in your house, and you got a thing for heroes, and God knows Dean took that after you.

And you cry for Hector, cry for him because you see bits of yourself in the psyche of a Trojan that might and might have never existed.

 

Andromache always waiting for his return and the war brought to his gate and duty and what needs to be done over everything, everything. You cry when he bids his son goodbye, and you hate the Greeks at that moment, hate the Achilleian arrogance that dragged Hector behind a chariot. Cry for Andromache, mourn for little Astyanax over the walls.

 

Just family. All Hector ever wanted was his wife and his child and rage fills you up till you throw the tattered book across the room and hide your face in your palms and hate the Greeks so, so much.

 

And then not. Someone took Menelaus’ wife away and he reached the end of the world not to claim her back but the revenge on those who took her, and God knows you see yourself in that too, and for you Mary’s face didn’t launch just a thousand ships, Mary’s face made the earth orbit around its axis and you wonder if you’ve ever felt alive since she died.

 

Revenge is ahead of you, years and years to come and the walls are not falling, but you know even back then that no son of you will fall over any wall to his death. There will never be a Priam claiming your body, but there will be sons that go on and burn their father, not the unnatural way around, and something inside you, maybe the same thing that will have Sam dream dreams of fire, tells you how maybe your end won’t be so different than that.

 

You always wanted to be like Ulysses. You think on your feet, you learn fast, you survive. And all you really ever wanted was to get back home to an Ithaca, but your own Ithaca has been burnt to ashes and you can’t think of any hubris you’ve ever committed other than loving your family, so, so much.

 

There will be no Ithaca for you. You know it as certain as you know your own name.

 

There will be no peace waiting at the end of the journey, no journey that will be worth all this time, all those miles, all those moments you weren’t a father to your sons, but a drill sergeant.

 

You want to be Ulysses, with a happy ending at the end of the journey, the hero triumphant, but you know your fate will be that of Iliad, forged in the fire of battle, despite all your nomad life. You feel like driftwood in the ocean, dragging your sons with you, and all you can think of is the way Mary was pinned on the ceiling, all you can think of is that you want revenge, all you can think of is that there won’t be any peace left for you, all you can think of is that you’re Hector, over and over again. You know what will follow, but war is at your door and you’ll do what needs to be done, and will bite and hang on, and either cut through or choke on it.

 

You mourn for Hector, and you pick up the Iliad and cradle it as you weep for a Trojan that lost everything on the battle field and you swear on your wife’s grave that you won’t let that be the fate of you.

 

Know there will never be an Ithaca for you.

 

And then Dean storms in the room with Sam and Ithaca is closer than ever.

 

And you swear on your life that the fate of Astyanax will never be that of your boys, even if you have to swan dive yourself over the walls surrounding your city of Troy.

 

-The End.

 

SIDENOTE: Quick sketch. I always loved Hector a lot (mum’s influence I reckon) even if it meant rooting for the other team. All he ever wanted was to be with his family and his is the most tragic and noble and unfair death of all.

And ah…Ulysses…how can I not love him? Admire and smile at the spirit of human inventiveness that went against gods to heighten the worth in humanity. *shrug* Am such a sucker for this stuff.