Raised Like Warriors

"Dad, come on. Come on."

The flashlight cuts through the dark of the Minnesota woods like a knife, tree roots and underbrush and low-hanging branches stark in its glare, but Dean can't see much beyond it except up high where the tops of trees are silhouetted against clouds, gray with moonlight and the oncoming snow.

He remembers hearing someone say once that to drive across the country you don't have to see further than what's in your headlights. He doesn't know why he thinks of it now, with John leaning heavy on him and the field dressing soaked with blood. John's already stumbling, bad enough that once or twice Dean had thought they were both going to go down. They're not going to make it another mile, much less across the country.

There's an edge of panic creeping into Dean's gut. If he's got them off course by even a little bit they'll never see it in the dark, and there's a voice screaming in the back of his head that it'd take a miracle and no way are the Winchesters going to get a miracle. If they were blessed enough for miracles then Mom wouldn't be dead and Sam'd have a real home right now instead of staying with Pastor Jim and wondering why his brother and dad are four days late coming back for him, maybe wondering if they've left him for good this time, and maybe Pastor Jim's wondering too, maybe he's already called social services to come get Sammy and take him away to a normal family where he can have a normal life but what's "normal" when you don't have your family?

And if Dad dies, fuck knows what's next. Fourteen years old, there's no way they'd let him just keep Sammy.

It can't happen. Dean won't let it. He's not going to lose Sam and Dad both, he's not. "Come on," he says, breath huffing out of him and crystallizing in the cold air. "Sammy's waiting for us. Come on."

And the snow's starting to drift down from above the trees, soft hiss as it settles onto the frozen ground.

Another hundred feet, and then another, Dean's counting footsteps to muffle that panicked voice, and then John stops. "Dean. There."

And there it is, the clearing with the little cabin, the dead guy's cabin but the ghost is gone now, bones salted and burned to ash, and the road's just a mile farther through the woods with the Impala and everything it carries, and the panic flares bright and then it's just adrenaline, get Dad indoors, they stumble up the broken steps and inside. Dean helps him down to the floor, leaning up against the wall next to an old wood stove, and he un-slings the shotguns and struggles out of his coat, wraps it around his dad's shoulders.

He shines the flashlight around the room and it picks out an old wooden table and chair standing by the other wall but not much else, just dirt and cobwebs. He spends half a heartbeat looking at that chair and thinking about it, but with the stove so old and not used in who knows how long, he can't just start a fire in it and leave John here hoping it's safe.

He crouches in front of John and touches his arm. John opens his eyes. "I'm going for the first aid kit," Dean says. "I'll be back quick as I can."

John nods, digs the keys out and hands them to him. "You got your pistol?"

"Shit." Dean digs in his coat and grabs it out, shoves it into his pocket, and then he's buttoning his flannel shirt and on his feet, out the door, jumps the steps and starts through the woods at a run.

By the time he gets back with the blanket and the lantern, the first aid kit clutched against his chest and his lungs burning with cold, John's almost unconscious, slumped right where Dean left him. Dean puts everything down on the table, then grabs the chair and smashes it to kindling.

There's a little can of lighter fluid in his coat pocket that they hadn't needed for the salt-and-burn, and with that and the chair and a couple of matches he gets a fire going in the stove, praying all the time that the flue is clear. It's barely warmer in here than it is in the snow, though, and if it's a choice between dying from cold or risking smoking themselves out, Dean'll take the risk.

While the fire heats up, Dean drags the table closer and drapes it with the blanket, then rouses John.

"Come on, Dad," he says, sliding John's arm over his shoulder and being careful of the wound. John grits his teeth and together they get him to his feet, the few steps over to the table. "Come on, I - yeah, there," he says, John perching on the edge to get the coats off, and then Dean's helping him lie down. John makes a sound that twists a knot in Dean's heart, and he bites the inside of his cheek and ignores it. "Hurts like fuck, I know," he mutters, "but I can do it better with you up here than hunkering on the floor."

"Watch your language, Dean," John grits, wincing, but then he's laying back and Dean grabs one of the coats and pushes it under John's head for a pillow. He hangs the lantern on one of a pair of hooks that must've been meant for a gun when they were put there, then gets the first aid kit.

It takes longer than he'd figured it would, careful stitches like a gruesome needlepoint trailing up John's side, and when he's finished he's exhausted, John half-unconscious, but at least the fire's still going and the room's not filling up with smoke. His hands are starting to shake as he puts clean bandages over the wound, and when he's done he pulls the sides of the blanket up to cover John, drapes John's coat over him. He gets his pistol from the floor where he'd left it while he worked and shoves it into the back of his jeans under the shirt, then gets his cut-down shotgun out of its sling and settles down to lean against the wall facing the door, the gun across his knees.

He doesn't remember closing his eyes, and he never even hears the careful scuff of boots on the steps. By the time he's awake, he's already staring down the barrel of a gun and it's way too late to do anything about it.

*

If they live through this, John's gonna rip him a new one, and Dean just hopes he doesn't do it in front of Sam. The way Sam lurks around him whenever Dad bawls him out makes Dean itch - like he's waiting for him to burst into tears or something. It's almost worse than the shredding itself.

He'd take a month of them, though, if it means they get back to Sam at all.

"Now look," John's saying, the soft tones he uses with Crazy Al when Al's on a bender. "We don't want to cause you any trouble. We thought the place was abandoned, and my boy just needed to patch me up a little, that's all."

The guy at the other end of the pistol-grip Mossberg 12-gauge nods at John's bandage, white strips from his belly to up under his arm. "Don't look like a little to me," he says. "What did that?"

A psycho ghost with a twenty inch Arkansas Toothpick, Dean thinks, but he doesn't say anything, sitting next to John on the blood-spattered table. Their lantern's been moved to the other side of the room and joined by two more, three puddles of light trying to push the dark back and not getting very far. John's lit up by one of them, but beside him Dean's in shadow.

"Not sure," John answers, and Dean can tell he's letting himself sound even worse off than he is, and he's got his arm in front of Dean like Dean's a little kid, the whole thing designed to make them look like just a couple of hunters, no threat, nothing to be nervous about, nothing to make that trigger finger tighten. "I guess we startled it. Car broke down a ways back," he explains, "and I didn't want my boy walking in the road, so we were off to the side, and something come up outta the woods and took a swipe at me. Henry here, he shot at it and it run off."

"And what're you doing with a first aid kit your boy can stitch you up with if your car's just broke down?" the guy asks. "And a couple of shotguns?" He gestures with his own towards Dean's gun and John's pump action Remington, now trained on them by a couple of guys who look like they've spent one too many nights sleeping rough. One of them's got a cold, Dean can tell from the sound of his breathing, a little rattle in his chest, his cheeks flushed. The other one looks like he's on something, eyes too bright and he's fidgeting, sweating even though the fire's died down a lot and the temperature's dropping fast.

"We were hunting," John says. "Up near Coot Bluff. Just coming back." He offers a half-grin. "Guess the pheasants won this time, but we didn't wanna just leave the guns in the car. And a man'd have to be pretty dim to get out in these woods without a good first aid kit."

He tilts his head, that crooked smile all soft and harmless. "We're not looking for trouble, mister," he says again. "Didn't intend to trespass. I can pay you for your property we damaged, and if you could just see your way clear to let us walk on out, we won't be looking back."

"Well, it's not that easy, is it," the guy answers. "You've kinda stumbled onto something here, a little piece of family business we'd like to keep private, but here you are. You and your boy."

"We don't want to interfere," John says, and Dean can feel the twitch of his dad's fingers against his own hip. The men have their shotguns, but they haven't bothered searching John or Dean. Amateurs or fuckwits, and Dean's grateful for it. John must look too beat up for them to think he's a threat, shirtless and hurt and wrapped in a blanket, and Dean, well, Dean looks like a fourteen year old kid, wet behind the ears and scared shitless.

But the .45 is still stuck in the waist of his jeans, nestled warm and heavy against his back and hidden by the tail of his flannel shirt. John's got a subcompact .357 in his boot, but they're up against three and Dean doesn't really know how his dad's doing, and he's not a bit sure he could take them all out by himself before one of those guns goes off even if he could reach his weapon without being spotted.

"Family's everything," John murmurs, meeting the guy's eyes, "and that's a fact. Man'll do anything for his family, anything at all. I respect that."

Whatever the guy sees in John's gaze, it doesn't throw him. He smiles. "I'm glad you understand," he says, and he jerks his chin at the guy hopped on whatever it is. "Bring 'em in."

Turning back to John, he goes on, "You've just made something a lot easier for me. I've got a couple of boys myself, y'see," he says, and starts looking over the shotgun like he's examining it for ticks. Dean can hear the other one breathing, the rattle every time he inhales; neither of them are paying Dean much mind, and he eases his hand back. "Well, one of 'em's my cousin's boy, actually," the guy says. "Been taking care of him since his daddy died, trying to teach him right from wrong, teach him to look after his family. Like any man would," he says, looking at John again.

The door opens and the guy comes back in, ushering a couple of kids in front of him not much older than Sam. All three men are watching the kids now, and Dean sneaks his hand up under his shirt, unnoticed.

"Max, Leo," the guy says. "I want you to meet Jeb Ryan and his boy Henry. See, Leo here," the guy goes on, turning back to John. "Leo's my cousin's boy, and Leo's a three-time loser." Leo's hands are knotted into fists in front of him and his eyes are cutting from the guy with the 12-gauge to the other kid, back and forth, back and forth. "Three times I've asked him to do a man's job and three times he's been a coward about it, snivelling and whining how he doesn't want to. Doesn't wanna shoot some bastard's come around causing trouble for us."

Leo doesn't say anything, white as a ghost.

"One of 'em come after me with a Bowie knife long as my arm. One of my own," he says, "practically like family himself, and he come at me with a knife wanna split me open and gut me right here." He fixes Dean with a hard stare. "Someone come after your old man with a knife like that, you'd wanna do something about it, wouldn't you?"

Wasn't a Bowie knife, Dean thinks. Too goddamned long, just looks the same.

"Yessir," he says, meeting the guy's eyes steadily. "Yessir, I would." He wonders what this guy did to piss the dead man off.

"Well this one don't give a damn." The guy cuffs Leo on the back of the head and Leo winces, doesn't make a sound. "Had to do the job myself." He shakes his head, and Dean thinks the ghost got all the wrong people.

"And Max," the guy goes on, "well, Max has reached that age where he's gotta learn how the world is. Gotta learn that obedience to your family, that's everything. That's all that matters."

Max is looking from his dad to Leo to John, and he's shifting from one foot to the other like he's gotta piss. "Dad," he whispers, and his dad snaps at him, "Shut your goddamned mouth, boy."

John's fingers are curling against Dean's hip, and he can feel his dad's tension, tight as a wire. The air should be singing with it, but no one notices except Dean.

And maybe Max.

"Leo," the guy says, and Leo looks up.

"Yessir?" he says, and his voice is thready.

The guy strokes his hand over Leo's hair. "I was gonna have Max shoot you in the head," he says, calmly, and Leo makes a sound like a hurt animal, a whining whimper that makes the hair on Dean's neck prickle. "Get rid of a pissant little coward and get my boy blooded at the same time."

Leo's shaking, wide-eyed, and Dean can see where this is going, and it's no place good. He's got his fingers on the butt of the pistol now, though, and he's feeling the room come into focus, bright and sharp as the edge of a knife.

"But now we come here and find these two sleeping beauties trespassing on our property," the guy goes on, turning back to John. "And I'm thinking maybe it's the Lord's way of saying give Leo another chance."

He smiles, and Dean's stomach lurches sickly, his heart pounding. Dad, he thinks, Dad, oh goddamn it, Sammy. Sammy.

"Max, you got your birthday present?" the guy asks.

Max nods, as white as his cousin.

"Well get it out, boy," his dad snaps.

With shaking hands, Max pulls a pearl-handled revolver from his pocket. It gleams in the light from the lanterns.

"Now Leo," the guy says, and he hands Leo the shotgun. Leo takes it like it's a dead thing. "You're gonna shoot these two trespassers, 'cause they could bring the law down on us and take away the only family you'll ever have. You're gonna shoot the old man first, and then his kid, because if you don't," he says, gesturing Max to come forward, "then Max here, he's gonna shoot you." He looks at Max. "Aren't you, son?"

Max's jaw works like he's trying to say something but nothing comes out, and he nods mutely. The gun's shaking in his hand, and he doesn't even know how to hold the damned thing, no better than Leo with the grip of the shotgun in both hands and swinging it around to point at John, the barrel about as steady as a twig in a hailstorm.

"Now wait a minute," John says, and he's pushing Dean away from him as much as he can, away from that scared kid and Dean lets him, shoving back out of the light and ignored by everyone, his fingers curling around the grip of his pistol. "Wait just a goddamned minute."

Leo's deathly pale, terrified, and Dean's pretty sure he couldn't hit the side of a barn the way he's holding the gun, but he doesn't need to hit a barn, just Dean's dad, who's barely ten feet away. The whole thing is unraveling, but the two guys at the door are watching John, and Max's dad is watching Max, who's watching Leo, and Leo's staring at John down the barrel of that trembling shotgun, and nobody's watching Dean.

Later on, he'll hardly remember doing it. He'll say it happened so fast that he doesn't remember, and that'll be the truth, mostly. But in this moment, everything seems frozen, and Dean pulls the pistol from his jeans and brings it around, and it kicks once when he shoots Leo in the face.

Max's dad jerks back with Leo's blood and brains spattering his dark shirt, and the guys at the door just look startled, like they're not sure what's happened. Dean raises the pistol and fires twice, and then he's swinging the gun around to Max.

The shotgun is still clutched in Leo's hands and his body hasn't even hit the floor yet, doesn't know it's already dead. The guy with the rattle in his chest staggers back, clutching his throat and blood pouring out between his fingers and he's trying to bring that Remington up but he can't do it, trying to suck in air and just getting blood. The other one drops to his knees and falls, his eyes still wide and surprised.

Max's dad lets out a bark of anger and lunges for the shotgun Leo's corpse is still gripping, and Max has turned and is staring at Dean, the revolver loose in his hand like he's forgotten it's there. "You son of a bitch!" Max's dad is screaming, "You son of a bitch!" and John's grabbing for his pistol and Max's dad has the Mossberg in his hands now, swings it up and around to point at Dean, and John's booted foot catches the shotgun before the guy can pull the trigger, and then that .357 turns the back of his head into a wet red mess.

Max doesn't even see his dad fall, slack-jawed and staring at Dean from the other side of Leo's corpse, and then he finally remembers his own gun, the pearl-handled birthday present he was going to kill his cousin with, and he starts to raise it.

He's not much older than Sammy, has that scared, wide-eyed look that makes Dean's heart twist. But Sammy's waiting for them at Pastor Jim's. Dean shakes his head once, the pistol aimed between Max's eyes. "Don't," he says.

Beside him John's getting up, getting to his feet and Dean knows what he's going to do, his hand already out. He's put his gun down on the table, just reaching out for this kid with his shaking hands. "Come on, Max," he says, that deep voice, so soft. "It's okay. Give me the gun."

"You," Max says, his voice breaking, looking from Dean to John and back. "You fucking." And he brings the revolver up and Dean fires.

*

There's not a lot of salt left, and there's not a lot of lighter fluid, but it's enough. The cabin's nothing but tinder anyway, and the trees too wet with snow to burn very far if the fire starts to spread, or at least, that's what they're hoping. It lights the forest behind them as they head for the road and the Impala, and it still takes too long to get there but they get there, and Dean doesn't think he's ever been more glad to see the car in his life. He gets John into the passenger seat and the weapons stowed in the trunk, and then he takes three shaky steps towards the woods and falls to his knees, his stomach heaving up nothing but bile.

He can still see Leo's face, pale and scared, and Max's too-wide eyes.

He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and pushes himself up. John's slumped against the passenger door when Dean gets in, but he opens his eyes and nods, and when Dean turns the ignition the engine starts with a throaty rumble, and then they're heading back toward the highway, wheels spitting dirt and gravel.

"How you doing, Dad?" Dean asks. "Think you need the hospital?"

John doesn't answer at first, and Dean can feel his dad's eyes on him, the weight of his gaze. He looks over at him, and after a minute John says, "Let's just get on back."

Dean nods. "Okay."

*

They drive straight through, stopping only to get gasoline and aspirin and to change the dressing on John's stitches, and to grab burgers that they eat on the road. John makes Dean let him drive part of the time so Dean can sleep, and Dean hates it because he knows his dad's hurting, but he does it. His dreams are disjointed, lit in flares and patches, white-faced and scared-looking and Sam with a gun, Sam looking at him down the barrel of a gun.

He wakes up to the grey-white light of late afternoon in the winter, and John looks at him, reaches over to stroke his hand over Dean's hair. "Go back to sleep, son," he says, and Dean closes his eyes, and he doesn't wake up again until evening.

It's just past midnight when Dean pulls the Impala into Pastor Jim's yard. Jim must've still been up because he's there beside them before Dean even has John out of the car, slipping his arm around John and saying, "It's okay, Dean, I've got him. I've got him."

Dean follows them in and collapses on Jim's sofa while Jim sits John down and starts carefully getting his shirt off.

"Where's Sam?" John asks.

"He's asleep, he's fine," Jim says. "What happened?"

"Took longer to find it than we figured," John answers, but he glances at Dean and Jim must see, because he looks over too.

"You all right, Dean?" Jim asks.

Dean nods. "Yeah," he says.

And Leo's looking at John, scared to death, and who knows whether he would've shot him in the end or not.

But someone would have, and after a minute Dean realizes he doesn't care who, it doesn't matter because once the shooting started it'd only be a question of whether he and Dad were standing at the end, and there was no time and no other way, because there was no way in Hell or on earth that Dean was going to let his dad die in some godforsaken cabin in the middle of the Minnesota woods, and Sammy never know what happened to either of them. Leave Sam thinking maybe they just went off and left him.

There wasn't any other way.

He heaves himself to his feet. "I'm gonna go get cleaned up," he says. "I could sleep for a goddamned week."

"Watch your language," John says, but there's no heat to it. He gestures, and Dean crosses to him. John puts his arm around him. "It's okay, Dean," he says. "You did what you had to. It's okay."

Jim looks at John, looks at Dean. Dean wonders if John'll tell him the truth, that it wasn't just the ghost they killed, it was a human kind of monster. A human kind of monster, and a couple of scared kids not much older than Sam.

"I know, Dad," he says. "I know. It's all right."

John hesitates, watching him, then nods. "All right," he says. "Go on. Get cleaned up, get to bed."

Upstairs Dean stands in the shower for a long time. Now that he's still, now that he's not focused on Dad or on driving or on getting back to Pastor Jim's it's all starting to catch up with him, and he wants to just lie down in the bathtub and let the spray wash over him, wash away the dirt, the sweat, the blood. Wash him all away, all the way down, and out to the river and then to the ocean and up into the sky.

The door opens, a breath of cool air slipping in past the shower curtain.

"Dean?"

Dean takes a breath. "Yeah, Sammy?"

Sam's soft footsteps come in, and the door closes again. "How come you and Dad took so long getting back?"

Dean shuts off the water and pushes back the curtain, grabs a towel. It's thick and white, warm from hanging over the radiator. He starts scrubbing himself dry. "It just took longer to find it than we figured," he says.

Sam sits down on the closed toilet lid, his hands between his knees. He's wearing shorts and one of Dean's tee-shirts and he looks so little, skinny little arms and legs and those ridiculous big eyes, barefoot, his hair sleep-rumpled.

To drive all the way across the country, you don't have to see further than what's in your headlights. You can go as far as you have to, as far as you can, and all you have to see is what's in the circle of your headlights.

"Was it hard to kill?" Sam asks.

Dean thinks about it for a second, looking at his little brother, thinking of Dad downstairs, hurt but alive, and he shakes his head. "No, not really," he says. "Not really."

 

For you or Dad, the things I'm willing to do or kill.... It scares me sometimes.
~Dean, Devil's Trap

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Warnings: Strong violence, bloodshed, violent death, including children. Psychological violence against children. Please do not read if you have triggers around the abuse of children or violence against children. No canon character death.