apocalypsos | Fic: When the Cat's Away (Supernatural)

Title: When The Cat's Away
Author: Troll Princess
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: R (for language and violent references)
Pairing/Character: John Winchester
Spoilers for: "Shadows"
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: Dear

trollprincess's gym teacher, please excuse her from class, as she has borrowed these characters without permission and with no intention of making money off this.
Summary: Five states away, and another spot of blood stains the floor of the cab.

*****

When The Cat's Away

*****

One state away, and John sits in the truck on the side of the road next to a dairy farm, the strong scent of cow manure filling the cab and his hands trembling on the steering wheel.

There's a choice between cleaning his wounds (yeah, now he thinks about it) and getting out to retch the contents of his stomach into the ditch, and it takes him a good ten minutes to reach for his handkerchief and the bottle of water in the cup holder. The muscles in his shoulders tug and whine at the movement and he considers an inventory of the damage, like an invoice he can send to the boys.

Cuts across the face here, here and here. Talons through my arms, and slashes across my shoulders. Burns across my heart, but those I've got to charge to you two.

He could stitch himself in his sleep and maybe he's doing that now, eyelids too heavy to see straight and fingers still trembling so much stitching's a major mistake. He can't stop, though, has to cut back on the thick scent of his own blood hanging in the air in the cab any way he can.

In his head, the Impala's parked on the side of some other backwoods road just like this, and Sam's got that distracted look on his face while Dean bitches at him not to clench his jaw like that unless he really wants to look like fucking Frankenstein.

The needle tugs at John's skin, fingertips jerking with a vague sort of fearful relief, but he's too exhausted to flinch.

*****

Two states away, and Henry Bakersfield returns to his motel room too tired to hide the stiff tilt of his arm from the concerned older woman at the front desk. He flashes her best aw-shucks grin, would tip his hat if he were wearing one and can't keep the bile from rising in his throat this close to the room.

Inside the room, the air is faintly stale as if it had planned to start missing him anytime soon. Newspaper clippings about gruesome murders, drawings of creatures of darkness, and notes on occult theory wallpaper the room. It makes him look like a serial killer, John thinks, and he wonders sometimes if that's what he's turning into.

For two hours he stares at his cell phone and silently pleads for it to ring, because there's a half a bottle of Southern Comfort on the nightstand and he's not sure which call he'd answer first.

*****

Three states away, and John realizes he's half-asleep in the cab of the truck in the parking lot of the next motel staring at two little boys playing on the motel's swing set like he's some sort of fucking pychotic.

He wants to start the truck and take off, because not far from him is a nervous mother about thirty seconds from writing down a license plate number. He can't bring himself to do it, though, because Sam liked the swings and Dean liked nothing better than pushing him on them.

Amazing, really, how watching just one more underdog is a better painkiller than half a bottle of Percodan ever could be.

*****

Four states away, and John wakes up to the burning press of Mary's palms on his shoulders and the heated trail of her lips along the scars on his chest. His skin hums from a touch that isn't there and the familiar scent of lilacs and soap won't go away. He can still feel the curve of her breast in his hand and the warm slide of her body against his, and the room is so painfully empty the air chokes off in his throat.

Sometimes he wonders what the boys would say if they knew that it's not always the nightmares he chases away when he drinks.

*****

Five states away, and another spot of blood stains the floor of the cab. It's less a game of connect-the-dots anymore and more a painted wall with spots he forgot to fill in, and John tries not to think about it as he unloads the truck.

It's like the distance is a drug, the kind that makes his head swim just enough for his worry about the welfare of his boys to get hazy enough for common sense to seep in. Ain't nothing those boys can't handle when they're together, and it didn't take long to learn that. His being around them made them all weaker, but it went the opposite way with Dean and Sam like some goddamn math problem, like an inverse proportion.

Worrying about them now does nothing but waste time, waste precious seconds he could be spending finding the son of a bitch who tore their family apart. The pressure of Mary's hands on him is still fresh, will still be fresh in thirty years if he even makes it that far, and it's like she's egging him on from wherever her spirit's gone to now.

He hides the cell phone from sight, because if he does see it, he's not going to call the boys. What he'll do is get in the fucking truck and drive to wherever they are and try to fight by their side, and they all know what a bad idea that is.

The chair at the small table in the room isn't the least bit comfortable, so of course he falls right to sleep in it, a pile of news clippings and notes on the next job as his pillow.

He startles awake twenty minutes later, the town's name fresh in his mind.

In Hewiit, Ohio, there's a dead girl propped up in a bathroom somewhere with her tongue ripped out and her eyes frozen forever in a terrifying portrait of shock, a dark thing hovering in the shadows savoring its victory, and when the dead girl's found her little brother won't stop screaming for days.

But John is five states away, he thinks as he digs up the phone, and there's nothing he can do about it that the boys can't do faster.