shallowz

Title: The First Day of the End of Everything

Author: shallowz

Fandom: Supernatural

Rating: PG13

Characters: John, Dean, Sam

Warnings/spoilers: John’s journal, possibly Home. Likely very AU since Supernatural: Origins has been released.

Word count: around 1,850

Disclaimer: Supernatural is not ours. No profit being made … etc.

Summary: The first days and weeks after the fire that changed everything for the Winchesters. Part of the First Series. Based on John’s journal entries found at Super-Wiki, The Journal (diary entries).
Thanks to

harrigan for the beta!

Part One

November 3, 1983

Breathing was an effort.

John found himself looking down at his chest to see it rising and falling. The movement wasn’t as smooth as it should be, but at least he wasn’t hyperventilating. He was just missing the part where breathing felt like it was doing him any good.

He felt like his heart shouldn’t be beating either, but here it was threatening to break out of his chest.

What was he supposed to do now?

Indecisiveness was not a usual state for him.

But then again, neither was the concept of being without Mary, or understanding what took Mary, or why this happened in their baby’s nursery.

He had spoken to a detective, who had introduced himself, but John couldn’t think of his name now. The only thing he recalled was the food stain on the man’s tie. At the time, his concentration was primarily on keeping Dean and Sam close.

The paramedics had checked them out, and the detective had wanted to speak with him while his boys were being looked after by strangers, but John wouldn’t have any of it. One look at Dean’s confused, frightened face and hearing Sam’s inconsolable crying was the only thing that had been important to John amid the chaos that had once been their home. Mary would have wanted it that way, and would have kicked his ass six ways to Sunday if he had allowed anything different.

Wanted. Would have. That just sounded so wrong.

Now hours later, the Winchesters were messily settled in the Guenthers’ guest room. What was once a simple routine of checking on his kids at night now held an edge of panic. An exhausted, grief-stricken John guarded his sleeping boys. Sleeping only because their little bodies couldn’t take any more.

Dean was terrified that something was coming for them, and John couldn’t even truthfully tell him he was wrong, that he was imagining things, that it’s just a bad dream, and go back to sleep, Dean.

Something had murdered Mary. How did he keep them safe from some thing?

Now he was hyperventilating.

November 6, 1983

Well meaning people told John the funeral would give him closure. Help him move on.

As he stared down at the perfectly rectangular hole, John questioned the wisdom of having let others take care of the details of Mary’s funeral. Not that he was functioning well enough to even plan such a thing, but he had to wonder what type of closure was to be had when they were lowering an empty coffin into the ground.

Sitting in a chair, holding both Dean and Sam in his lap, John only heard the faint mumbles of a pastor going on in a faith he didn’t believe in. Sam was dozing, having had only a restless sleep the night before. Dean clung to him, and kept his face pressed firmly into the lapel of John’s suit jacket. Neither Sam nor Dean wanted anyone else to touch them. Dean actually flinched when others reached for him, and John had to fight the urge to do the same when those consoling gestures came his way.

John just didn’t understand how they came to be here, and didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t accept that his wife was gone.

So much of what was Mary had burned along with her. He felt as if the fire had not only taken Mary away from them, but also everything that provided a memory of her.

And yet, he only had to look down at their two boys to know that what reminded him most of Mary was still with him.

November 13, 1983

The house fire, and what he remembered, didn’t make sense.

John stood on the sidewalk in front of what was left of their home, reliving that night over and over again. Smelling the smoke, still permeating the area, did nothing to stop the endless loop in his mind.

He missed the smell of a clean yard, the scent of Mary and home. It was all so different now that he couldn’t completely wrap his mind around it.

This ruined shell didn’t seem like it could possibly be the same place that he had eagerly returned to after a day of working.

Dean would run out of the house to hurl himself into John’s arms, Mary welcomed him home like he had been gone for days instead of hours, and Sammy would grin at John like he was the best thing ever.

Mary was gone, their home was gone, his boys were not the same, and John knew he had changed in ways that couldn’t possibly be good.

He and the boys would never live here again. Sam would never know this place as home. Dean would only have the memories, and maybe not even those in the years to come.

And the ache of loss threatened to bring him to his knees

November 17, 1983

Mike and Kate had taken the remaining Winchesters into their home, and John truly appreciated it. He just had to keep reminding himself of that. Frequently.

He wasn’t sure what prompted him into telling Mike what he had seen, but in hindsight, it could only be considered a stupid idea.

“John, you’re stressed,” Mike bluntly. “You’re looking for something that isn’t there. Mary died due to a terrible accident.”

“She was on the ceiling.”

“John, that’s not possible.” Mike stated. “You have to snap out of this. Think of your boys.”

And Kate, well that was even better.

“John, everyone needs help now and then. You’ve gone through a very traumatic experience. I know a wonderful psychiatrist downtown. Maybe talking to someone who isn’t so close to the situation would help you.”

John didn’t think telling a shrink what he saw that night would help at all. He’d end up doped to the gills and drooling. They’d take his boys away. And just that thought had him shaking so hard that he had hide in the bathroom until he could get it under control.

Damn it, he had been a Marine. He had gone through some rough times, and those times had left a mark. Mary had softened those edges.

This experience brought him lower than anything he had gone through in the service. He had seen others who were strong break or crack under the pressure. Saw them do some insane things that seemed perfectly reasonable to them at the time.

Was that what he was doing? Going crazy and just couldn’t tell?

November 26, 1983

The police had listened, hadn’t believed, and thought him the grief-stricken husband.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Winchester, but we don’t have any new information for you,” stated the detective as he gestured for John to take a seat by his desk.

They had been introduced, but John couldn’t recall his name. The coffee spill on the detective’s tie at least was enough to tell him he had the same guy from the night of the fire.

“Do you know if it was deliberately set?” John asked, squeezing the words out through clenched teeth.

“The investigation is ongoing, but we have nothing conclusive at the moment.” Detective what’s-his-name provided a canned response as he took a seat. “Since you’re here, Mr. Winchester, could I ask you a few questions?”

Sighing, John ran an agitated hand over his hair, “sure, go ahead.”

“How were things with you and your wife?”

“What is this about? Things were great. I’ve told you all this before.”

“What about with your sons? Any problems?”

John gripped the chair before he bodily threw himself over the detective’s desk.

“Sam is six-months-old. He’s not into tearing up the house. He’s a good baby. Dean is four and his biggest concern was practicing T-Ball. Hardly a problem,” John bit out.

“Just making sure we’ve covered everything, Mr. Winchester.”

“In other words, you have nothing,” John muttered as he stood and left the office without looking back.

Man couldn’t eat or drink without spilling on his tie, and he was going to solve Mary’s murder?

November 30, 1983

It wasn’t only dreams that kept John from sleeping. Any little noise woke him, and he couldn’t take the chance that it meant nothing. John thought after a few weeks he would be familiar with the house and its sounds, but he couldn’t settle, couldn’t trust it.

He wondered, and doubted, if he ever would settle down in another home.

Then again, it was easier to blame strange noises for his lack of sleep rather than dwell on the pain and guilt of letting Mary die.

As he did every night, he made a circuit of the house to make sure everything was secure. He inspected every single lock, looked out every window, and tested the doors. First and last stop was checking on his boys.

Inevitably this led him back to thinking how they ended up here. It kept going around and around in his head. Frustrated and weary, he pulled out his journal to see if writing it down would help.

December 3, 1983

Thank you, Mike and Kate, for taking us into your home, but I really hate this place, John thought harshly.

It’s just the wind, Mike said. Didn’t sound like wind. Sounded like … whispering. A continuous low murmur, barely heard, just there.

And a sense of something watching, waiting.

It was enough to cause John to stand watch and roam the house throughout the night.

Sammy had cried earlier, missing his mom, and no longer the baby that used to fall asleep quietly and easily. Unlike Dean at that age who had required numerous nighttime rides in the Impala to ease him to slumber.

After Dean crawled in the crib with Sam, John figured his oldest was Sammy’s version of the Impala. Dean had curled himself around his brother, and Sam had settled. Dean was also sleeping better, but not in that loose-limbed little boy sprawl. He held his body in a tight instinctual position to protect himself and Sam.

John wondered what his boy sensed.

Dean wasn’t talking. He hadn’t said much of anything since that moment in the hallway when John had handed him his baby brother, and told him to get out of the house. Dean had done it too. He took care of Sammy, and was still taking care of Sammy.

Earlier in the day, he had tried to engage Dean in playing some ball. Get him to talk about little stuff; anything to hear his little boy again. But the sight of Dean’s anxious looks to the house, specifically where John knew Sam was napping, scratched that idea.

Dean was too young to be so careworn. John missed the active little boy who organized his toolbox, day dreamed about driving the Impala, and giggled whenever Sammy made a funny face.

But then none of the remaining Winchesters were doing any of the things they had done just a few weeks ago, and John grieved when he couldn't see them ever being safe or normal again.

Go to Part Two