5 Things Meme: Vol. 5 for bluesister

[nilchance]

1.

It was spring in Blue Earth, but there was no telling it from the weather. May was half lost in a bitter snap, winds howling and biting cold at bare skin. Jim could hear the windows rattle in their iron frames, jerking him out of his restless sleep.

Three days of this, of waiting up all hours and leaving his doors unlocked, of flinching every time the phone rang. Three days since he'd dialed Social Services, turned around and realized that Andrew had disappeared on him.

Damn it all, he should've known better. He'd dealt with two or three abused children in his time, and he should've thought to explain to Andrew that he didn't have to go anywhere he didn't want to. That Jim would protect him as best he could.

Instead, Andrew was out in this godawful weather, and he didn't have a coat, and was he eating? Had he found somewhere safe to sleep? Jim didn't know.

God save Jim from his own fucking arrogance. He was no father. He'd killed men in the war. His own father had been absent, he'd had no siblings, and he was simply not equipped for this. He-

He sounded like one of the parishoners, more interested in excuses than in reparation.

The church groaned as it settled deeper into the earth, bearing its age like a cranky old man. Jim bit back a frustrated curse and sat up, fumbling for the light beside his bed. He wasn't going to sleep tonight, so he might as well go pray and prepare for morning mass.

His light clicked out and illuminated the bedraggled shape hovering in his doorway. Andrew wavered on the edge of bolting, his eyes too wide and dull with fatigue. He was muddy and soaked to the bone, scratched up from branches.

All the doubts that had eaten at Jim clicked off like hitting a lightswitch. Jim sat up, murmuring low comfort as Andrew shied back. Moving carefully to his cabinets, he watched the boy as he dug out the second-hand sweatpants he'd retrieved from one of the parish's charity drives. Andrew stared, shivering and dripping on the floor, twitching with every stray noise. He didn't flinch when Jim touched his arm, just looked at him with tired old eyes and let Jim steer him to the bathroom.

Passive as a doll, Andrew let Jim peel off the ruined clothes and steer him into the shower. Jim kept his eyes averted to the floor and set his jaw against angry rants he had no right to voice. He wasn't the boy's father, he couldn't-

When Andrew stepped out, clutching at the towel, Jim's eyes jerked to the livid scars along Andrew's shoulderblades. It looked as if someone had taken a knife and deliberately carved long, curved gouges on either side of the boy's spine. It looked ritualistic, primal, brutal alongside the childhood scratches and the fading bruises he'd come with.

"Come here and let me look at those cuts," Jim murmured.

Andrew's head dipped down, hair sliding forward to hide his face. He went without protest, let Jim take another towel and pat his arms dry. Jim had patched up other children and was used to hearing protests as the antiseptic spray bubbled and stung; Andrew just looked at him, eyes half-closed.

Bandaids didn't fix things, and there was no one else to take Andrew. For better or for worse, Jim had found him and coaxed him inside.

Andrew dressed himself, moving stiffly. When it was done and he was dwarfed in the sweats, he came back to stand in front of Jim, looking like he expected to be hit.

With a sigh, Jim reached out and fingercombed Andrew's hair back. The tenderness came awkwardly, but it made Andrew uncoil a little and lean into Jim's hand. Andrew's sigh sounded deep enough to hurt.

"I won't let them hurt you again," Jim said. Even as it passed his lips, he knew it was a mistake. Even as he realized it was a mistake, he couldn't take it back.

Andrew glanced at him from beneath his hair, wary hope written on his face. He bit his lower lip, then shuffled forward a step.

Jim wrapped him up in a hug, breathing in the scent of soap and earth, and prayed to God that this wouldn't come back on them both.
********
2.

"You're leaving, then."

John didn't look at him, bent over the trunk trying to figure out the best spatial arrangement for a militia's worth of weaponry. "Yeah."

Jim waited for elaboration. Which, of course, didn't come. Jim sighed and leaned against the backseat. From there, he could keep an eye on the three small children currently raising havoc in the rock-garden beside the statue of Mary. Not that they needed watching. Dean was careful, too damn careful for a child of his age. Careful the way that Andrew was careful, a way of burnt fingers and scars and hard lessons learned too early.

Still, it was good to watch. Jim had never seen Andrew like this before John descended with his children in tow. He laughed, for God's sake. He held up Sam to better see Mary's face, he jostled playfully against Dean. He slept without nightmares, making himself comfortable between Dean and Sam in a puppypile of worn-out boys.

It was nothing short of miraculous, and Jim didn't want to see it go. If it stopped when John left...

Rubbing the back of his neck, Jim said quietly, "You could leave them here, you know."

John stiffened. For a moment, silence crackled between them. The wrong side of John Winchester's temper was a terrible place to be. Then John exhaled, straightening like a man with the world on his shoulders. "No, padre. Thanks."

"It'd be no trouble."

"They stay with me."

"For whose sake?"

John slammed the trunk with excessive force. His voice was curt with warning. "Don't start that with me. It won't end pretty-"

"I don't doubt that." Jim turned to look at John. Meeting his eyes was among the hardest things Jim had ever done, but he did it and he didn't flinch from the shadows there. "They're children, John. Well-trained, obedient, scared children who lost their mother-"

"They need training more than a pretty goddamn lie." John's eyes went to Andrew, kneeling among the scattered stones. His mouth tightened. "You want to walk into this war, fine, but you're taking Andrew with you. Give him that turn the other cheek bullshit and you're gonna get him killed."

Jim choked his anger back, crossing his arms and digging his fingers in to keep from clenching his fists. He breathed out, slowly, and managed to almost sound level as he said, "Then take Andrew with you."

Surprise knocked John's hackles down. He asked, bewildered, "What?"

"I can't protect the boy-"

"He's your kid. You want to tell me all that paperwork was for nothing?" When Jim didn't answer, John coughed a laugh and leaned on the car next to him. "Dude," he said finally, "I took confessions for you."

"Yes, well. I can only imagine how few of them are going to make the same mistakes twice."

John flashed a wolfish smile that faded into nothing. He shuffled his feet in the dust of the parking lot, then cleared his throat and shoved his shoulder into Jim's. "You'll do all right, padre."

"He didn't speak before you came." Jim reached up and tugged the collar away from his throat so he could breathe. His laugh was more of a wheeze. "I don't know if I'm fucking up here, John, or if-"

"Yeah. I know." John leaned his head back against the car. His words came slowly, grudging. "Dean didn't talk for a year after the fire."

"Ah." Jim tilted his head, eyeing Dean as he hoisted Sammy onto his shoulders so he could clamor onto Mary's lap. "You didn't mention that."

"His story, not mine."

"Still. That's... heartening."

"Not exactly the word I'd use." Straightening up, John thwapped Jim in the chest. It may have been affection. "Keep the door open. We'll come back this way."

Jim smiled crookedly and said, "Of course," like he expected them to come back alive.
****
3.

They didn't get there in time to save the children. Killing the high priest was small comfort, but it was comfort that Jim was happy to take.

The high priest knelt in front of his blackened altar. His sneer didn't slip as Bobby tied him at gunpoint or as Jim silently salted the small bodies that remained. They'd been possessed, desecrated and used as vessels for a demon's re-entry to this world. Jim couldn't leave them be, but it stung to light them like so many dead leaves. The high priest's eyes held the too-bright glitter of madness, but he was as human as Jim was. Their blood beat the same within their veins.

As Jim dropped the match on the pyre and watched it burn, he felt Bobby beside him. He didn't look away from the flames to ask tiredly, "Yes?"

"The others bugged out. We'll find them." Fatigue wore lines on Bobby's weathered face. He held the machete out, a blood-stained handkerchief around the scarred blade. "You sure you want the kill, Father?"

Jim took the machete from Bobby and helted it, testing its weight. Once he would have faltered beneath it. "Minnesota's my territory to guard. I'll finish it. Thank you."

"Jim," Bobby murmured, not unkindly. "It's not like killing a demon-"

"I baptised some of these children." Jim looked at the high priest, his bald head shimmering in the firelight. "Would you please wait outside? I'll call you when it's done."

Bobby's breath whistled low through his teeth. He thumped Jim with the same rough affection he would one of his dogs, which was a sign of great regard, and left them alone.

Jim stood over the high priest and asked simply, "Why?"

The high priest grinned. He was terribly young, as young as Caleb or Andrew or Dean, and his faith was as sturdy as a headstone. "I die in the name of Satan, my Dark Lord-"

His blood wet the leaves, and he was silent.
*****
When Jim got back to the church, the lights were still on for him. He found his son in the kitchen, mumbling curses as he fought his nightly battle with the coffeemaker. Andrew glanced up as he heard Jim go past and stopped what he was doing to ask, "Did you find-"

"Dead." Disgusted, Jim took his gloves off and let them slap down on the kitchen table. They left a rust-red smear behind. His breath shuddered out. "All dead. Ah, God, I don't know what to tell Mr. and Mrs. Anderson. I should call them."

"Dad." Andrew went to stand behind him, pushing firmly until Jim had to sit. "Look. I'll get the phone and make that call, all right? You need to shower. You're covered in blood and if they want to come over to talk about it-"

Jim barked a laugh that could've been a sob. When he covered his face with a hand, he smelled oil and meat. "Sweet Christ," he breathed.

"No," Andrew said. "Sorry. You're stuck with the other guy. Can I make you some tea?"

"That would be appreciated." Dropping his hand, Jim watched Andrew start the burner and set the water to boil.

His son. The Lord of Darkness. In his name, men murdered, people suffered, and those children died. In Andrew's name...

Jim couldn't look at his son as he got up and washed the blood from his hands.
*******
4.

It was nearly dawn when the bleeding finally, mercifully, stopped. Jim sat up, blinking against the grit of fatigue, and wiped his hands on another ruined dishtowel. He ought to charge John a damned running tab.

"Duck next time," Jim suggested, and patted John on the arm that hadn't been savaged by the skinwalker. John didn't twitch, so deep in a tangle of ether and alcohol and blood loss that he might not even try to leave by tomorrow.

When Jim turned, he was unsurprised to find Dean drowsing in the armchair. Andrew had made him tea, but he'd spiked it hard enough that even Jim noticed. Dean hadn't, too damned distracted by kicking himself and pacing the tiny guest room. At least Sam had eventually agreed to lay down for an hour, when it became obvious that stitching John would take all night.

It took a search, but Jim found Andrew sitting cross-legged in front of the statue of Michael. Andrew's expression was drawn, but the symmetry of the scene still made Jim smile.

Lowering himself onto the pew beside Andrew, Jim sighed. "I'd offer you cookies and a sandwich again, but Sam ate everything he could get his hands on. That boy's going to grow up enormously tall-"

"Dean turned down MIT," Andrew said curtly, not looking away from the statue's cold, ruthless beauty. "He's going to stay with John and hunt until it kills him."

Jim blinked down at the top of his son's head. When Andrew kept staring straight ahead, Jim asked, "Did you expect him to stop?"

"Yes," Andrew said sharply.

"Then you were lying to yourself, which isn't Dean's fault." Reading the set of Andrew's jaw, Jim added tiredly, "Or John's, for that matter."

Andrew's mouth twitched. His fingers were white-knuckled where they laced in his lap. "He deserves better than this-"

"Don't fight John Winchester for his son, Andrew," Jim said. "You'll lose Dean. You know that."

"That's not the point."

"All right. Then what is the point?"

Andrew was silent for a long while. Then he dragged in a shuddering breath and let his head drop, hair hanging loose in his eyes. "Every time," he said, "every fucking time Dean comes back, I'm surprised to see him alive."

Jim winced. "Andrew. Dean's strong, he's smart and he's fast. He'll be all right. He was born for this-"

"I'll outlive him," Andrew said heavily, and choked out a bitter laugh. "I always do. God help me, I won't bury him. I can't. Whatever I have to do, whoever I have to kill, I'll-"

"No," Jim murmured, and laid his hand on the back of Andrew's neck, kneading as Andrew shuddered. "Son, please. Let it be."

Above them, Michael pushed his brother deeper into hell.
*******
5.

As the girl's eyes bled to black, Jim thought of holy ground. He thought of Peter, three times denying Christ.

Jim knew he had denied God a thousand times over since that night behind the rosebushes. He had harbored the Enemy in the house of the Lord. Jim had raised him, patched up childhood wounds and sat up through long nights, steadied his hands around a shotgun and the Communion chalice.

Jim had turned his back on God. He would die for Andrew. He was about to, and he didn't harbor the illusion that hell would hold any mercy for him.

As the girl drew her arm back to slit his throat, seconds bled to hours. Jim thought of his son.

Jim saw, and he did not regret a moment.

Lord, let it be enough.