Wabash Blues, for sightofland (gen, PG-13)

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Title: Wabash Blues, or how even in his heart the devil has to know the water level
Author: i_speak_tongue / Marvin Gaye
Recipient: sightofland (formerly milesfromnowhere)
Rating: PG-13 for language
Author's Notes: ~4800 words. Kripke owns them, but I'm so babysitting for the summer. Dean, John and Bobby. sightofland asked for (prompt #2) "Dean on the road while Sam's at Stanford." I hope this satisfies! Sincere, humble thanks to my two betas, celtic_cookie and extraonions, without whom, this fic would have some rather embarrassing errors, make a bit less sense, and be generally less cool.
Summary: So it's Dean being pissed off about his Dad leaving him to finish a job on his own, and being all non-communicative about it. Then it's certain other people seeing right through it, and having to save his ass when he does something really stupid. And then some other shit happens too with a couple other important guys that ties in to a bit of info we got in some episode a while back about the last time Dean and John saw someone and it involved buckshot. And that's about it.



His father left him a note. A ring of coffee on it, written in red marker, on the back of a receipt from K-mart for 4 D volt batteries and a pack of socks.

Need to return a favour for an old friend. Finish up here, and call me.

Dad

They were outside Jackson, Tennessee investigating a haunting at an old church that had doubled as a Klan meeting place. Full of the kind of bad energy that made your stomach sink, your skin tighten, just driving by the place. Was boarded up for nearly 30 years. A progressive new minister, wide-eyed, had restored the building with his own two hands. The night after his first sermon—on tolerance, peace and forgiveness—he swung from the hickory tree, rope taught around his neck, eyes wide open in shock, sadness, disappointment.

Rumours dating back to the 1970's spoke of the old reverend haunting the place, lynching anyone who dared to preach against his doctrine. That and a similar death in '73, ruled a suicide, were what had brought the Winchesters here.

The job was nearly done. Only thing left was to find the reverend's bones, salt and burn.

So here he stands over the grave, the name on the stone nearly illegible, the white marble weathered and worn, incorporated into the earth through the moss and lichen that sneaks up the sides and into little cracks. The graveyard is down the hill through the woods behind the church, long forgotten and overgrown. Dean can imagine boys like he and Sam once were, stumbling across the place on a lazy afternoon and playing among the dead; gravestones like place-markers in a nonsensical game.

The night humidity sends cold dew-drop sweat down his back as he digs, and he swats at the mosquitoes that buzz in his ears, taunting him. He digs faster, sweats harder and breathes in the sickly sweet smell of the sumac trees. There is no one to complain about the bugs or the heat to.

A thud, his shovel hitting the top of the rotted coffin, triggers a rustling of leaves in the woods and a chorus of hooves steadily approaching like a school bell triggers a wave of children onto a playground. Dean's back stiffens.

He climbs from the grave, hoists himself up onto solid ground with calloused palms. He holds his breath and reaches for his shotgun, then stills and listens as the sound of the hoof beats grows louder.

"No fucking way."

White horses with men in white cloaks materialize from the edge of the trees and dart towards him like wind-driven cirrus clouds. Dean readies his weapon as the spirits of nearly a dozen mounted Klansmen tornado around him, threatening to trample him underfoot.

He doesn't have nearly enough rock-salt for the shotgun to take them all out. Not here. And the Impala seems impossibly far, on the other side of the woods, next to the church. And at this point, even if he could manage to salt and burn the body before Mississipi Burning got their hands on him, he's beginning to doubt the old reverend's bones are what's tying them here. It doesn't add up. At this point, Dean does the unthinkable and freezes, and for 3 terrible seconds there's no way out. For three seconds, he's already hanging from that hickory tree in front of the church, already dead. He's fucked. And then, on second four, he shakes his head.

And shoots.

He fires at one of the Klansmen, who falls away in soft white pieces, like dandelion fluff so that only the horse remains. He reaches out to it.

"Nice horsy…"

He grabs the reigns of the now rider-less ghost-horse, that snorts and neighs as he swings himself up into the saddle. The leather is cold and soft, and the horse feels like powder under Dean's fingers as he presses against the back of its neck.

He manages to steer the beast away from the others, towards the church. It gallops frantically through the woods, and pays no heed to the branches that whip and tear at it and Dean, and he clings to the beast for dear life. The other horses follow behind them, their riders calling out in angry words that Dean can't decipher over the sounds of hooves and of branches breaking across his face in fast sharp stings.

They emerge on the other side of the woods and Dean urges the animal towards the church, kicking sternly at its sides. But the closer they move to the church, the more disobedient it becomes. The closer they move to the church, the more power it has. The church.

The church.

Suddenly, it whinnies and bucks hard, throwing Dean off. He hits the ground at the foot of the building with a painful grunt, and re-orients himself just in time to see the white hoods drawing nearer, a wake of otherworldly white dust clouding up around the horses legs.

Bleeding, bruised and determined, once Dean has scrambled up the steps of the church, he locks himself inside. He knows only one way to end this.

With a plan, he moves quickly. There is a tank of gas in the basement. Propane for an old heater. He pours it carelessly over the newly varnished pews, the hand crafted pulpit, the floor, the windowsills.

He throws the match and makes a run for it. Watches the church burn from the Impala just long enough to be sure that the ghosts are fading more with every flame and spark. The sun is just rising, and there's a breeze now that sends the smoke from the fire down the unpaved country road after him, like a long goodbye.

Dean accelerates, and the gravel crunches under the tires, spatters out from beneath the bumper like hail.

Before he's even back at the motel, he calls his father.

"Dad." He tries not to sound out of breath, and only then realizes it might have been a bad idea to call him so soon after the hunt.

"Dean? Are you finished down there?"

"Yeah…yeah. Dad, where are you?"

"You alright, son?"

"Uh huh. I'm fine. I just… went for a morning jog in the local graveyard. You know how it is…" He laughs a little, wipes some blood from his eyes.

"But the job's done?"

"Yes sir. Easy as pie."

"Alright then."

"Yeah… so where the hell are you exactly? And who's this friend?"

"You might not remember him. Bobby Singer? Last time we saw him you musta been 8 or 9 years old."

"Dirty guy with a big ol' moustache?"

"That'd be him."

"He a hunter?" A fire truck's siren grows louder, and Dean flicks on the radio.

"Of sorts. There's a case he's workin' on. Asked for some back-up. You wanna head on up here?"

"Uh… where?"

"Southern Illinois. Near Harrisburg."

~

Back at the motel, Dean takes a long cold shower. The water stings against the dozens of thin cuts over his arms and face, circles down the drain with little wisps of pink. His ribs are sore from being thrown, but not broken. He winces as he twists around in front of the bathroom mirror, trying to assess the damage. If John were there, he'd knock on the door, ask him if everything was okay, and Dean would answer, "Yeah Dad! Give a guy some privacy, would ya?" And when he'd come out, John would order pizza or Chinese, and say something about taking a couple days off because he needed to work on the truck, which they both would secretly know was a blatant lie.

But John isn't there. So Dean checks out, and heads for Harrisburg with bruised ribs and an empty stomach.

~

Bobby has more facial hair. That's about all that seems to have changed. He might be wearing the same baseball cap he was back in '88. It hides his eyes as he looks down at the diner's menu. Dean has to cough as he approaches to grab the man's attention.

"Dean?"

"Hey."

"It's been too long, boy. You're lookin' good. Well, except for those, uh…" He traces his finger along his forehead, mirroring one of Dean's more pronounced cuts.

"Oh. 'S nothin'. Long story. Where's Dad?" Dean asks, sits himself across from Bobby in the little red booth, scans the perimeter.

"He's following a lead, upstate. Should be back tomorrow. Day after…"

Dean doesn't look back.

"Is there a waitress in this place, or what?"

"Dean?"

"Hmm? Oh. Yeah. Cool."

"I'm sure he'll call. Give us an update."

"Sure. Whatever. ….Man, I'm starving. What's good here?" His eyes scan the menu, and his knee bops up and down under the table nervously, but only Bobby notices.

~

There's a little cabin John and Bobby are renting on the Wabash river. At dusk, Dean builds a fire out back, while Bobby explains the case. The disappearances in the Cypress swamps. 6 in the last 2 weeks. The police don't have any leads.

"It all started right after this little boy was drowned. Downright horrible thing, too. Murdered by his stepfather." Bobby twists open a couple beers, hands one to Dean, who's kicking at the edges of the campfire.

"So it's the kid's ghost then."

"Well, we aren't sure. That's why your daddy took off. Tracked down a girl who'd reported seein' something in the same swamp the day of the second disappearance. She's a biologist up at the University in Champaign."

Dean takes a swig of beer, and squints into the fire.

"You and John getting along?" Bobby asks.

"Yeah." He watches a spark drift sideways and up until it disappears.

"Listen, he told me about your brother. I know it can't be easy…" Bobby says, picking at the foil label on his beer bottle.

"Save it, Bobby. You don't know shit." Dean stands between the fire and the tree Bobby's leaning against, and lit from behind he appears like a great black shadow.

"Fine. Fair enough. But if you need an ear… well, I've got two of 'em."

"Thanks, but no thanks. Let's stick to business, alright?" Bobby nods and Dean sits down cross-legged and pokes at the fire with a stick. "You got any marshmallows?"

~

In the morning, Bobby's outside on a picnic table with a topographic map and a chamomile tea, looking for patterns. Inside, Dean struggles to work out an old Turkish coffee maker, and when John calls he fumbles for his phone, leaves little coffee grains in the cracks between the keypad when he answers.

"What have you got?"

"From this woman's account, sounds like a Vodnik," John says.

The… uh…Russian water demon?" Out the window, Dean watches as a group of kayakers glide down river. It's overcast, and fog drifts slowly on the edge of the water, catches in willows and cattails.

"Yeah. Legend goes, that a child drowns and its spirit is actually transformed into the creature."

"It's not a ghost then?"

"Nope."

"So how do we kill it?"

"I'm workin' on it, Dean. Most of the literature only gives advice on ways to appease it. Give it fish, tip your hat to it, that whole Brother's Grimm spiel."

"Oh, that's perfect," Dean groans, examining the pieces of the coffee machine as if it were some kind of alien technology. "All we need to do is put up a big sign that says please tip hat to swamp creature. Case closed."

"I said I'm workin' on it."

~

Bobby pulls a stack of massive old books out from the back of his pick-up and they scour them for most of the afternoon. He sits at the table in the cabin and buckles down, but Dean can't manage to stay put for more than a half hour, until he sighs deeply and carries his work to another spot and settles again, like a cat looking for the perfect place to nap. Does it over and over.

Later, Dean stops. He closes a heavy tome, and paces the floor like an expectant father.

"Shit," he says to the door, runs frustrated hands over his face and through his hair. "There's got to be something back at the site." He grabs his car keys from the small Formica counter next to the sink that only runs cold.

Bobby looks up, shakes his head.

"Dean, your Daddy and I have been there already. And I don't think we should be heading out, guns a-blazin', without a damn good idea of how to kill this sucker."

"Come on, Bobby! There's nothing in these fucking textbooks! If you want my help on this case, then I need to see where this thing lives for my own damn self, alright?" Dean's already heading through the door.

"Fine. But I'm coming with you."

"Whatever."

~

The Cypress Swamp is a 40 minute drive through poverty stricken farm land. Old Victorian homesteads in disrepair, and Regan-era prefab housing with cars up on blocks in the driveways, American flags, plastic lawn ornaments and overweight kids in hand-me downs playing in ditches with dogs. Shacks selling barbequed pork sandwiches, or fresh corn and blackberries. No one stopping.

They park at the end of a dead-end road, and hike the rest of the way. The bald cypress trees stand in the murky water like skyscrapers in a flooded city, towering and numerous. The two men stand at the edge of an old boardwalk, and the planks are old but still sturdy, and the water is grey like a dusty mirror, except where it's covered with a film of brownish-green algae. Dean doesn't look at it. He looks at the woman, who is grey too, except for her dull orange hair and freckles. She appears from the woods beside them and approaches the swamp's edge.

They watch her carefully, as if she were a faun they might scare off with the crack of a twig underfoot. But it's clear this isn't a natural occurrence here. It's clear that something isn't quite right. She's too skinny and looks half-way to being a ghost. Maybe is one already. She unbuttons her thin cotton dress with nimble fingers, nails ragged and encrusted with earth. The dress falls at her feet and her head bends down as if to follow it there. Dean is quiet, and makes no move towards her.

"What are you doing?"

"He wants me to go," she whispers, starring at Dean with vacant eyes, pale blue like crystal. She turns to the pond suddenly, dives in, a blaze of tossed hair and boney limbs.

Bobby doesn't even get the chance to slow Dean down before he dives in after her. He stands there on the boardwalk over the swamp and yells, dashes along the water's edge, as if there might be some particular place he should stand where calling for him might actually produce some kind of result. As his throat becomes raw, he finds himself kneeling next to the swamp in the spot from which the red haired girl jumped, and he grabs at her dress that's spread out on the soft, mossy earth, and it's soaking wet. It was already wet. She was already wet.

Bobby stares at the water, but nothing happens. The surface is eerily still. A blue heron flies overhead as he jogs back to the Impala. Halfway up the path, he realizes he still has the dress in his hand, and he lets it fall to the ground like it belongs there.

~

Back at the cabin, Bobby knows exactly which book he's looking for, exactly which page. The only account of a Vodnik he'd come across that spoke of using other victims as bait. And listed a way to kill the sucker, to boot. When he'd read it that afternoon, he thought it had been a joke.

Vodka.

"Those crazy fucking Ruskies…"

He loads an old canoe that came with the cabin into his truck. He stops at Dave's Drive-Thru Liquor and picks up a bottle of Shmirnoff's. Not the cheap American stuff. Just in case.

~

Bobby paddles out a ways, cautiously. He unscrews the bottle and pours it slowly into the swamp. After just a few seconds, the water starts to bubble like a witch's cauldron. The Vodnik thrashes in the water, makes high-pitched noises like an angry dolphin and Bobby catches a glimpse of its matted green hair, its bloated form, arms sludge-black and eyes
like a sick koi fish. After a few minutes the bubbling stops and melts away, dissolves like putrid Alka-Seltzer, just as Bobby spies a body floating to the surface, face down.

"Dean!"

He paddles over quickly, reaches over the edge, grabs hold of Dean's pant leg and hauls his limp body into the boat. Dean's face is pale, nearly gray, like the girl's had been. Bobby presses two fingers to his neck, finds a pulse, listens for breath that doesn't come.

"Damn it Dean!" He eases the mouth open, hands pressed against cold, pruned skin and muddy jeans. Breathes out, counts off, repeats three times before he gets a reaction. Dean rolls over, and Bobby's hitting his back, encouraging him to keep fighting, like a ringside coach at a boxing match.

"That's it, boy. That’s it."

Coughing up muddy water, trembling, gasping for air, Dean shakes the canoe more than Bobby's comfortable with. He rests a hand on Dean's chest, urges him gently to settle down. Dean doesn't speak, but he seems to understand. Gravitating slowly back to reality, he presses his cheek and hands against the curved wood of the boat, stares at flecks of peeling green paint, smells pine needles and spilled beer, while Bobby rows them back to shore.

He hauls Dean out of the canoe, drags him through the woods and Dean stumbles like he's been drinking for days, head still cloudy, thoughts unclear. Half-way back to the car, he doubles over, throws up a couple pints of swamp sludge. Bobby grimaces, waits for Dean to finish.

They drive back to the cabin on the interstate. A soft rain starts to fall, but neither man bothers to roll the windows up.

~

Dean's whole body is racked with shivers. He stares at his own hands as if they are the only familiar thing in this world to him. Bobby sits him on the bed, pulls off his soaked shirt and jeans to reveal a series of dark bruises marring his arms, legs and chest, lays him back onto thin flannel sheets that smell like moth balls, a musty goose down pillow with brown water stains. He touches the back of his hand to Dean's hot forehead.

"You're gonna be ok, kid."

Dean stares at an old poster that's on the wall over the side of the bed. It's for Giant City State Park, and the edges are tattered and the colours are faded from the sun.

"You ever seen a giant, Bobby?"

Bobby eases a thermometer under Dean's tongue, glances up at the poster.

"I think I should call your Dad."

Dean shrugs and closes his eyes.

~

He has to use Dean's cell phone because he doesn't believe in them, and there's no land line here. He leans against the wall furthest from the bed, watches him as it rings on the other end of the line, still holding the thermometer that read 102 just a moment before, rolling the cold glass between his thumb and index finger.

John answers: "Dean?"

"It's me."

"What happened?"

"Listen, John. The Vodnik took him… but I got him back, okay?"

"For how long?"

"Almost 2 hours. But he'll be fine. I'm sure he'll be fine. He's tough, that kid. Tougher than you, maybe." Bobby stops fiddling with the thermometer, stares down at it like he's just realised it's there, and places it by the sink.

"Yeah. Maybe. You… you killed it, right?" Like a warning.

"Damn straight, I killed it," Bobby says, opens the faucet and runs a rag under the icy-cold water. Lets it cool his hands, his nerves. "But Dean…. well…just, get back here, alright?"

"Bobby, What?"

"You heard me."

"Fine. I'm on my way."

~

Bobby's drinking a coffee on the front porch when John pulls up to the cabin in the early morning. It's quiet for a moment when the truck's engine turns off, and loud again with the slam of the driver's side door.

Bobby stands, more to slow John down than to greet him.

"He's sleeping."

"What the hell happened out there Bobby?"

"I think it…it uses one victim to lure the next. Keeps folk alive under there somehow, puts them in some kind of trance, then uses them as bait. Damn thing was fishin' for people with people. Then once it had the next victim, it could finish off the one from before."

"Jesus." John looks past Bobby, at the window. It's dark in the cabin compared to outside, and all he can really see is a reflection of the front drive and the Impala. "What kinda shape's he in?"

"He's banged up pretty bad. Nothin's broken, far as I can tell, but he'll be sore for a good while. He's feverish too, and a little freaked. Hell, I would be."

"Okay."

Bobby's calm. He sips the coffee and moves out of John's way.

~

The cabin's dark and musty, and yellow morning light flitters in abstractly through old lace curtains. There is only one spartan room, furnished with old dusty wood things and old sturdy metal things. There's a beat up rocking chair near the bed where Dean's lying, and John drags it as close to the edge as he can. The cloth folded across Dean's forehead John grazes with his fingertips. It's damp and cold. An old quilt covers the bottom half of Dean's body, leaving his battered chest and arms exposed. He shivers, and John pulls at the blanket, brings it up to his shoulders. He sits there for a while, watches Dean sleep, breathe. Bobby stays out of the way, putters around by the river.

Dean stirs in his sleep and frowns, and John taps his flushed cheek.

"Dean."

He watches intently as his son's eyes open slowly.

"Dad." His voice is coarse and raw, and he coughs softly.

"Hey. How you doin?"

"I'm great..." He reaches for his forehead, pulls the damp cloth away and holds it tight in his fist over his heart and water squeezes through his fingers onto the quilt.

"You're damn lucky, son. You know that?"

"I know. I screwed up."

"Yeah. It's okay. You just rest now."

"I shouldn't 'a gone after her. I just…."

"What? Gone after who? Dean, what exactly happened out there?"

"She just jumped in…an' I had to…. I couldn't just stand there…"

"Dean, are you insane? What the hell were you thinking?" John's yelling.

Bobby's not puttering around outside anymore. He makes his presence known, takes a step towards them, and exchanges looks with Dean, whose eyes are bloodshot and weary.

"John, lay off the kid, for god's sake. He's been through the wringer." He smiles a little,
but Dean shakes his head slightly.

"Stay out of this, Bobby." John's eyes narrow in focus.

"You're a real bastard, you know that?"

John rises, leads Bobby out the front door with a grip around his bicep that's bound to leave a mark. They stop a few yards away from the cabin, sandwiched between both their trucks.

"You tell me what the hell happened out there, Singer," John growls.

"Why, so you can reprimand your kid for screwing up and almost getting himself killed?"

"And why the fuck not? If he did something stupid, he should know it."

"Have you seen the boy?" Booby says, resting a hand on the back of his trucker cap. "You don't think he knows it?"

"You don't know my son, Bobby! He's fucking reckless. If he doesn't know someone gives a shit about him… I have to…. This is how it has to be." The words come slower now, more resigned. John leans on his truck, steadies a hand on the rear-view mirror.

Bobby's expression softens, and he shakes his head.

"Oh, for Christsake. This is you trying to show you care about him? You're a real piece of work, Winchester."

John looks Bobby in the eye. "It's important he knows. He can't fuck up like this. I won't always be there."

"John…" Bobby looks back at him like a trained dog at a suitcase of cocaine.

"Listen, something's come up. There's something I need to do, and I don't want Dean with me. It's too dangerous. I need to know he can take care of himself."

The volume of the conversation is lowered now, and the tone grave.

"Whoa… What? What are you saying? You're gonna leave him on his own?" Bobby points back to the cabin, stares at John with eyes wide.

"He's 26 years old, Bobby."

"And you're all he's got in this whole damn world!"

"This is important."

"And you're son isn't fucking important?"

The men stare each other down as a tractor drives past hauling a trailer of hay, a border collie perched atop golden bails, yowling at them. They stand like this silently until the sounds of the tractor's engine, of the dog's barks fade. Waiting for humanity to leave them be once more.

"I'm doing this for my son. For both my sons," John says, rubs callused hands on the front of his jeans.

"And when are you gonna tell him? When are you gonna take off?"

John looks away, at the dirt, at the sky. "Actually… I…"

"Oh, no! You are not leaving him here. He's not even on his feet, for god sake!"

"Bobby, this can't wait any longer."

"Oh, I don't give a rat's ass whether it can wait. It'll sure as hell have to."

The argument stops in its tracks, when the cabin door swings open, revealing Dean leaning heavily against the frame. He's managed to pull on a t-shirt and jeans, and it looks like it's taken its toll. He stumbles down the steps of the front porch, gripping the railing tightly.

"Dad?"

"Dean, go back inside."

"What the hell is going on?"

"Inside, Dean!"

But Dean sees Bobby—eyes ablaze with anger, reaching into the cab of his pick-up, pulling out a shotgun—and he moves towards them.

"Dad!"

John doesn't heed Dean's warning, only watches as the kid weakens, as his knees hit the earth with a thud. He's at his son's side in an instant, a hand on his chest, another on his chin, persuading him to make eye contact. But Dean's still focused on Bobby.

And Bobby has the rifle cocked. "I swear to god, Winchester, if you don't leave right now, I will shoot you full of buckshot! Right where the sun don't shine!"

"What the fu-" Dean tries to will the yard from spinning, tries to make sense of this bizarre scene. But fails.

"-And take that damn kid of yours with you!" Every atom in Bobby Singer's body is dead serious.

John helps Dean up, an arm around his waist. More irritated than afraid, he staggers to the Impala, gets Dean in the passenger seat and makes a move towards his truck. But Bobby won't have it. He lowers the rifle, aims.

"I said now, John."

"Aw hell, Bobby. You fucking asshole." John turns around, climbs into the Impala and cranks the engine. Dean leans his head on the glass, glares at Bobby, who avoids eye contact with him completely. There's a sadness behind the anger on his face, and his grip on the rifle is shaky.

~

John drives off down the road without hesitation, doesn't speak for miles. Dean follows his lead.

"You doin' alright?" John asks finally, when the sun begins to beat down hard, and sweat from fever and from heat become one and the same, glistening on Dean's forehead.

"Your truck…"

"Fuck it. I'll get another one."

"Jesus. What the hell was that back there?"

"Bobby and I…we have a lot of history."

Dean swallows hard, wipes the sweat off his face. "Yeah. Okay."

He stares out the window and watches the Wabash turn into the Ohio. Someday, he'll see Bobby Singer again, and thank him for something. He's not sure what.

~

fin