13 - Handle It

Considering he'd gone twenty or so hours without sleep, John felt frighteningly alert. He knew from experience that it was a temporary situation that would quickly go south. But until then he could run on adrenaline if he had to.

He'd had way too many spontaneous visits to out of the way hospitals in his life. The boys probably felt the same way. At least this was a small hospital, and fairly easy to navigate. It didn't take him long to find Sam and Dean in the waiting room. Sam looked fine, if tired. Dean was a little more beaten up, but better looking than he expected. He had a brief urge to hug them, but it came and went in the same instance. He probably smelled like smoke and chemical accelerant, and he really didn't want to explain that to them. "Any news on Cecelia?" he asked.

They both stood as he came near, and he could see how drawn Dean looked. Either he was in pain, or something else was eating at him. Maybe both. "She's out of surgery, and she's okay. We haven't been allowed to see her because we're not family."

"The hell you aren't." Why did hospitals do this? It was probably a security measure, but in all honesty, it was easier to sneak into someone's room than get permission. They were alone, but he still stepped closer and dropped his voice. "Is the Star secure?"

Dean nodded, and pulled the top part of a silk bag out of his pocket. "I have it."

"Why?" He felt an irrational surge of anger towards Dean. He was in a public place with a dangerous artifact that was barely secured. What the hell was he thinking?

"Cecelia had it in my coat, but I took it from her before we got here. I didn't want any medical personnel accidentally handling it."

John nodded. "Good thinking." His anger ebbed, but he wondered why he got so instantly angry with Dean. Had he expected him to find time to destroy the unbreakable object? Hide it better? It was probably safest with him, given all the choices. He survived, and kept Sam safe. That was really all that mattered. "You didn't mention Hector. Do I assume ..."

Sam looked away, eyes growing teary, while Dean simply swallowed hard and nodded. "He didn't make it."

Damn it. He had been afraid of that. Hector was a genuinely good guy, of a kind they didn't seem to make anymore. He was also one of the few friends he could talk about service stuff and hunting stuff with. And he got killed by fellow hunters. That seemed worse than being killed by a demon. You expected a demon to try some shit, but a fellow hunter? He almost asked how many of them were dead, but reconsidered. The boys were probably traumatized enough.

"Are you guys okay? I'm gonna try and go see Cecelia," he told them.

Dean nodded. "We're fine." Sam was still looking away, possibly trying to get a hold of himself.

John clapped Dean on the shoulder, and gave him an encouraging smile, but he still looked pale and tired. Speaking of no sleep, they probably hadn't had any either. They were an entire sleep deprived family.

John went up to the front desk, and identified himself as Cecelia's brother. She scrutinized him for a long time, probably because he was white, but she had no way of proving he wasn't, so she let him go.

Cecelia was asleep when he came in, and he was quiet so as not to wake her. She looked almost as pale as the sheets she was laying on, and harsh dark crescents hung beneath her eyes. It crossed his mind, for what seemed like the hundredth time tonight, what kind of lowlife bastard could shoot her? That was a level of depredation that was hard to fathom.

Her hand was out, over the blanket, and he touched it, only to find it rather cold. He still felt a pulse, it was just startling. Did she lose a lot of blood? It might explain the IV she was currently hooked up to.

She muttered something, but it was too low for him to hear. He glanced at her face, and found her eyes were open. Glazed and a little pained, but she was conscious. "Didn't mean to disturb you."

"Have you ever tried to sleep in a hospital? You didn't, trust me."

John pulled up a chair at her bedside, and felt he should say something, but words were perfectly inadequate for this. She lost her husband. How did "sorry for your loss" cover that? After Mary died ... it was like the end of the world. He could barely even remember the days and weeks afterward. It was like he was in a fugue state. The loss of a spouse was just too huge, and the words seemed stuck in his throat. After a moment, he said what he could. "Thank you for saving my boys."

"I did no such thing. They saved themselves. And I kind of wanted to talk to you about that. I'm going to assume therapy's not your style, so how about just being a Dad to your kids for a while? Not a drill sergeant."

He hadn't expected that. "Uh, what?"

"Dean was ready to fight his way through all of them, which, you know, pretty normal for a teenage boy. The abnormal thing is he actually could have. There's such a thing as being over trained, and I think he passed it ages ago."

John did wonder what this was about. Wasn't Dean's over training a good thing? Wasn't being able to fight the hunters a good thing? How was this bad? "He has to be ready. They both do."

"For what, John? And don't say the demon again, because, if what we've heard about this thing is true, no normal human is ever going to be ready to take on a demon that powerful. Even you can't."

"I'm working on it." He was. It had taken him to several dead ends, but he was sure he'd find something soon. Odds were something would pan out.

"So what's the side mission? What are you actually training them for?"

"Survival."

Her eyes were sleepy and drug glazed, sure, but Cecelia had this way of looking at you that made you feel exposed. Somehow she was giving him that look now. "John."

Just the way she said it, she knew he was lying. But he could hardly tell her the truth. If she was alarmed now, wait until he told her the yellow eyed demon was somehow infecting certain children with his blood, children like Sam. And he had some kind of plans for these kids, although John had yet to find a demon who would tell him what they were. It wasn't a huge guess to assume that those kids might be turned into monsters.

For a while, John thought he could do it. He convinced himself, if the fate of the world were at stake, he could do it. But several nightmares had convinced him of the truth. He couldn't kill Sam. Asking him to kill his own son was a bridge too far.

Dean had to be better than him. He had to be strong enough to do what John couldn't. Ideally they could find a way to save Sam, although John hadn't found one yet. But if not, and if the yellow eyed demon got to him - the last demon he encountered was more than happy to tell him yellow eyes knew all about him and his "quest" - it fell to Dean to do it. John honestly didn't know when or if he'd be able to tell when Dean hit the correct level for that. He had a soft spot in him that John didn't want to crush, but the logical side of his brain said he needed to. If Dean showed a bit of weakness at the wrong moment, it could cost everyone. The world would pay. If the moment came, he couldn't hesitate. And yet, he couldn't exactly tell Dean this, could he? Just like he couldn't tell Cecelia.

After a moment, he decided a truth with some lie mixed in would have to do. "I have reason to believe that the yellow eyed demon is after me."

She gazed at him placidly, her haunted eyes giving away nothing. "As in hunting you?"

He nodded. "And if something happened to me ... I can't leave the boys unable to defend themselves."

"But they wouldn't last a second against the yellow eyed demon."

"Maybe not. But what else can I do? If I'm not there to keep them safe, I have to hope Dean is strong enough to pick up the slack."

John had his hand on the edge of the bed, and she put her icy hand over his. "What you need to do right now, John, is take them somewhere relatively safe and just be their dad for a couple of months. They need to be kids; they need to be stupid and silly, and not always on the verge of being crushed. I swear, if they don't get a break, Dean is going to have an ulcer and a nervous breakdown before he's twenty one. And if your time is limited, don't you want them to have some good memories of you? Ones that don't involve death and monsters?"

She had a point. But if he was at all honest with himself, he'd admit being a father to them, all by himself, was more terrifying than most demons. It wasn't that they were bad kids; in fact, the opposite was true, and somehow it made it harder. Sometimes he looked at them, and all he could see was Mary in both their faces, and it made him indescribably sad. Especially since he knew there was no way she'd approve of how he was raising them. When he took a moment to reflect on it, he could easily imagine all the ways she could curse him out. She wouldn't just have divorced him - she would have beaten him into a coma.

But these last couple of months had been crazy. for both him and the boys. They probably all deserved a break. If he didn't know of a place, he could surely find one. "That sounds like a good idea."

"Of course it does. I may go do it myself, once I've recovered, and once the drugs have warn off, and I actually come to grips with the fact that Hector ..." She closed her eyes, and it seemed like a wince. He squeezed her hand in solidarity. The drugs were probably a mercy now. When the real pain hit - and oh god would it - she might be unable to function for a while.

"I know. I wish I could save you the pain." He did. He wished he could save his boys the pain of everything that was sure to follow in the next few weeks, months, and years.

But even he wasn't that good, was he?

Two Days Later

In daylight, the cabin still looked cozy and charming. But Dean would never see it that way again. Probably Cecelia wouldn't either.

Melanie and her mysterious "people" had done a good job of cleaning up the blood and the bodies. You might even think a crime never happened here. Except for the occasional odd bullet hole, and those patches where the dirt was darker than it should have been.

Dad had suggested they get the stuff they left behind, and maybe do a little cleaning up before Cecelia got out of the hospital and returned here, and it was weirdly thoughtful of him. Of course they said yes. They had a job to do.

As soon as Dean set foot in the living room, and saw the overturned chair, he imagined Clay laying in an ocean of his own blood just beyond it. But he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and looked again. It was simply the chair, and a huge bloodstain that probably would never be cleaned up. Dean knew the feeling.

Cecelia still hadn't said a word. She was still saying she killed Clay. In the end, it didn't matter, as these men had come to kill, and were killed first in some instances. He knew she was doing this for him, and who knew? Maybe Dean could convince himself he didn't do it. Maybe someday, he'd forget.

They told Dad what they were going to do, and he wanted to help, but they told him they had it. It wasn't easy to say why they thought they should do it themselves, but they did.

Dean and Sam gathered the stuff they needed from the cellar and the woodshed, and headed out into the woods. Save for making sure he didn't trip with this fucking heavy bag on his back, he mostly kept his eyes up, looking towards the tops of trees and the overcast sky beyond, and Sam did too. They wandered the woods, until they came to a spot so generic, with no recognizable landmarks, that Dean stopped, and said, "Here."

They didn't really speak while doing this. It seemed like a solemn occasion, and they treated it as such. Dean's face ached, but he did his best to ignore it. It was always the same after he'd been punched in the face. It throbbed and ached like a toothache without a tooth, and even a breeze could make it hurt. It would go on like that for a week or so, and then one day, he'd wake up and find the pain was so deeply muffled, it was on the better side of numb. And then in a couple days, it was gone. He hoped the same was true of the bruise on his stomach too. Looked like someone tried to tattoo him with a Rorschach test.

Dean finally realized why this was so solemn for them. They were symbolically burying Hector. Because he wouldn't have a proper funeral. He'd have a wake, and his body would be fed to the fire. Hunters always burned. Sometimes even before they were dead.

They said nothing as they worked, which was kind of odd for Sam, who usually complained about so much digging. But this was for Hector, who was more than Dad's friend to them. He was family; he really was their Uncle Hector. Never mind that they had no blood or genes in common. He was a rare spot of kindness in a world that didn't have enough of it.

They dug a deep hole, going maybe four and a half feet into the dirt. Sam had the warded box where the Star now resided, along with a lock that would take some magical shit to open. Dean set it in the bottom of the hole, and then upended his flask full of holy water on it. Maybe it wouldn't do anything. But he hoped the wood absorbed it, and if any evil bastard ever found this, they'd get burned.

Then, as soon as the box was in the hole, Dean emptied the small bag of fertilizer they found outside the woodshed, around the back. It was pure shit, and smelled like it too. It'd have to stand in for the animal corpse. On the plus side, it would probably encourage plant growth, and soon this blank spot would be full of lush undergrowth, disappearing even more into the woods.

That was why he and Sam had picked a place as anonymous as possible in the woods, and went out of their way not to notice their route. As added security, they wanted to be unsure where they hid this. So tomorrow, next week, next month, they'd have no idea how to find it again. The earth would swallow it whole, and never give it up again. Hector gave his life to protect it, and they wanted to honor that by making sure it was always protected.

They filled up the hole with the remaining dirt, and then they scattered the remainder around, using their feet to kick over some forest debris, and they didn't stop until you couldn't tell someone had been digging here.

Dean took a moment to wipe the sweat off his face, and mentally remind himself he didn't cry in front of Sam. But it was like being at a grave site, and they just stood there for a moment, saying goodbye to Hector in their own quiet way.

Once the sweat on his skin started to turn cold, he gathered up everything they had brought that they weren't leaving behind, and shoved it all in his backpack. "Let's go," he told Sam. It was the first words anyone had spoken in, what, almost an hour? Maybe more. It now seemed weird.

Dean hoped that, at some point, he'd stop losing everyone he ever cared about. But he had this sinking feeling, it was only the beginning.

The End

N.B.: In case you're wondering why I called this Slashers, it was kind of a joke on me. Because I used so many genre horror tropes in this story - isolated cabin/home invasion/dark woods/cursed object/werewolves/black magic/zombies (?) - I decided to name it after one of the few I didn't use.