An End
(or maybe just another beginning)

Drip

Drip

Sam felt the warm liquid splatter on his cheek, run down the curve of his jawbone, and halt somewhere between the juncture of his shoulder and neck. His mind registered the warmth and instantly, his muscles had tensed and the adrenaline surged through his veins, preparing him for a fight before he had even fully woke up.

He laid there, eyes closed, trying to figure out why his body thought he was in danger. His shoulder felt cold from the cool breeze that was running through the room from the fan. It felt wet, and it dawned on him why he was in fight mode. He took a deep breath and opened his eyes, praying that he wouldn't see another loved one attached to his ceiling.

Drip

It was only water that hit his nose and he let out the breath of air he was holding in. It figured that the ceiling was leaking; their current home was a piece of crap. He kicked off his damp blankets, and slid out of his bed. He was too revved up to go back to sleep and he needed to deal with the leak. Padding his way out to the kitchen, he passed the living room. He paused, seeing the glow from the TV.

His father was holed on the couch, wrapped up in a hairy afghan, flipping through the channels, pausing every few seconds on a new info-commercial before continuing on to the next. He looked almost like a statue with his perfect posture and his failure to blink in the few minutes Sam observed him. The only thing that differed his father from a statue was the sunken wrinkles under his eyes from so many nights of not sleeping over the course of Sam's lifetime, and the grizzly beard that habituated the lower portion of his face. The beard was patchy; some places containing no hair, others a mixture of brown and silver hairs.

His father hadn't been like that when they had been searching for their mother's killer. He had never been the type to worry about his appearance but he took enough pride in himself to be presentable so he could pass for a police officer or FBI agent. But since the time they had finally found their mother's killer and guaranteed it would never return to bother them again, their father had fallen further and further apart. He would sit in whatever room Dean or Sam wasn't occupying and just stare at the wall. He was a defeated man, Sam concluded. He was a man who had lost his purpose to live. And until he found his purpose to live, he would just sit there and wander in his thoughts.

Sam continued on to the kitchen, turning on the lamp over the table, and began opening cupboards in search for a pot that he could use to collect water. All the cupboards were empty except for some mold in the corners. He turned to the sink. Sure enough, there were dishes in there but nothing big enough to hold a substantial quantity of water. Grumbling to himself, he went to the refrigerator, the only other place he could think that the pots would be.

It was a jackpot. He saw all three of the big pots in there, covered shoddily in either plastic wrap or aluminum foil. For a second, he wondered why all three of them had ended up in the refrigerator, until he peered into the contents of the saucepan. No one, except apparently him, had eaten the macaroni & cheese he had made three days ago. It was the same for the other two dishes, a stuffed turkey and gumbo. It made him angry to see the food he had worked so hard to prepare – because he was the only one who knew how to cook – not eaten by his family. He would have thought everything would be gone with three men living in a house, with nothing better to do then eat. But his anger subsided fairly quickly. There was a bigger problem to solve in the fact that they weren't eating. He kept the macaroni & cheese in the refrigerator and scraped the gumbo out of the bowl and into the garbage. As for the stuffed turkey, he threw it away, seeing that the meat where the skin had been peeled off, and had turned a sickly yellowish color. He rinsed both of the pots and scrapped off the remainder of the food with his fingernails, not having either soap or a sponge to scrub them with. He set the pot he wasn't planning to use in the drain and took the gumbo pot into his bedroom.

His covers were now completely drenched, the water no longer a dribble from the ceiling but a thin steady stream. He tore the sheets off the bed and pushed the mattress and bed frame out of the torrent's path before placing the pot underneath it. At the rate the water was filling the pot, he guessed he would have to empty the pot within a couple of hours. Hopefully, it would stop raining in the morning so the room could dry out and he could go up and fix the roof.

He gathered up his sheets and made the trudge down the basement stairs where the makeshift laundry room was. It always surprised him that their homes would be missing refrigerators or stoves, or in the case of one home, a toilet, but the first things that were bought were the washer and the dryer, and a full shelf worth of detergent, bleach, and other cleaning products that could remove stains. Sam guessed it had to do with the fact that both his dad and brother always returned from hunts bloody and they never had the money to just go out and buy new clothes. It was a necessity to make them appear normal, but nowadays it wasn't something they needed. No one had gone hunting in a few weeks and Sam intended for it to stay that way. He had spent his entire life holding out on the notion he could have a normal life in which he got married, had two kids, a dog, and worked in a respectable line of work. He intended to do that now and he wanted his family to have that same chance.

Shifting through the ten or so half-filled bottles of specially scented detergent, he settled upon the generic detergent and poured it onto his sheets that were wrapped around the pole in the center of the washer. He shut the lid and pulled out the knob to start the water running into the machine.

He dragged his body up the stairs and tried to think about where he could sleep, seeing that his bedroom was out of use. Their father occupied the living room's couch, the kitchen table was too cluttered, bathroom too stinky, and so he decided to possibly incur Dean's wrath and sleep on his floor. At least it had carpeting.

Dean had the door open just ajar and Sam slipped in silently. He could feel the shaggy fibers of the carpet between his toes, and using that to guide him through the pitch-black room, he waded around the dirty clothing strewn amongst the floor to a seemingly bare spot next to the wall.

It wasn't as bare as he had thought; he tripped over something and that was what saved him. As he tumbled forward, the knife only blew past his ear, hitting and sticking into the wall with a solid thunk. Sam looked up, crouched on the floor to see Dean sitting up straight in bed, another knife already in his hand to deal with the assailant.

"Dean, it's me," Sam whispered, climbing to his feet to better confront his wild-eyed brother.

"Oh. Thought you were Dad," Dean mumbled, placing the knife back under his pillow. Sam wasn't sure if he found that idea comforting or disturbing. "Why'ya here?

" I have a leak in my room. I need somewhere to sleep," Sam offered as his explanation.

"Couch?" Dean laid his head back on the pillow and turned over, puling the sheets around him. Sam had no idea how Dean had managed to sleep with covers, nevertheless without a fan in his room.

"Dad's out there."

"He don't bite."

Dean had a point and Sam had spent enough time with Dean to know when Dean wanted to be left alone. " Night."

He left the room, shutting the door behind him, and walked out to the living room. The TV had finally been turned off and the remote set on the floor, but now a lamp with a dying light bulb lit up the room. Sam expected to see his father reading but his father hadn't changed positions. He was still sitting there, doing nothing, wrapped up in his blanket despite the warmth and humidity that hung in the air.

He sat at the free end of the couch, and watching his father carefully to see if his father was even going to acknowledge him, put up the footrest so he could stretch out. His father didn't even look his way, just continued to stare at the black TV screen like it held all the answers in the world. Sam tried to remember the last time he saw his father doing something other then that. He believed it started after they vanquished the sprit that killed their mother and it all clicked in his mind.

"Dad."

John did not turn his head.

"Dad," Sam hissed again.

John's eyes shifted to look at him but nothing else moved. They were blood-shot, fairly painful looking.

"Go to sleep."

It was a friendly suggestion from a worried son but John didn't take it that way and he rotated his entire body to completely face Sam. " Is that an order from the college boy?"

The beer ran off his breath, and Sam wondered when he had missed the fact his father had started up drinking again. "I'm worried about you. You haven't slept in days and you aren't looking too hot. Are you feeling alright?"

"So nice of you to be concerned about your old man. Weren't all that much when you were abandoning your family…" he spat out and Sam winced. He tried to not allow the comments to bother him. He knew his father had been a mean drunk before their mother had straightened him out.

"I don't want to argue with you."

"Good, don't. Go to sleep."

Sam decided it was easiest to obey and he closed his eyes. But no matter how long he lay there, eyes closed, body begging for sleep, he couldn't fall asleep, kept up by the soft cries that erupted out of his father every once in awhile. He longed to tell his father that it was okay and offer some comfort, but John wouldn't appreciate it and deny it had ever happened. So Sam let his father cry next to him, letting him express the thoughts and feelings he never allowed himself to feel.

I can't go down to the water's edge
I didn't do it... I saw who did it
Don't go down to the water's edge
they did it once and they can do it again