Learning How to Fly

By PaBurke

Summary: Adult birds push their fledglings out of the nest to teach them to fly. John Winchester parents by a similar philosophy. Dean finds himself far from home and struggling to succeed.

Spoilers: Supernatural AU-ish, Stargate Atlantis Season 2 (generally), The Long Good-Bye (specifically), The Tower. I am completely ignoring what happened to the Mid-way station in SGA canon.

Warnings: Swearing, angst

Disclaimer: None of this eye candy is bringing me money, I'm not a pimp.

Distribution: spnbigbang lj, The Nook, Crossroads lj,

Prologue:

Jack O'Neill closed the door behind the distraught young man and breathed out. The last twenty-four hours had been chock full of surprises and this was him talking. Vampires: It got funnier every time he thought about it. On Earth. He was lucky to be alive. He was lucky that some Hunters had been close by since his team had been far away. Those revelations would be accepted over the beer and hard stuff when Dean returned. Jack had managed to wring a promise out Dean that he would return and Ithen/I get drunk. Jack would fake inebriation somewhat. He needed the intelligence. He didn't feel all that bad about manipulating the son of an old friend-at-arms.

He rubbed his eyes, sighed and then climbed up the stairs to the bedrooms. Charlie's door was opened, but no surprise there. Jack leaned against the wall directly outside it. "You are a complete bastard, John Winchester."

"I know."

"You deliberately picked a fight with him."

John didn't answer him.

"You blamed your own injury on him." Jack hoped like hell that Winchester had not been deliberately too slow to make the injury in the first place.

"Nothing else would have made him leave. He had you to go to right now."

The blistering words floating through Jack's head were normally reserved for a snakehead or Kinsey. Winchester would just shrug them off, but it wouldn't help Jack get all the information he needed. "Why?"

"No one can get him further away."

How the hell had Winchester learned that? "Do I need to worry about a security leak?"

"Demons."

For real? "Cryin' out loud." Jack rubbed his eyes again. "Why are you doing this?"

"You saw Dean's intelligence and creativity. The demons do too. He's managed to go above and beyond every other human before him in the Hunt. He's got enough connections to spread his success around."

"You broke him."

Silence for moment. "Dean's stronger than any of us. He's alive, but he won't be for much longer if he's near me."

"Get the hell out of my house, Winchester. You are not welcome." Jack marched down the hall. He needed to get clean sheets. Dean would need some place to crash. He had thought that he had been the worst father in existence. Now he knew that Winchester held the title, or at least tied him for it.

"Bastard," he muttered again.