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1.
When John turns fifteen his father gives him a rifle. A Winchester. The connection's never been by blood, only coincidence, and John almost likes it better that way. Like it's not something he's been born into by accident, but that it was meant to be. He's building his own myth.
They go camping that weekend, and hunting. Dad uses the old Remington he's had since the war, the same one John learned with. John mostly misses the target shots they set, still getting used to the new kick and weight of the Winchester. In the late afternoon, while the sun's still bright and there are a couple cans of beans heating in the fire, Dad teaches him how to strip the rifle, clean it. Take care of your weapon, he says, and it'll take care of you.
They've seen some deer, mostly startled in the distance, and squirrels scurrying up close. Dad says that John's done good, and that tomorrow they'll go after a deer proper, so he can teach John how to slaughter it, butcher their own meat to take home to Mom.
Dad sharpens his hunting knife in front of the camp fire that night, and John rests the rifle across his knees and watches. The blade draws across the whetstone in slow, easy strokes and John's excited about the deer they're going to kill, sure, but his shoulders are still aching with the ghost-kick of the Winchester and all he can think about is hunting something bigger.
He lies awake in the tent, rifle resting along one side of his body, his Dad along the other. The sound of Dad's soft snores fill the tent and John can hear the skittering of squirrels outside. He thinks about a bear lumbering out of the forest into their clearing, the heavy huffs of breath it would make. Thinks about aiming, shooting. The kick of the Winchester.
Less than a year later, Dad's dead. Mom doesn't take it too well. She's always been a bit on edge, like she was just waiting for it to happen. Dad used to tell John that she hadn't always been like that, that it was only since Dad got back from the war. War did something to her, same way it'd done something to him. John had only felt like he was close to finding out what that was when Dad was getting close bottom of a bottle of whisky. But now it was too late to get there anyhow.
John spends the weekend of the funeral in the forest, firing the Winchester at anything that moves until his shoulders and head ache. When he turns sixteen a couple months later he goes back, looking for a bear.
Six months after that his sister up and heads to California in a van with her friends, joining some hippie commune and they don't even get a letter from her, let alone a call. Mom gets more and more silent, like she's folding in on herself.
The day he turns seventeen he tells her he's shipping out. Heading off to boot camp tonight, forged papers cleared and stamped. It's like she breaks open, then, everything that's been stagnating inside her rushing out. She screams, finally cries, and he makes himself stand for it, not back down. Dad would want me to do this, he tells himself over and over. Her last words to him aren't shouted but delivered deadly quiet, and she was begging before but now she's just telling him as it is, plain and simple. If you leave, don't come back.
He doesn't. Nowhere to come back to anyway, even only a year after that; a letter from his sister at long last, while he's still over there, delayed as the delivery is. Hey John, it says. Mom's dead. Buried with Dad.
When he gets back, he thinks, it'll be different. But for now, it's just him against the world.
2.
Sam turns nineteen while he’s in a bus station somewhere in Utah. He’s sitting on the gritty, tiled floor with his back against the wall, open paperback resting on his bent knees, same page for the last forty minutes. He glances up at the huge-faced, numberless clock at 11.57, and by the time he looks up next he’s missed it; hands at 12.01.
He doesn’t feel any different, more’s the pity. There’s another brief surge of what the fuck am I doing here? but those are more occasional, unexpected eddies of anxiety now, easy to handle.
He’s sitting in a bus station in Utah with a duffel bag comprising his worldly possessions and it’s 12.03 in the morning and he’s feeling more at home than he has in eight months. Not any less alone, though.
Eighteen, he thinks, counting back. Sunshine in Arizona. Sam’s pick of music all day, the smell of sun-heated leather upholstery in the car, and the sound of Dean’s hand slapping out a beat on it. Sam’s knees braced against the dash, palms of his hands colored from the M&Ms he and Dean shared.
Sixteen. Coming home from a hunt (angry spirit, St Matthew’s Cemetery, salt and burn at 10pm) and hitting the books still dirt- and filth-covered. Dad slamming the door to the bathroom, muttering to Dean; the sounds in the tiny apartment stilling as they settle down for the night. Realising, this is it. Soft scratching on the door, Dean standing behind him. Dean’s hand ruffling his hair. Happy birthday, kid. It’s midnight.
Twelve, Dean taking him to see a movie. The strange taste of salt mixed with the artificial butter flavouring. The way the light looked kind of blue and washed out when they came back out of the theatre, and the way Dad stopped leaning against the car and stood up straight when they came toward him.
Ten, carnival in Michigan, hiding from the clowns in the spook house. Chasing and being chased by Dean, breathless exhilaration and dizzying thump of his heart when Dad lurched into the labyrinth as well, making his voice deep and booming.
Six, the memory fainter, pancakes for breakfast and giggling when he had to peel his syrup-sticky hand out of Dad’s before they got in the car again.
Younger, and he has tokens more than memories; Dean’s favourite hand-me-down tee-shirt, five; a Berenstain Bears picture book, four; a now-threadbare toy rabbit, one.
12.09.
He runs his thumb over the number pad on his cell. It’s big, chunky, matte black plastic, the cheapest Dean could find, probably. When Dean had called him two months ago he’d said they were in Omaha, but Sam’s bus was running late and the next connection doesn’t come through until 8.30 in the morning.
12.17. He closes the paperback and holds the phone with both hands, thumbs moving to dial the number in when– Jesus fuck. It rings, and Sam almost drops it.
“Hello?” His voice sounds raw, but that’s no surprise; it’s been hours since he last spoke.
“Hey, kid.” Sam closes his eyes. Dean’s voice is just as rough, just as tired. Sam wonders where Dean’s been in the sixty-two days since Omaha, wonders if Dean got out his cell and scrolled to his brother’s number, thumb hovering over the connect button, as much as Sam did. “How’re things?”
“Great,” Sam says. “Great. You?”
“Yeah,” Dean says. “Good. The world still a wonderful place there in sunny California?”
Sam can’t tell if it’s meant to be a sarcastic jab or if Dean’s fishing for hunts, and he can’t respond for a moment. “Yeah,” he says at last. “It’s great.”
“Great,” Dean says.
Sam pulls his knees up a little tighter. He can hear Dean breathing even through the crackling of the line, but he doesn’t know what to say. Doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing, in Utah or otherwise. “Dean, I’m–” –Not in California. I’m coming to find you. I’m stupid. I’m sorry.
“Okay,” Dean says, once the pause has wrung itself out. “Happy midnight, hey?”
12.23. “Yeah,” Sam says. “See you round.”
3.
She’s in the grocery store when her water breaks. The jar of pickled onions she was holding drops to the floor and shatters, and she gasps, one hand going to her belly and the other to brace against a nearby shelf.
“You’re gonna have to pay for–” The attendant stops when he rounds the corner, gapes.
Spots, Mary thinks. My baby’s never going to have spots.
The attendant finally manages to close his mouth again. “You… you can’t–”
Or work in a grocery store. John. She has to call John. Tell him her birthday dinner’s cancelled. They were only eating in, anyway; too far along for them to want to stray too far from home, so there’d be no reservations to deal with.
“I’m… I’m gonna get the manager.”
“It’s okay,” she says. “I’ll just get a cab.”
She shuffles to the doors, and they trundle open ahead of her. It’s mid-afternoon and the after-school rush hasn’t hit yet, so the street’s still relatively quiet. When she gets to the bank of shopping carts just outside the store, another wave of pain hits.
“Sweet baby Jesus,” she gasps.
“Uh.” The attendant’s still hovering. “Ma’am, I can call for a cab if you–”
“No, really,” she says, unclenching her teeth. “It’s–” she catches a flash of yellow in the corner of her eye, sticks her fingers in her mouth and gives a piercing whistle. The cab pulls out of the sparse traffic and onto the curb immediately. She smiles at the attendant briefly. “Thanks.”
They put her in a wheelchair after she’s waddled into the ER, take her up to the maternity ward. She gives them the number at the garage and then the nurse who’s not off calling her husband helps her undress, slip into the loose gown.
Ninety minutes later, John still hasn’t arrived. “I spoke to someone who said they’d pass on the message,” the nurse tells Mary, and she knows that would have been Mike, and there was no way in hell Mike wouldn’t pass on the message. But John still isn’t here. “I’ll try again,” the nurse says, and Mary smiles her thanks.
Another thirty minutes and she’s starting to get anxious. When the nurse asks if there’s anyone else she can call, Mary shakes her head. Because there isn’t. Just her and John, against the world.
She doesn’t want to be alone.
No offense, kiddo, comes the tail of that thought. Love having you around, but I kinda need your papa, now.
Two and a half hours after she’s checked in she looks up and he’s there, flushed and breathless and grease-smudged, standing in the doorway. “About time,” she says.
He looks like he’s freaking out. “I’m sorry, this guy came in and he needed this part right away and they had it in Topeka, so I figured I could get there and–”
“Hey,” she says. “Shut the hell up.” And drags him down for a fierce kiss. He hasn’t even washed his hands yet; he leaves them curled loosely at his sides. She grabs one of them, presses it between hers. “It’s gonna get a whole lot messier than this, okay?”
His grin sets her heart pounding quicker, and now, now, it’s really happening. “Okay,” he says, squeezing her fingers. “Hey,” his mouth curls almost mischievously. “Happy birthday, huh?”