The Backroads

flashfic: Use and old age

2008-08-06T16:18:05Z

Title: Use and old age
Summary: "There are days - weeks, now - when he can't even remember your name!"
Characters: John, Mary
Genre: Horror, hell!fic, and snippets of het.
Disclaimer: I own them not; nor do they bring me profit.
Challenge: Captivity
AN: For further reading concerning this insanity look here. Title from Tolkien.

(to stay behind bars until use and old age accept them)

Forgiven/Far Beneath The Skin - John,Sam, Dean (John POV) - [1/1]

2008-07-27T16:22:39Z

Title: Forgiven/Far Beneath The Skin
Author: force_oblique
Rating: Gen, PG-13
Disclaimer: All Characters belong to the "Kripke"! XD
Characters/Pairings: John, Dean, Sam - John POV
Spoilers/Warnings: Throughout the seasons, mostly 2x01,2x02 and season 3.
Word Count:2.329
Summary:...I have spent a whole life fighting and chasing away evil.Fighting the battles that no one else would or could.
I got so close to darkness that it may have engulfed me long before there was no heartbeat in my chest and no warmth in my body...
Maybe I was meant to end up in hell...But was Dean meant to end up here just like me?

Author's Notes:This is probably due to sleeplessness and anxiety- I have been suffering from it lately...
But I miss John and thinking both of John and Dean in hell was both "hot" and sad! XD

Lyrics: Forgiven by Within Temptation

- English is not my native language so excuse any crappiness and/or mistakes! Believe me that’s a given…

Do I have The Right To Ask Am I Forgiven Yet?

Fic: Mother's Day

2008-07-24T14:08:53Z

Title: Mother's Day (http://gwendolyngrace.livejournal.com/109938.html )
Rating: PG
Genre: Gen
Characters: John, wee!Dean
Wordcount: 870
Summary: 1990? 1991? – Dean thinks John has a concussion. He doesn’t.
Author’s Notes: Just a little something for erinrua’s birthday!

Mother's Day

The Dark Horse

2008-07-07T19:23:44Z

Title - The Dark Horse (6/6)
Summary - What is a father supposed to do when he hears whispers that his fifteen-year-old son is tainted by the very thing that killed the love of his life? John Winchester uncovers the terrifying truth about his youngest son's cruel destiny and will stop at nothing to protect him from the truth.
Author - Seriously-Sam
Rating - PG-13
Disclaimer - Supernatural belongs to Kripke, WB, yadda yadda.

The Dark Horse Chapters

fic: Ares and Artemis (part 6)

2008-06-21T09:52:32Z

Title: Ares and Artemis
Summary: This is where it all begins: 1976, in Cold Oak, Wyoming.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I own them not; nor do they bring me profit.
AN: Nearing the end! *sobs* Title from BOC this time.

(Parts 1-5)

(Part 6 - Time is the essence) - Apparently the old adage about Vegas and what happens there really doesn't apply to Florida. Also, a few of Mary's secrets come out.

fic: Ares and Artemis (parts 4 and 5)

2008-06-09T12:14:44Z

Title: Ares and Artemis
Summary: This is where it all begins: 1976, in Cold Oak, Wyoming.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I own them not; nor do they bring me profit.
AN: A little bit of reformatting and much elbow-grease later, it's safe to say that this is now the definitive version of this story. Except for the bits that aren't finished yet. I am so making this up as I go along. For the source of my inspiration, read Diana Wynne Jones’ marvelous novel “Deep Secret”. Title – and Mary’s quotation at the end – from Tolkien, of course.

Part 4: Wake up with the sunrise - Hiding in the woods is hardly the ideal reaction to everything that's happened, but it's the best they've got right now.

Part 5: Circles of the world - Devil's Gates don't just appear out of nowhere, for no reason. Mary and John
find that out the hard way.

Wouldn't It Be Nice? (1/1), NC-17, John/Mary (Het)

2008-06-08T00:57:15Z

Title: Wouldn’t It Be Nice? (1/1)
Author: gwendolyngrace
Genre: Het, Pre-series
Characters: John/Mary
Rating: NC-17
Wordcount: 1,655
Warnings: Um… sex? Between not-yet-married people? Trying to be quiet?
Summary: John can’t wait until they don’t have to sneak around anymore.
Author’s Notes: This is eloise_bright’s fault. She wrote a Sam/Jess thing a while back and it inspired this parallel scene. Thanks to charis_kalos for the beta! (Title is from the Beach Boys song.)

Amarillo, TX - August 1976

They Came at Night

2008-06-05T17:46:03Z

Title - They Came at Night (1/3)
Summary - There was a rustle, a bang, a crunch of leaves. They were noises that made John go outside with a gun. What he didn't think about was what was outside was trying to get in to his two sleeping boys.
Author - Seriously-Sam
Rating - PG-13
Disclaimer - Supernatural belongs to Kripke, WB, yadda yadda.

They Came at Night Chapter Index

Never Say Die

2008-05-28T19:18:48Z

morgan32 has written a wonderful 16 part story that revolves, in an AU kind of way, around the events of Supernatural season 3's Lilith story arc. http://morgan32.livejournal.com/256075.html

Please note the warnings. She means it when she says "darkfic".

fic: Here be Monsters

2008-05-24T14:47:18Z

Title: Here be Monsters
Summary: The Impala's trunk was a treasure-trove of forgotten rubbish, and John could spend all day rooting through it, but the only thing he wants right now is his pocket-knife. - missing scene for "Salvation"
Rating: None. You're all safe for now.
Disclaimer: Indeed.
AN: So, I meant this to be my latest flashfic entry for the prompt about a car, but John, unimpressed with that idea, changed this story around and gave me another bunny for the challenge. I knew there was a reason I loved that man. (Also, he and Dean won't stop demanding I write fics about them. Obnoxious selfish bastards.)

(the magic treasure chest of forgotten rubbish)

The Dark Horse

2008-05-09T23:52:09Z

Title - The Dark Horse (5/6)
Summary - What is a father supposed to do when he hears whispers that his fifteen-year-old son is tainted by the very thing that killed the love of his life? John Winchester uncovers the terrifying truth about his youngest son's cruel destiny and will stop at nothing to protect him from the truth.
Author - Seriously-Sam
Rating - PG-13
Disclaimer - Supernatural belongs to Kripke, WB, yadda yadda.

The Dark Horse Chapters

fic: Ares and Artemis (part 3)

2008-05-03T22:38:32Z

Title: Ares and Artemis
Summary: This is where it all begins: 1976, in Cold Oak, Wyoming.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I own them not; nor do they bring me profit.
AN: A little bit of reformatting and much elbow-grease later, it's safe to say that this is now the definitive version of this story. Except for the bits that aren't finished yet. The story of Azazel is basically true. So is the date of Sam Colt's voyage to England and return to Connecticut. But I fiddled a bit, ignored some things, and generally didn't research too much in case it contradicted my plans for the story.

Part 3: See it Spin - Azazel makes Mary and John an offer they can't refuse. Or so he thinks.

Fic: Singer vs. The Winchesters

2008-04-28T23:34:02Z

Title: Singer vs. The Winchesters
Author: Shallowz
Rating: PG
Characters: John, Bobby, Dean, Sam
Word Count: around 1,900
Warnings/Spoilers: Pre-series
Summary: Bobby Singer’s introduction to the Winchesters.
Beta thanks to erinrua, who gets what we mean even when we don't know how to write it.:) We continued to tweak it, so any 'oops' are ours.
Disclaimer: These stories are based on the characters and premises created by Kripke and company, all of whom have our undying gratitude. They are not ours, no profit is being made, etc. This is just for fun.

Bobby had met many up and comin’ hunters in his day.

John & the Boys Fics

2008-04-28T23:24:43Z

These fics take place after Mary's death.

The First Day of the End of Everything (PG13)
The first days and weeks after the fire that changed everything for the Wincchesters. Based on John's journal entries. Pre-series.

The First and Only Time John Almost Sold the Impala (G)
The Impala is a gas-guzzler. Why would John keep it? Pre-series

Compassion's Gift

2008-04-23T20:41:58Z

Author: JDsgirlBev
Rating: PG
Pairings: John/OFC
Length: 1000 words approx.
Spoilers: IMToD
Disclaimer: Just for snorts and giggles. John, et all belongs to Kripe and the CW
Notes: AU all the way.

Summery: How little you understand your father, Samuel. How little honour you give to a man who spent a year enduring torments that would break you to HEAR of them, to save the lives of his children.

http://jdsgirlbev.livejournal.com/5284.html#cutid1

flashfic challenge: Only love you when they're playing

2008-04-23T19:24:27Z

Title: Only love you when they're playing
Summary: Getting trapped in an attic by a homicidal spirit was really not the sort of father-son bonding Dean had planned on when John got back earlier that week.
Characters: Dean, John
Genre: Gen
Disclaimer: *sulks*
Word Count: 881
Challenge: If you were stuck alone on a deserted island...

(thunder only happens when it's raining)

fic: fic: Ares and Artemis (parts 1 and 2)

2008-04-09T20:14:07Z

Title: Ares and Artemis
Summary: This is where it all begins: 1976, in Cold Oak, Wyoming.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I own them not; nor do they bring me profit.
AN: A little bit of reformatting and much elbow-grease later, it's safe to say that this is now the definitive version of this story. Except for the bits that aren't finished yet.

prologue: Ares and Artemis

Part 1: Playground - Mary and John get kidnapped, meet, and spend some time trying not to get killed.

Part 2: Hidden Paths - John gets a crash-course in vampire-ology and goes on his first real hunt.

The Dark Horse

2008-04-08T16:07:41Z

Title - The Dark Horse (4/6)
Summary - What is a father supposed to do when he hears whispers that his fifteen-year-old son is tainted by the very thing that killed the love of his life? John Winchester uncovers the terrifying truth about his youngest son's cruel destiny and will stop at nothing to protect him from the truth.
Author - Seriously-Sam
Rating - PG-13
Disclaimer - Supernatural belongs to Kripke, WB, yadda yadda.

The Dark Horse Chapters

SPN Fic: Skin Deep (32/?, Gen, R, Pre-Series, +Bobby)

2008-04-03T02:39:54Z

Title: Skin Deep (32 of ?)
Author: Dodger Winslow
Genre: Gen, Pre-series
Rating: R for language, mature subject matter
Disclaimer: I don't own the boys, I'm just stalking them for a while ...

Summary: "Dad." The coarse whisper almost dropped John where he stood. He couldn’t feel anything, couldn’t see anything, couldn’t hear anything except the static murmur of his son’s voice in his ear. "Dad. Help me. Dad."

John reached blindly for a wall. Swallowing every fear that had ever gutted him awake from a sound’s night sleep, he asked, "Where are you, son? Tell me where you are."

Skin Deep (Part 32)

SPN Fic: Skin Deep (30/?, Gen, R, Pre-Series, +Bobby)

2008-03-13T08:59:47Z

Title: Skin Deep (30 of ?)
Author: Dodger Winslow
Genre: Gen, Pre-series
Rating: R for language, mature subject matter
Disclaimer: I don't own the boys, I'm just stalking them for a while ...

Summary: Dean slipped awake in a gradual transition from darkness to darkness. He wasn’t sure where he was, wasn’t sure why he felt like he’d been run over by a freakin semi. He shifted a little and regretted it immediately. Agony stitched up his spine, along his ribs, down his legs; but it was nothing compared to the dull sick that throbbed in his shoulder, in his arm, in his head. The pain was bad enough he thought it might actually kill him for a minute, but then it settled down a little, started counting time by in heartbeats instead of suspending it altogether, calling the rest of his life off on account of OW.

Skin Deep (Part 30)

The Dark Horse

2008-03-10T21:17:01Z

Title - The Dark Horse (3/6)
Summary - What is a father supposed to do when he hears whispers that his fifteen-year-old son is tainted by the very thing that killed the love of his life? John Winchester uncovers the terrifying truth about his youngest son's cruel destiny and will stop at nothing to protect him from the truth.
Author - Seriously-Sam
Rating - PG-13
Disclaimer - Supernatural belongs to Kripke, WB, yadda yadda.

The Dark Horse Chapters

SPN Fic: Skin Deep (27 & 28/?, Gen, R, Pre-Series)

2008-03-07T09:59:32Z

Title: Skin Deep (27 & 28 of ?)
Author: Dodger Winslow
Genre: Gen, Pre-series
Rating: R for language, mature subject matter
Disclaimer: I don't own the boys, I'm just stalking them for a while ...

Summary: Cain looked down at Dean, watched him floating in the water with his eyes closed, his face bloody and already starting to bruise. His skin was white, cold. He looked like he was already dead. He looked like he’d died while they were arguing over him, so if Cain held him underwater, he wouldn’t really be killing him at all, he’d just be getting his dead body more wet.

Skin Deep (Part 27)

Skin Deep (Part 28)

Men, Beer, & Bars

2008-03-01T01:26:10Z

Title: Men, Beer, & Bars
Author:bitchtude
Rating: PG
Category: Gen, Crossover
Characters: John & Joe Dawson from Highlander
Word Count: 1,000 give or take a couple
Summary: On his way down to California, John stops in to see a friend.
Timeline: Before the pilot while Sam is at Stanford.
Comments: Always welcome

I don't remember why I wrote this but it's a little blurb with 2 of my favorite male characters :-)

( Fake cut to my journal )

the_backroads @ 2008-02-27T00:08:00

2008-02-27T03:40:48Z

Someone Has To

Length: 3100 words approx
Characters: John, OFC,
Rating: PG for some cussin'
Disclaimer: I don't have any rights to John Winchester. Which makes me pretty damn contrary.
Thanks to </a></b></a>erinrua for her great beta work.

Summary: Someone has to put it right.

You sure you want to hear this story, boys? Not much to it, really. Yeah? Ok.

It was 1998, and I was just past 15 at the time. I was tall for a girl, and still pretty skinny. A pain in the ass, still tom boy girl with twin 16 year old brothers who were convinced that their sister was just this side of math homework as the thing in their lives most to be avoided. I was also the pain in the ass sister they dared to spend Hallowe'en night in our town's 'haunted house'. A test of whether or not she was as moronic as they thought she was. Huh, she was.

What neither they nor anyone else knew was that the Hitchfield house was the genuine article. So when I crept into the place at 10:00pm to wait my four hours until 2:00am , I was pretty full of 15 year old pain in the ass bravado.

The house was a big two story (aren’t all haunted houses big two stories?) that hadn’t been lived in for three years, not since the last Hitchfield, Young Mr. Bob, ( son of Old Mr. Bob, grandson of the First Mr. Bob) passed on in his sleep at age 62.

The doors and windows were all still intact and mostly locked up or boarded over, but there was a small loose window in the attached work shed at the back of the main building.

My brothers and their friends had discovered that window earlier this summer and apparently spent part of almost every Saturday since then exploring the place. So, when they dared me to spend Hallowe’en night in the house, they really had no idea what they could be letting me in for.

No one had any reason to associate the Hitchfields or their house with the disappearance of Timmy Dodge in 1994, of Lucy Whittier in 1995, or of Cynthia Wright and Adam, Billy and Fred Canfield this spring. I could vaguely remember people talking about Lucy. She was 19 and always talking about running away to the city to get her own life. I guess they figured that’s what she did.

Cynthia I actually knew, in an offhand sort of way. She was a wild 16, always in trouble of one kind or another, mostly with the even wilder Canfield boys from over in Hemmings, who weren’t really boys at 19, 20 and 22. So, though the police made an effort to find them, there were too many runaways from small, dying towns like ours in the mid to late 90's. Tattered missing posters still hung in the window of the now closed post office for all six of them.

Upon exploring the first floor, I decided that the dining room was the place to spend my couple of hours. There were a couple of still solid looking boxes that I could sit on in the kitchen, but there was a smell that reminded me of Sissy Burden’s outhouse when they tore it down, so the dining room it was.

There was only one door, a small window with the board hanging by one nail, and a closed off fireplace. If my brothers were going to try and spook me, there was only place they could do it from. A shaft of moonlight from the street outside cut through the grimy glass beside me and fell onto the floor, like a pale blue spotlight. Corny, I know.

I had a can of Pepsi, and a Big Turk bar to see me through. I had a boring few hours to kill and perhaps one of those hours was gone when I heard glass breaking. Huh. They were going to have to do better than that to scare me

There was a rushing, scratching noise, and then a big duffle bag that came sliding out of the shadows of the hall. As it came to rest in the middle of the room, I scuttled...um, moved back carefully into the shadows beside the fireplace, discretion being the better part of valor and all that.

When the man followed it into the room, I couldn’t help it... I admit it, I let loose a very girly and unflattering squeak. I sounded just like a damn mouse. His flashlight beam quickly found me and I had to throw a hand up to protect my eyes. He pinned me in the flashlight beam long enough for my blood to freeze, then flicked it away from me and around the room.

Joe Harvey Banks, the man who pumped gas and fixed cars for Mr. Stanley White at the garage, was famous for his cussing, but the tall bearded man before me let loose with a stream of words, some of which I only knew as cuss words by the tone of his voice, that would make Joe Harvey mute with astonishment. It sure made me mute but I think it was more fear. No. I take that back. Terror. Huh.

“Come out here where I can get a better look at you.”

Mr. Maxfield, the principle of Ben Franklin Junior High School, and the most terrifying man in town, had nothing on this guy’s rumbling sternness and I got to my feet without ever thinking of defying that voice. And stepped forward into air colder than January icicles.

Something in the man’s right hand that I had vaguely taken for a stick, swept up into the cold blue light, and I could see it was a shotgun almost like the one my father had, except it was a lot shorter both in the stock and the barrels.

A hand jerked me around so that the man and I were both facing the door with the closed fireplace at our backs and his solid bulk between me and whatever threatened us. I knew that something was threatening us because the shotgun was doing a steady side-to-side sweep of the room and tension vibrated off his back. He backed us up until I was pretty much pressed between him and the wall.

Then Billy Canfield appeared in the door, with Cynthia Wright easing through the wall to his right. Now that was a bit of a surprise to me, as you might imagine. They sort of... glowed, with a sickly pale grey light, and I could see they were pretty banged up. Took me a minute to figure out they were dead though. Give me a break, I was 15! The gaping wounds across their throats was the kicker. Even at 15 you kind of instinctively recognize a slit throat.

Billy stepped forward. There was an ear shattering boom that made me jump practically out of my Nike’s and just as quick as that Billy was gone.

Cynthia moaned, all hollow and spooky, fake sounding, like in a B-movie from the 50's, and came towards us. The shotgun roared again and Cynthia screamed as she dissipated into smoke.

The man ejected the spent shells and was just loading the first of the replacement shells into the barrels when Fred Canfield flickered into being right beside us. He reached out to grab my new friend, who closed the breach and fired almost in the same instant.

“Damnit...the old man must have killed them here. Think you can use one of these?”

He must have felt me nod because then he was scrambling in the duffle bag and came out with another short shotgun. There was a sort of hollow click and he pressed the weapon into my hands. That’s when the last of the Canfield brothers, Adam, came roaring out of the darkness beyond the door. I jumped, and I guess I must have pulled the trigger because the gun jumped in my hands and Adam blew into shreds of gray dust. The air turned suddenly much warmer.

“Ok, listen to me, kid. Robert Hitchfield was a killer. Those missing kids didn’t run away. He murdered them. I already dug the bastard up and salted and burned his bones. But I didn’t figure that he’d buried the kids here." He rapidly reloaded both shotguns as he spoke. "I was just looking for information tonight. I know this is a lot to ask but I need someone to watch my back while I find the kid’s graves and dig them up so I can salt and burn their bones too.”

“Graves?” I squeaked, still doing my impression of a mouse. I had traded bravado for quaking in my figurative boots.

The man’s head snapped around and he glared down at me. And I thought ghosts were intimidating. The flashlight swept up and down over me, more slowly this time. His eyes widened for a second, and I knew that he had just figured out that, one, I was a girl, two, that I was younger than he had taken me for, and three, I was a GIRL!

“Shit! Fuck! God DAMNIT!” he ground out.

I refused to cry. I was gonna have to let my eyeballs in on that decision, because they decided to start without me. He sighed and I could feel some of the tension leave him.

“What’s your name, girl? And what in hell are you doing here?”

“It’s Sarah. Sarah Mason, sir. My brothers bet that I couldn’t stay in the...” I gulped over the words, “haunted house until 2:00 o’clock. But honest, we never thought it was REALLY haunted!”

He sighed again heavily.“Well, Sarah Sarah Mason, it looks like it really is a haunted house after all.” The air turned frigid again. “There’s a canister of rock salt in the bag, get it,” he commanded. I scrambled in the bag and came up with most of a 10 pound canister. “Draw a circle around us with the salt, big enough to sit down in. We’ll wait them out.”

He covered us as I drew the salt circle.

“Um...Mister...?”

He had settled cross legged on the floor, and seemed pretty relaxed, given the circumstances. Me? I was trying to stare in all directions at the same time, and was well on the way to making myself dizzy.

“John,” he said, and without looking at me, reached up and pulled me down to the floor beside him. “We’re safe inside the salt, we just sit quiet until morning. Then you get out of here, and I start looking for the graves.”

“I don’t think that’ll work Mister.... um...John.” He glared at me. Huh. It was an expression that he must have practiced a lot, because he had it pat. “I... it’s just that my brothers will be coming to look for me if I don’t come home pretty soon after two o’clock. They may be boys, but they ARE my brothers. I kinda want to keep ‘em alive, even if it’s just so I can kill ‘em myself for getting me into this.”

For some reason that twitched a grin from him.

He dug into the duffle again. He was almost like Mary Poppins with her carpetbag. Instead of a floor lamp with dangling glass prisms, he brought out a square cardboard box and something that looked like a cut up shirt.

“Too small for me, but it should fit you just fine.”

The shirt proved to be a hunting vest, the front having four rows of little sleeves just the right size to hold the shotgun shells that were in the box. While I was pushing shells into the sleeves, John dug into the magic duffle bag again, grabbing what would turn out to be a telescoping shovel.

“These shells are filled with rock salt. That’ll drive away a ghost temporarily. If a ghost comes at you, and it’s between you and me, you shoot it. Nothing fancy, you go for center mass... right in the chest. Rock salt will sting me, but a ghost’ll kill you. Got it?

He made sure I had the strength in my hands to open the breach, and cock the hammer easily. With that, we left the protection of the salt circle. To my whispered question about the floor above us, he said “No graves on a second floor. We need the basement.” Oh. Right. Ok.

“Can’t we just leave?”

He looked at me doubtfully, then seemed to make up his mind and nodded. We didn't even make it out of the dining-room before the air went arctic cold. Adam Canfield oozed through the wall a couple of feet in front of us and one barrel of John’s shotgun boomed. Just seconds later Fred charged out of the darkness and took the second barrel.

When Cynthia appeared beside me, I yelled and pulled the trigger at the same time. I'm not sure I did either one intentionally. My hands were shaking pretty bad as I reloaded, and we started down the hall. We'd taken maybe three steps towards the kitchen when they came at us again. By the time the Canfields and Cynthia had taken a run at us twice more, even I could see that we’d never make it out of here before our ammo ran out.

“The strange thing about this?” John grated through clenched teeth, “They aren’t attacking from behind. I don’t think they’re trying to hurt us. It's more like they're trying to keep us here."

And just as fast as that, the air was warm again. Well. Seems he had it figured right. Nice of the ghosts to let us in on that.

Everything that you’ve ever heard or read about haunted houses in books, or the movies or on TV? Yeah, that’s pretty much how they really are. Not because they’re slimy, dripping and rat infested, but because you can’t seem to catch your breath, or see far enough, or hear anything above the trip hammer that’s your own heartbeat pounding in your ears.

In the kitchen, John opened a door that, sure enough, led down to the basement. Now, that basement was a disappointment. The outhouse smell was stronger here, but the room was tiny, really, not a heck of a lot bigger than maybe... six by eight, with four wooden walls and a concrete floor. I figured that was it...the bodies of six people could never be buried here. Of course, I was thinking of six neat graves a couple of feet apart, like they were in Repose in Peace Memorial Chapel and Gardens.

John on the other hand was tapping experimentally on the floor with the blade of the shovel. I could tell he wasn’t real happy with concrete, because, even with shoulders as wide as his were, there was no way he was breaking through it with just a shovel.

He swung the EMF meter at the floor, and then the walls. No, I didn’t know what it was at the time. Looked kind of like a beat up Walkman to me.

Under the stairs, the EMF meter whizzed and beeped and John muttered and grumbled. He found a seam between two planks, swung the blade of the shovel between them and pried. With a screech, the rusty nails gave and the plank popped off the wall.

John noticed that I was watching him, instead of watching for anything that might be about to pop out of the shadows. “Sarah! I need you to keep alert. I don’t think they want to hurt us, but I could be wrong. Maybe they just herded us to a better killing ground. Keep looking at me, and by the time you feel or see anything, they’ll be right on top of us.”

The next 20 minutes while John tore through the wall were, except for screaming nails, splintering wood and imaginative cursing, actually pretty quiet.

The same outhouse smell that had been in the kitchen and cellar was almost choking as it rushed out of the newly opened area.

John looked at me, judging how strong my stomach was, I’d guess. I gulped and straightened my shoulders, trying to show him that he could rely on me not to react like a girl.

I’m not going to tell you what it was like in the other, larger part of the basement. Nobody needs to have that kind of horror described to them. And nobody who died like that deserves to have the details of their suffering displayed.

Lucy Whittier appeared as John dug up the first of the shallow graves. She knelt and wept soundlessly as John sprinkled the bones with salt and lighter fluid. At the second last grave, she wavered and went out as John thumbed a match into flame and dropped it onto the skeleton.

Then it was over. We climbed the stairs into the kitchen and just walked out the back door.

John led me to a black car parked beside the back fence of the property, eased the shotgun out of my hands and gently urged me to sit inside. He vanished for a few minutes. Then he was back, with the big duffle bag slung over his shoulder. After stowing it in the trunk John slid behind the wheel.

“You ok, kid?”

“I’m not...I’m not a... a... k...k... And suddenly I was shaking and crying and acting every bit the scared witless 15-year-old girl that I was. John cursed, but mildly this time, regretfully. He slid across the seat and pulled me into a hug that I almost got lost in; one arm snug around my waist, one hand rubbing my back.

“Kid your age shouldn’t have had to see that. Hell, no one should have to see that.”

After about 10 minutes, I had myself back together again. We drove the half mile back into town.

As we pulled up at the bottom of my street, he spoke.

"I know you've got questions. I'll answer what I can."

"Ghosts are real."

"Yeah."

"What else?"

"Pretty much all of it. Ghosts, witches, vampires, werewolves. Demons. They're all out there, somewhere."

"And you?"

"I hunt it. I kill it. Or it kills me."

"Why?"

"Someone has to. Stop it from happening to innocent people who don't even know what's out there. Someone has to put it right."

I got out of the black car, and he watched me until I got to my own house.

After he pulled away, I didn’t think I’d ever see or hear from my mysterious John again. But I did. In 2003, I saw him going into a new age shop in Mobile and followed him in. That’s how I got to know John Winchester. That’s how I got to be a hunter myself.

-end

SPN FIC - The First Time

2008-02-24T22:18:15Z

Heh. You nudged. I wrote.

Characters: Dean, Sam, John, Bobby, Pastor Jim
Pairings: none
Rating: PG, for language
Spoilers: up through IMTOD
Length: 1030 words
Disclaimer: You know the drill. Not mine, no money.

( The First Time )