The Draw

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

He had just walked home, giving Baby a rest from pulling around various pottery pieces for the local house goods shop. Letting her loose in the yard, Dean felt around in his jacket pocket for the bills he had brought home, grabbing the worn pieces of paper, a pleased light trickling into his gaze. Pushing into the house, which was permanently unlocked, he froze as he spotted a dark haired man hunched over the kitchen table. Brows furrowing in confusion at the sight of the man, Dean started towards the barren table slowly, as if approaching an injured animal. "Dad?" He said softly, voice tightly guarded. John Winchester lifted his face to reveal a greying head, face etched with age and eyes darkly bloodshot. The corners of the man's lips slipped down slightly and the wrinkles around his eyes deepened.

"Dean. You're supposed to be at work." The words were no question and the words were devoid of many emotion. The boy across from him straightened his back and threw his shoulders back, as if preparing for a battle.

"I always come home now, you haven't been home in weeks. The bills," Dean teetered off, uncertain if his next words would provoke something more violent. John sagged suddenly. This was far off the man Dean had come to fear most of his life. The gruff man looked broken.

"Sit down. We need to talk."

Dean slammed through the door to his shed, fist clenched in anger and his jaw set tightly. Baby who was in the corner, attempting to chew down the low quality hay, startled, the whites of her eyes flashing before recognizing her rider. The sandy haired teenager made a beeline to the wall and grabbed her bridle.

"The fucking coward, the fucking piece of crap, what? Blows our lives to shit and abandons ship? No, fuck that fuck him." He faced the horse, his eyes shimmering with angry tears. His shouts turned into a hoarse whisper. "He's leaving Baby. The house, Sammy's school, you, everything is gone." His hands fell limp to his sides. Dean's family had moved endlessly before water horses had murdered his mother. The house that they owned in was the last place her two sons had seen her alive in. It was all they had and all they wanted. "He says he sees her everywhere. Even in me and Sam." The more Dean thought about it, the more it made him want to punch the old man's face in. The brothers would have to live in an orphanage for the next year until Dean turned 18 and Sam would end up in the system for the rest of his under aged life. They would loose everything, including each other. "Let's get out of here." He never pushed Baby so fast out the gate.

Dean shot down the main road, dodging the few trucks that came their way with a little less room than what was considered dangerous. The black mare hardly flinched as the last vehicle's horn blasted loudly to their right. It was not rare for her owner to push both their limits after an interaction with his father. Plunging beneath the tree level, the setting sun was being smothered by storm clouds as the green billows thickened above their heads. Dean flattened his body to the thoroughbred's slim figure and ignored the slight spritzing of rain that had surrounded the pair.

The light around them was slowly suffocating and Dean hadn't realized the impending storm until it was practically upon the horse and rider. The trees to their left were barely visible in the inky black shadows of the forest and the fields overlooking cliffs on the right were blending into one dismal grey horizon.

A deep rumble sounded in the distance as the dirt road in front of them exploded with large pellets of water driving hard into the gravel. The drops thundered on the pair, who were soaked immediately and encased in a curtain of falling liquid. Dean pitched forward on her back as the mare's foot slipped out from under her and the two stumbled in the dirt quickly turning mud. Dean sat back and tugged lightly on the reins, letting the mare choose a slow trot to continue at. Beyond the white sheets Dean could see nothing but blurry grey forms of trees. A loud curse slipped out of his mouth as he yelled into the abandoned looking surroundings. Stopping Baby, the teenager looked around him for anything that looked vaguely familiar, but still the rain pounded on. Urging the horse into a tentative walk, careful she didn't slip or go off road, he decided to follow the soft ground until they reached the main road, which led into the town centre. Nothing but the drum of the weather and faint rumbling of thunder in the distance accompanied them for what seemed like hours of walking, the usually mild journey dragging on.