It’s harder to follow this conversation. There’s no narrative to keep him focused and John never knew these people. He’d only met Mitchell and Rufus Turner the once and he thinks that maybe it is a loss that Mitchell’s ready laughter is gone from this world. Lord knows there isn’t enough of it and he prays that his boys won’t be robbed of it, even though his own is long gone, burned up with Mary in Lawrence.
John drifts in and out of the conversation, letting himself ride the pleasant buzz he’s gotten from the alcohol. It’s not something he lets himself do often, but he’s just finished a hunt and his boys are tucked up safe behind salt lines, Dean armed and ready with iron and silver and a quick mind.
“Whatever happened to the Campbells?” one of them asks as John slides back into the present. He hopes there’ll be a story here; he learns from those, picks up bits of lore too mundane and frankly, too practical to find a book.
Petersen replies. “No one ever really figured it out, but like as not the parents are dead. No one’s seen ‘em, dead or alive, and for all that they kept to themselves, no one can go to ground for this long. Kid must have done right by ‘em and salted and burned their bones. Retired from the business after they disappeared, by all accounts.”
The hairs on the back of John’s neck prickle.
“Hey, Winchester,” says the man whose name he’s forgotten. John finds himself, disconcertingly, at the centre of their attention. “Bobby says you’re a Kansas boy. You know Lawrence?”
“Been through it once or twice,” John says, heart thumping almost violently in his chest. Lawrence isn’t a story he wants to tell and too many things he tries not think about.
“Used to be a family of Hunters down that way. Good at what they did too, even if was a hell of an odd way to bond. Christ, daughter was just a kid when her dad got her started.”
“Which means she grew up knowing how to protect herself,” says Bradford, butting in. “Bet you she’s still out there, alive and well, living her own life”
“No one gets out,” Peter snorts and John is trying very hard to keep calm, because there’s no way, there’s no fucking goddamn way. Mary had never lied to him. He’d have noticed some sort of signs, surely, if only in retrospect.
There always had been more salt than they could have ever possibly needed stocked in the pantry.
“What if she did. Changed her name, got a new life. Anyone looking for her would have been searching for a Campbell.”
So many things John had spent years trying not to think about, all rushing in uncontrollably. She would have told him. Not his sweet, kind Mary. John would never have described her as innocent, but this...
She’d insisted on pure silver cutlery, even though they’d barely had the money to eat for weeks afterwards.
“Look, say what you want,” Bradford’s voice cuts in, “but Samuel, Deanna, and little Mary were a hell of an effective team.”
And just like that, the pit drops right out of John’s stomach.
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timeasmymeasure
(2 OF 2)
Date: 2009-11-21 04:09 am (UTC)John drifts in and out of the conversation, letting himself ride the pleasant buzz he’s gotten from the alcohol. It’s not something he lets himself do often, but he’s just finished a hunt and his boys are tucked up safe behind salt lines, Dean armed and ready with iron and silver and a quick mind.
“Whatever happened to the Campbells?” one of them asks as John slides back into the present. He hopes there’ll be a story here; he learns from those, picks up bits of lore too mundane and frankly, too practical to find a book.
Petersen replies. “No one ever really figured it out, but like as not the parents are dead. No one’s seen ‘em, dead or alive, and for all that they kept to themselves, no one can go to ground for this long. Kid must have done right by ‘em and salted and burned their bones. Retired from the business after they disappeared, by all accounts.”
The hairs on the back of John’s neck prickle.
“Hey, Winchester,” says the man whose name he’s forgotten. John finds himself, disconcertingly, at the centre of their attention. “Bobby says you’re a Kansas boy. You know Lawrence?”
“Been through it once or twice,” John says, heart thumping almost violently in his chest. Lawrence isn’t a story he wants to tell and too many things he tries not think about.
“Used to be a family of Hunters down that way. Good at what they did too, even if was a hell of an odd way to bond. Christ, daughter was just a kid when her dad got her started.”
“Which means she grew up knowing how to protect herself,” says Bradford, butting in. “Bet you she’s still out there, alive and well, living her own life”
“No one gets out,” Peter snorts and John is trying very hard to keep calm, because there’s no way, there’s no fucking goddamn way. Mary had never lied to him. He’d have noticed some sort of signs, surely, if only in retrospect.
There always had been more salt than they could have ever possibly needed stocked in the pantry.
“What if she did. Changed her name, got a new life. Anyone looking for her would have been searching for a Campbell.”
So many things John had spent years trying not to think about, all rushing in uncontrollably. She would have told him. Not his sweet, kind Mary. John would never have described her as innocent, but this...
She’d insisted on pure silver cutlery, even though they’d barely had the money to eat for weeks afterwards.
“Look, say what you want,” Bradford’s voice cuts in, “but Samuel, Deanna, and little Mary were a hell of an effective team.”
And just like that, the pit drops right out of John’s stomach.