Spring and by Summer Fall 0/? Prologue

[chartruscan]

Title: Spring and by Summer Fall (God Willing and the Creek Don't Rise) - Prologue
Author: chartruscan
Characters/Pairings: Dean, John, Sam, Rufus (eventual D/C)
Rating: PG-13 this part, possibly R for violence and torture
Warnings: WIP, torture, war, language, abuse of actual recent history, abuse of real places, the military, and cattle ranching
Wordcount:  ~1800 (this part)
Genre: AU, H/C, Whump

Summary:   He had never wanted his father's life of ranching. Years after returning as a former POW, Dean can think of nowhere else he'd rather be, and he'll do anything to keep his family and home safe.

Dean had just turned twenty-four when his helicopter was shot down.

Two days ago Murphy had slipped him a bottle of Jack, and a chocolate cake had somehow been procured.  Surrounded by an endless expanse of sand and stone and tarmac, they had passed the bottle and ate with their fingers.  Now, Murphy stared at him with unblinking eyes as Dean tried to make his arms move.  He looked away, searching for the rest of his crew, and his head swam.  As vehicles drew closer and voices shouted, Dean sank.

He had never wanted his father's life; working on a ranch of endless prairie, cow manure, early mornings and harsh winters. He'd look up at the sky and dream of flying away from it all, no limits.  As he knelt on the hard-packed floor, concrete wall gritty on his shoulder, musty hood over his face, stifling heat all around, he tried to remember the feel of the worm-eaten wood of the dining table, the sound of the scrape of chairs on the loose planks of the kitchen floor, of snorted amusement between his father and Rufus.  He tried to remember how good the heat of the woodstove felt after coming in from the biting cold, knew that the house would smell of dinner; but now all he smelled was his own sweat and fear and filth.

He'd been planning for this --not being bound on a floor an ocean and half a continent from home, but his Great Escape-- since his sophomore year, all the steps laid out.  He passed his physicals and aptitude tests with flying colors.  By the time Dean'd graduated, four months after his eighteenth birthday he was on his way to nine weeks of basic training, and then six weeks of Warrant Officer Candidate school.  The Army was the only branch that would allow him to fly without a college degree.  His fastest way out.  There was nothing John could do to stop him.

After the sky and ground stopped spinning end over end, after frantic communications to base, after the chopper blades stopped their drone, splintered into the ground, and after the fire and screaming, there was blindness and a suffocating lack of air, shuffling feet and whimpers.

There were also cattle prods.

Dean knew cattle, was raised around them, and had never seen his father or any of the ranch hands approach one of the herd with one.  John Winchester was known for his gentle handling of his stock.  Sammy, when he was in a vile mood, would sometimes say that the cattle had received better treatment than he and Dean ever did.  Dean would remind him that Dad had never laid a hand on either of them.  Sammy would snort, "you know what I mean."

He heard the others screaming --short grunts, ragged wails-- beyond his own four bare walls.  He tried to make out the voices, pull them apart from each other. How many?  Was that Van?  How many made it?  How many of them would make it, in the end.

Ages ago, two days, a year, Dean had celebrated his birthday with Murph, Vanegas, Jones and Floyd; Dean never liked his birthday much.  More likely than not, he was dragged five and half hours down to Sioux Falls for the Empire Farm Show and spent the day shoveling shit and wrangling the bulls and the heifers while his father stood out front with a smile and a handshake, before driving another five and half hours back to Faith.   Dean wound up missing almost a week of school more years than not.  John Winchester was hailed for the quality of his beef, taking home many a first prize at all the shows they attended --and in South Dakota, there were many-- and it was declared that it was because of his progressive humane method of ranching.  Scared cattle was scarred beef.

As Dean had wondered if this is what the cattle at the factory farms felt like, he hummed in pain while another bolt slammed into his chest like a baseball bat, every muscle tightening in an unrelenting clench.  They never asked him any questions.  

Dean thought that the factory cattle had it pretty good.

He tried to remember what Sammy was doing. Sammy who'd made his own great escape after highschool.  How long had Dean been here?  Was it still March?  Sammy'd be finishing college soon. Dean had put in a request for furlough for Sammy's graduation and birthday, and it had actually been cleared.  Dean wondered if he'd ever make it back in time.  Wondered if Dad would take the time to fly out to see Sam in California.  Wondered if Dad was still angry with whatever stupid reason he'd latched onto this time.  Maybe it was better if he didn't.  If they didn't.  Those were Sammy's days and Dean didn't want to ruin them with how broken he was now, with how angry dad could get.

Twelve days before Sam Winchester finished his undergraduate degree, and two days after Sam's twenty first birthday, Dean woke up on a airbase in Balad.

In one of his brief waking moments in his first week there, his company commander visited. Dean didn't even have to ask, even if he'd been able to.   Lieutenant Commander Fischer shook his head and placed a calloused hand over the cast engulfing Dean's.  Of all his crew, he was the only one to make it out.

Gone, gone, all gone.

Five days before his graduation, Sam managed to get a call through.  Dean was composed and dispassionate through the haze of pain medication.  Sammy was wrecked and incoherent.  Dean didn't even mock him for crying.  He didn't tell Sam that he was fine, didn't tell him that he was going to be okay.  Instead he told him that he was sorry he missed his birthday and would miss his big day.  Sorry to have broken his promise.  "Jesus Christ, Dean,"  Sam gasped out, on a sob or a laugh.  Dean figured either was appropriate.

He mistakenly asked how Dad was doing. He hung up before Sam could launch into an outraged tirade over the fact that Dad hadn't spoken to Dean in the month that he'd been back.  Dean felt the thousands of miles yawn between them.  Unmappable.  He wished vaguely that he knew the way back.

He found out later that he had been discovered inside an Iraqi village by a Russian unit on March the twentieth.  It had been a Thursday, the last day of winter.  The small unit of Russians had pulled him out bare minutes before the village was strategically bombed.  It was agreed how it was a miracle that they had found them when they did.  Only one man lost. A Russian kid, barely older than Dean.  He told himself it wasn't a trade, that one didn't have anything to do with the other. He almost believed it.

It was June when he found himself in a hospital in D.C..

He had his honourable discharge papers and medical records declaring him eligible for former POW benefits. Anxiety state, depressive neurosis, avitaminosis, malnutrition with a side order of optic atrophy --Dean had to laugh at that last one: the nail in the coffin that already said he was never flying again.

Uncle Sam didn't want his broken body back, and they were paying him to walk away. If only he'd actually been able to walk.

John was there, large hand warm on his cheek, eyes bright with tears and a smile full of so much love.  Dean had told him, "I wanna go home, Dad."

"Sure thing, kiddo."

John had wheeled him out the front of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, carefully steering them through protesters holding signs that read "Maimed for Lies!"

It took them three days to drive back to Faith, South Dakota.  Dean slept in the back of the impala, slept in the motel rooms, slept in the passenger seat, wind whipping in his hair as spring became summer.

In July Dean had received a letter from one Polkovnik Yuri Nobakov, stating stiffly how it had been an honour to return an ally to his family.  Dean could smell the loathing permeating the official letterhead, typed script, emblems, and seals.  He'd thrown the letter in the box, on top of all the other reminders, and shoved it to the back of the closet.

Sam had wanted to put off lawschool a semester and stay with Dean at the ranch while he finished recovering. Dean couldn't stand the hovering, and between that and Dad being Dad, Sam packed his bags and said he'd visit at Christmas.  Dean regretted his absence immediately, but also enjoyed the chance to curl in on himself. Dad was busy with running a ranch, and mealtimes were a comfort and an annoyance as he saw old and new faces.  No one knew how to treat him.  The pity chafed. So did the awkward attempts at normalcy.  So did the apathy and ignorance

October found him atop an old gentle quarter horse used to teach the children to ride. One that would never allow them to fall.  The casts were gone and the strength was returning to his atrophied muscles. His clothes almost fit him once more.  If only Rufus' cooking wasn't quite so atrocious.

A month later a simple envelope with Russian postage had arrived that simply said, "It wasn't us.  I hope you were worth it.   -B"

Dean's mind simply stopped.

This letter had gone into the fire and John had found him at midnight with a full moon shining down.  Dean had been in his shirt-sleeves, breath ghostly, sitting bareback on that old quarter horse out on the northeastern prairie.  John hadn't seen the lunar eclipse that night.  Dean hadn't either, not really.

When he woke in the morning, tucked into the couch like a child, surrounded by the sounds of breakfast in the kitchen, his father and the hands discussing the days work, Dean decided that he'd been missing his family for long enough, and it was time to put the past behind him and hold on to what he had.

Rufus held out his chair without a word and put an extra plate on the table.  Sammy was coming home in a few weeks.  

Home.

Dean was home.  How he'd ever thought that five thousand acres of prairie in South Dakota wasn't enough for him was a mystery to him now.  He was home, and he never wanted to leave.



Dean was almost twenty seven when Cas came into his life and turned everything upside down.

on to Part 1