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wastemanjohn · 1 year

Note

use a photo on your phone camera roll and write a quick scene/hc for it

well, this turned into a monster.

johndeanna, sam pov; 6k words, mature; cw discussions of character death, incest. unedited.

Sam has to keep himself busy, otherwise he’s gonna lose his mind.

Not that he isn’t already. Not that he’s even pushing any pretence of keeping it together, what with that last fight with Dad playing a constant live loop in his head, that code alarm ringing in his ears like tinnitus, phantom smells from the burning pyre lingering constantly under his nose. And that's to say nothing of Deanna, stone-faced and vacant, unreachable under the hood of the Impala. Yeah - that alone, Deanna's distance, her denial, is enough to make Sam feel certifiable.

So Sam keeps himself occupied, because there's really nothing else he can do right now. And besides - someone has to start the process of going through Dad's stuff.

Dad's truck's been sitting at the far end of the salvage yard for a couple of weeks, untouched and unspoken of since Bobby sent someone out to collect it from Nebraska. Tucked away where no one can see it; but Sam can’t forget that it’s there. Can feel its presence like Dad’s ghost, which is unsettling a thought as anything else.

Someone really, really needs to deal with this, alright.

The trees around the yard rustle in the wind, and Sam can feel the budding Autumn chill on the back of his neck. Bobby will probably scrap the truck once Sam's done with it, which is just fine with him. He and Deanna have no use for it, and the idea of selling it on, of someone else driving it, making it their own, feels kind of unbearable.

So Sam ignores that chill, and gets to work.

There's a lot of crap inside. A lot. Sam picks out all the fast food wrappers, a grimace fixed on his mouth; keeps stumbling across empty pill bottles with stolen names on the labels. He’d noticed them before, among Dad’s things, but he hadn’t wanted to give it too much thought - kinda hard not to now - and there are unwashed clothes balled up in the footwells that seem to have been festering for months.

Yeah, definitely hard, not to think about the way Dad was living. How old and exhausted he'd looked, how startling that was when Sam first laid eyes on him back in Chicago; how bad things seemed to have gotten, in the four years he’d been in California. Pretty rough, having those as his last, most live memories of Dad. Almost as rough as finding him motionless on the floor, listening to a strange, unreal voice calling time of death; nothing compared to how cold Dad’s skin felt when Sam and Deanna had laid down next to him for the last time, kissed him goodbye. Sam just can't stop remembering.

He clears out all the trash. Feels a little robotic about it, a little numb. He keeps going until the inside is dealt with; then, Sam moves to the trunk. He opens it up with a wrench, and a deep, deep breath.

Dad's duffel bag is inside. Sam stares at it for a moment or two; it's worn and stained, and there's a hole fraying around where the zip rests. It’s the same one Dad has had for years and years, all packed up and ready to return to, like Dad was just on another job or something. Like a part of him believed that would be the case; that for all the noises he made about being willing to die in the fight with the demon, Dad never truly meant it.

Sam blinks at the tears forming in his eyes. Takes another deep, deep breath. Holds it in his body as he takes the duffel out of the trunk, sets it down gently on the floor, He can't bear to go through it just yet. That's definitely a job for another day. Or maybe never.

Sam lifts up the floor of the trunk to reveal the hidden compartment underneath, just to check there's nothing else left behind. Nothing personal, at least; because for all the inside of Dad's truck was a mess, his assortment of weapons are clean, maintained and perfectly organized. Military precision, Sam thinks, with a smile that's only half-bitter. He'll need Bobby to help him get all this stuff out; it's stuff they're gonna need, after all. Something tells him it's a bad idea to ask Deanna.

His eyes idly roam glinting silver pistols, jagged blades; they could definitely use all of this. As Sam scans the little shelves tucked under the weapons tray, something else catches his attention. Something he’s never seen before; looks like a flat wooden box.

He frowns; it looks a little out of place. He reaches in to pull it out.

There's a layer of dust over the top. Sam blows on it until most of it has gone, then brushes the rest away with his hand. It feels quite light, almost like it's empty. There's nothing but a padlock holding it shut.

Sloppy, Dad, Sam thinks, with a little more scorn than he can forgive himself for. Really sloppy.

It doesn't take him long to locate a box of paperclips amongst Dad's shit. The only lock picking tool you'll ever need, he used to say, if you know how to use it right - and Sam's learned well. He gets the padlock off in less than a second. He opens the box.

Inside are three different white envelopes. Unsealed. Sam frowns again. He has no idea what these could be.

He closes the trunk, and sits down on top of it so he can take a closer look.

He pulls the first envelope out, prises it open with his thumbs. Inside is a stack of Polaroids, held together with a paperclip. Oh.

Sam holds them up. The picture on top is old, pretty faded. It's of a blonde woman in sunglasses and bright orange flared pants, perched on a low fence with fields rolling out behind her. She's looking off to the side. Between the sunglasses hiding her face and the degraded quality of the image, it takes Sam a moment to realize he's looking at a picture of his mother.

His eyes start to smart again. Alone, here, with this photo, with Dad's memories, he lets them.

Sam notices the text on the strip of white at the bottom; June 1975, in Dad's handwriting - everything labelled and organized, always. Sam smiles, despite everything. His mother was truly beautiful; Dad always said it, said it all the time.

Do you think I look like her, Sammy? Deanna used to ask, when they were younger. She’d ask it while standing in front of full length mirrors on wardrobe doors, lifting up her hair, turning side to side.

Sam, usually rattling with resentment and injustice at that time, rarely felt generous enough to agree; usually he'd just snort and go back to his book. He regrets that now, at the memory. He regrets a lot of things lately, a lot of the shitty ways he behaved.

Sam takes off the paperclip, and starts to look through the rest of the Polaroids. The first few are of Mom by herself. Mom sitting in a field in those flare pants, smiling with a single daisy in her hands; June 1975 again, maybe taken on the same day as the first one. Mom dancing at a bar with a woman Sam doesn’t recognize, September 1976. Mom with her head turned away from the camera, side profile grinning, holding up her middle finger; April 1977.

Sam finds himself a little surprised by that picture. The way Dad talked about Mom, it'd be kind of hard to imagine her ever flipping Dad the bird. Doesn’t really feel like the kind of thing wide-eyed, respectable housewives do. But then again, Sam has wondered on more than one occasion if he knows that much about his mother at all, really. Who she really was.

Mom is pregnant in the next picture. Dad is standing next to her, arm around her. Mom has her hands on her swollen stomach, and she's smiling. Dad - Dad is smiling even wider.

They're next to a crib. Sam recognizes the layout of Deanna's old bedroom from the other photos he's seen. There's a lot of pink. December 1978.

Sam feels that like a slap in the face. Sudden, stinging. A wave of grief for a woman, a life, he never knew. The smiling, carefree father he never really met.

Sam has never seen any of these photos before. He feels like he's looking through something intensely private. Something Dad wanted to keep close, keep just for himself. He draws another deep, deep breath; puts the paperclip back on the Polaroids, places them gently back in the envelope like they're made of glass. He's keen to see what's in the other ones.

The second envelope is unlabelled too. Inside is another set of Polaroids, clipped together; but there’s something else too. A beaded bracelet. Sam frowns, and pulls that out first.

He turns it over in his hand. It takes him a moment to realize he's holding the first gift he made for Dad in arts and crafts, back when he was in kindergarten. He remembers it so clearly because Deanna had laughed when he brought it home - men don't wear bracelets, Sammy - and when Sam had given it to Dad, he'd laughed too. But not with Deanna’s scorn.

Sam’s throat burns. It’s hard to believe, now, that there was a time when Dad still used to laugh, despite the fire, despite everything, but there was - and Dad had put that bracelet on, all gentle about it, like he was scared of breaking it. He'd ruffled Sam's hair and said, thank you, Sammy. I love it.

And Dad kept it. To this day, Dad held onto it. He never threw it out.

Sam has to stop for a second then; press the back of his hand to his mouth, like he's going to puke, because it feels kind of like that, even though nothing comes. In the safety of the quiet salvage yard, he lets out a rough sob. Dad - despite everything that happened between them, Dad still held onto a piece of crap Sam made for him when he was five. Carried it around with him in his truck, like a part of him. Wanted to keep the memory.

Sam doesn't know what to do with that. It feels so big. He rolls the bracelet onto his wrist before he can feel stupid about it, and reaches into the envelope for the Polaroids.

Like the ones of Mom, they're clipped together. January 1991 is written on the strip on the bottom of the first photo. Sam recognizes his own seven-year-old face, his gap-toothed smile, the Goodwill clothes sitting far too big on his little body. He's sitting on a swing. There are chunks of snow like clumps of cotton wool on the concrete below, a woolly hat on his tiny head.

A wet smile grows on Sam's face as he looks through the rest of the pictures. There's one of him in some kind of diner, August 1987, the background dark but for a neon sign, smiling wide with some kind of food all around his mouth. He winces - embarrassing - and moves on. There are a few photos dated around this time. One of him coloring at a motel room desk, tongue stuck out in focus. Another of him holding a book upside down and grinning.

Then - September 1983. His infant face blinks up at him. He’s all fat little limbs and confusion. Deanna’s in this picture too, crouched on the floor next to Sam’s carrier with a big toothy grin on her face. Her hair is in pigtails, and she's wearing a blue cotton dress. This picture would mortify her, Sam thinks, with a soft laugh. He doesn't have a single live memory of his sister wearing a dress.

Deanna's in a few more of the photos, Sam notices, as he rifles through. One in particular catches his eye. They’re at a fairground, by the looks of it; there’s a ferris wheel and a cotton candy stall in the background. May 1994 - and already, Sam’s taller than Deanna in this photo, but she's got an arm around his shoulder anyway, asserting her eldest sibling status. They're both squinting in the sun, smiling wide; and Sam finds himself looking at that photo for a while, because something is out of place. He notes with a frown that Deanna is wearing lipstick. Red lipstick.

Dad never let Deanna wear make up of any kind. He can’t have taken this picture; must have lost his shit when he saw it for the first time, too. He didn’t even like her wearing tinted lip balm. Deanna still doesn’t wear make up to this day.

Sam keeps looking at the photo; he remembers now. It was his eleventh birthday; Bobby had been the one orchestrating the fairground trip. And Sam remembers, also, that Dad didn't call that day. Dad was never home for his birthday by that point; but it was the first year of many that he’d forgotten to even call.

God, Sam had been so angry about that once, the way he'd been angry about most everything that Dad did. His distance, his absence. His presence, too; Sam couldn't tolerate that either, for how suffocating it was.

Sam feels very far removed from that now. All that resentment, that rage. He feels like he could forgive Dad all of it, immediately. Forget it, too; if he could just see Dad one last time.

Sam gets to the final photograph. February 2001. Seventeen; he’s sprawled across a motel bed, all gangly, awkward limbs, hair so long it’s almost brushing his chest. He’s staring down at an open book. Well. Sam doesn't remember that photo being taken at all.

He sure remembers 2001, though. That was when things went from pretty bad to unbearable.

That’s when they started having to quietly flee motels hours before check out to avoid covering the damage for broken appliances, holes and dents punched, kicked into walls. When Dad really started screaming at him, and Sam started screaming right back, Deanna pacing up and down with her hands over her ears until they wore themselves out. And then - Deanna lecturing Sam as she patched up his busted knuckles. Deanna, always, always siding with Dad.

It was Dad she’d go after whenever he stormed out; Dad whose point of view she always supported. Always. No matter what.

February 2001; Sam stares at that picture for a while, lost in it. He can smell greasy rental kitchens, Dad’s dirty ashtrays, the vanilla body spray Deanna wore constantly at the time. The memories hit him all at once, bringing their residual anger with them. Because for all he and Dad fought, he and Deanna fought too, by then. They fought about Dad. About how Deanna never had Sam's back.

You could be going to school, Sam remembers saying to her. Well, yelling, really. You could be making something of yourself. But instead you're here. Following his orders. Cleaning up his messes. When are you gonna wake up, Dee?

Deanna's arms were folded, in a display of that Disappointed Mother Mode she'd adopted recently, but Sam could see that he was getting to her from the quiver in her shoulders. Dad needs me, she said, short, curt. And I am something. I'm a hunter.

Sam had laughed. It was cruel - god, he was so cruel back then - And you know what? You could be literally anything else you wanted to be. But you won't do a damn thing unless he tells you to do it.

That quiver flashed through Deanna’s eyes. She took a step towards him, folded hands in fists. You're talking about shit you don't understand, she'd said, tightly, the way she often did. Dad wants justice for Mom. So do I. And the quicker you get off that sky high horse of yours and start doing as he says, maybe we'll actually get somewhere.

You're brainwashed, Sam had told her. It's pathetic.

His fit of frustration blinded him to the not-small flash of hurt in her eyes; but still, Sam walked out after that, because even he knew he wasn't allowed to press the Mom issue. Mom was an automatic out, an automatic shutdown of any meaningful conversation that Sam would try to have. Because that was always shit he didn't understand; not worth getting into, unless he wanted Deanna to end up punching him, anyway. He knew from experience that Deanna had a better set of fists on her than most hunters twice her age and size. He was smarter than to fuck with that.

And, Mom; something that connected Dad and Deanna in a way that Sam could never touch. He doesn't remember what Mom's cookies smelled like, how her laugh sounded, how her hugs felt. Wasn't sentient enough yet on the night of the fire to be particularly bothered about witnessing a house, a life, burn to the ground. Sam remembers always feeling like an outsider in something he was apparently a huge part of. It just made him angrier.

February 2001; yeah. Not a whole stretch of time back from August 2001. No photos from around that time - and, around that time, the night Sam left forever. Not that Sam needs photos; he'll be able to hear Dad's roar of you walk out that door, you never fucking come back, clear as a bell, for the rest of his life. He's never wished he could erase it more.

He doesn't realize he's still crying until a tear lands on the Polaroid in his hand.

Dad had cried that night as well, that night Sam walked out. Then again, Dad cried a lot as time went on, all the time, really; rarely in front of Sam, but Sam would hear him anyway. It would usually happen when Sam was meant to be sleeping - not that he really could, over the sound of those breathless, drunken sobs. Over Deanna's soothing murmurs of it's gonna be okay, Daddy, because whenever Dad got home at stupid o'clock in the morning, stinking like sweat and whisky, she’d always rush out of bed. Straight to his side like a nursemaid never off the clock. Pathetic, Sam would think, every time, even if he did only say it the once. Just felt, all too often, like Deanna couldn’t stop proving his point.

Those old memories usher in another; something Sam hasn't thought about in a very, very long time, as he gently clips the Polaroids back together like he hadn't disturbed them, slots them back into the envelope. Probably 2001 as well; some nondescript night where Sam had woken up to the sound of a decaying front door rattling on its hinges; followed up by a loud, hissed curse. Deanna, as always, sitting up dutifully in their shared bed, without so much as a sigh of complaint.

Sam listened to Deanna in the dark, going down rickety stairs, her footsteps sounding dainty in this out of place way. Heard her going to the kitchen, the hiss of the faucet as she got Dad a glass of water and three ibuprofen. The sound of her bare feet on the wood floors as she went back to him, got Dad cozy on the couch. Started the process of calming him down.

Sam wasn't sure what compelled him to get up that night too. To take himself to the top of the stairs like a kid eavesdropping on fighting parents. But from his vantage point, if he craned his neck just right, he could see into the mildewy living room. He could see Deanna kneeling before Dad on the couch, undoing his shoelaces with one hand. The other was holding Dad's. Fingers interlaced. Dad’s grip looked tight, his fingers tiny in hers; but she didn't seem bothered.

Dad was looking at Deanna. Staring at her, really, with his mouth quivering, tears spilling indulgently down his cheeks. There was blood on his shirt, Sam noticed; there often was. Dad had been getting into a lot of fights.

Sam watched Dad cup Deanna’s face, Her hand stilled on his laces; she let Dad tilt up her head. My beautiful little girl, Sam had heard him murmur. What would I do without you, huh?

Those quivery lips moved into something that resembled a smile, and Sam didn't need to see Deanna's face to know that hers were doing the same. For a moment, nothing happened; Dad didn't seem to blink. And maybe Sam left before he could see Dad kiss Deanna on the mouth, or maybe he completely imagined it; it's still not entirely clear in his mind. Still doesn't quite make sense, that that's what he saw; or what he thought he saw, anyway. Or even why his mind would even concoct something like that. He was half-asleep, he guesses.

And besides, he told himself afterwards, Dad was pretty damn wasted. It's not beyond the realm of possibility to think that he'd been in enough of a state to mistake Deanna for Mom. Deanna would have known that, Sam is sure; and Sam is sure, certain, that Deanna would have taken it in stride. She would have reassured Dad quietly, and gently pushed him away. Confident that he wouldn’t even remember in the morning.

Do I look like Mom, Sammy?

Sam breathes in the burnt Autumn air; it's getting a little dark. Bobby will be calling him for dinner soon. Dinner is usually prepackaged chilli, canned Ravioli, shit like that; Sam's stomach is beginning to churn for even the thought of it. He’s not seen a vegetable in weeks.

Anyway - Sam shoves that old memory (dream? imagination?) back into some dark eave of of his mind where it belongs. He touches the bracelet on his wrist - thanks, Sammy, I love it - and thinks about the way Dad had ruffled for his hair, the way he smiled in that photo in Deanna's nursery, the Dad he could have been, kind of sort of was for a while, when Sam was very small, until years and years of the life slowly took him apart. The Dad Sam always knew was still in there; the Dad that was good.

Yeah - Sam takes that version of Dad with him, as he moves onto the final envelope. Wonders if, maybe, he'll find that version of Dad inside. More pictures of him looking young. Happy. Not the broken, exhausted old man Sam can’t help but keep on seeing every time he closes his eyes.

This envelope is a little heavier than the others. Sam presses it open with his thumbs. Makes sense, if it's the heaviest; this must be Deanna's envelope. Dad was closer with Deanna than he was with anybody, and he knew her a hell of a lot longer than he knew Mom.

Sam pushes around inside. He was correct; there are more Polaroids here than in the other envelopes. Lots more. But unlike the others, they're not clipped together. They’re just laying haphazardly inside. There's also another envelope stuffed in this one. Folded up small to fit.

Sam sees the glint of a silver chain peeking out from the bottom. The necklace is a little tangled up when he pulls it out; it has a little pendant shaped like a rose, with some kind of fake red gem in the middle.

Sam remembers this necklace, he realizes, as he studies it. Deanna had picked it up at some dollar store or other; thought it looked cool. And she'd been pissed as hell when she lost it. She'd looked for it everywhere. Made Sam look everywhere too. That had sure been a long night.

Sam gets this feeling he can't describe, as it crosses his mind that the necklace may have been in Dad's possession this whole time. But why - why would he do that? Had he picked it up by accident? Decided to hold onto it, forgot to mention it? Was he entirely unaware that it was even lost in the first place?

Or - well. Sam has no fitting explanation for the or.

He pockets the necklace, not really thinking too much for now about whether it'll be a good idea to return it to Deanna or not. That weird feeling spreads through his gut.

It gets worse still when Sam's reaches into the envelope again; when his fingers brush something else. The small lock of hair is held together by a rubber band. Hair. Blonde hair.

It could, Sam thinks, as that feeling climbs his spine, be Mom's - some couples keep each other’s hair, right? That's a thing, right? - but Sam somehow knows that it isn’t. That this lock of hair belongs - or belonged - to Deanna.

He drops it straight back into the envelope.

There's a part of Sam that wants to put the damn thing away now. Put everything he’s seen so far up to more shit you don't understand, to another thing he couldn't possibly have really seen. Because this - none of this - there’s no explanation Sam can live with that makes sense. And with that in mind - he should stop digging around in Dad’s shit right now.

But there's a bigger part of Sam that feels differently. And that part takes over before he can think too much about what he's doing.

Sam's fingers are shaking a little as he takes out the Polaroids. He pushes them together like a deck of cards, and starts to look through.

He half-expects to see pictures of Deanna as a kid, like with his envelope; pictures of her on swings, at diners, with her arms around Sam. But there aren't any; most of them seem to be of her as an adult, or at least as an older teenager. Sam can't pinpoint it exactly, because the photos aren't dated like the others - and unlike the others, in most of them, Deanna isn't smiling or posing. There's one of her working on the Impala at the side of a dirt road, bent over the hood in those tiny denim shorts she only dons in 100 degree weather, the look of focus on her face suggesting she didn't know the photo was being taken. There's one of her at night in a parking lot of some kind, a hand in her shirt pocket, her irises red in the flash, a confused look on her face. Another of her from the back; standing up a bar, her hair glowing under the low lights, flanked by two men on stools. They’re both looking at her, Sam notices. Then again, Deanna can't go anywhere without men looking at her.

It brings another memory back to Sam, as he stares dumbly at that photo. They'd just finished up a job, a black dog maybe, somewhere in Arizona; and Dad had taken them out to a bar kinda like the one in the picture, dank and yeasty, the kind of bars they only ever went to, really. Sam was bored and miserable, twirling the straw around in the diet coke he’d been nursing since they got there, while Dad and Deanna proceeded to get wicked, wicked drunk.

They told Sam - but mostly each other - the story of how they wasted the thing, because Sam, as usual, wasn’t allowed to join for the actual hunt part. The details kept getting more and more elaborate, Deanna’s voice rising with excitement; that manic hint to her laugh growing, the more wasted she got. And Dad's smile was warming up and up, his eyes lingering on her for longer and longer periods, shining with the pride he rarely offered verbally. A part of Sam hoped Deanna saw that, at least.

When Deanna went up to the bar to get in the fifth or sixth round - Sam would lose count as quickly as they would - Dad's eyes followed her. His apparent good mood saw an interruption, as he shook his head.

See that bartender? he’d said, without looking at Sam. Gives me the creeps, the way these horndogs look at your sister. Who the fuck does that guy think he is.

Dad often complained about the way men acted around Deanna. Sam just shrugged. I’m sure she can handle herself, Dad.

Not the point, Dad muttered. Locking eyes with him, finally. Hey Sammy, listen. When I'm not around, you need to start lookin' out for your sister. If you see what I mean.

Sam didn't see what he meant. Dad had this way of speaking in riddles, or at least they were riddles to Sam. He shrugged again, didn't say anything. Giving Dad a cue to fucking elaborate.

Dad huffed. Problem is, Dee's a looker. A real looker, just like her mother.

Sam stayed quiet. Wasn’t sure what he was meant to say to that.

Dad narrowed his eyes. You ever see anyone gettin' too close to her, you come and tell me right away, alright?

Sam nodded. Felt easier. Wasn’t too sure what else to do.

And Dad had pressed his beer to his lips and kept on watching Deanna up at the bar. Didn't seem to blink as he gulped his drink down, placed the bottle back on the table. And Sam watched Dad watching Deanna, saw the line of his gaze moving up and down her body, from her big boots all the way up to the neckline of her crop top; and Sam thought to himself, at that, that the way Dad looked at Deanna wasn’t all that different than any other guy did. The horndogs. It wasn't a welcome thought; but it sure as hell crossed Sam's mind anyway.

And Sam dismissed it just as quickly as it had come. It wasn't a thought he could keep around, not beyond that mere split second. Not when he had to be wrong.

Sam stares into the envelope. He decides, with his pulse in his ears, that he doesn't want to see any more of these weird Polaroids. Any more erratic angles; any more of Deanna apparently not even knowing she’s having her picture taken.

He puts them back in the envelope. And now, it’s really about time that Sam left it there; about time he accepted, willingly, that whatever Dad and Deanna had going on, he is, was and always will be, outside of it. That it's not at all - nowhere in the ball park of - what it looks like.

What it sometimes kind of felt like. What it kind of feels like now.

Sure, Dad was never winning any parenting awards; on a good day, or maybe a bad one depending on how you looked at it, he'd admit it himself. But - this...

Yeah, Sam could really leave it there. Put the envelope back in the box, salvage the nice photos, and burn everything else. But there’s still that other envelope. The smaller one.

His fingers close around it. He watches his hand take it out. Watches, watches himself.

Sam can see why it’s folded now. It’s perfectly Polaroid shaped.

On the front, Dad’s handwriting: Summer 2002. The year after Sam left, he registers, somewhere in the back of his mind.

He starts unfolding. Watching, watching himself.

The first Polaroid is on another dirt road. Deanna’s sitting on the hood of the Impala, sunglasses balanced on her head. The wind is blowing her hair around. She’s holding a bottle of Jack in one hand, and there’s a cigarette dangling between her fingers on the other. Sam has never seen Deanna smoke.

The next photo, she’s still on the hood. She’s got a leg cocked up beneath her, a hand tangled up in her hair. Bottle of Jack posed between her legs. She’s pouting. She looks kind of ridiculous; and something in her expression belies that she knows it.

In the next photo, Deanna’s sitting upright on the hood again, laughing hysterically. It’s funny, how Sam can hear Dad laughing too, laughing from behind that damn camera. Laughing like he never did, not since all those years ago. Laughing at his daughter - sitting, posing like that.

Sam keeps going. Keeps looking.

Deanna and Dad are both in the next photo. Sam can see the length of Deanna’s arm; she’s angling the camera down at their faces. Dad’s got his eyes closed tight, his lips pressed against her cheek. There’s the biggest grin on Deanna’s flushed face.

Sam’s gut feels weightier, weightier.

In the next picture, Dad’s mouth is on Deanna’s neck.

Deanna’s grin is gone; her mouth’s drooping open a little. Sam can see the whites of her closed eyes.

Weightier. Weightier.

He keeps looking.

The next Polaroid seems to have been taken in a motel room. Kinda nicer than their usual fare; Sam can tell that by the velvet headboard topping the bed, the matching gray curtains behind Deanna where she stands. She’s holding a rifle, a big one; it’s covering half of her face.

It’s not covering it enough for Sam to miss the way her eyes smoulder at the camera this time, in this way that looks practised, intentional. She’s not joking this time. Not laughing at herself anymore.

She’s wearing a t-shirt that just skims the midst of her hips. Sam can see the strip of pale pink panties underneath. Did Dad - like her that way? Did he enjoy seeing Deanna handling weapons - and not just because he was impressed with her prowess?

God. God.

The next Polaroid is even worse.

Deanna’s kneeling on the bed, in front of that headboard, her thighs parted. And oh, Sam can see her panties again alright; he can see her stomach too, her bare waist. The outline of her tits, suggestive; covered by Deanna's hands. Deanna's hands, on Dad's leather jacket, the only other piece of clothing she has on.

No, not the only other piece; Sam can just about see the black lace around the tops of her thighs. Stockings.

Her hair is in a cascade down her shoulders. She’s half-smiling, half biting her lip.

No.

Next photograph; and Dad’s jacket hangs loosely on Deanna’s body now. Her tits are bare.

She’s in the same pose; only now, with her head tilted a little back. Her eyes closed again, like in the last picture. Mouth slack; and there’s a hand on her face. A hand with scar tissue, house fire burns; a wedding band glinting on the ring finger. A hand Sam would know anywhere.

The photograph blurs before his eyes. His tears are different now; born of an emotion he can’t identify. Nothing like his earlier grief.

Sam shoves the photos back into the envelope. The envelope back into the box; slams it closed. His hands curl into fists. He can’t catch his breath.

He shuts his eyes. Acid lurches up from his stomach, hits out at the back of his throat. His limbs feel weak. It takes every last ounce of control inside him not to slump off the hood, fall to his knees, and violently puke.

Sam doesn’t know how long he sits there, on that hood. All he knows is that despite the falling dusk, the cold winding through the fibres of his clothes, the teeth he can vaguely feel starting to chatter, he can’t move.

Because the thing is - he didn’t want to know. Sam never, ever, wanted to know.

You can explain things away; but you can never, ever forget them.

He should’ve expected that Bobby would come out looking for him eventually.

Bobby approaches John’s truck slowly, the way he always seems to kind of tiptoe around Sam these days. “You been out here for hours, kid."

Sam eyes the floor. All he can think to say is, “Where’s Deanna?”

Bobby leaves a pause. Then, “She’s sleepin’. Figured we should let her get her rest. She ain’t been doin’ much of that.”

It’s true. She hasn’t. Nor has Sam. None of them have.

“Gettin’ a little worried about her,” Bobby admits, after another of those pauses. “She’s takin’ this hard. She was crazy about her Daddy.”

Sam doesn’t say anything. Bobby must notice; he must, because the silence just feels awkward now. And Sam doesn’t mean to be cold; he really doesn’t. He’s just numb.

“You got everything you need from John’s truck?” Bobby asks, eventually.

Sam nods. He can’t speak.

“All good for me to junk it?"

Another nod. Yes. Crush it to pieces with every last little fucking piece of him inside.

Sam already put John’s duffel back in the trunk. His box, its photos, its necklace, its hair, along with it.

Bobby nods too. “Alright. Now get your ass inside before you freeze to death.”

Sam could. It’s very, very cold out here.

He lets Bobby walk up the path in front of him. Lagging behind, Sam slides a finger under the elastic of the bracelet on his wrist. He tugs on it until it snaps; hearing the beads scatter their pieces across the floor isn’t much, but it’s something.

#asks #anon #johndeanna #my writing #prompt #i got carried away and this ended up not being quick lmao #tw implied addiction #tw incest #tw implied mental illness #always female dean

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