Fic: The Earth and Heaven to You (Part 2)

[dauntperplexity]

 

 

Part 2

After a few weeks, no one claimed that they were missing a baby, so Missouri and Rufus adopted Dean.

So, Dean was on Earth, away from his parents and the other Hunters. He was nearly Human too. But since he was more Human than Hunter, he was off the radar of every powerful creature. Everyone thought he was dead.

But they found him, after some time. And to most people, that was a lot worse. Because when they located him, Dean was mostly Human. Which meant that they couldn’t bring him back to the Hunter plane.

See, the Hunter plane is like a gated community. It looks a lot like it too. And you know how it is in gated communities: you can only enter when you have the passcode. Well, Hunter blood was the passcode, and Dean didn’t have it. So, they had to let him go.

Mary and John were devastated. They didn’t leave their house for weeks. The other Hunters mourned. The Angels were angry they weren’t able to prevent it.

The Angels thought that Lucifer had something to do with it, and they wanted to go down into Hell to question him, but Mary stopped it. She wanted peace to be kept. Everyone had no other choice but to honor her wish.

War didn’t start that day, but everyone was preparing for the second strike.

Back on Earth, Rufus and Missouri raised Dean as if he were their own. It was not an easy task. He wasn’t a normal kid. He could do things that other kids couldn’t. Danger seemed to follow him, or he was attracted to it. But they did their best. Although it became more and more difficult as Dean got older.

Especially when Dean was close to turning eighteen.

 

LRLRLRLRLRLRLR

Dean stood at his front door standing next to the sheriff. He would have just walked into the house if he could reach his keys. Too bad for him his hands were cuffed behind him and his keys were in his front pocket.

The officer knocked on the front door. “Look, sheriff,” Dean said.

“Not gonna work, Dean,” she replied.

“Come on, Sheriff Mills,” Dean begged. He didn’t want to worry his parents again. He was ready to do anything for her to let him go.

“You can’t charm your way out of this one, Dean.”

He smiled. Had it been any other female sheriff, he would have been free. It just so happened that it was Sheriff Mills who caught him today, and she and Missouri were in the same book club. “But I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Sheriff Jodie Mills was going to say something, but was interrupted by the front door opening. “Missouri,” she greeted with a smile.

“What did he do now?” she sighed. She pulled her shawl tighter around her.

“He got into a fight with a few members of the football team.”

“How many is a few?” Rufus said, appearing behind his wife.

“Six,” Dean replied quickly. It was a safe enough number.

“Eight,” Sheriff Mills corrected.

“Are you hurt?” Missouri asked her son.

“Not a scratch on me.” He tried not to sound too smug and proud about it. “Cuffs are a little tight, though. Can’t really feel my hands anymore.”

“Are the cuffs really necessary?” Rufus asked.

“It’s just precaution so he can’t run away from me.”

“Aw, I wouldn’t have done that, Sheriff. Would it have really mattered if I ran anyway? You saw my face.”

“Dean,” Rufus scolded.

“How much trouble is he in this time?”

“He’s not in any trouble,” Sheriff Mills said. She pulled her ring of keys off her hip and uncuffed Dean’s hands. “Andy vouched for him.”

As soon as Dean’s hands were freed, he started to rub the indentations out of his wrist. “Good to know,” he said.

“Dean, stay out of trouble, please. You can’t always play the white knight.”

“But I bet that I would look really good in armor.” He stepped around his mom and dad into the house. “Good night, Sheriff Mills. It was nice seeing you.”

Missouri and Rufus both sighed and shook their head simultaneously. “Are the other boys all right?” Missouri asked.

“They’re fine. They’ve taken harder hits in games.”

“Dean won’t be in anymore trouble, will he?”

“The boys won’t say anything,” Sheriff Mills replied. “They’re to embarrassed to say that they were beat up by one guy. But I know that Andy appreciates that Dean stood up for him. As far as we all know, it was nothing. Goodnight, Rufus. Missouri.”

“Goodnight, Jodie. And thank you.”

Missouri closed the front door and sighed. She heard the television on in the living room. Missouri and Rufus walked in and saw Dean sprawled out on the couch. “Dean.”

“Yeah, mom?”

“Turn that damn thing off,” Rufus said.

Dean shut the television off with the remote then sat up. “I’m in trouble, aren’t I?” he asked. He knew that if his mom was calm, then his dad was ready to blow.

“Dean,” Missouri sighed. She walked over and took a seat next to her son on the couch. She brought a hand up and tried to brush down a stubborn piece of hair that was sticking up from his cowlick. “This is the fourth fight you’ve been in in three months.”

He pushed his mom’s hand out of his hair. “Those guys are ass—”

“Dean.”

“Mom. They were picking on this guy at school because he would rather read a comicbook than play sports.”

“You can’t just go around beating people up,” Rufus said. He took a seat on his lazy boy.

“He’s this scrawny kid, dad. You guys taught me to stand up for the little guy. There was no reason for six football guys to be picking on one guy.”

“Eight,” Rufus corrected.

Dean rolled his eyes. He didn’t want to argue specifics. Whether it was six, or eight, or twenty guys, it was all the same time him if he was helping out someone who couldn’t defend him or herself. “Whatever. So I just asked them politely to leave the kid alone.”

“And.”

“What do you think happened, dad?”

“Don’t be using that tone with me, Dean.”

“I’m sorry,” Dean apologized, immediately pacifying. After he was able to calm down enough, he spoke again. “I just don’t understand why I’m getting in trouble for doing the right thing.”

“Because you shouldn’t be getting into fights at your age,” Missouri replied.

“No.” He jumped up from his seat and stood on the other side of the coffee table from his parents. “I should be. Because that is what normal teenagers do. They need to fight all the time. But what isn’t normal is that I come out of every fight I get into unscathed. Or I can take on guys twice my size. Or be outnumbered eight to one and still win.”

“Dean,” Missouri said.

“Or how about how quickly I picked up shooting guns and using knives and all that whenever we go hunting. Or why I dream of wings or people with yellow or red eyes.”

“Son,” Rufus said, trying to get his son’s attention when his wife wasn’t able to.

“I don’t feel normal.” He wasn’t able to hide the fact that his voice cracked as his said all of that.

“Dean. Have you seen who your parents are?”

“Mom, you know it has nothing to do with that. I… I don’t belong here.”

“We can move,” Rufus said. The last thing that he wanted was stay in place that his son didn’t feel right.

“No. Not just Vermont. Like… I feel so alien. And because of it, you guys are getting knocks on your door in the middle of the night by the sheriff with me in handcuffs. I… I can’t keep doing this to you guys.”

“Dean,” Missouri said. She wanted to walk over to her son, but Rufus stopped her.

“Missouri,” he whispered.

Dean watched his parents and saw the look pass between them. It’s the look that they shared whenever they were keeping something from him. He never pressed them for what they were keeping because they were his parents and if they were keeping secrets from him, then it had to be because they were keeping him safe.

Missouri shot up from her seat on the couch and turned her back to her husband and son. “No, Rufus.”

Rufus stood up and walked over to his wife. “He’ll be eighteen in less than a year,” he replied. “He’s old enough to know.”

“Know what?” In any other situation, Dean would have kept quiet, but they were talking about him like he wasn’t standing right in front of them.

“I can’t…”

Rufus grabbed his wife’s hand and squeezed it. “I’ll tell him.”

“Tell me what?” Dean groaned. He always hated being ignored.

Missouri and Rufus let out a breath at the same time, then turned to face their son. “Dean, sit down,” his dad said.

“I’m fine,” Dean said, but the shaking in his voice told his parents that he was anything but. The way that they were talking was scaring him.

Rufus cleared his throat. “Dean, you know that we aren’t your parents.”

Dean sighed and rolled his eyes. He had to be as dumb as a sack of nails if he actually thought they were his biological parents. All the fear he was feeling a second before had vanished. “I’m going upstairs.” He was tired, and if his parents were using that as their opening, he would have rather punished himself.

“You aren’t exactly Human,” Missouri said before Dean could leave.

“What?”

“We found you in a field.”

“Like Clark Kent.”

“You were crying and we had no idea what was going on. We tried calling out for whoever was in the field. But we got no response.”

“So we took you in,” Rufus continued. “We waited for someone to say their son was missing, but no one came forward. Then we filed the papers and adopted you.”

“Are you the ones who named me?”

Missouri shook her head. “No. We found you wrapped in a blanket. The name Dean and your birthday were stitched into it. But it had this symbol on it that we’d never seen before.” She stepped out of the living room without warning.

Dean was confused as to why his mom just left, but his dad continued the explanation. “That was until you had that project for school about the Angel and Demon war.”

Missouri returned holding something in her hand. It was Dean’s blue blanket. She held it out to Dean who took it with a shaky hand. “Then we knew.”

Dean unfolded the blanket and remembered the blanket when he was a baby. It was a part of his earliest memories. He always had it with him until Missouri and Rufus hid it. “And the Hunters,” he whispered as soon as he saw the symbol. He remembered seeing it so many times doing research for that school project. He traced his fingers over the stitching. “I’m a Hunter?” he choked out.

“Yes,” Missouri replied.

It was too much. Dean couldn’t keep himself standing any longer and fell down to his knees. “But… I can’t be.”

Missouri fell to her knees also and gathered her son in her arms. “Dean,” she whispered, trying to bring him back. “It explains everything. The strength, the healing, the ability for you to pick up everything so easily.”

“But… If… Why am I not on the Hunter plane?”

“We don’t know, Dean.”

“Did… Did my family not want me?”

“No, of course not,” Missouri said. She didn’t want to see her son in pain, but she honestly didn’t know.

“But you just said—”

“We don’t know, Dean,” Rufus said, after a couple of minutes of silence. “Believe us, we have just as many questions to ask them as you do.”

“This… this is too much,” Dean replied.

Missouri grabbed her son and brought his head down onto her shoulder. She rubbed small circles on his back with one hand, while the other held him close and tight, just like she used to do. “Baby, it’s okay. We’ll get through this.”

“Dad?”

“We’ll be with you every step of the way. That is if you want us there.”

Dean hugged his mom tightly. After letting out a long sigh, he finally stood up. He held his hands out to his mom and helped her to her feet. “Okay.”

“You all right, son?” Rufus asked. He ran his hand down the back of his son’s head once then put the hand on his shoulder reassuringly.

“And to think that I thought I was just going to get in trouble for fighting again.” He let out a nervous laugh.

“But you’re okay?”

“Of course, mom. I’m always okay.”

“Dean,” Missouri said. She knew that her son was just putting on a brave face for his parents.

“Missouri, he has a lot on this plate right now. But he’ll be fine. Our son’s strong.”

“Damn right,” Missouri said. “We’re sorry about revealing this to you all at once.”

“It’s okay, mom,” he sighed. He did not want his parents feeling guilty for keeping a secret as big as that from him. He had no idea how he would have handled it if they told him sooner. “Can I just go upstairs to think?”

“Sure thing,” Missouri said.

Dean made his way out of the living room and toward the stairway, knowing full well that his parents were a few steps behind him. He stopped halfway up the stairs. He turned around and saw his parents standing at the foot of it. “Mom? Dad?”

“Yes, Dean?” Missouri asked. She sounded so relieved that her son wasn’t shutting them out.

“Would you have told me the truth? If I asked you for the truth?”

“Yes.”

Dean ran down the stairs and threw his arms around his parents. “I love you guys,” he whispered in their ears.

Missouri grabbed her son’s face and made him look into her eyes. “We know, Dean.” She brushed stray strands of hair behind Dean’s ear. Tears fell from her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. “But we also know that you have to find your parents.”

Dean wiped the tears from his mom’s face with his thumbs. “You’re my parents.”

“Your real parents.”

“Mom. Dad.”

“It’s okay, Dean,” Rufus said. “You’re our son. Nothing is going to change that.”

“But I have to know. I have to go to Kansas. To the House of the Hunters to find out.”

“We know, Dean.”

“I… I’m tired, mom.”

“Okay, sweetie.” She reached up and put her hand behind Dean’s head. He leaned forward so his mom didn’t have to go up to her tiptoes. She placed a kiss on his temple. “Get some sleep and we’ll figure all of this out in the morning.”

“Goodnight, mom. Goodnight, dad.”

“Goodnight, Dean,” Missouri whispered.

“Goodnight, son,” Rufus added.

Dean let out a long sigh and headed upstairs and into his room. He didn’t even bother to turn on the light. He plopped onto his bed and stared at the ceiling. His dreams were plagued with tons of questions. But no answers.

LRLRLRLRLRLRLR

So, when Dean woke up after only a couple hours of sleep, he decided to drive to Kansas in his Impala, the car that was given to him by his parents on his sixteenth birthday. An Impala. Such a sweet car. And ’67 was a good, good year. Just the model and the shape. And the roar of the engine.

But, that’s not important. So a few days later, he packed the trunk with clothes, food, and whatever his parents could fit into the back.

Yeah, it seems like a long drive to take from Vermont all the way down to Kansas, but Rufus had taken the car all the way across the country a bunch of times. A trip down to Kansas, the heart of the US, would be nothing.

And Dean was afraid of flying. He used to have dreams, or nightmares of falling, and he never knew where they came from. But they scared the crap out of him and because of it he avoided flying whenever possible.

But on to the drive. Or the pre-drive.

LRLRLRLRLRLRLR

“You be careful, all right?” Rufus said, giving Dean one last hug.

Dean squeezed his father tightly before pushing them apart. “When am I not careful?”

Rufus took the bait and cuffed Dean on the back of his head. “I’m serious, Dean.”

“Sure thing, pop.” He turned to the woman who had raised him who was standing on the porch. “Mom,” he said, holding his arms out. “You going to hug me goodbye or not?”

Missouri walked the few steps down the porch and to the car. “Every day of my life, I wonder where you learned to be so damn snarky.”

“I wonder,” Dean said with a laugh.

“Do you really need to do this?” she whispered.

“Mom. I need to know who I am.”

“I know who you are, Dean.”

“But I don’t.” Dean let out a long sigh. This was a different tune from what his mom was singing three days before when the big reveal happened. His mom and dad were giving him their full support, but at the moment, his mom sound like she was about to go back on her word. And he knew that if she wanted him to stay, he would not have had the heart to leave. “Mom, please. You can’t—”

“Boy, I’m not trying to stop you. I just—”

“You are as much my mom and dad as whoever I find at the end of where I’m going. I won’t love you any less.”

“You better not,” Missouri said. She stepped into Dean’s chest and hugged him, squeezing her son tight. “Be safe,” she whispered into his chest.

“Of course,” Dean said, hugging his mom back. “Don’t ever doubt how much I love you two. You taught me every thing I know. Put up with all my bull. Everything.”

“Wasn’t enough,” Missouri said.

He unwrapped his arms from mom and his mom’s from him. “More than enough,” Dean said. He looked at his mom’s face and saw the tears that were forming in them. He had to leave soon.

His mother didn’t cry often, but every time she did, it was because of him. It was usually because she was scared for him. Like the time that he fell out of a tree and broke his arm. Or the time that he was playing lacrosse and someone checked him and he bruised his ribs. Or the time that he was in a car accident and was in a coma for four days when it should’ve been at least a week.

Each time Dean came to, he’d find his mom sitting at his bedside with tears in her eyes. She was happy that he was all right, but she showed it the best way she could. By yelling at him about how he could do something so stupid and make her worry like that and all that.

He had to leave because of that. He always felt guilty when he made her cry. “I… I have to go,” Dean said, his throat tight.

“Yes, you do,” Missouri replied.

He made his way toward the car. “Thank you guys.”

“You better call every day.”

“Yes, mom.” He opened the door to the Impala.

“Twice,” Missouri said, adamant.

“Of course.” He climbed into the car.

“If not—”

“You and dad are coming after me,” Dean finished.

“Go, before you hit traffic,” she said. “I love you.”

“Same here,” Dean replied. He started the car and drove off before his parents could delay his departure any more.

Part 3