John Winchester (![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} _dadsjournal) wrote, |
Dean mumbles something, and John, ever the Drill Sergeant in their little platoon, barks at him to speak up and gets a “Yes, sir.”
“Research isn't stupid, is it?”
“No, sir.” Parrot-fashion, empty words. No one can see how his hands are fisting uncomfortably in the bottom of his pockets because okay, now he knows he's just a strategically placed piece of terrain they're fighting over.
“Right.” Smiling now, though it's more a sneer in Sam's direction, a triumphant and mocking distortion of a grin. “Because if the research doesn't get done then someone else is going to die. Maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow. But sometime, definitely. Because I won't be able to stop this thing.”
His words are consciously pointed, each one a little stab at Sam, a what's wrong with you that you don't give a damn about this? because it's easier to just be angry than to face the other issue, the real reason he's so damn fussy about them staying put. Because if he doesn't know exactly where they are, isn't certain they're either in his line of sight or else out of harm's way, then he can't do this job and he has to be able to do it because somewhere out there is the thing that killed Mary and that son of a bitch has to die. And sure, Sam isn't an idiot child any more, and Dean's an honest-to-god adult (or should be, though that doesn't stop John seeing a boy in a too-big leather jacket that wasn't always his) but that doesn't stop him worrying because they're his sons and even if he's a shit dad in all other respects worrying about his children is the one bit he always got downbat.