Hate

There was an uncomfortable, overwhelming silence that occupied the black ’67 Chevy Impala while as they were cruising down a back Kansas road. The silence was so loud that it could make the ears of a deaf man bleed massively. It was the type of silence that scared Riley Walker to death. Sitting in the back seat, she shifted her weight unnervingly on the black leather as her two old friends were sat immobile in the front two seats.

Dean and Sam Winchester were brothers, who weren’t on very good speaking terms at the time. There was a little mishap before Riley came back into the picture. She has yet to figure out why they were at each others throats so horribly.

See, what Riley doesn’t know is that their father, John Winchester, had recently passed away due to selling his soul to a demon so he could save his son, Dean. John had quietly recited his last words to him once Sam had left them alone for a few minutes, and moments later he was lying on the cold tile floor motionless without a pulse. These two brothers aren’t just fight from remorse over their father’s death; their fighting over what was said to Dean the day he died, because he has yet to tell his little brother what he knew.

No matter what went on, Riley was still determined on bringing them back together. They were brothers, each of them as the other’s weakness- they loved and cared about each other more than they could admit. Only problem was, when you bring up the wrong topic in a thin conversation- all hell breaks loose.

“So…” Riley said in a mortified tone, turning her head to gaze out the window and avoiding any mystified stares from the boys. “How is your dad? I haven’t seen him in ages.”

An uncomfortable silence continued to linger amongst the car, as Dean peered back at her in the rearview mirror. She witnessed that both Sam and Dean shared the same irritable, hot-headed expression written across one another’s faces. It disturbed her a little too much.

“He’s dead,” Dean declared coldly, glaring at the eerie fog that hugged the wet pavement from the steady rain that was falling upon them. “He’s dead because of me; selling his soul to save me from a coma.”

“Like I’ve said before,” Sam interrupted sternly, gluing his eyes on the windshield. “We don’t know if that’s true or not.”

“It makes sense now don’t it?” Dean replied, quickly shooting his brother a straightforward look. “I was dying and suddenly I wake up like some freaking miracle. Five minutes later, Dad’s on the floor lifeless? Just a little more than coincidence if you ask me…”

Riley was utterly confused at this moment. Nothing of what they were sparingly discussing made any sense to her, what so ever. First being told that John Winchester was dead? Riley always saw the man as an unsinkable, heroic warrior; the father who always came back to his boys whether he was bleeding out every ounce of blood from his open wounds or whether he was as healthy as an ox; the man who she idolized growing up and pictured as a Phoenix who never died. The man was more of a father-figure than her own father, since her father abandoned her after her mother’s supernatural death.

It broke the poor girl’s heart that she hadn’t even had the chance tell John ‘thank you’ for all the years spent with him. He practically saved her life from the wreckage that she went through, and then taught her everything she needed to know about hunting supernatural creatures. Now he’s gone- how was she supposed to react to that?

Second thing; John sold his soul to save Dean? Dean was in a coma? How come she was never informed about the situation? If one of them was dying, wouldn’t you think someone would have the decency to pick up the phone and call her? Every last Winchester was part of the family she never truly had. She had the right to know what was going on, whether they were miles away and haven’t talked since their teenage years or not.

“Whoa, wait a minute,” Riley snapped in a baffled manner, moving to the edge of her seat and leaning in across the middle, front seat. “How come you never told me any of this?”

“For one, you were never around,” Dean said sharply, flashing a cocky grin. “Plus if I recall when you left us you didn’t want any of us to call you anymore. You were determined that it was the best thing for the three of us. Nobody was going to go out of their way to break that promise.”

Sam injected his brother with a lethal, yet flabbergasted stare. He was quite shocked that he even said that, especially to Riley, the girl who they both still had strong feelings for. Was it the fact that the whole brotherly love ordeal had been flushed down that sewer with the selfish shape-shifters, or was Dean dead-serious about his statement?

“What the hell are you talking about?” Sam shattered the icy tone of Dean’s voice. “She had all the right in the world to know what happened, Dean. The girl was the only close thing we ever had next to Dad and Bobby.” (Bobby Singer is a family friend, hunter, and one heck of a good researcher.)

“Well then, why didn’t you call her Mr. Caring? For someone that cares so much about other people, you sure do a lousy job at playing the role.”

“You know what? Just because I didn’t call her, doesn’t make me a bad person. Maybe I was still respecting her privacy- letting her go and obeying her demand to move on… just like you always did with Dad.”

“Don’t even put Dad back into this.”

“Oh, I guess I’m too late because I already did.”

At this point, Riley felt like there was an invisible shield separating the front from the back of the car. Everything they were saying, pushing each others buttons just waiting until one of them self-destructs- it was just like reliving their teenage years all over again, and she was still a part of the cause.

“Okay, enough of the juvenile assaults, please?” Riley chimed in, trying to keep her agitated tone to a minimum. Of course, she was tuned out.

“You wanna play like a bitch?” Dean retorted back at Sam, swiftly veering the Impala off onto the side of the road. Riley became a tad bit edgy with what could possibly develop. “Let’s take this bad boy outside and fight it out like real men.”

“Excuse me?” Riley hollered astonishingly, but to only be ignored once again.

“Fine,” Sam replied to Dean, swinging open the car door hastily. “Bring it on!”

Both Winchesters exited the car like a fiery bullet, eager to pierce through human flesh. Riley’s eye exploded like a bottle rocket, watching as the boys charged at each other in front of the shining headlights. It was like World War 3 just beginning to unravel. Her body was being overpowered with angst, not sure whether she would be helping if she tried to stop them or she would just be wasting her breath.

Sam threw the first bunch, connecting his fist with Dean’s jaw as he stumbled backwards slightly. He was about to throw another before Dean dodged his punch, instantaneously shoving him down to the hard, damp macadam. Riley gulped loudly as she already couldn’t take seeing them hurt each other anymore. It was déjà vu to her.

Speedily, she opened the back passenger door and swung her legs out, nearly stumbling over her feet because she was in such a hurry to tear the feud apart. Plus, the rain was beginning to pour harder, only to make the condition more hectic. Her heart stopped, staring down at Dean straddling his brother, pounding his face against soggy ground. It was only a matter of time before Sam finally reacted; punching him directly in the abdomen with every scrap of energy he still had in him. Dean heaved over the sting fleeing through his stomach, grunting awkwardly as Sam collided a fist against the side of his face as soon as Dean fell to the blacktop, cringing agonizingly while rolling helpless in pain.

Sam cautiously forced himself upright and returned to his brother, giving him fist of fury non-stop to the face. Wounds were opening up, blood was oozing from the soon to be scars. Again, it was becoming more and more unbearable for Riley to proceed watching.

“Enough! Just stop it, both of you!” Riley yelped out fearfully, but Sam was so caught up on using Dean as a punching bag to pay attention to her plead. “I said enough!”

She urged herself to go and pry Sam off of Dean before he ended up killing him right then and there. Riley wrapped arms around Sam’s torso to interfere with his brutal clash, but Sam’s left arm flung back and hit her in the face, knocking her back onto her back and on the damp road. Her eyes widened, breathing heavily and astounded by what had just happened. She reached a quivering hand up to her nose, pulling it away slowly to observe a deep red residue gushing from down her face dreadfully.

Sam had then realized what he had done, turning to return the same appearance. He didn’t mean to do it. After all, she was risking her life attempting to disrupt the violence. If he could take that one hit back, he would.

That one pause was just enough of a distraction for Dean to give one last strike at his brother, ramming his fist against his nose as Sam abruptly face-planted into the macadam. Dean winced in pure agony as he rolled over onto his side, acknowledging Riley also on the ground, bleeding and half-stunned. Her rapid breathing and glassy eyes giving off a bamboozled gaze was absolutely heartbreaking; it could make any person feel guilty. The love was killing her- it was killing all of them. If the hatred and the madness didn’t end soon, nothing else would ever go back to normal.