THEY PULLED up to the mechanic's shop that sat just off the roundabout to the town's main road of shops. The rain had cleared, but the sky above was still clouded over with a grey haze, the air was heavy and muggy with moisture that stuck uncomfortably to Tommy's skin. He followed Sasha into the shop and waited idly at the front counter as she repeatedly smacked her hand against the bell on the front desk, most likely trying to summon her Brother from whatever motor he was tangled with.
"Okay! Okay! Jesus Sash, we get it," A voice called from the open garage door.
Moments later, three men appeared, covered in grease and all sporting red mechanics work shirts. Their names were embroidered in the white oval patches below their left collarbones. They all stopped and stared at Tommy as if Sasha had yet again found a stray tomcat, one that they weren't sure whether it would piss all over everything they owned or scratch them to bits as soon as they tried to get close. Tommy instantly noticed the Brother who's embroidered name was Mason, he looked a lot like Sasha and her twin brother. Just over six feet tall and built with lean muscle as were the others. He had a charmingly handsome face, rugged but clean-shaven. His golden hazel eyes were not nearly as relaxed as Sasha's were, but he still had the same sun-kissed skin and mousey brown hair as his siblings. But unlike the other two men who stood with him — he did not smile politely. Instead, Mason eyed Tommy like he knew he was a threat. Like he could see every scar on his marred chest through his hoodie. It made Tommy itch to flee, get back in his truck, and drive as far away from this place as possible.
"Looks like Sasha made a friend, where did she pick you up? The pound?" Nicky teased.
Tommy instantly dragged his eyes from Mason to the best friend Sasha had talked about. Nicky was just a bit shorter than Mason, he had that same mischievous grin that Tommy realized both twins had. However, Nicky stood out as the apparent outlier. His hair was jet-black, and his eyes an emerald green. He was Japanese — Tommy realized because of the Japanese script tattooed on his forearm.
"Something like that," Tommy exclaimed back, forcing his gaze anywhere but Mason, who still stood, leaning against the garage doorframe, slightly behind the other two boys. Tommy clutched nervously at the strap of his duffle bag and forced his expression into a neutral gaze.
"Lucky you, though don't feel special, my sister has a knack for picking up strays," The twin, Harry, grinned stupidly, as if trying to egg the neutrality and practiced apathy out of Tommy.
"Jesus, would you guys at least pretend not to be assholes, Tommy here is looking for the old man," Sasha cut in, thankfully.
However, Tommy couldn't entirely hide his flinch when Sasha clapped him on the shoulder. Whether she or the others noticed it too — they made quick succession in acting as if they didn't see it. Tommy didn't like it. It instantly told him that they were aware of what trauma looks like, and even if, for the most part, he was good at hiding his, they had been around it enough to act as though they didn't notice his flinch at her touch. Though the way her hand halted just above his shoulder right before she was going to clap down again told him that she was all too aware of the effect her touch had.
"Who are you calling old man?" Howard Steer rounded the corner, rubbing grease from his fingers onto a worn cloth.
He froze next to Mason when he saw Tommy and Tommy instantly cataloged every exit around him. He knew this man. And this man was not named Howard Steer. Tommy had to swallow down the bile that quickly rose up in his throat, burning a path right through his body. Tommy wanted to look away, wanted more than anything to run directly from this shop, and to keep running so that he never had to see his face again.
But it was too late, and he couldn't stop his hands from trembling or the shake in his breath. This man was a name on the list that Jules had given him. Still, he had crossed that name out long ago because he was rumored to be dead. He disappeared without a trace, without warning, leaving only a note to prove he ever existed at all. Yet here he was. Standing right in front of Tommy. Very much alive. Very much breathing. Ben must've known this, but why not just tell Tommy that his presumably dead Uncle was all the way out here in the first place, why trick him like this? Tommy felt the answer to that just beneath the surface, he wouldn't have come here if he had known this is what awaited him.
"What the fuck have you done?" Howard Steer, or better known to Tommy as Christian Sinclair, spoke in such a low and threatening tone that it even had the others cowering slightly, looking between the two in utter confusion.
"Tomas, you better have a good explanation for your blatant stupidity, or I swear to god I'll—" His Uncle started. Tommy had to cut him off before he could continue.
"Ben didn't tell me it was you. I wouldn't have come if I had known, I'll go," Tommy got the words out, but barely, he couldn't do this, he couldn't bear it. He turned and started for the door, hardly reaching the handle before a hand clasped hard against his shoulder, stopping Tommy dead.
"Get back to work, there is nothing to see here," Christian directed at the others who were still hanging around the front reception room. "And you, follow me to my office now, you are not running," Christian's order sounded as authoritative and un-negotiable as his Father used to sound.
Tommy took a deep breath, his hand still clasped tightly to his bag strap as he turned on his heels and followed his Uncle through the shop and into the small office tucked at the other end of the garage. Tommy ignored the looks the others sent him but followed the man who had seemingly come back from the dead. Ben must've known this. This was no coincidence, and Tommy would be a naive idiot to believe otherwise.
Tommy didn't like being lied to. He hated, even more, being deceived into an impromptu meeting with his supposedly dead Uncle that he hadn't seen in 5 years. He doubted that he could also find a fleck of comfort in seeing that his Uncle was just as surprised to see him as he was. If that was the case, Winchester's seclusion meant that news of Tommy fleeing his Brother had unlikely reached his Uncle at all. Tommy stepped through into the office after his Uncle and anxiously waited for the tension to settle. News flash—that wasn't possible, nor did he think it would ever end.
"You ran, didn't you? Did I not tell you to stay put!" Christian's voice was instantly raised, his frustration tearing apart what little composure that Tommy had been clinging to for the past two years.
"I couldn't," Tommy managed, his body turning rigid and stiff as his Uncle paced back in forth from behind his desk.
"You couldn't?" His Uncle bit back viciously. "How long have you been on the run for? How long has your Father been forced to hunt you down?" this time, his tone was low as if he didn't want his employees to overhear. But it was more of what his Uncle said that grasped Tommy's attention instead of the way he said it. Not only did the news of him fleeing not reach his Uncle, but neither did the news of his Father's death.
"Father died almost three years ago, Jonathan inherited."
Something crossed Christian's expression at Tommy's words, and it wasn't grief, nor was it the relief of his Brother's demise. Like Tommy, Christian fled the business, but he had struck a deal with his Father and wasn't hunted down in exchange. Jonathan had always spoken of finding his Uncle and tying up that loose end before the rumor spread of his death. After that, he didn't seem to bother with finding him or had any real indication of where to start looking.
"And you still ran? Your Brother was never as bad as your Father was, what did you possibly have to run from?"
Tommy flinched at the accusation. The scars suddenly felt as though they were searing under the fabric of his shirt and hoodie. His Uncle had no idea of the severity of Jonathan's torture, how his brain worked in cruel ways. How one wrong move, even in the slightest of defiance's caused unimaginable pain. Day after day.
"How would you have any idea what my Brother was capable of? You left. You were the only person I thought actually gave a shit about what happened to me after Mom died, and you just ended up leaving me with them. Don't you dare fucking stand there and tell me how stupid I was for running? I didn't have a choice," Tommy seethed through his clenched teeth.
Anger pounded hard against his temples as he stared back at his Uncle, who now looked more exhausted than anything. He leaned forward, pressing his hands flat against the desktop, staring across at his Nephew as if he still didn't make any logical sense.
"I did-do give a shit about what happened to you, I cared for you like you were my own kid Tommy. That is why I told you to stay no matter how bad it got, because now look at where you are, running to what end? You will be killed for this. Whatever life you would've had back, there has got to be better than this. Jonathan could still take you back," Tommy actually laughed at that. He felt like he would throw up because of how it grated against his clenched teeth. His laugh sounded so much like his Brother's sadistic one that it almost threw him right back into the depths of his trauma.
"If I go back, I'm as good as dead," Tommy spat, shaking his head in disbelief at the fact that his Uncle was the one calling him stupid. He didn't reply to that but gave Tommy a look that told him to elaborate.
"You know I tried running four times before I finally got away. Each time he did something to me, to try to scare me out of doing it again. Sometimes he would do it himself, sometimes he would get others to do it. It would go on for hours until I was barely clinging to life. And afterward, he would leave me bleeding and alone. The worst thing is I would always wake up a couple days later, stitched up and breathing. This is why you don't know shit," Tommy exclaimed, and before he had the chance to talk himself out of it, he was pulling his hoodie and shirt off in one swift move, revealing the damage.
He didn't look down at himself, he didn't need too, he already knew every inch of his mauled up chest and his cut-up arms. Severe lacerations, burn marks, scarring that would never go away decorated him like some sort of sick Christmas tree. He let his Uncle get his look, he was the only other person apart from the people who inflicted the wounds to ever see the damage left behind. His Uncle seemed surprisingly calm though there was a fire in his eyes that ignited, threatening to light a sea of oil on fire. He pulled his shirt and hoodie back over his head when his Uncle looked away from the mess of his body.
"We figure this out together then, I won't fail you again," His Uncle finally spoke after a long stretch of silence.
It was words that Tommy hadn't realized he had been wanting or needing to hear since his Uncle left 5 years ago.
"Don't feel disheartened that I won't take your word for it," Tommy uttered, but regardless — he sat down in the seat opposite the desk and waited for the game plan.
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