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phantismaFandom: Supernatural, Keeper!Verse
Title: Benefit of Doubt
Pairings/Characters: John, Sam/Dean, Dana
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3886
Summary: Keeper!Verse, in the chronology, this comes about 1 months after A Winchester by Any Other Name, Dana is three, and John isn't convinced that Sam is the man Dean thinks he is.
A/Ns & Warnings: This is still a few months before Only For You. There are no real warnings, but for parental angst.
John Winchester wasn’t the kind of man who snuck around spying on people. Demons, ghosts, vampires, werewolves…those were different.
Those were things that needed dealing with. Evil to be put down.
They weren’t the man his son was sleeping with. They weren’t the man who had tried to kill his son and hexed him and cut him and seduced him. They weren’t his own flesh and blood…that he couldn’t trust…no matter how much he’d changed.
He’d tried. When Sam came back to them, John had tried to take him under his wing, tried to be his father. If Dean could forgive Sam for everything, John could too. Or so he’d tried to convince himself.
Then he’d seen. Wrong place, wrong time and a year and a half of trying was lost under a seething anger, under revulsion…under fear. Maybe it was love. Maybe it wasn’t. Whatever it was, it was wrong.
Which brought him…to this. To sitting in a borrowed car under a baseball hat, waiting outside a diner on a Sunday morning, watching Sam through the window. He wasn’t proud of himself, or the lies he’d told Dean to do this. But it needed doing.
He had to know.
He had suspicions, of course. He had nightmares if he was willing to admit it. Nightmares about demons and Sam and the things they could do to Dana, to Dean. And so he watched.
Dean had forbidden him from interfering. In no uncertain terms he told John that he loved Sam and wanted him with them. For Dean’s sake, John hoped he was wrong about the boy—man.
In the diner, Sam sat with a smallish man with greasy gray hair and a pencil mustache. Sam sipped coffee and stared the man into the floor. Finally the man produced a small package and set it on the table. Sam nodded and pocketed the package. The man left the table and Sam looked out the window, looked past John and raised his coffee again, taking a long drink before putting the cup down and throwing some money on the table.
Sam’s long legs ate the distance to his car and Sam climbed inside. A few seconds later he was roaring out of the diner parking lot and headed toward downtown.
Sam had been gone a few days and the contacts John had employed to keep tabs on him said he’d done a job…something to do with an import operation known to traffic in occult items.
He sighed as they pulled into the parking lot of a drug store. Some part of him was mortified that he’d actually had Sam followed like he was a criminal or a cheating husband. Another remembered the way Dean had been ripped up after the last battle with Sam’s demon friends.
He tailed Sam into the store, listened from an aisle over as he picked up a prescription for Dean’s hand and the nasty, infected cut from a ripped up fender at the garage. Sam paused in the toy aisle, humming to himself as he went to the register.
John got the impression it was going to be a long day.
There was a stop at a book store, and John was beginning to think maybe he was wrong, when Sam pulled into a bowling alley parking lot. One look told him he wasn’t going to like this place. There were too many cars, and as far as John knew, Sam wasn’t a bowler. That left the bar and the rough and tumble crowd that hung out in it.
He watched Sam open his trunk and pull something out of it. Then he checked the gun tucked in at his ankle and headed inside. John waited until he was inside, then got out slowly and considered how to get inside without being seen. The bar was small.
He opted for the bowling alley then, moving through the Sunday morning league bowlers toward the bar. The bar was filled with bowlers and men nursing beers. John tucked himself into a corner at the bar and watched Sam on the opposite end of the room.
Three identical men sat in a booth, white hair pulled neatly into ponytails down their backs, black suits, skin the same pale white as their hair. The one facing John’s direction had ice blue eyes that scanned over Sam like they could see through him. Even from across the room, his could taste something wrong in the air.
Two burly men grabbed Sam and manhandled him closer. Voices were raised, but John couldn’t hear from where he stood, not over the noise of the bowling lanes and the televisions blaring whatever sport was in season.
The bag in Sam’s hand was pulled free and dropped with a thud on the table, causing the three albinos to hiss and stand. Sam pulled one hand free and slammed it on the table next to the bag. It lifted off the table and hovered. Sam held out his hand and it came to him, settled into his hand.
John couldn’t see his face, but he could read the anger radiating through him, in the tense line of his back, in the shifting of his feet. Sam pulled a large amulet from the bag and held it over the table. It spun, catching the light and spilling it out and around. The room went still, then slowly one of the albinos reached for the amulet while a second slid an envelope toward Sam.
John watched as his son nodded, lowering the amulet into the waiting hand while putting his free hand down on the envelope.
“Nice doing business, with you boys. Next time you want me going to Florida to do your dirty work, think about being honest with me.” Sam said into the silence that had fallen over the room. He pocketed the envelope and stepped away.
“Mr. Winechrest, there is the small matter of my brother’s hand.”
Sam stopped and turned back to the three men. The hand holding the amulet was turning red…blood red. John inched around a big guy and toward the door to the bowling alley. Sam grinned, and it was maybe the most frightening thing John had ever seen.
“What about it?”
Two hands came down on his shoulders again and he shrugged them off. He reached out, covering the amulet with his hand. He murmured something in Latin and there was a popping sound before he pulled away. “Try to remember boys, the amulet isn’t picky.” The grin was gone and in its place was a look John hadn’t seen since that night in the warehouse. “It will feed on whatever flesh is given it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have errands to run.”
John ducked through the door and ran through the bowling alley for the front doors, getting there just as Sam put the car in gear and headed out. He was going to lose him if he didn’t move fast.
Sam’s driving was erratic after the bar, and it was tough to follow him without being seen. He pulled into a parking spot in downtown Lawrence, outside a barber shop. John watched him sit in his car for a long time, staring at his steering wheel and not moving.
When he finally did get out of the car, Sam moved slowly, almost as though he was in pain. He walked past the barber shop and into the occult store. John bit his lip. It was too small for him to hide and spy. He pulled off the baseball cap and ran a hand through his hair, then pulled on a jacket and jogged across the street.
He was a hunter. Why wouldn’t he be in a shop that sold things hunters needed? He pushed open the door. Sam was no where to be seen. That meant back room.
Back rooms in shops like this were seldom good news.
John picked through a selection of herbs and waited. The beaded doorway rattled and a woman with masses of auburn curls and bare feet emerged. “Greetings and welcome. May I assist you?”
Her smile was gentle, her face nearly glowed. John found himself smiling back. “Just replenishing my stock.” He held up the bags in his hand and her smile slipped a little.
“Planning an exorcism?”
He looked down at the bags and shrugged. “Sometimes it’s unavoidable.”
She chuckled. “This is true. I’m Shalin.”
“John.”
“Are you a hunter, John?”
“I am.”
“You are worried that there is something here in need of hunting?”
He frowned at her. “Not exactly.”
“And if I promised you that my shop is free of evil things?”
“John?”
He looked up, surprised that Sam had emerged from the back without being heard. He smirked at Sam with a nod. “Hey. What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing.” Sam responded defensively.
“Just replacing the supplies I used a few weeks ago.” John crossed to the counter, putting three bags down. “Got wind of something up north. Figured I might need it.”
“I thought you were out on a hunt.” Sam set a small jewelry box on the counter, though he kept it covered with his mammoth hand.
“Was. Finished early.”
“I take it you two know one another.” Shalin said as she moved to the register.
“He’s…my father.” Sam said slowly. Sam and Shalin exchanged a look John didn’t understand.
“Ah, yes. Then it is a pleasure, John.” She smiled and John wasn’t as reassured as he was sure she meant him to be.
“You two…friends?” John asked, watching Sam pull out his wallet.
“I’ve been helping Sam with a special project. Which reminds me.” She bent down and retrieved a bag from under the counter. “The other stuff you wanted came in yesterday. You’ll want to use it while the herbs are fresh…today, tomorrow at the latest.”
Sam nodded and pulled out a sizeable number of bills. “Thanks Shalin. I’ll stop by next month.”
“I look forward to it, Sam.”
John paid for his herbs and followed Sam out, not surprised to find him waiting outside the store. “Why are you really here?”
John forced himself to laugh. “Seriously Sam…I’m just here for the herbs. I normally get them from a friend, but he’s out of what I needed, and this thing up north sounds a lot like possession.”
Sam’s face was bitchy, pinched and tight. “You’re not following me?”
“Why would I be following you, Sam?”
Sam let out a slow breath and shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ve felt…weird all day, like someone’s watching me.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time. Didn’t you say that guy—“
“He’s been taken care of.” Sam said, his voice cold. “This was something else.”
“Okay.”
They stood there awkwardly for a minute, then Sam pulled a pair of sunglasses out of his pocket and slipped them on. “You coming for dinner?”
John nodded. “I have a few more errands to run, but Dean asked me to come by.”
“I guess I’ll see you then.” Sam’s jaw was tight as he stalked away. John waited until he nearly to his car, then jogged to his borrowed car. He breathed carefully as he got in and started it. He’d have to be more careful. Sam was strung pretty tightly.
There were two more stops, then Sam headed out of town. John dropped back, almost to the point of losing him. When Sam pulled off the road onto a gravel drive, John drove past and a mile or so down the road, turned around, parking the car beside the road and following up the gravel drive on foot. There was a grove of trees ahead.
John worked his way through the trees in a crouch, listening and watching. His hand wandered to the gun in his belt as he neared Sam. He was squatting in a small circle, an old fashioned censor in his hand as he intoned Latin.
John’s hand closed over the gun, pulled it. He checked the load and watched as his son conjured a demon. Just like that. Casual and comfortable…okay, maybe not comfortable. Sam was sweating and it was January.
The air was thick with the smell of the burning herbs and then sulfur. It seemed like there should be some dramatic moment, but there was just a pause in his chanting, and the demon was there.
“Hello Samuel. Color me surprised.”
Sam scowled. “Don’t start Andras. I’m here to end it.”
The demon laughed. The sound was chilling. “Always so conceited Sam. Always thinking you’re in charge.”
“I’ve got what you wanted.” He pulled the package out of his pocket, the one from the diner that morning.
“Show it to me.”
John adjusted his grip on the gun. His breathing was harsh, and he forced himself to quiet. Sam would hear…or the demon would. He didn’t want to think about that.
Paper rustled as Sam unwrapped the package. John couldn’t see clearly what it was. It was small enough to fit in Sam’s hand and he held it where the demon could see. “I give you this, I’m free. That was the deal.”
“Free, Samuel? You are the one who summoned me.”
“We had a deal.”
“And so we did. I do not remember your freedom being part of it.”
“Fine. I’m sure there are others who would be interested.” Sam shoved his hand in his pocket and started muttering in Latin.
“Stop before you hurt yourself. I will take the bauble.”
“Bauble?”
The demon was laughing again. “I will take the bauble, knowing what you have done to get it…and let you play house with your toy and let you pretend to have changed…but you will always be the Samuel who got on his knees and shed his own blood and begged me to fill him with fury and rage so that he could have vengeance.”
“I don’t want you anywhere near my family.”
“You have my word.”
“For whatever that’s worth.”
Sam pulled the item up out of his pocket again, tossing it into the circle that contained the demon. It floated in the air, then disappeared. “I have only one question before I go Samuel.”
Sam’s eyes flashed. “What?”
“The girl? Did you think her father wouldn’t kill her when he found out you had seduced her, taken his chance of virginal sacrifice, and stolen this from around her neck?”
There was a flash and the demon was gone. Sam turned his back on the spot where it had been, his head sinking forward. John shifted, pulled the gun up, sighting down the barrel at Sam.
His son…gone all these years…and now that John had him back in his life, he was a killer…a monster. If he was anyone else, John would have dealt with him already.
Dean would never forgive him. Dean would be devastated. John blinked and shook his head.
“Fuck!” Sam screamed into the air and sank slowly to his knees in the dirt. John’s hand fell back to his side as Sam doubled over, his whole body shaking. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”
John stared, watching Sam scream and tremble and ultimately pull himself together to clean up his mess, burning the remains of the herbs and spreading the ashes on the ground. Just as John decided it was time to head back to the car, Sam stilled again, standing in the center of the empty space.
“I’m sorry I…can’t be the person he wants me to be. I just…I don’t know how.” Sam’s hands held the jewelry box he’d picked up at Shalin’s shop, turning it over in his hands. “I know I shouldn’t….I shouldn’t have come back…should have let him have…peace…both of them…but, I’ve never…felt…Please.”
The air shimmered and John got the impression of an image, a figure…female…blonde…he gasped, the gun dropping to the grass at his feet. She touched Sam’s up turned face, wiping across tears. John couldn’t breathe as those eyes rose from Sam’s face and fell on his.
He fumbled on the ground for his gun, his eyes locked on her form, watching as she wavered and turned back to Sam. He couldn’t hear if she spoke, but when she was gone, Sam nodded to himself and gathered his bag.
John watched him go.
He sat on the ground and watched him go. His son. Who had dealt with a demon…who had apparently seduced some girl and stolen some jewelry to give it to a demon. This man he couldn’t begin to understand…who had cried when it was done…who had called out in pain and…and…John was pretty damn sure that it had been Mary who had come to comfort him…or some demon pretending to be Mary.
He shook his head. He didn’t know what to think. His contacts in Florida said Sam was violent, that he moved around circles of demon-worshipping occultists and half-breeds. He knew Sam lied to him as easily as breathing. He knew that Sam was a monster…a monster made by the people who stole him, by the monsters that raised him and used demons to abuse him.
He tucked the gun back into his belt. It was getting late. He stood slowly and walked back toward the road. He nodded slowly as he got to the car and pulled out his phone. “Hey, it’s me.” John leaned against the car. “Bobby, I think I need your help. I trust your judgment. Can you meet me?”
John had no idea what he’d actually tell his friend about Sam. Maybe he wouldn’t tell him anything, just ask him to check him out. “Yeah, good. Two days. Thanks.”
That settled, John got back in the car, heading back into town to return the car, pick up his truck and head to Dean’s place. With a deep breath, John banished the fears and doubts and knocked, smiling as Dana’s little voice started a chorus of “Papa! Papa!”
“Papa, Dada, Papa!”
“I know Squirt, but you gotta get out of the way.” The door opened and Dean smiled, even as Dana launched herself at his leg, wrapping her arms around him and nearly knocking him over.
“Dana, you trying to kill your Papa?” John asked as he bent down to pick her up.
“Papa!” She declared, clapping her hands to his face before nuzzling her nose against his. “Spetti, Papa?”
“We’re not having spaghetti, Dana. I already told you. Come on in, Dad.”
“No spetti?” John asked and Dana pouted.
“Like spetti Papa.”
“I know you do.”
“Sam’s at the store he’s bringing home something.”
John nodded and Dana clapped her hands. “SamSam gets tookies for Dana.”
“He better not. There’s no need for more tookies.” Dean said, then shook his head. “Cookies.”
“Oros. Want Oros.”
“So you can’t paint the walls in chocolate again? I don’t think so.”
John let the familiar banter wash over him. It was comforting.
“How was the hunt?”
John looked up, momentarily confused. “Oh…not…entirely fruitful.”
“Didn’t get the bastard?”
“Not so much, no.” The door opened behind him and Dana squirmed out of his arms.
“SamSam!”
Sam dropped everything and caught the flailing armful of child, spinning her around and burying his face in her hair. John could almost taste his relief and comfort at having her there in his arms.
“Tookies, SamSam?”
Sam laughed and put her down. “Yes, Dana, I brought cookies. But no cookies until after dinner, okay?”
Dana’s index finger found its way into her mouth and she nodded. “Otay.”
“Hey.” Dean brushed past John and stopped short of actually touching Sam. “Can I help?”
Sam grinned. “Not with that gimpy hand.” He gestured at Dean’s heavily bandaged left hand. “I’ll do it.”
Dean picked up the bags Sam had dropped and put them on the kitchen table. “You okay, Dad?” Dean asked as he started emptying the bags.
“Fine…just kind of tired.”
Dean nodded, frowning as he lifted a stuffed dog out of the bag. As the door opened again, Dean held it up. “I thought we agreed she has enough of this kinda thing.”
Sam rolled his eyes and brought two more bags and a six pack of beer to the table. “Maybe it’s mine.”
“Yours?”
Sam smiled a lopsided sort of grin. “It’s the dog every kid wants, Dean. A fluffy, cuddly brown lab with sad eyes. I used to have one…a teacher gave it to me…said it looked like me.” He took it and held it up, pouting and pouring on the puppy dog eyes. “See?”
John couldn’t help but smile.
Sam turned and held it up toward Dana, who squealed and it floated toward her. “Got something for you too.” Sam said to Dean, digging in one of the bags.
“Sam, you don’t have to bring home gifts every time you come home.”
“Well, if you don’t want it.” Sam twirled a cd in his hands and started to toss it, when Dean’s hand closed on his. “It isn’t anything special.”
“Dude, it’s Zeppelin IV.” Dean frowned. “I have this.”
Sam shook his head. “Dana…sort of…found it. She was cutting that tooth…it wasn’t pretty.”
John watched as Sam and Dean unloaded a roasted chicken and store bought potato salad and set about clearing the table and setting it with food and dishes. Sam was like a totally different person than he’d been away from home. John sat in his place and pondered…the whole thing made him uncomfortable…Of course a big chunk of that was the idea of them. Together.
John had long since made peace with the idea of his son liking guys. He didn’t get it exactly…but he wanted Dean to be happy…whatever that meant. He never expected him to end up like this though…and he wasn’t entirely convinced Sam hadn’t hexed him again with his need to be loved…
Sam cleared his throat and John blinked, looking up. “Sorry, daydreaming.”
Sam bit his lip and nodded. He was holding a book out at John. “Got you something too. I—when I was in Florida, I came across it. Pretty rare, and thought it might come in handy.”
“What is it?” John reached for the black leather bound book.
“Its…original half-breed lore. You know…vampires, werewolves and the like. Where they originally came from…how they evolved…differences based on culture and stuff.”
“Looks old.” Dean said as he put forks on the table.
“Yeah, a hundred years or more. The actual text is older, but this book was a part of a collection that belonged to the Kennedy’s…”
“As in…the Kennedy’s?”
Sam chuckled. “As in.”
John pocketed the book, and with it his concerns. He’d promised Dean to try. He’d try. He’d have Bobby dig. Maybe he’d call in a few favors and have Sam followed. That way…he could still face Dean. Even if, in the end, he had to eliminate Sam.
Dana tugged on his pant leg and pouted up at him. He scooped her up and she leaned in, whispering in his ear. “My SamSam…Papa. Mine.” He smiled and nodded, more than a little unnerved.
“I know, baby. I know.” John whispered back, kissing her cheek and settling into her high chair.
Definitely better to let someone else think about it for a while. Better to pretend to give the kid the benefit of the doubt.
Title: Benefit of Doubt
Pairings/Characters: John, Sam/Dean, Dana
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3886
Summary: Keeper!Verse, in the chronology, this comes about 1 months after A Winchester by Any Other Name, Dana is three, and John isn't convinced that Sam is the man Dean thinks he is.
A/Ns & Warnings: This is still a few months before Only For You. There are no real warnings, but for parental angst.
John Winchester wasn’t the kind of man who snuck around spying on people. Demons, ghosts, vampires, werewolves…those were different.
Those were things that needed dealing with. Evil to be put down.
They weren’t the man his son was sleeping with. They weren’t the man who had tried to kill his son and hexed him and cut him and seduced him. They weren’t his own flesh and blood…that he couldn’t trust…no matter how much he’d changed.
He’d tried. When Sam came back to them, John had tried to take him under his wing, tried to be his father. If Dean could forgive Sam for everything, John could too. Or so he’d tried to convince himself.
Then he’d seen. Wrong place, wrong time and a year and a half of trying was lost under a seething anger, under revulsion…under fear. Maybe it was love. Maybe it wasn’t. Whatever it was, it was wrong.
Which brought him…to this. To sitting in a borrowed car under a baseball hat, waiting outside a diner on a Sunday morning, watching Sam through the window. He wasn’t proud of himself, or the lies he’d told Dean to do this. But it needed doing.
He had to know.
He had suspicions, of course. He had nightmares if he was willing to admit it. Nightmares about demons and Sam and the things they could do to Dana, to Dean. And so he watched.
Dean had forbidden him from interfering. In no uncertain terms he told John that he loved Sam and wanted him with them. For Dean’s sake, John hoped he was wrong about the boy—man.
In the diner, Sam sat with a smallish man with greasy gray hair and a pencil mustache. Sam sipped coffee and stared the man into the floor. Finally the man produced a small package and set it on the table. Sam nodded and pocketed the package. The man left the table and Sam looked out the window, looked past John and raised his coffee again, taking a long drink before putting the cup down and throwing some money on the table.
Sam’s long legs ate the distance to his car and Sam climbed inside. A few seconds later he was roaring out of the diner parking lot and headed toward downtown.
Sam had been gone a few days and the contacts John had employed to keep tabs on him said he’d done a job…something to do with an import operation known to traffic in occult items.
He sighed as they pulled into the parking lot of a drug store. Some part of him was mortified that he’d actually had Sam followed like he was a criminal or a cheating husband. Another remembered the way Dean had been ripped up after the last battle with Sam’s demon friends.
He tailed Sam into the store, listened from an aisle over as he picked up a prescription for Dean’s hand and the nasty, infected cut from a ripped up fender at the garage. Sam paused in the toy aisle, humming to himself as he went to the register.
John got the impression it was going to be a long day.
There was a stop at a book store, and John was beginning to think maybe he was wrong, when Sam pulled into a bowling alley parking lot. One look told him he wasn’t going to like this place. There were too many cars, and as far as John knew, Sam wasn’t a bowler. That left the bar and the rough and tumble crowd that hung out in it.
He watched Sam open his trunk and pull something out of it. Then he checked the gun tucked in at his ankle and headed inside. John waited until he was inside, then got out slowly and considered how to get inside without being seen. The bar was small.
He opted for the bowling alley then, moving through the Sunday morning league bowlers toward the bar. The bar was filled with bowlers and men nursing beers. John tucked himself into a corner at the bar and watched Sam on the opposite end of the room.
Three identical men sat in a booth, white hair pulled neatly into ponytails down their backs, black suits, skin the same pale white as their hair. The one facing John’s direction had ice blue eyes that scanned over Sam like they could see through him. Even from across the room, his could taste something wrong in the air.
Two burly men grabbed Sam and manhandled him closer. Voices were raised, but John couldn’t hear from where he stood, not over the noise of the bowling lanes and the televisions blaring whatever sport was in season.
The bag in Sam’s hand was pulled free and dropped with a thud on the table, causing the three albinos to hiss and stand. Sam pulled one hand free and slammed it on the table next to the bag. It lifted off the table and hovered. Sam held out his hand and it came to him, settled into his hand.
John couldn’t see his face, but he could read the anger radiating through him, in the tense line of his back, in the shifting of his feet. Sam pulled a large amulet from the bag and held it over the table. It spun, catching the light and spilling it out and around. The room went still, then slowly one of the albinos reached for the amulet while a second slid an envelope toward Sam.
John watched as his son nodded, lowering the amulet into the waiting hand while putting his free hand down on the envelope.
“Nice doing business, with you boys. Next time you want me going to Florida to do your dirty work, think about being honest with me.” Sam said into the silence that had fallen over the room. He pocketed the envelope and stepped away.
“Mr. Winechrest, there is the small matter of my brother’s hand.”
Sam stopped and turned back to the three men. The hand holding the amulet was turning red…blood red. John inched around a big guy and toward the door to the bowling alley. Sam grinned, and it was maybe the most frightening thing John had ever seen.
“What about it?”
Two hands came down on his shoulders again and he shrugged them off. He reached out, covering the amulet with his hand. He murmured something in Latin and there was a popping sound before he pulled away. “Try to remember boys, the amulet isn’t picky.” The grin was gone and in its place was a look John hadn’t seen since that night in the warehouse. “It will feed on whatever flesh is given it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have errands to run.”
John ducked through the door and ran through the bowling alley for the front doors, getting there just as Sam put the car in gear and headed out. He was going to lose him if he didn’t move fast.
Sam’s driving was erratic after the bar, and it was tough to follow him without being seen. He pulled into a parking spot in downtown Lawrence, outside a barber shop. John watched him sit in his car for a long time, staring at his steering wheel and not moving.
When he finally did get out of the car, Sam moved slowly, almost as though he was in pain. He walked past the barber shop and into the occult store. John bit his lip. It was too small for him to hide and spy. He pulled off the baseball cap and ran a hand through his hair, then pulled on a jacket and jogged across the street.
He was a hunter. Why wouldn’t he be in a shop that sold things hunters needed? He pushed open the door. Sam was no where to be seen. That meant back room.
Back rooms in shops like this were seldom good news.
John picked through a selection of herbs and waited. The beaded doorway rattled and a woman with masses of auburn curls and bare feet emerged. “Greetings and welcome. May I assist you?”
Her smile was gentle, her face nearly glowed. John found himself smiling back. “Just replenishing my stock.” He held up the bags in his hand and her smile slipped a little.
“Planning an exorcism?”
He looked down at the bags and shrugged. “Sometimes it’s unavoidable.”
She chuckled. “This is true. I’m Shalin.”
“John.”
“Are you a hunter, John?”
“I am.”
“You are worried that there is something here in need of hunting?”
He frowned at her. “Not exactly.”
“And if I promised you that my shop is free of evil things?”
“John?”
He looked up, surprised that Sam had emerged from the back without being heard. He smirked at Sam with a nod. “Hey. What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing.” Sam responded defensively.
“Just replacing the supplies I used a few weeks ago.” John crossed to the counter, putting three bags down. “Got wind of something up north. Figured I might need it.”
“I thought you were out on a hunt.” Sam set a small jewelry box on the counter, though he kept it covered with his mammoth hand.
“Was. Finished early.”
“I take it you two know one another.” Shalin said as she moved to the register.
“He’s…my father.” Sam said slowly. Sam and Shalin exchanged a look John didn’t understand.
“Ah, yes. Then it is a pleasure, John.” She smiled and John wasn’t as reassured as he was sure she meant him to be.
“You two…friends?” John asked, watching Sam pull out his wallet.
“I’ve been helping Sam with a special project. Which reminds me.” She bent down and retrieved a bag from under the counter. “The other stuff you wanted came in yesterday. You’ll want to use it while the herbs are fresh…today, tomorrow at the latest.”
Sam nodded and pulled out a sizeable number of bills. “Thanks Shalin. I’ll stop by next month.”
“I look forward to it, Sam.”
John paid for his herbs and followed Sam out, not surprised to find him waiting outside the store. “Why are you really here?”
John forced himself to laugh. “Seriously Sam…I’m just here for the herbs. I normally get them from a friend, but he’s out of what I needed, and this thing up north sounds a lot like possession.”
Sam’s face was bitchy, pinched and tight. “You’re not following me?”
“Why would I be following you, Sam?”
Sam let out a slow breath and shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ve felt…weird all day, like someone’s watching me.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time. Didn’t you say that guy—“
“He’s been taken care of.” Sam said, his voice cold. “This was something else.”
“Okay.”
They stood there awkwardly for a minute, then Sam pulled a pair of sunglasses out of his pocket and slipped them on. “You coming for dinner?”
John nodded. “I have a few more errands to run, but Dean asked me to come by.”
“I guess I’ll see you then.” Sam’s jaw was tight as he stalked away. John waited until he nearly to his car, then jogged to his borrowed car. He breathed carefully as he got in and started it. He’d have to be more careful. Sam was strung pretty tightly.
There were two more stops, then Sam headed out of town. John dropped back, almost to the point of losing him. When Sam pulled off the road onto a gravel drive, John drove past and a mile or so down the road, turned around, parking the car beside the road and following up the gravel drive on foot. There was a grove of trees ahead.
John worked his way through the trees in a crouch, listening and watching. His hand wandered to the gun in his belt as he neared Sam. He was squatting in a small circle, an old fashioned censor in his hand as he intoned Latin.
John’s hand closed over the gun, pulled it. He checked the load and watched as his son conjured a demon. Just like that. Casual and comfortable…okay, maybe not comfortable. Sam was sweating and it was January.
The air was thick with the smell of the burning herbs and then sulfur. It seemed like there should be some dramatic moment, but there was just a pause in his chanting, and the demon was there.
“Hello Samuel. Color me surprised.”
Sam scowled. “Don’t start Andras. I’m here to end it.”
The demon laughed. The sound was chilling. “Always so conceited Sam. Always thinking you’re in charge.”
“I’ve got what you wanted.” He pulled the package out of his pocket, the one from the diner that morning.
“Show it to me.”
John adjusted his grip on the gun. His breathing was harsh, and he forced himself to quiet. Sam would hear…or the demon would. He didn’t want to think about that.
Paper rustled as Sam unwrapped the package. John couldn’t see clearly what it was. It was small enough to fit in Sam’s hand and he held it where the demon could see. “I give you this, I’m free. That was the deal.”
“Free, Samuel? You are the one who summoned me.”
“We had a deal.”
“And so we did. I do not remember your freedom being part of it.”
“Fine. I’m sure there are others who would be interested.” Sam shoved his hand in his pocket and started muttering in Latin.
“Stop before you hurt yourself. I will take the bauble.”
“Bauble?”
The demon was laughing again. “I will take the bauble, knowing what you have done to get it…and let you play house with your toy and let you pretend to have changed…but you will always be the Samuel who got on his knees and shed his own blood and begged me to fill him with fury and rage so that he could have vengeance.”
“I don’t want you anywhere near my family.”
“You have my word.”
“For whatever that’s worth.”
Sam pulled the item up out of his pocket again, tossing it into the circle that contained the demon. It floated in the air, then disappeared. “I have only one question before I go Samuel.”
Sam’s eyes flashed. “What?”
“The girl? Did you think her father wouldn’t kill her when he found out you had seduced her, taken his chance of virginal sacrifice, and stolen this from around her neck?”
There was a flash and the demon was gone. Sam turned his back on the spot where it had been, his head sinking forward. John shifted, pulled the gun up, sighting down the barrel at Sam.
His son…gone all these years…and now that John had him back in his life, he was a killer…a monster. If he was anyone else, John would have dealt with him already.
Dean would never forgive him. Dean would be devastated. John blinked and shook his head.
“Fuck!” Sam screamed into the air and sank slowly to his knees in the dirt. John’s hand fell back to his side as Sam doubled over, his whole body shaking. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”
John stared, watching Sam scream and tremble and ultimately pull himself together to clean up his mess, burning the remains of the herbs and spreading the ashes on the ground. Just as John decided it was time to head back to the car, Sam stilled again, standing in the center of the empty space.
“I’m sorry I…can’t be the person he wants me to be. I just…I don’t know how.” Sam’s hands held the jewelry box he’d picked up at Shalin’s shop, turning it over in his hands. “I know I shouldn’t….I shouldn’t have come back…should have let him have…peace…both of them…but, I’ve never…felt…Please.”
The air shimmered and John got the impression of an image, a figure…female…blonde…he gasped, the gun dropping to the grass at his feet. She touched Sam’s up turned face, wiping across tears. John couldn’t breathe as those eyes rose from Sam’s face and fell on his.
He fumbled on the ground for his gun, his eyes locked on her form, watching as she wavered and turned back to Sam. He couldn’t hear if she spoke, but when she was gone, Sam nodded to himself and gathered his bag.
John watched him go.
He sat on the ground and watched him go. His son. Who had dealt with a demon…who had apparently seduced some girl and stolen some jewelry to give it to a demon. This man he couldn’t begin to understand…who had cried when it was done…who had called out in pain and…and…John was pretty damn sure that it had been Mary who had come to comfort him…or some demon pretending to be Mary.
He shook his head. He didn’t know what to think. His contacts in Florida said Sam was violent, that he moved around circles of demon-worshipping occultists and half-breeds. He knew Sam lied to him as easily as breathing. He knew that Sam was a monster…a monster made by the people who stole him, by the monsters that raised him and used demons to abuse him.
He tucked the gun back into his belt. It was getting late. He stood slowly and walked back toward the road. He nodded slowly as he got to the car and pulled out his phone. “Hey, it’s me.” John leaned against the car. “Bobby, I think I need your help. I trust your judgment. Can you meet me?”
John had no idea what he’d actually tell his friend about Sam. Maybe he wouldn’t tell him anything, just ask him to check him out. “Yeah, good. Two days. Thanks.”
That settled, John got back in the car, heading back into town to return the car, pick up his truck and head to Dean’s place. With a deep breath, John banished the fears and doubts and knocked, smiling as Dana’s little voice started a chorus of “Papa! Papa!”
“Papa, Dada, Papa!”
“I know Squirt, but you gotta get out of the way.” The door opened and Dean smiled, even as Dana launched herself at his leg, wrapping her arms around him and nearly knocking him over.
“Dana, you trying to kill your Papa?” John asked as he bent down to pick her up.
“Papa!” She declared, clapping her hands to his face before nuzzling her nose against his. “Spetti, Papa?”
“We’re not having spaghetti, Dana. I already told you. Come on in, Dad.”
“No spetti?” John asked and Dana pouted.
“Like spetti Papa.”
“I know you do.”
“Sam’s at the store he’s bringing home something.”
John nodded and Dana clapped her hands. “SamSam gets tookies for Dana.”
“He better not. There’s no need for more tookies.” Dean said, then shook his head. “Cookies.”
“Oros. Want Oros.”
“So you can’t paint the walls in chocolate again? I don’t think so.”
John let the familiar banter wash over him. It was comforting.
“How was the hunt?”
John looked up, momentarily confused. “Oh…not…entirely fruitful.”
“Didn’t get the bastard?”
“Not so much, no.” The door opened behind him and Dana squirmed out of his arms.
“SamSam!”
Sam dropped everything and caught the flailing armful of child, spinning her around and burying his face in her hair. John could almost taste his relief and comfort at having her there in his arms.
“Tookies, SamSam?”
Sam laughed and put her down. “Yes, Dana, I brought cookies. But no cookies until after dinner, okay?”
Dana’s index finger found its way into her mouth and she nodded. “Otay.”
“Hey.” Dean brushed past John and stopped short of actually touching Sam. “Can I help?”
Sam grinned. “Not with that gimpy hand.” He gestured at Dean’s heavily bandaged left hand. “I’ll do it.”
Dean picked up the bags Sam had dropped and put them on the kitchen table. “You okay, Dad?” Dean asked as he started emptying the bags.
“Fine…just kind of tired.”
Dean nodded, frowning as he lifted a stuffed dog out of the bag. As the door opened again, Dean held it up. “I thought we agreed she has enough of this kinda thing.”
Sam rolled his eyes and brought two more bags and a six pack of beer to the table. “Maybe it’s mine.”
“Yours?”
Sam smiled a lopsided sort of grin. “It’s the dog every kid wants, Dean. A fluffy, cuddly brown lab with sad eyes. I used to have one…a teacher gave it to me…said it looked like me.” He took it and held it up, pouting and pouring on the puppy dog eyes. “See?”
John couldn’t help but smile.
Sam turned and held it up toward Dana, who squealed and it floated toward her. “Got something for you too.” Sam said to Dean, digging in one of the bags.
“Sam, you don’t have to bring home gifts every time you come home.”
“Well, if you don’t want it.” Sam twirled a cd in his hands and started to toss it, when Dean’s hand closed on his. “It isn’t anything special.”
“Dude, it’s Zeppelin IV.” Dean frowned. “I have this.”
Sam shook his head. “Dana…sort of…found it. She was cutting that tooth…it wasn’t pretty.”
John watched as Sam and Dean unloaded a roasted chicken and store bought potato salad and set about clearing the table and setting it with food and dishes. Sam was like a totally different person than he’d been away from home. John sat in his place and pondered…the whole thing made him uncomfortable…Of course a big chunk of that was the idea of them. Together.
John had long since made peace with the idea of his son liking guys. He didn’t get it exactly…but he wanted Dean to be happy…whatever that meant. He never expected him to end up like this though…and he wasn’t entirely convinced Sam hadn’t hexed him again with his need to be loved…
Sam cleared his throat and John blinked, looking up. “Sorry, daydreaming.”
Sam bit his lip and nodded. He was holding a book out at John. “Got you something too. I—when I was in Florida, I came across it. Pretty rare, and thought it might come in handy.”
“What is it?” John reached for the black leather bound book.
“Its…original half-breed lore. You know…vampires, werewolves and the like. Where they originally came from…how they evolved…differences based on culture and stuff.”
“Looks old.” Dean said as he put forks on the table.
“Yeah, a hundred years or more. The actual text is older, but this book was a part of a collection that belonged to the Kennedy’s…”
“As in…the Kennedy’s?”
Sam chuckled. “As in.”
John pocketed the book, and with it his concerns. He’d promised Dean to try. He’d try. He’d have Bobby dig. Maybe he’d call in a few favors and have Sam followed. That way…he could still face Dean. Even if, in the end, he had to eliminate Sam.
Dana tugged on his pant leg and pouted up at him. He scooped her up and she leaned in, whispering in his ear. “My SamSam…Papa. Mine.” He smiled and nodded, more than a little unnerved.
“I know, baby. I know.” John whispered back, kissing her cheek and settling into her high chair.
Definitely better to let someone else think about it for a while. Better to pretend to give the kid the benefit of the doubt.
