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phantismaFandom: Supernatural/Leverage
Title: The Family Business
Pairings/Characters: Sam, Dean, John, Bobby, Eliot, Nate, Sophie, Parker, Hardison, OFCs
Word Count: 19307 (entire piece)
Rating: R
Summary: Sam and Dean get a call from someone they've worked, and played, with in the past, but when they meet up with Eliot Spencer in a small town in Kentucky everything they thought they knew changes.
A/Ns & Warnings: This is set mid season 7 for Supernatural, picking up somewhere around 7X07 and spanning to just before 7X17. For Leverage, it is between seasons 4 and 5. And yes, it leaves some things unresolved. I will likely come back to it eventually and chase out how the rest of the season would have changed. CANON CHARACTER DEATH, though it is entirely off screen.
It wasn’t every day he got a call from Eliot Spencer asking for a meet up in some hick town in the green-for-miles part of Kentucky. Hell, it wasn’t often he got a call from Eliot Spencer at all. Dean snapped his fingers at Sam and pulled the map out of his hands, tracing a finger south along from where they had just finished up a job.
“Yeah. We can make that. See you tomorrow.” He hung up and shrugged at Sam. “That was Eliot. He’s got something for us.”
Sam looked surprised. “As in Spencer?”
“Yeah. Finish up. We’ve got a drive.”
“As in the guy who said we were insane and punched you out the first time we met?” Sam snorted and closed his laptop.
“Hey, he held his own against that werewolf last time.” Dean reminded him, gathering up the newspapers and books spread across the table.
“I remember. He saved your ass.” Sam said as he dropped a twenty on the table to cover their tab.
“Yeah, I remember he fucked yours.” Dean laughed and led the way out to the car.
“Only after he’d worn yours out.” Sam put his bag in the back seat before opening the passenger door. “So, where we going?”
“Kentucky.” Dean started the car and put it in drive. “He wasn’t specific as to the reason, just said he had something for us and he was head for this small town in Kentucky. Asked to meet up.”
“That sounds…ominous.”
Dean just nodded and turned the radio up, pointing them down the road.
The town wasn’t the smallest place they’d ever been, big enough to have two bars and a main street that looked like something out of a 1950s sitcom. It was just after dark as Dean parked the car outside the hardware store, about a block from the bar where Eliot was supposed to meet them.
“Wow.” Sam murmured as they got out of the car, his eyes sweeping the street. “It’s like someone forgot to flip the calendar.”
“I’ll say. Kinda creepy.” Dean pulled his jacket closer and gestured toward the bar. Sam nodded and followed.
Country music spilled out the open door of the bar along with the smell of stale beer and peanuts. A couple of locals sat on stools along the bar, a young couple was snuggling in the back booth. Eliot was holding down a tall table near the dart boards and pool tables, three beers already waiting beside a wooden box.
He lifted his in greeting, grinning at them as Dean adjusted himself and moved in. “Hello boys.” Eliot said.
Dean took the stool closest to the wall opposite Eliot who had his own stool up against the wall too. Sam pulled the third to Dean’s side of the table and straddled it a little uneasily. “Wasn’t expecting we’d hear from you again.” Sam said as he took one of the beers.
“Didn’t expect I’d be calling.” Eliot answered. “I was doing a side job for a friend, came across something I figured was more your thing than mine.” His hand fell on the box on the table. It was fairly simple, but for what looked like Enochian symbols carved on the sliding top and a broken wax that had clearly once sealed the box shut.
Dean looked at the box, then up at Eliot. “What is it?”
Eliot took a long sip from his beer. “To be honest, I’m not sure. But, it was pretty damn important for a couple of guys with very black eyes apparently. They would not go down. Chased me across half of Georgia before I finally ditched them in a crowd at a mall.”
“Black eyes?” Sam asked, glancing around them.
“Yeah. All black. Crazy fuckers too.”
“Demons.” Sam said with a sigh. “At least we know what to do with them.”
“Demons.” Eliot said the word as if he couldn’t quite buy into the idea.
“Yeah. Demons.” Dean responded. “Anything they were that hot to get their hands on, is something we want to know about.”
Eliot pushed the box toward Dean. “Anything I want to know about?”
Dean chuckled. “Probably not.”
“Fair enough. I still think you’re both crazy, but this is not a mess I’m interested in. I need to get back. My team has a job lined up.”
“Right, that team of criminals.” Dean smirked as he said it, looking up as someone came in the door of the bar and someone at the bar called out a greeting. The man was familiar, his shape recalling something Dean couldn’t quite put a finger on, until his head started to turn.
He grabbed Sam’s shoulder and they both stood slowly. Dean was half certain he was seeing things. It wasn’t possible. He knew it wasn’t. They’d burned the body. They’d salted the ashes.
“Dad?” Eliot was standing now too, staring at the same man.
“Wait, what?” Dean turned to Eliot. Eliot took a step toward the man who was retreating out of the bar. “Did you say—“
“Dad.” Sam finished for him. “Dean…Dean, that was…that was Dad.”
“It couldn’t be.” Dean said, grabbing the box and pushing Sam after him.
Eliot grabbed his arm. “What are you talking about?”
“Who was that man?” Dean asked in return.
“My father.” Eliot said, frowning at him. “Why?”
Sam was pulling on him. “Because he looks an awful lot like our father. Only, our father is dead.”
Sam was out the door before Dean could stop him. Dean followed with Eliot on his heels. A pickup truck squealed away from the curb where Sam was coming to a stop. He turned to look at Dean, his face filled with question. “It couldn’t be, right?”
Dean nodded. “Couldn’t be.”
“Because he’s dead.” Sam added, both of them staring after the truck.
“Burned, salted. Dead.” Dean agreed, shaking his head. “But Sam…”
“I know.”
Dean turned to Eliot. “You said he was your father?”
Eliot nodded. “That’s why I’m here. I haven’t been home in…a while. Thought it was time.”
“He didn’t seem overjoyed to see you.” Sam observed. “Or maybe us.”
“No. I’m pretty sure that was all about me.” Eliot said with a sigh. “He…we didn’t part on the best of terms.” He seemed to sag a little. “I was hoping…Nevermind. You guys got what you came for. I have some family business to attend.”
“Not so fast.” Dean said, handing the box to Sam. “This is just a little too weird. We’re not going anywhere. Not until we’ve figured this out.”
“Well, I know where he lives.” Eliot pointed to his truck parked across the street.
“We’ll follow.” Dean responded, pointing to the Impala up the block.
Ten minutes later they parked in front of a ranch style farm house set back a bit from the road. Two horses grazed in a corral beside the house and Eliot was already nearly to the door when Sam and Dean got out of the car.
The house door burst open and a woman came flying at Eliot, slapping his face hard enough to turn his head and stop him in his tracks. “HOW DARE YOU?”
Dean stepped up behind Eliot as he rubbed his jaw. “Hello Mars, good to see you too.”
“You just fucking show up after how many years? And you don’t even have the decency to come here first? You go to the goddamn bar?” She slapped him again, harder this time. On her third attempt, Eliot caught her hand.
“Stop. You’re pissed, I get it.”
“No, Eliot. I was pissed when you left. When you didn’t come back. This? This is so far beyond pissed--“
“Mary.”
That gruff voice brought Dean’s attention from the beauty with the temper to the door. Sam’s hand squeezed his shoulder and Dean knew. He just knew.
It was his turn to walk away. Just walk away.
“Dean.”
He shook his head. “No Sam. No.”
“Dean.” That wasn’t Sam. Dean stopped.
A hundred scenarios ran through his head, a hundred ways this was just a trick. A hundred more that it could be real. “No.” Dean turned around, fury pumping through him. “No. You’re dead. You—We burned your body. You fucking left us to clean up your fucking mess. And we fucking burned your body, salted the ashes. You don’t get to just….just be alive.”
“Dean.” Sam bridged the distance between Dean and this man with their father’s face, one hand reaching out to Dean. “We should…you know….make sure?”
The man standing there looking like John Winchester chuckled. “I’m me, Sam.”
Dean had his ever present flask of holy water out of his pocket and was splashing it in his face before anyone else could even move.
“You can’t be serious.” Eliot said as his father spit out holy water and Sam produced a silver knife.
“Deadly.” Dean said, nodding to Sam.
Calmly, the man in question held out his hand to Sam, palm up, wincing as Sam cut into the meaty part of his hand.
“Satisfied?”
Dean shook his head. “Not even a little bit.”
He nodded. “I understand. It’s a very long story. Seeing as you found me…and so far none of us is dead, I guess I owe you the whole story.”
He turned, clamping a hand over the bleeding cut and Dean watched him walk into the house without looking back. Sam was still shaking his head and Eliot was staring at them both.
“What just happened?”
“I’ll let you know once I figure it out.” Dean answered, moving between Eliot and Sam and into the house.
The house was warm, the windows open to the night air. Dean stood in a living room that looked unreal, the last place he would expect to find his father...and yet, as John emerged from the hallway, taping down some gauze over the knife wound, Dean had to admit, he looked like he belonged.
“I don’t understand.” Dean found himself saying as Eliot and Sam joined them.
“Sit.” John gestured toward the couch. The woman appeared in the doorway of the kitchen, a six pack of beer in her hand. She glowered at Eliot as she handed him one, but softened a little as she gave one to Sam and almost smiled as she handed one to Dean. “Mary, go call your sister. Get her over here.”
Dean cleared his throat as she nodded and left the room. “Mary?”
His father nodded. “Yes. Mary.” He rubbed a hand over his face and sighed. “I don’t know where to start.”
“How about the part where you made some fucking deal with a demon to save my life?” Dean asked, sipping on his beer.
“I found you laying dead on the floor of that hospital room.” Sam said. “We burned the body.”
John nodded. “Deal, yes. Dead, not really.” He took a big hit off his beer. “Eliot, this must be…”
Eliot held up his hand. “I’ve known these two for over a year. Strange shit happens when they’re around.”
John smiled a little, nodding. “Of course, just you two being here breaks the deal, so we can likely expect some of that strange shit any minute.”
“Demon’s dead.” Dean said, pulling his father’s attention back to him.
“He is?”
“Dean shot him with the Colt.” Sam supplied, still looking a little wide eyed.
Dean could feel the pride rolling off his father, could feel his eyes. It made him uncomfortable. “Couldn’t have done it without Sam.” He cleared his throat. “Okay, so, that bastard’s dead and you’re not.”
John nodded. “Yeah. So, I guess killing me was too easy, or something.” He crossed to the chair and sat, setting his beer on the table beside him. “I had to agree to quit hunting and to never have contact with you boys again.”
“That doesn’t explain…” Dean gestured at Eliot.
“I agreed to the deal to save Dean’s life.” John said, looking at Eliot now. “The demon wasn’t content just sending me away. He sent me back...back to before you boys were born.”
“What?” Dean frowned at him. “What? And you just...what, walked away?”
“No, I didn’t just walk away.”
Mary reappeared, finishing off the last beer she’d kept for herself. “Should I cook?”
Eliot snorted and shook his head. “Not unless you really want me dead.”
She slapped his shoulder, but it was more playful than the slaps on the porch had been. “I can cook.”
“She’s actually gotten pretty good.” John said with a smirk. She slapped at him too. “How about some burgers? Get the grill going?” She nodded and headed back toward the kitchen.
Dean finished his beer, uncomfortable with the whole domestic feeling, with his father and these people…
“Wait.” Sam said suddenly. “You quit hunting?”
John nodded. “Yes, Sam. I did.”
“You quit hunting? You quit hunting.”
John chuckled. “It wasn’t easy. Especially not at first. Once I figured out what happened, I wanted nothing more than to stop...all of it. Save your mother. But the consequences were too high. If I did anything to interfere, not only would I die, but you boys with me. Both of you. Your souls sent to hell.”
“So you found yourself another family you could have a normal life with while Sam and I were out there dying for your damn war?” Fury bubbled under his skin and was going to erupt out of him if this didn’t start making sense.
John rubbed his knee, but didn’t look up. “For the first two years I haunted Lawrence. I watched your mother and...well, me...but it was killing me. And when I realized she had to be pregnant with you, I had to leave. I knew I couldn’t be there, couldn’t watch it happen and not interfere.”
There were tears in his eyes as he looked up. Dean didn’t expect that. Didn’t want to see it. He turned away, looking at Sam instead.
“I met Eliot’s mother at a truckstop in Texas. She was trying to get home to Kentucky. I was….looking for some way to be useful. We got here, her old man gave me a job...next thing I know Eliot was born. We got married. I still paid attention, went places I knew you’d be.”
Sam stood abruptly, walking toward the front door. Dean waved his father down when he would have followed. “Sam?”
He was pacing around the front yard. He didn’t stop until Dean grabbed his elbow. “Sam. Stop.”
“He’s our brother, Dean.” Sam said. “Our damn brother….and we….” He shook his head, pulling away and returning to pacing.
“All of this, and that is what you’re stuck on?” Dean asked. He could feel Eliot behind him and he knew they’d have to face it eventually.
A car came to a stop on the street and in just a few seconds there were two small kids racing past them and launching themselves at Eliot, both of them talking excitedly.
Eliot laughed and spun them around before putting them down. They both ran for the door screaming “Grandpa!” as a woman with short, dark hair moved slowly toward them, her stomach swollen with the obvious signs of another on the way.
“Emma.” Eliot pulled her into a hug, one hand dipping to cup her stomach. “You look good.”
“I look fat.” Emma countered. “You were supposed to tell me you were coming so I could soften him up for you.”
“He brought us instead.” Dean said, sticking his hand out. “I’m Dean, this is my brother Sam.”
“It’s a long story, Em.” Eliot gestured inside with his head. “Dad’s...well, he’s sort of….”
Dean clapped a hand on Sam’s shoulder and turned him back toward the house. “He was just telling us the story of how he met your mother.”
John was still in his chair, but he had a lap full of blond haired kids. The boy was maybe six, with freckles across his face and two missing teeth. The girl was smaller, maybe four, her hair in pigtails. Both of them wore pajamas. Emma crossed to John and kissed the top of his head. “I was trying to put them to bed, but they overheard me telling Mark I was coming and they were in the car before I was.”
“Grandpa time trumps bed time.” Mary said, hugging her sister.
His sister too, Dean amended. As if reading his mind, John cleared his throat. “So, Emma and Mary, this is Sam and Dean. The boys I had with my first wife. Sam, Dean, these are your sisters, Mary and Emma. And this is your nephew Isaac and your niece Ruthie.”
“I gotta be honest.” Dean said. “I don’t even know how to react to this.”
Emma laughed, the sound light and breaking some of the tension. “Here I was expecting to welcome my prodigal brother home, and instead I get three.”
“I…” Sam shook his head. “You’ll forgive me….I’m still trying to figure out how you just….walked away and lived a normal life while we were out there...with everything we went through...hell...and did you know we both died?”
“Several times.” Dean said, trying to derail his brother. “Maybe that’s a better conversation for another time.”
“No. You know what? I can’t….” Sam started for the door, but this time it was Eliot that stopped him.
“Sam, we’re all a little freaked out here.”
“Emma, I think the men need some more time to talk. Come help me with some food?” Mary said, her eyes on Dean and seeming to demand an explanation when things had settled. He nodded his thanks as Mary twined her arm through her sister’s and drew her away.
“Twins.” John said suddenly. He smiled and kissed each of the kids’ heads. “You know I think your aunt Mary brought home some new toys. Why don’t you two go find them.”
They tore off in the opposite direction that the women had gone and John stood up, crossing to Sam. He turned Sam to face him. “I checked in on you boys from time to time. When you were at Stanford...Jessica’s funeral. I wanted to be there. I wanted you to know.”
Sam sagged a little and John pulled him into a hug. “We missed you.” Sam said into his father’s shoulder. “What we’ve seen...done...Dad…”
“I know, son, I know.”
“No, Dad. You don’t.” Dean corrected, moving closer to hug him too. “But I understand. Sort of.”
“I’m glad you do.” Eliot groused. “I barely believed you about the werewolves and that’s after I saw them. This?” He shook his head. “And you...I can’t believe the shit you gave me about wanting to get out of here, see the world.”
John let go of Dean and grabbed Eliot, pulling him in to hug too, though it was obvious Eliot wasn’t as receptive. “I would think you’d understand it now. I mean...with everything you know is out there now.”
Eliot frowned as if that hadn’t even crossed his mind. “What? That’s what it was about? You do know I can handle myself, right?”
“No, I get it.” Sam said. “He didn’t want you to have to...he knew what we would go through, how it would break us. He wanted something better for you. Didn’t want you to know about that evil.”
“There’s evil in the world has nothing to do with that crap.” Eliot said.
John nodded. “Yes, there is.”
“And now he knows anyway.” Dean added. “Really, he’s a Winchester. You think he was going to get through this life without it touching him in some way?”
“A father can hope.”
“Not to interrupt the boys bonding time, but burgers are ready.” Emma called from somewhere Dean couldn’t see.
Mary came through and into the kitchen. “Eliot, make yourself useful. Get in here.”
Eliot followed, leaving Sam and Dean alone with their father. “We have a lot to discuss.” Sam said, shifting uncomfortably.
“Stories to tell.” John responded, nodding. “I...I thought I’d never see you boys again.” He pulled them both in to hug. “Come on, sit down, have some food. The rest can wait.”
“You’re quiet.” Dean said, pulling Sam up out of his thoughts. It was nearly midnight and they were sitting in the car outside a motel. Dean turned the engine off.
“I…” Sam shook his head. The whole thing was surreal. “How...and why...and how?”
“I don’t know, Sam. But I say we get a room, get some sleep, come at it fresh in the morning.”
Sam nodded and watched his brother get out of the car. If it was just the fact that his father was alive, Sam might be able to wrap his head around it. The damn yellow eyed demon did love to torment his family...and nothing would torment John Winchester more than knowing what would happen and being unable to stop it.
But that wasn’t all of it.
He had married again. Had kids. Eliot. Who he and Dean had done some...very unbrotherly things with. Sam shook his head. He knew he needed to get past that. Put it behind them.
It wasn’t like he and Dean were innocents before Eliot or anything. They’d shared a bed with others, both male and female. They didn’t touch each other, not sexually...well, there was that one time when they were both really drunk with that red head in Texas that they’d kissed...but he didn’t think Dean even remembered that.
But Eliot...that hadn’t been just an after hunt, adrenaline fueled one night stand. It had gone on for two days, until none of the three of them could move. And now, to find out the man was related….not just related...Eliot was their brother.
The door opened and Dean slid in, putting the key on Sam’s knee. He started the car and moved them toward the number 7 door. “Get the door, I’ll get the bags.”
Sam climbed out of the car and got their bags from the back seat, following Dean into the room. It was pretty standard cheap hotel, with an ugly gold carpeting that looked like something out of a seventies sitcom. He dumped his bag on one bed and tossed Dean’s onto the other one.
“Seriously, stop.” Dean said. “We’ll figure it out.”
“You’re right.” Sam said, rubbing both hands over his face. “I’m going to grab a shower.”
He left Dean getting undressed and went to stand under the meager spray of the shower, hoping it would wash away the sick feeling in his stomach that something just wasn’t right. He waited until he was fairly sure his brother had gone to sleep before he got out, wrapping a towel around himself and easing his way out of the bathroom.
He pulled his laptop out of his bag and went to the small table in the corner of the room. He’d done a brief background check on Eliot the first time they’d met, east of Seattle when they’d been hunting a vampire nest. He knew the man was wanted, former special ops...though that was mostly speculation due to the missing records. It was time to find out more.
“Did you sleep at all?” Dean’s voice grumbled and Sam looked up.
Sunlight was starting to seep in around the curtains. He rubbed his eyes and sighed. “No.”
“Did you at least find something or is the pissy face because you didn’t” Dean sat up, scratching at the back of his neck.
“Well, I found John Spencer, sort of. First I can find of him is 1975. In December he bought a bus ticket from Scranton, Ohio to Lawrence, Kansas. Next I find is a police report, seems he was questioned by Lawrence police about a peeping tom lurking around a residential neighborhood in Lawrence. That was 1978. I’ve got no birth records, no credit records, no driver’s license. Nothing up to 1979, when a John Spencer applied for a driver’s license in Kentucky. After that there’s an application for a marriage license.”
“So he’s telling the truth.”
“Seems like.” Sam wasn’t sure why that didn’t make him feel any better. “Eliot was born on July 30, 1979. Dad and Elizabeth Handly married a month later. Mary and Emma were born on October 10, 1983.”
Dean stretched as he stood, headed for the bathroom. “Which lines up with everything he said last night.”
“Elizabeth died in ‘92 after a brief battle with breast cancer. Her father died that same year, leaving Dad the hardware store.”
Dean snorted. “I can’t see Dad running a hardware store. Go get some coffee. I’m going to shower.”
Sam pushed himself up out of the chair, stretching. The towel he was still wearing after his shower fell to the floor and he stepped clear to pull clean underwear out of his bag. He finished getting dressed and grabbed the room key, heading out to find coffee at the cafe across the street from the hotel.
“Two large coffees, to go, please.” Sam responded, hoping the young woman would take the hint.
He dropped the money on the counter and took the cups the waitress set in front of him.
He knew he was on edge. His sanity was a precarious walk on a good day, the hallucinations only barely held in check, the voice of Lucifer in his head sometimes overwhelming. Somehow, despite Dean’s own issues, he was managing to keep Sam grounded, if only just. And they had Leviathans to find and figure out how to kill.
The fact that he’d just found out his father was alive, that he had another brother and sisters, that he was an uncle just pushed everything up a notch. And that was before he gave any thought to the idea that he’d has sex with the man he now knew was his brother.
”And you liked it, Sammy. Want to do it again, don’t you?”
Sam ignored the hallucination, though he knew it would only lead to more torment.
He got back to the hotel as Dean was sitting down on the bed with the box they’d gotten from Eliot the night before at the bar. Sam handed off the cup of coffee. Dean nodded in thanks, taking a sip before setting the cup down and rubbing his hands together.
“You gonna open it?” Sam asked, backing away.
“Got a better idea?” Dean asked, looking up.
“I just think maybe we have enough to worry about.”
“Still got a job to do, Sammy.” Dean slid the lid off the box and Sam felt like someone was trying to pull his stomach out of his body through his navel.
Oh, that’s fun. Sam ignored the suddenly grinning hallucination as he doubled over.
“Dean.”
“Shit, Sam.” He didn’t hear the box close, but he felt it when it did. Dean’s hands found him, guided him to the bed. “What happened?”
Sam inhaled and tried to focus on the feeling of Dean’s hands, on the pain still lingering in his stomach and not on the sound of Lucifer laughing at him. “I don’t know.” He pressed against the scar on his hand, pushing the delusion away. “I’m okay.”
Dean was squatting beside him. “Bullshit. What was that?”
Sam didn’t know, but his insides were shaking. “What was in the box?”
Dean stood and went back to the box. “I didn’t get a good look.”
“Dean.” Sam stood slowly, testing his strength. “Just tell me.”
Dean rolled his eyes. “It….looked like a heart.”
Sam frowned at him. “A what?”
“A human heart.”
Sam frowned harder. “I don’t….why would that…”
Because it’s mine, Sam. Sam physically turned so his back was to the delusion, his fingers finding the scar on his hand and pushing down until the pain pushed the presence away.
“You sure you’re okay?” Dean asked, squinting at him.
“Yeah, fine. You know, as much as I can be.”
Dean’s hand grabbed his shoulder. “I need you to be straight up with me here Sam. You promised to tell me if it was too much.”
Sam forced a smile. “It isn’t, okay? I’m fine. We should figure out what this thing is with Dad, and get back to looking for a way to kill the Leviathans.”
“I think this thing with Dad is just what Dad says it is, Sammy. I think he made a deal, got unexpectedly shuffled back in time, and…”
“And quit hunting, got married and had a family?” Sam asked, going back to his computer. “Why isn’t he older? I mean...if he went back to 1975 and lived the last...what...30 years….why doesn’t he look like he’s over 70? He barely looks older than when he was supposed to have died.” Sam sat, shaking his head. “And if he didn’t die, who did we burn?”
“I don’t know, Sam.” Dean lifted his coffee off the nightstand and sipped it. “What was the point of any of it?” He sat on the end of his bed. “I mean, I always assumed old yellow eyes killed Dad to try to break him….the way he did me. I was just his second choice.”
“If Dad wasn’t in hell...then that was all a lie too.” Sam said. “So what did he gain?”
“Tormenting Dad.” Dean offered, sitting back against the headboard. “Left us without him...which likely led to any number of the stupid decisions we made that led us toward what happened.”
“So, it was all part of his end game?” Sam shook his head. “Doesn’t feel right.”
“On our end, sure. I just don’t get what Azazel got out of keeping Dad alive.”
“Maybe he couldn’t kill him?” Sam said. “He was Michael’s vessel after all.”
Dean frowned at him. “You mean... when we went back to stop Anna, and he let Michael in?”
“Maybe we changed something. Maybe once a body has been a host to an archangel, hell can’t touch it?” Sam suggested.
“So, his threat to haul Dad down to the pit if he tried to contact us or interfere with us was a bluff?”
“Not completely.” Sam said. “I mean, we were part of that too. He could have still taken us.”
“This is giving me a headache.” Dean grabbed the box and headed for the door.
“Wait...what are you going to do with it?”
“For now, I’m hiding it in the lockbox in the trunk. I’ll call Bobby. Have him do some digging.”
“And what about us? What are we going to do?” Sam asked as Dean opened the door.
“Well, Emma did invite us to her place for the family barbeque.” Dean responded, smirking. “Every Sunday at her place.”
“Right. Because that’s what normal families do.”
“Is this...normal?” Eliot asked as Dean sat next to him on the surprisingly comfortable wicker patio furniture.
“Which part exactly?” Dean asked, watching Sam make uncomfortable small talk with Emma’s husband, Wayne.
“Time travel, dead fathers who aren’t dead…”
Dean inhaled and let it out slowly. “No, that part is definitely not normal. The making a deal with a demon part? That, unfortunately is far too familiar.” Their father joined Sam and Wayne and the kids came running past. “What about…” Dean waved his hand at the people around them. “Is this what life was when you were younger?”
Eliot snorted and leaned back. “He’s different. Not sure if it’s you two showing up or age or what. We actually talked this morning. The last time I was home the only talking he did was barking orders.”
They both sipped at their beer, watching the assembled family.
“Can I ask where you got the box?” Dean asked softly, his eyes tracking Sam.
“Told you, was working a job in Georgia.”
Dean shook his head. “No, I need more than that. Whatever is in that box has some serious juice. I need to know where it came from.”
“It was in a shipment I was sent to retrieve. Only the guy who hired me ended up dead, and I got left holding a lot of shit I didn’t need or want. That was the last of it.”
“What kind of shit?” Dean asked.
“Most of it was crap, like you’d get at some magic shop or whatever. There were a few pieces worth something. A dagger with diamonds in the hilt, a silver bridle….and that box. I wouldn’t have thought anything about the box, to be honest, except people with black eyes kept trying to take it away from me.”
Dean nodded. It didn’t tell him any more than he’d already known. Which wasn’t much.
“Is Sam okay?” Eliot asked, his voice pitched even lower.
Dean looked up, his eyes tracking Sam before looking at Eliot and nodding. “He will be.”
“He seemed pretty freaked out last night….about...us.”Eliot’s eyes narrowed and held on Dean’s, checking in, asking more than just about Sam.
Dean offered him a tight smile. “We’re good. Water under the bridge, right? Forget it ever happened.”
“He’s good at that.”
They both looked up to find Mary standing there, hands on her hips. “Walk away, forget everything.”
“I never forgot, Mars. He was the one who told me not to come back.”
Dean raised an eyebrow. That definitely sounded like their father.
“You were the one who took him at his word. He calmed down, tried to find you.”
“Where I went, no one would have found me.” Eliot said, standing and wiping his hands down his jeans. “And that’s all I’m ever telling you about it.” He moved away, headed for the cooler for another beer, leaving Dean and Mary.
“Now you...I don’t know if I should thank you for bringing him back here or kick your ass for it.”
Dean smirked as she sat next to him, arms crossed over her chest. “I didn’t do anything. He was the one who brought us here.” He looked at her. “You and your sister seem to be taking this pretty well.”
She turned to look at him, and he could see so much of his father in her face that he had to blink and look away. “Don’t think I don’t realize the math is off. There’s no way you came from some first marriage. You and Eliot are practically the same age...and Sam over there? He’s the same age as me and Emma.”
Dean wasn’t sure how to answer her, so he didn’t.
“Don’t get me wrong, I thought he was having some affair or something when I was still a kid. He’d go away for a week at a time, long weekends….Emma and I used to fantasize about him having a second family, about one day meeting brothers and sisters we never knew..”
“Truth can be stranger than any fiction we tell ourselves.” Dean said. “You got a lot better from him than we ever did. He was here for you when you needed him.”
She nodded. “He would always come home from those trips sad.” She sighed. “ He cried last night after you left. He wouldn’t want me to tell you that, but I heard him. He loves you two.”
“Yeah, but he loves you too.” Dean responded. “I can see it in his eyes when he looks at you.”
“Mars, can you give me a hand in the kitchen?” Emma called and she stood.
“Duty calls.”
Dean watched her go, then turned to find Sam. He turned away from their father, his face pale, his thumb pressing deeply against the scar on his hand. Dean stood, abandoning his beer and crossing to where Sam was stumbling across the yard. “Sam?”
Sam’s eyes were closed and he was breathing hard. “Hey, Sammy. Come on. Talk to me.”
“Can’t.” Sam squeezed the word out from between clenched teeth.
“Whatever you’re seeing, it isn’t real.” Dean comforted.
“Dean?”
He held up his hand to hold their father off, circling in front of Sam to stop him, sliding his hands up Sam’s arms to his shoulders. “Open your eyes. Tell me what you see.”
Sam’s eyes were bloodshot when he opened them and Dean knew in an instant that what was going on his brother’s head wasn’t a hallucination, but a memory. “Okay, okay...take a deep breath. Focus on me, on now.”
Sam was shaking, but he tried to do what Dean instructed, his breathing tight. Tears leaked from his eyes and he pulled in another breath. He nodded a little. “Okay, let’s find you some place quiet.”
“Dean?” His father’s voice was a little more insistent, and Dean spared a moment to look at him.
“Give me a minute to get him inside. I’ll explain.” He walked Sam toward the house, pausing outside the kitchen. “Emma, Sam’s not feeling too well, do you have some place he can lay down for a while?”
She was all motherly concern as she came toward them, wiping her hands on a towel. “Of course, second door on the left is the guest room. Does he need anything?”
Dean smiled and shook his head. “No, just some quiet. Thanks.”
He got them into the room and the door closed before he let go of his brother. Sam sank onto the bed, his hands covering his face, wiping away the tears. “Sorry...I just….” He shook his head, looking up at Dean. “I couldn’t stop it.”
“That wasn’t a hallucination, Sam.”
“No. It wasn’t.” He inhaled slowly. “It was worse. It was like being back there, like it was real. I could see you, hear you...but I was there, in the pit.” He shuddered. “I’m okay now. I just, I need some time.”
“Get some rest. I’ll go try to smooth things over.”
He left Sam laying down and headed back outside, assuring Emma as he passed through the kitchen that Sam was fine. His father wouldn’t be as easy to convince. He wasn’t even fully out the back door before his father was in his face.
“What was that?”
Dean looked past him at Wayne and the kids. “Not here.”
John looked over his shoulder. “Wayne, I’m making a run to the store for that ice cream Emma likes.” He grabbed Dean’s elbow and escorted him around the side of the house.
“Dad--”
“Get in the car.” John pointed to the Impala.
Dean pulled the keys from his pocket. He opened the driver’s side door, but his father was running a hand over the hood. “You did a good job.”
Dean couldn’t control the swell of pride and the smile. “It was a lot of work. That semi did a number on her.”
His father’s smile was a little sad. “Yeah, I remember.” He shook his head and climbed in the passenger side of the car. “Drive.”
The car was silent until they were nearly a mile from the house. “We’ve been through a lot.” Dean said to break the silence. “Sam...he’s got problems.”
He could feel his father’s eyes on him. “What problems?”
“Hallucinations.” He cleared his throat. “Memories.”
“Memories? What memories?”
Dean exhaled and tried to find a way to say it that would soften the blow. There really wasn’t one though. “He wasn’t just spouting off when he said we’d both died. Well, multiple times actually...but Sam...he stopped the apocalypse, you know that? He was...but to do it, he dove into a cage in hell with two whacked out mother-fuckers…”
“Apocalypse? Dean, what are you talking about?”
He pulled off the road beside a field and turned the car off. “You missed a lot, Dad.”
“I’m getting that. I’m here now though. Give me the high view.”
Dean pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m not sure there is a high view.” He exhaled. “Okay...long story short...you died, the damn yellow eyed demon was trying to put together an army, and Sam was part of some Survivor style last-man standing fight. Only, he didn’t win...and I didn’t get to him in time.”
His throat clenched and he turned away. He could still remember the feeling of Sam in his arms, the boneless way he fell into Dean, the weight of his head, the heat of his blood on his hands. He opened the door and got out of the car.
He paced the length of the car twice, then leaned against the hood. “He died. In my arms. Another one of the demon’s special kids cut his spinal chord.”
The car shifted as his father got out of the car. Tears burned in the corners of his eyes, tears he thought he had long since gotten past. “Not like me in that hospital bed. He was dead. But I couldn’t...so I followed your lead.”
“You made a deal.” John said softly.
Dean nodded. “I summoned a cross-roads demon and I made her give Sam back to me.”
“And your end of the deal?”
Dean shrugged as if it didn’t matter. “A year, then hell. Which...turns out, isn’t all fun and games. I got pulled out of there by an angel, of all things, to find Sam starting to go darkside in his effort to rescue me...and that we started the apocalypse.”
“Wait, angel?”
“Yeah, that was my reaction too.” Dean said, turning to lean back against the car. “Yeah, angels...demons, gods...it’s been a crazy couple of years. They needed Sam to get really powerful with that psychic shit, to kill a very powerful demon...it was the last step to raising Lucifer.”
“As in the devil?”
Dean nodded. “See...angels, like demons, need a human body to inhabit to interact on the mortal plane. Only, they’re tied to specific people, vessels, who have to allow the angel inside. And as it turns out, Sam is Lucifer’s vessel. We fought like hell to defeat him once Sam let him loose, but in the end, the only way was for Sam to let him in, and hope he was strong enough to throw him back into his cage once I got it open.”
He could feel the numbness that had taken over after Sam jumped in...the year of trying to live normal with Lisa and Ben. “Castiel, the angel that pulled me out of hell, he pulled Sam out of the pit, but he didn’t get all of him, left Sam’s soul behind for Lucifer and Michael to torment. It was over a year before we figured it out and got his soul back….but he was so..damaged. We had to block his memory of it behind this sort of wall, to keep him from falling apart.”
“Another angel trick?” John asked.
“Sort of.” Dean responded. His story was already pretty insane, he didn’t think his father really needed to know that Dean was on speaking terms with Death. “Things were good for a while. Sam was good.”
“But?” John prodded.
“But...Castiel lost his shit, broke down the wall, opened purgatory and…” Dean shook his head. “Sam...he was okay for a while. Or he pretended better, or something. But lately...he hallucinates, sees Lucifer, hears him. And he has nightmares. I don’t pretend to know what he went through down in that cage, but it was bad. It was worse than anything I dealt with in hell. Bad like we can’t ever know.”
They were quiet for a long time, then John shifted beside him. “Is that all of it? Is that everything?”
Dean wiped at his eyes. “No, you wanted the high view. That’s the high view.” He stood up. “There are bad guys out there, Crowley and his demons...Leviathans...and that’s on top of all the regular crap...all gunning for us.”
“Dean…”
“I know. It’s a lot to take in. I get it.”
“You know how it sounds.” John said.
Dean nodded. “Yeah, insane. I know. And you’ve been out of the game for a long time.” He went to the trunk, an idea occurring to him. “You know, this might be a better way.” He rummaged in one of the duffle bags to come up with his father’s journal, and with it another book that was starting to look nearly as worn . “We kept your journal, but when it got too full, we started another one. I can’t promise it tells the whole story, but the facts are there at least.”
He shoved the two books at his old man and closed the trunk. “Now, though, I want to get back to Sam. I don’t like leaving him alone.”
He didn’t exactly sleep, though he zoned out and drifted in the dark, circling around a deep hole of memory he couldn’t afford to fall into.
I’m not going away, Sammy.
Not real, Sam reminded himself, sitting up and turning his back on the hallucination. His thumb found it’s way to the scar on his hand, pressing inward, but Lucifer didn’t go away.
It’s not that simple.
Sam huffed and stood, pacing the small room. He could hear the family in the other room. Thunder rumbled nearby.
You know you belong with me, Sam. You know you’re only weighing your brother down.
“Stop it. Leave me alone.” Sam growled, pressing in harder against the scar. His whole hand hurt with the pressure before Lucifer seemed to disappear. “He’s not real. He’s not real.” Sam whispered to himself.
“Sam?”
His father’s voice. it sent a thrill of fear through him, but Sam cleared his throat and responded. “Yeah.”
The door opened and his father filled the opening, pausing briefly before stepping in and closing the door. “You okay?”
Sam sort of shrugged and went back to pacing, his thumb caressing over the scar. “I don’t know, to be honest.”
“Dean...he told me what happened. Sort of.”
Sam stopped and looked at him, alarmed, then relieved. “You must be so disappointed in the two of us.” He shook his head and resumed pacing. At least it was movement, even if it didn’t solve anything.
“Disappointed?” His father’s hands caught his shoulders and pulled him to a stop. “How can you even think that?”
Sam couldn’t quite look him in the eye. “After everything you sacrificed...we just….we fuck up everything.”
John shook his head, pulling Sam into a hug. “No, Sam. Never think that I am anything other than proud of you and your brother.”
He’s lying.
Sam stiffened involuntarily and his father let go of him. “Sorry.” He moved away from both his father and his delusion.
“Can you tell me?” John asked, his voice soft.
“He’s right there. Behind you.” Sam said, his voice strangled and tight. “I know he isn’t real...he’s just...in my head.”
Of course I’m real, Sam. This is the delusion. You’re trying to escape the only way you can, but you’re here with me.
Sam pulled in a deep breath, turning to look at his father. “I’m okay.”
“Bullshit.” John responded, startling Sam. He was so used to Dean just accepting it, even if he didn’t believe Sam. “You are not okay, Sam. You’re falling apart.”
Sam nodded in agreement. He wasn’t wrong. “I know. I just...Dean needs me to be okay. I need...to be okay. We’ve lost so much.” Dean wouldn’t survive losing him too.
Dean is off living a normal life, just like you told him to. He’s forgotten you.
Sam pressed his scar and pushed at the delusion. “I have to be okay.”
His father sighed and sat on the bed. “Saying it, wanting it doesn’t make it happen.”
Sam swallowed and went back to pacing. “I don’t have anything else.”
“You have me.” His father rubbed his hands down his thighs and inhaled deeply. “I know I haven’t been there..and even when I was, I wasn’t...I’ve never been the best father to you boys….”
“You did the best you could. We know that.”
“I don’t.”
Sam shook his head. “What?”
“One thing I’ve learned since I ended up here, is that I had no business dragging the two of your around the way I did. I can’t help but believe this would never have come to be like this if I’d just done the right thing, and let someone else do the hunting.”
Sam smiled and sat next to him. “Maybe it wouldn’t have been exactly the same, but no...it would have happened anyway. We’ve been being maneuvered into this since before we were born.”
“This something to do with the angels and all that shit?” his father asked, looking uncomfortable with the idea.
“Yeah, I guess. I mean...the whole vessel thing...it runs in families. You were Michael’s vessel before Dean was.”
John frowned at him. “Wait, Dean didn’t say anything about that. He said you were the vessel.”
“I was...am...for Lucifer. Dean is Michael’s vessel.”
“Michael and Lucifer. I’m never getting used to that.” John said. “Dean said you were down there for over a year.”
Sam inhaled deeply and swallowed, ignoring the bubbling memory that was threatening to pull him in. “My soul at least, yeah. I...he...Castiel...he thought he was helping. He didn’t realize he’d left part of me behind….not until Dean called him because he thought something was wrong with me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Cas, he…” But Sam wasn’t sure how to explain Castiel and the changes the angel had gone through in the time they had known him. “He made mistakes, bad decisions. Hell, he was practically one of us.”
“Was?”
Sam got up and went back to pacing. “As far as we know, he’s gone. Dead.”
“How do you kill an angel?”
“It’s not easy.”
“Dad? I’m putting the kids to bed. Did you want to say goodnight?”
John stood and crossed to the door, cracking it open. “Give me just a minute.” He turned to Sam. “I know this is all…” he shrugged as if he couldn’t find the words. “But, I’m here for you. I want you to know that.”
“Thanks.” Sam watched him go and followed him to the door, easing out and heading out to the living room. Dean met his eyes and Sam nodded.
“Emma set you aside a plate, if you’re hungry.” Wayne said, gesturing toward the kitchen.
“Thanks, I think maybe I’ll pass. I’m still not feeling real great.”
“I think that’s our cue to get out of your hair.” Dean said, inclining his head toward the door. “Tell Dad we’ll call him tomorrow.” Dean held the door and Sam ducked through it, stopping as Eliot looked up from a chair on the porch.
“I’ll call you tomorrow.” Eliot said into his phone, his eyes holding Sam to the spot as he hung up. “You don’t look too good.”
Sam smiled a little. “I need some sleep. I’ll be fine.”
Eliot stood, putting his phone in his pocket. “I don’t buy it.”
“Join the club.” Dean said behind him.
Sam held up both hands and took the stairs down to the sidewalk. He was feeling a little teamed up on and his balance on the edge of his sanity was already precarious. “We need to talk.” Eliot said behind him.
“Right, because we do that so well.” Sam replied, opening the passenger side door of the Impala.
“What we did, before…” Eliot started, his hands on his hips. “...it wasn’t wrong.”
Sam so did not want to talk about that. “Eliot, please. Stop.” His head filled with images of Eliot naked, of him and Dean kissing, all hard and urgent, pushing each other toward the bed. He shook his head.
“Not until I know you’re okay with it. Because we didn’t know about this, about this brothers thing.”
Sam rubbed at the throb in his temples. “Trust me Eliot, right now it’s the last thing on my mind.” Which wasn’t true, but he wanted it to be and in the list of things he had to be a mess over, it wasn’t the biggest. It wasn’t even the most twisted thing he’d ever done in his life.
“Maybe we can handle this when Sam’s feeling a little better.” Dean interceded.
“I’m leaving in the morning.” Eliot answered. “Got a job. I just wanted to get the box to the two of you and see the old man. Wasn’t prepared for...all of this.”
“What kind of job?” Dean asked as Sam got into the car.
“Not entirely sure, got a call from my team. I’m meeting up with them in Lexington.” Sam could still feel Eliot looking at him. “Unless you need me to stay.”
Dean shook his head. “We’re good. We have work to do too, probably need to get moving soon ourselves.”
Eliot nodded, holding out his hand. “So, I’ll call you?”
Dean smiled and shook his hand. “We’ll meet up.”
“You two take care of yourselves.” Eliot walked away, back toward the house and Dean got into the car with a sigh.
“I’m fine, Dean.” Sam said to the unasked question he could feel hanging between them. It was a lie and they both knew that...but Dean’s only response was to put the car in drive and send them toward their motel.
Title: The Family Business
Pairings/Characters: Sam, Dean, John, Bobby, Eliot, Nate, Sophie, Parker, Hardison, OFCs
Word Count: 19307 (entire piece)
Rating: R
Summary: Sam and Dean get a call from someone they've worked, and played, with in the past, but when they meet up with Eliot Spencer in a small town in Kentucky everything they thought they knew changes.
A/Ns & Warnings: This is set mid season 7 for Supernatural, picking up somewhere around 7X07 and spanning to just before 7X17. For Leverage, it is between seasons 4 and 5. And yes, it leaves some things unresolved. I will likely come back to it eventually and chase out how the rest of the season would have changed. CANON CHARACTER DEATH, though it is entirely off screen.
It wasn’t every day he got a call from Eliot Spencer asking for a meet up in some hick town in the green-for-miles part of Kentucky. Hell, it wasn’t often he got a call from Eliot Spencer at all. Dean snapped his fingers at Sam and pulled the map out of his hands, tracing a finger south along from where they had just finished up a job.
“Yeah. We can make that. See you tomorrow.” He hung up and shrugged at Sam. “That was Eliot. He’s got something for us.”
Sam looked surprised. “As in Spencer?”
“Yeah. Finish up. We’ve got a drive.”
“As in the guy who said we were insane and punched you out the first time we met?” Sam snorted and closed his laptop.
“Hey, he held his own against that werewolf last time.” Dean reminded him, gathering up the newspapers and books spread across the table.
“I remember. He saved your ass.” Sam said as he dropped a twenty on the table to cover their tab.
“Yeah, I remember he fucked yours.” Dean laughed and led the way out to the car.
“Only after he’d worn yours out.” Sam put his bag in the back seat before opening the passenger door. “So, where we going?”
“Kentucky.” Dean started the car and put it in drive. “He wasn’t specific as to the reason, just said he had something for us and he was head for this small town in Kentucky. Asked to meet up.”
“That sounds…ominous.”
Dean just nodded and turned the radio up, pointing them down the road.
The town wasn’t the smallest place they’d ever been, big enough to have two bars and a main street that looked like something out of a 1950s sitcom. It was just after dark as Dean parked the car outside the hardware store, about a block from the bar where Eliot was supposed to meet them.
“Wow.” Sam murmured as they got out of the car, his eyes sweeping the street. “It’s like someone forgot to flip the calendar.”
“I’ll say. Kinda creepy.” Dean pulled his jacket closer and gestured toward the bar. Sam nodded and followed.
Country music spilled out the open door of the bar along with the smell of stale beer and peanuts. A couple of locals sat on stools along the bar, a young couple was snuggling in the back booth. Eliot was holding down a tall table near the dart boards and pool tables, three beers already waiting beside a wooden box.
He lifted his in greeting, grinning at them as Dean adjusted himself and moved in. “Hello boys.” Eliot said.
Dean took the stool closest to the wall opposite Eliot who had his own stool up against the wall too. Sam pulled the third to Dean’s side of the table and straddled it a little uneasily. “Wasn’t expecting we’d hear from you again.” Sam said as he took one of the beers.
“Didn’t expect I’d be calling.” Eliot answered. “I was doing a side job for a friend, came across something I figured was more your thing than mine.” His hand fell on the box on the table. It was fairly simple, but for what looked like Enochian symbols carved on the sliding top and a broken wax that had clearly once sealed the box shut.
Dean looked at the box, then up at Eliot. “What is it?”
Eliot took a long sip from his beer. “To be honest, I’m not sure. But, it was pretty damn important for a couple of guys with very black eyes apparently. They would not go down. Chased me across half of Georgia before I finally ditched them in a crowd at a mall.”
“Black eyes?” Sam asked, glancing around them.
“Yeah. All black. Crazy fuckers too.”
“Demons.” Sam said with a sigh. “At least we know what to do with them.”
“Demons.” Eliot said the word as if he couldn’t quite buy into the idea.
“Yeah. Demons.” Dean responded. “Anything they were that hot to get their hands on, is something we want to know about.”
Eliot pushed the box toward Dean. “Anything I want to know about?”
Dean chuckled. “Probably not.”
“Fair enough. I still think you’re both crazy, but this is not a mess I’m interested in. I need to get back. My team has a job lined up.”
“Right, that team of criminals.” Dean smirked as he said it, looking up as someone came in the door of the bar and someone at the bar called out a greeting. The man was familiar, his shape recalling something Dean couldn’t quite put a finger on, until his head started to turn.
He grabbed Sam’s shoulder and they both stood slowly. Dean was half certain he was seeing things. It wasn’t possible. He knew it wasn’t. They’d burned the body. They’d salted the ashes.
“Dad?” Eliot was standing now too, staring at the same man.
“Wait, what?” Dean turned to Eliot. Eliot took a step toward the man who was retreating out of the bar. “Did you say—“
“Dad.” Sam finished for him. “Dean…Dean, that was…that was Dad.”
“It couldn’t be.” Dean said, grabbing the box and pushing Sam after him.
Eliot grabbed his arm. “What are you talking about?”
“Who was that man?” Dean asked in return.
“My father.” Eliot said, frowning at him. “Why?”
Sam was pulling on him. “Because he looks an awful lot like our father. Only, our father is dead.”
Sam was out the door before Dean could stop him. Dean followed with Eliot on his heels. A pickup truck squealed away from the curb where Sam was coming to a stop. He turned to look at Dean, his face filled with question. “It couldn’t be, right?”
Dean nodded. “Couldn’t be.”
“Because he’s dead.” Sam added, both of them staring after the truck.
“Burned, salted. Dead.” Dean agreed, shaking his head. “But Sam…”
“I know.”
Dean turned to Eliot. “You said he was your father?”
Eliot nodded. “That’s why I’m here. I haven’t been home in…a while. Thought it was time.”
“He didn’t seem overjoyed to see you.” Sam observed. “Or maybe us.”
“No. I’m pretty sure that was all about me.” Eliot said with a sigh. “He…we didn’t part on the best of terms.” He seemed to sag a little. “I was hoping…Nevermind. You guys got what you came for. I have some family business to attend.”
“Not so fast.” Dean said, handing the box to Sam. “This is just a little too weird. We’re not going anywhere. Not until we’ve figured this out.”
“Well, I know where he lives.” Eliot pointed to his truck parked across the street.
“We’ll follow.” Dean responded, pointing to the Impala up the block.
Ten minutes later they parked in front of a ranch style farm house set back a bit from the road. Two horses grazed in a corral beside the house and Eliot was already nearly to the door when Sam and Dean got out of the car.
The house door burst open and a woman came flying at Eliot, slapping his face hard enough to turn his head and stop him in his tracks. “HOW DARE YOU?”
Dean stepped up behind Eliot as he rubbed his jaw. “Hello Mars, good to see you too.”
“You just fucking show up after how many years? And you don’t even have the decency to come here first? You go to the goddamn bar?” She slapped him again, harder this time. On her third attempt, Eliot caught her hand.
“Stop. You’re pissed, I get it.”
“No, Eliot. I was pissed when you left. When you didn’t come back. This? This is so far beyond pissed--“
“Mary.”
That gruff voice brought Dean’s attention from the beauty with the temper to the door. Sam’s hand squeezed his shoulder and Dean knew. He just knew.
It was his turn to walk away. Just walk away.
“Dean.”
He shook his head. “No Sam. No.”
“Dean.” That wasn’t Sam. Dean stopped.
A hundred scenarios ran through his head, a hundred ways this was just a trick. A hundred more that it could be real. “No.” Dean turned around, fury pumping through him. “No. You’re dead. You—We burned your body. You fucking left us to clean up your fucking mess. And we fucking burned your body, salted the ashes. You don’t get to just….just be alive.”
“Dean.” Sam bridged the distance between Dean and this man with their father’s face, one hand reaching out to Dean. “We should…you know….make sure?”
The man standing there looking like John Winchester chuckled. “I’m me, Sam.”
Dean had his ever present flask of holy water out of his pocket and was splashing it in his face before anyone else could even move.
“You can’t be serious.” Eliot said as his father spit out holy water and Sam produced a silver knife.
“Deadly.” Dean said, nodding to Sam.
Calmly, the man in question held out his hand to Sam, palm up, wincing as Sam cut into the meaty part of his hand.
“Satisfied?”
Dean shook his head. “Not even a little bit.”
He nodded. “I understand. It’s a very long story. Seeing as you found me…and so far none of us is dead, I guess I owe you the whole story.”
He turned, clamping a hand over the bleeding cut and Dean watched him walk into the house without looking back. Sam was still shaking his head and Eliot was staring at them both.
“What just happened?”
“I’ll let you know once I figure it out.” Dean answered, moving between Eliot and Sam and into the house.
The house was warm, the windows open to the night air. Dean stood in a living room that looked unreal, the last place he would expect to find his father...and yet, as John emerged from the hallway, taping down some gauze over the knife wound, Dean had to admit, he looked like he belonged.
“I don’t understand.” Dean found himself saying as Eliot and Sam joined them.
“Sit.” John gestured toward the couch. The woman appeared in the doorway of the kitchen, a six pack of beer in her hand. She glowered at Eliot as she handed him one, but softened a little as she gave one to Sam and almost smiled as she handed one to Dean. “Mary, go call your sister. Get her over here.”
Dean cleared his throat as she nodded and left the room. “Mary?”
His father nodded. “Yes. Mary.” He rubbed a hand over his face and sighed. “I don’t know where to start.”
“How about the part where you made some fucking deal with a demon to save my life?” Dean asked, sipping on his beer.
“I found you laying dead on the floor of that hospital room.” Sam said. “We burned the body.”
John nodded. “Deal, yes. Dead, not really.” He took a big hit off his beer. “Eliot, this must be…”
Eliot held up his hand. “I’ve known these two for over a year. Strange shit happens when they’re around.”
John smiled a little, nodding. “Of course, just you two being here breaks the deal, so we can likely expect some of that strange shit any minute.”
“Demon’s dead.” Dean said, pulling his father’s attention back to him.
“He is?”
“Dean shot him with the Colt.” Sam supplied, still looking a little wide eyed.
Dean could feel the pride rolling off his father, could feel his eyes. It made him uncomfortable. “Couldn’t have done it without Sam.” He cleared his throat. “Okay, so, that bastard’s dead and you’re not.”
John nodded. “Yeah. So, I guess killing me was too easy, or something.” He crossed to the chair and sat, setting his beer on the table beside him. “I had to agree to quit hunting and to never have contact with you boys again.”
“That doesn’t explain…” Dean gestured at Eliot.
“I agreed to the deal to save Dean’s life.” John said, looking at Eliot now. “The demon wasn’t content just sending me away. He sent me back...back to before you boys were born.”
“What?” Dean frowned at him. “What? And you just...what, walked away?”
“No, I didn’t just walk away.”
Mary reappeared, finishing off the last beer she’d kept for herself. “Should I cook?”
Eliot snorted and shook his head. “Not unless you really want me dead.”
She slapped his shoulder, but it was more playful than the slaps on the porch had been. “I can cook.”
“She’s actually gotten pretty good.” John said with a smirk. She slapped at him too. “How about some burgers? Get the grill going?” She nodded and headed back toward the kitchen.
Dean finished his beer, uncomfortable with the whole domestic feeling, with his father and these people…
“Wait.” Sam said suddenly. “You quit hunting?”
John nodded. “Yes, Sam. I did.”
“You quit hunting? You quit hunting.”
John chuckled. “It wasn’t easy. Especially not at first. Once I figured out what happened, I wanted nothing more than to stop...all of it. Save your mother. But the consequences were too high. If I did anything to interfere, not only would I die, but you boys with me. Both of you. Your souls sent to hell.”
“So you found yourself another family you could have a normal life with while Sam and I were out there dying for your damn war?” Fury bubbled under his skin and was going to erupt out of him if this didn’t start making sense.
John rubbed his knee, but didn’t look up. “For the first two years I haunted Lawrence. I watched your mother and...well, me...but it was killing me. And when I realized she had to be pregnant with you, I had to leave. I knew I couldn’t be there, couldn’t watch it happen and not interfere.”
There were tears in his eyes as he looked up. Dean didn’t expect that. Didn’t want to see it. He turned away, looking at Sam instead.
“I met Eliot’s mother at a truckstop in Texas. She was trying to get home to Kentucky. I was….looking for some way to be useful. We got here, her old man gave me a job...next thing I know Eliot was born. We got married. I still paid attention, went places I knew you’d be.”
Sam stood abruptly, walking toward the front door. Dean waved his father down when he would have followed. “Sam?”
He was pacing around the front yard. He didn’t stop until Dean grabbed his elbow. “Sam. Stop.”
“He’s our brother, Dean.” Sam said. “Our damn brother….and we….” He shook his head, pulling away and returning to pacing.
“All of this, and that is what you’re stuck on?” Dean asked. He could feel Eliot behind him and he knew they’d have to face it eventually.
A car came to a stop on the street and in just a few seconds there were two small kids racing past them and launching themselves at Eliot, both of them talking excitedly.
Eliot laughed and spun them around before putting them down. They both ran for the door screaming “Grandpa!” as a woman with short, dark hair moved slowly toward them, her stomach swollen with the obvious signs of another on the way.
“Emma.” Eliot pulled her into a hug, one hand dipping to cup her stomach. “You look good.”
“I look fat.” Emma countered. “You were supposed to tell me you were coming so I could soften him up for you.”
“He brought us instead.” Dean said, sticking his hand out. “I’m Dean, this is my brother Sam.”
“It’s a long story, Em.” Eliot gestured inside with his head. “Dad’s...well, he’s sort of….”
Dean clapped a hand on Sam’s shoulder and turned him back toward the house. “He was just telling us the story of how he met your mother.”
John was still in his chair, but he had a lap full of blond haired kids. The boy was maybe six, with freckles across his face and two missing teeth. The girl was smaller, maybe four, her hair in pigtails. Both of them wore pajamas. Emma crossed to John and kissed the top of his head. “I was trying to put them to bed, but they overheard me telling Mark I was coming and they were in the car before I was.”
“Grandpa time trumps bed time.” Mary said, hugging her sister.
His sister too, Dean amended. As if reading his mind, John cleared his throat. “So, Emma and Mary, this is Sam and Dean. The boys I had with my first wife. Sam, Dean, these are your sisters, Mary and Emma. And this is your nephew Isaac and your niece Ruthie.”
“I gotta be honest.” Dean said. “I don’t even know how to react to this.”
Emma laughed, the sound light and breaking some of the tension. “Here I was expecting to welcome my prodigal brother home, and instead I get three.”
“I…” Sam shook his head. “You’ll forgive me….I’m still trying to figure out how you just….walked away and lived a normal life while we were out there...with everything we went through...hell...and did you know we both died?”
“Several times.” Dean said, trying to derail his brother. “Maybe that’s a better conversation for another time.”
“No. You know what? I can’t….” Sam started for the door, but this time it was Eliot that stopped him.
“Sam, we’re all a little freaked out here.”
“Emma, I think the men need some more time to talk. Come help me with some food?” Mary said, her eyes on Dean and seeming to demand an explanation when things had settled. He nodded his thanks as Mary twined her arm through her sister’s and drew her away.
“Twins.” John said suddenly. He smiled and kissed each of the kids’ heads. “You know I think your aunt Mary brought home some new toys. Why don’t you two go find them.”
They tore off in the opposite direction that the women had gone and John stood up, crossing to Sam. He turned Sam to face him. “I checked in on you boys from time to time. When you were at Stanford...Jessica’s funeral. I wanted to be there. I wanted you to know.”
Sam sagged a little and John pulled him into a hug. “We missed you.” Sam said into his father’s shoulder. “What we’ve seen...done...Dad…”
“I know, son, I know.”
“No, Dad. You don’t.” Dean corrected, moving closer to hug him too. “But I understand. Sort of.”
“I’m glad you do.” Eliot groused. “I barely believed you about the werewolves and that’s after I saw them. This?” He shook his head. “And you...I can’t believe the shit you gave me about wanting to get out of here, see the world.”
John let go of Dean and grabbed Eliot, pulling him in to hug too, though it was obvious Eliot wasn’t as receptive. “I would think you’d understand it now. I mean...with everything you know is out there now.”
Eliot frowned as if that hadn’t even crossed his mind. “What? That’s what it was about? You do know I can handle myself, right?”
“No, I get it.” Sam said. “He didn’t want you to have to...he knew what we would go through, how it would break us. He wanted something better for you. Didn’t want you to know about that evil.”
“There’s evil in the world has nothing to do with that crap.” Eliot said.
John nodded. “Yes, there is.”
“And now he knows anyway.” Dean added. “Really, he’s a Winchester. You think he was going to get through this life without it touching him in some way?”
“A father can hope.”
“Not to interrupt the boys bonding time, but burgers are ready.” Emma called from somewhere Dean couldn’t see.
Mary came through and into the kitchen. “Eliot, make yourself useful. Get in here.”
Eliot followed, leaving Sam and Dean alone with their father. “We have a lot to discuss.” Sam said, shifting uncomfortably.
“Stories to tell.” John responded, nodding. “I...I thought I’d never see you boys again.” He pulled them both in to hug. “Come on, sit down, have some food. The rest can wait.”
“You’re quiet.” Dean said, pulling Sam up out of his thoughts. It was nearly midnight and they were sitting in the car outside a motel. Dean turned the engine off.
“I…” Sam shook his head. The whole thing was surreal. “How...and why...and how?”
“I don’t know, Sam. But I say we get a room, get some sleep, come at it fresh in the morning.”
Sam nodded and watched his brother get out of the car. If it was just the fact that his father was alive, Sam might be able to wrap his head around it. The damn yellow eyed demon did love to torment his family...and nothing would torment John Winchester more than knowing what would happen and being unable to stop it.
But that wasn’t all of it.
He had married again. Had kids. Eliot. Who he and Dean had done some...very unbrotherly things with. Sam shook his head. He knew he needed to get past that. Put it behind them.
It wasn’t like he and Dean were innocents before Eliot or anything. They’d shared a bed with others, both male and female. They didn’t touch each other, not sexually...well, there was that one time when they were both really drunk with that red head in Texas that they’d kissed...but he didn’t think Dean even remembered that.
But Eliot...that hadn’t been just an after hunt, adrenaline fueled one night stand. It had gone on for two days, until none of the three of them could move. And now, to find out the man was related….not just related...Eliot was their brother.
The door opened and Dean slid in, putting the key on Sam’s knee. He started the car and moved them toward the number 7 door. “Get the door, I’ll get the bags.”
Sam climbed out of the car and got their bags from the back seat, following Dean into the room. It was pretty standard cheap hotel, with an ugly gold carpeting that looked like something out of a seventies sitcom. He dumped his bag on one bed and tossed Dean’s onto the other one.
“Seriously, stop.” Dean said. “We’ll figure it out.”
“You’re right.” Sam said, rubbing both hands over his face. “I’m going to grab a shower.”
He left Dean getting undressed and went to stand under the meager spray of the shower, hoping it would wash away the sick feeling in his stomach that something just wasn’t right. He waited until he was fairly sure his brother had gone to sleep before he got out, wrapping a towel around himself and easing his way out of the bathroom.
He pulled his laptop out of his bag and went to the small table in the corner of the room. He’d done a brief background check on Eliot the first time they’d met, east of Seattle when they’d been hunting a vampire nest. He knew the man was wanted, former special ops...though that was mostly speculation due to the missing records. It was time to find out more.
“Did you sleep at all?” Dean’s voice grumbled and Sam looked up.
Sunlight was starting to seep in around the curtains. He rubbed his eyes and sighed. “No.”
“Did you at least find something or is the pissy face because you didn’t” Dean sat up, scratching at the back of his neck.
“Well, I found John Spencer, sort of. First I can find of him is 1975. In December he bought a bus ticket from Scranton, Ohio to Lawrence, Kansas. Next I find is a police report, seems he was questioned by Lawrence police about a peeping tom lurking around a residential neighborhood in Lawrence. That was 1978. I’ve got no birth records, no credit records, no driver’s license. Nothing up to 1979, when a John Spencer applied for a driver’s license in Kentucky. After that there’s an application for a marriage license.”
“So he’s telling the truth.”
“Seems like.” Sam wasn’t sure why that didn’t make him feel any better. “Eliot was born on July 30, 1979. Dad and Elizabeth Handly married a month later. Mary and Emma were born on October 10, 1983.”
Dean stretched as he stood, headed for the bathroom. “Which lines up with everything he said last night.”
“Elizabeth died in ‘92 after a brief battle with breast cancer. Her father died that same year, leaving Dad the hardware store.”
Dean snorted. “I can’t see Dad running a hardware store. Go get some coffee. I’m going to shower.”
Sam pushed himself up out of the chair, stretching. The towel he was still wearing after his shower fell to the floor and he stepped clear to pull clean underwear out of his bag. He finished getting dressed and grabbed the room key, heading out to find coffee at the cafe across the street from the hotel.
“Two large coffees, to go, please.” Sam responded, hoping the young woman would take the hint.
He dropped the money on the counter and took the cups the waitress set in front of him.
He knew he was on edge. His sanity was a precarious walk on a good day, the hallucinations only barely held in check, the voice of Lucifer in his head sometimes overwhelming. Somehow, despite Dean’s own issues, he was managing to keep Sam grounded, if only just. And they had Leviathans to find and figure out how to kill.
The fact that he’d just found out his father was alive, that he had another brother and sisters, that he was an uncle just pushed everything up a notch. And that was before he gave any thought to the idea that he’d has sex with the man he now knew was his brother.
”And you liked it, Sammy. Want to do it again, don’t you?”
Sam ignored the hallucination, though he knew it would only lead to more torment.
He got back to the hotel as Dean was sitting down on the bed with the box they’d gotten from Eliot the night before at the bar. Sam handed off the cup of coffee. Dean nodded in thanks, taking a sip before setting the cup down and rubbing his hands together.
“You gonna open it?” Sam asked, backing away.
“Got a better idea?” Dean asked, looking up.
“I just think maybe we have enough to worry about.”
“Still got a job to do, Sammy.” Dean slid the lid off the box and Sam felt like someone was trying to pull his stomach out of his body through his navel.
Oh, that’s fun. Sam ignored the suddenly grinning hallucination as he doubled over.
“Dean.”
“Shit, Sam.” He didn’t hear the box close, but he felt it when it did. Dean’s hands found him, guided him to the bed. “What happened?”
Sam inhaled and tried to focus on the feeling of Dean’s hands, on the pain still lingering in his stomach and not on the sound of Lucifer laughing at him. “I don’t know.” He pressed against the scar on his hand, pushing the delusion away. “I’m okay.”
Dean was squatting beside him. “Bullshit. What was that?”
Sam didn’t know, but his insides were shaking. “What was in the box?”
Dean stood and went back to the box. “I didn’t get a good look.”
“Dean.” Sam stood slowly, testing his strength. “Just tell me.”
Dean rolled his eyes. “It….looked like a heart.”
Sam frowned at him. “A what?”
“A human heart.”
Sam frowned harder. “I don’t….why would that…”
Because it’s mine, Sam. Sam physically turned so his back was to the delusion, his fingers finding the scar on his hand and pushing down until the pain pushed the presence away.
“You sure you’re okay?” Dean asked, squinting at him.
“Yeah, fine. You know, as much as I can be.”
Dean’s hand grabbed his shoulder. “I need you to be straight up with me here Sam. You promised to tell me if it was too much.”
Sam forced a smile. “It isn’t, okay? I’m fine. We should figure out what this thing is with Dad, and get back to looking for a way to kill the Leviathans.”
“I think this thing with Dad is just what Dad says it is, Sammy. I think he made a deal, got unexpectedly shuffled back in time, and…”
“And quit hunting, got married and had a family?” Sam asked, going back to his computer. “Why isn’t he older? I mean...if he went back to 1975 and lived the last...what...30 years….why doesn’t he look like he’s over 70? He barely looks older than when he was supposed to have died.” Sam sat, shaking his head. “And if he didn’t die, who did we burn?”
“I don’t know, Sam.” Dean lifted his coffee off the nightstand and sipped it. “What was the point of any of it?” He sat on the end of his bed. “I mean, I always assumed old yellow eyes killed Dad to try to break him….the way he did me. I was just his second choice.”
“If Dad wasn’t in hell...then that was all a lie too.” Sam said. “So what did he gain?”
“Tormenting Dad.” Dean offered, sitting back against the headboard. “Left us without him...which likely led to any number of the stupid decisions we made that led us toward what happened.”
“So, it was all part of his end game?” Sam shook his head. “Doesn’t feel right.”
“On our end, sure. I just don’t get what Azazel got out of keeping Dad alive.”
“Maybe he couldn’t kill him?” Sam said. “He was Michael’s vessel after all.”
Dean frowned at him. “You mean... when we went back to stop Anna, and he let Michael in?”
“Maybe we changed something. Maybe once a body has been a host to an archangel, hell can’t touch it?” Sam suggested.
“So, his threat to haul Dad down to the pit if he tried to contact us or interfere with us was a bluff?”
“Not completely.” Sam said. “I mean, we were part of that too. He could have still taken us.”
“This is giving me a headache.” Dean grabbed the box and headed for the door.
“Wait...what are you going to do with it?”
“For now, I’m hiding it in the lockbox in the trunk. I’ll call Bobby. Have him do some digging.”
“And what about us? What are we going to do?” Sam asked as Dean opened the door.
“Well, Emma did invite us to her place for the family barbeque.” Dean responded, smirking. “Every Sunday at her place.”
“Right. Because that’s what normal families do.”
“Is this...normal?” Eliot asked as Dean sat next to him on the surprisingly comfortable wicker patio furniture.
“Which part exactly?” Dean asked, watching Sam make uncomfortable small talk with Emma’s husband, Wayne.
“Time travel, dead fathers who aren’t dead…”
Dean inhaled and let it out slowly. “No, that part is definitely not normal. The making a deal with a demon part? That, unfortunately is far too familiar.” Their father joined Sam and Wayne and the kids came running past. “What about…” Dean waved his hand at the people around them. “Is this what life was when you were younger?”
Eliot snorted and leaned back. “He’s different. Not sure if it’s you two showing up or age or what. We actually talked this morning. The last time I was home the only talking he did was barking orders.”
They both sipped at their beer, watching the assembled family.
“Can I ask where you got the box?” Dean asked softly, his eyes tracking Sam.
“Told you, was working a job in Georgia.”
Dean shook his head. “No, I need more than that. Whatever is in that box has some serious juice. I need to know where it came from.”
“It was in a shipment I was sent to retrieve. Only the guy who hired me ended up dead, and I got left holding a lot of shit I didn’t need or want. That was the last of it.”
“What kind of shit?” Dean asked.
“Most of it was crap, like you’d get at some magic shop or whatever. There were a few pieces worth something. A dagger with diamonds in the hilt, a silver bridle….and that box. I wouldn’t have thought anything about the box, to be honest, except people with black eyes kept trying to take it away from me.”
Dean nodded. It didn’t tell him any more than he’d already known. Which wasn’t much.
“Is Sam okay?” Eliot asked, his voice pitched even lower.
Dean looked up, his eyes tracking Sam before looking at Eliot and nodding. “He will be.”
“He seemed pretty freaked out last night….about...us.”Eliot’s eyes narrowed and held on Dean’s, checking in, asking more than just about Sam.
Dean offered him a tight smile. “We’re good. Water under the bridge, right? Forget it ever happened.”
“He’s good at that.”
They both looked up to find Mary standing there, hands on her hips. “Walk away, forget everything.”
“I never forgot, Mars. He was the one who told me not to come back.”
Dean raised an eyebrow. That definitely sounded like their father.
“You were the one who took him at his word. He calmed down, tried to find you.”
“Where I went, no one would have found me.” Eliot said, standing and wiping his hands down his jeans. “And that’s all I’m ever telling you about it.” He moved away, headed for the cooler for another beer, leaving Dean and Mary.
“Now you...I don’t know if I should thank you for bringing him back here or kick your ass for it.”
Dean smirked as she sat next to him, arms crossed over her chest. “I didn’t do anything. He was the one who brought us here.” He looked at her. “You and your sister seem to be taking this pretty well.”
She turned to look at him, and he could see so much of his father in her face that he had to blink and look away. “Don’t think I don’t realize the math is off. There’s no way you came from some first marriage. You and Eliot are practically the same age...and Sam over there? He’s the same age as me and Emma.”
Dean wasn’t sure how to answer her, so he didn’t.
“Don’t get me wrong, I thought he was having some affair or something when I was still a kid. He’d go away for a week at a time, long weekends….Emma and I used to fantasize about him having a second family, about one day meeting brothers and sisters we never knew..”
“Truth can be stranger than any fiction we tell ourselves.” Dean said. “You got a lot better from him than we ever did. He was here for you when you needed him.”
She nodded. “He would always come home from those trips sad.” She sighed. “ He cried last night after you left. He wouldn’t want me to tell you that, but I heard him. He loves you two.”
“Yeah, but he loves you too.” Dean responded. “I can see it in his eyes when he looks at you.”
“Mars, can you give me a hand in the kitchen?” Emma called and she stood.
“Duty calls.”
Dean watched her go, then turned to find Sam. He turned away from their father, his face pale, his thumb pressing deeply against the scar on his hand. Dean stood, abandoning his beer and crossing to where Sam was stumbling across the yard. “Sam?”
Sam’s eyes were closed and he was breathing hard. “Hey, Sammy. Come on. Talk to me.”
“Can’t.” Sam squeezed the word out from between clenched teeth.
“Whatever you’re seeing, it isn’t real.” Dean comforted.
“Dean?”
He held up his hand to hold their father off, circling in front of Sam to stop him, sliding his hands up Sam’s arms to his shoulders. “Open your eyes. Tell me what you see.”
Sam’s eyes were bloodshot when he opened them and Dean knew in an instant that what was going on his brother’s head wasn’t a hallucination, but a memory. “Okay, okay...take a deep breath. Focus on me, on now.”
Sam was shaking, but he tried to do what Dean instructed, his breathing tight. Tears leaked from his eyes and he pulled in another breath. He nodded a little. “Okay, let’s find you some place quiet.”
“Dean?” His father’s voice was a little more insistent, and Dean spared a moment to look at him.
“Give me a minute to get him inside. I’ll explain.” He walked Sam toward the house, pausing outside the kitchen. “Emma, Sam’s not feeling too well, do you have some place he can lay down for a while?”
She was all motherly concern as she came toward them, wiping her hands on a towel. “Of course, second door on the left is the guest room. Does he need anything?”
Dean smiled and shook his head. “No, just some quiet. Thanks.”
He got them into the room and the door closed before he let go of his brother. Sam sank onto the bed, his hands covering his face, wiping away the tears. “Sorry...I just….” He shook his head, looking up at Dean. “I couldn’t stop it.”
“That wasn’t a hallucination, Sam.”
“No. It wasn’t.” He inhaled slowly. “It was worse. It was like being back there, like it was real. I could see you, hear you...but I was there, in the pit.” He shuddered. “I’m okay now. I just, I need some time.”
“Get some rest. I’ll go try to smooth things over.”
He left Sam laying down and headed back outside, assuring Emma as he passed through the kitchen that Sam was fine. His father wouldn’t be as easy to convince. He wasn’t even fully out the back door before his father was in his face.
“What was that?”
Dean looked past him at Wayne and the kids. “Not here.”
John looked over his shoulder. “Wayne, I’m making a run to the store for that ice cream Emma likes.” He grabbed Dean’s elbow and escorted him around the side of the house.
“Dad--”
“Get in the car.” John pointed to the Impala.
Dean pulled the keys from his pocket. He opened the driver’s side door, but his father was running a hand over the hood. “You did a good job.”
Dean couldn’t control the swell of pride and the smile. “It was a lot of work. That semi did a number on her.”
His father’s smile was a little sad. “Yeah, I remember.” He shook his head and climbed in the passenger side of the car. “Drive.”
The car was silent until they were nearly a mile from the house. “We’ve been through a lot.” Dean said to break the silence. “Sam...he’s got problems.”
He could feel his father’s eyes on him. “What problems?”
“Hallucinations.” He cleared his throat. “Memories.”
“Memories? What memories?”
Dean exhaled and tried to find a way to say it that would soften the blow. There really wasn’t one though. “He wasn’t just spouting off when he said we’d both died. Well, multiple times actually...but Sam...he stopped the apocalypse, you know that? He was...but to do it, he dove into a cage in hell with two whacked out mother-fuckers…”
“Apocalypse? Dean, what are you talking about?”
He pulled off the road beside a field and turned the car off. “You missed a lot, Dad.”
“I’m getting that. I’m here now though. Give me the high view.”
Dean pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m not sure there is a high view.” He exhaled. “Okay...long story short...you died, the damn yellow eyed demon was trying to put together an army, and Sam was part of some Survivor style last-man standing fight. Only, he didn’t win...and I didn’t get to him in time.”
His throat clenched and he turned away. He could still remember the feeling of Sam in his arms, the boneless way he fell into Dean, the weight of his head, the heat of his blood on his hands. He opened the door and got out of the car.
He paced the length of the car twice, then leaned against the hood. “He died. In my arms. Another one of the demon’s special kids cut his spinal chord.”
The car shifted as his father got out of the car. Tears burned in the corners of his eyes, tears he thought he had long since gotten past. “Not like me in that hospital bed. He was dead. But I couldn’t...so I followed your lead.”
“You made a deal.” John said softly.
Dean nodded. “I summoned a cross-roads demon and I made her give Sam back to me.”
“And your end of the deal?”
Dean shrugged as if it didn’t matter. “A year, then hell. Which...turns out, isn’t all fun and games. I got pulled out of there by an angel, of all things, to find Sam starting to go darkside in his effort to rescue me...and that we started the apocalypse.”
“Wait, angel?”
“Yeah, that was my reaction too.” Dean said, turning to lean back against the car. “Yeah, angels...demons, gods...it’s been a crazy couple of years. They needed Sam to get really powerful with that psychic shit, to kill a very powerful demon...it was the last step to raising Lucifer.”
“As in the devil?”
Dean nodded. “See...angels, like demons, need a human body to inhabit to interact on the mortal plane. Only, they’re tied to specific people, vessels, who have to allow the angel inside. And as it turns out, Sam is Lucifer’s vessel. We fought like hell to defeat him once Sam let him loose, but in the end, the only way was for Sam to let him in, and hope he was strong enough to throw him back into his cage once I got it open.”
He could feel the numbness that had taken over after Sam jumped in...the year of trying to live normal with Lisa and Ben. “Castiel, the angel that pulled me out of hell, he pulled Sam out of the pit, but he didn’t get all of him, left Sam’s soul behind for Lucifer and Michael to torment. It was over a year before we figured it out and got his soul back….but he was so..damaged. We had to block his memory of it behind this sort of wall, to keep him from falling apart.”
“Another angel trick?” John asked.
“Sort of.” Dean responded. His story was already pretty insane, he didn’t think his father really needed to know that Dean was on speaking terms with Death. “Things were good for a while. Sam was good.”
“But?” John prodded.
“But...Castiel lost his shit, broke down the wall, opened purgatory and…” Dean shook his head. “Sam...he was okay for a while. Or he pretended better, or something. But lately...he hallucinates, sees Lucifer, hears him. And he has nightmares. I don’t pretend to know what he went through down in that cage, but it was bad. It was worse than anything I dealt with in hell. Bad like we can’t ever know.”
They were quiet for a long time, then John shifted beside him. “Is that all of it? Is that everything?”
Dean wiped at his eyes. “No, you wanted the high view. That’s the high view.” He stood up. “There are bad guys out there, Crowley and his demons...Leviathans...and that’s on top of all the regular crap...all gunning for us.”
“Dean…”
“I know. It’s a lot to take in. I get it.”
“You know how it sounds.” John said.
Dean nodded. “Yeah, insane. I know. And you’ve been out of the game for a long time.” He went to the trunk, an idea occurring to him. “You know, this might be a better way.” He rummaged in one of the duffle bags to come up with his father’s journal, and with it another book that was starting to look nearly as worn . “We kept your journal, but when it got too full, we started another one. I can’t promise it tells the whole story, but the facts are there at least.”
He shoved the two books at his old man and closed the trunk. “Now, though, I want to get back to Sam. I don’t like leaving him alone.”
He didn’t exactly sleep, though he zoned out and drifted in the dark, circling around a deep hole of memory he couldn’t afford to fall into.
I’m not going away, Sammy.
Not real, Sam reminded himself, sitting up and turning his back on the hallucination. His thumb found it’s way to the scar on his hand, pressing inward, but Lucifer didn’t go away.
It’s not that simple.
Sam huffed and stood, pacing the small room. He could hear the family in the other room. Thunder rumbled nearby.
You know you belong with me, Sam. You know you’re only weighing your brother down.
“Stop it. Leave me alone.” Sam growled, pressing in harder against the scar. His whole hand hurt with the pressure before Lucifer seemed to disappear. “He’s not real. He’s not real.” Sam whispered to himself.
“Sam?”
His father’s voice. it sent a thrill of fear through him, but Sam cleared his throat and responded. “Yeah.”
The door opened and his father filled the opening, pausing briefly before stepping in and closing the door. “You okay?”
Sam sort of shrugged and went back to pacing, his thumb caressing over the scar. “I don’t know, to be honest.”
“Dean...he told me what happened. Sort of.”
Sam stopped and looked at him, alarmed, then relieved. “You must be so disappointed in the two of us.” He shook his head and resumed pacing. At least it was movement, even if it didn’t solve anything.
“Disappointed?” His father’s hands caught his shoulders and pulled him to a stop. “How can you even think that?”
Sam couldn’t quite look him in the eye. “After everything you sacrificed...we just….we fuck up everything.”
John shook his head, pulling Sam into a hug. “No, Sam. Never think that I am anything other than proud of you and your brother.”
He’s lying.
Sam stiffened involuntarily and his father let go of him. “Sorry.” He moved away from both his father and his delusion.
“Can you tell me?” John asked, his voice soft.
“He’s right there. Behind you.” Sam said, his voice strangled and tight. “I know he isn’t real...he’s just...in my head.”
Of course I’m real, Sam. This is the delusion. You’re trying to escape the only way you can, but you’re here with me.
Sam pulled in a deep breath, turning to look at his father. “I’m okay.”
“Bullshit.” John responded, startling Sam. He was so used to Dean just accepting it, even if he didn’t believe Sam. “You are not okay, Sam. You’re falling apart.”
Sam nodded in agreement. He wasn’t wrong. “I know. I just...Dean needs me to be okay. I need...to be okay. We’ve lost so much.” Dean wouldn’t survive losing him too.
Dean is off living a normal life, just like you told him to. He’s forgotten you.
Sam pressed his scar and pushed at the delusion. “I have to be okay.”
His father sighed and sat on the bed. “Saying it, wanting it doesn’t make it happen.”
Sam swallowed and went back to pacing. “I don’t have anything else.”
“You have me.” His father rubbed his hands down his thighs and inhaled deeply. “I know I haven’t been there..and even when I was, I wasn’t...I’ve never been the best father to you boys….”
“You did the best you could. We know that.”
“I don’t.”
Sam shook his head. “What?”
“One thing I’ve learned since I ended up here, is that I had no business dragging the two of your around the way I did. I can’t help but believe this would never have come to be like this if I’d just done the right thing, and let someone else do the hunting.”
Sam smiled and sat next to him. “Maybe it wouldn’t have been exactly the same, but no...it would have happened anyway. We’ve been being maneuvered into this since before we were born.”
“This something to do with the angels and all that shit?” his father asked, looking uncomfortable with the idea.
“Yeah, I guess. I mean...the whole vessel thing...it runs in families. You were Michael’s vessel before Dean was.”
John frowned at him. “Wait, Dean didn’t say anything about that. He said you were the vessel.”
“I was...am...for Lucifer. Dean is Michael’s vessel.”
“Michael and Lucifer. I’m never getting used to that.” John said. “Dean said you were down there for over a year.”
Sam inhaled deeply and swallowed, ignoring the bubbling memory that was threatening to pull him in. “My soul at least, yeah. I...he...Castiel...he thought he was helping. He didn’t realize he’d left part of me behind….not until Dean called him because he thought something was wrong with me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Cas, he…” But Sam wasn’t sure how to explain Castiel and the changes the angel had gone through in the time they had known him. “He made mistakes, bad decisions. Hell, he was practically one of us.”
“Was?”
Sam got up and went back to pacing. “As far as we know, he’s gone. Dead.”
“How do you kill an angel?”
“It’s not easy.”
“Dad? I’m putting the kids to bed. Did you want to say goodnight?”
John stood and crossed to the door, cracking it open. “Give me just a minute.” He turned to Sam. “I know this is all…” he shrugged as if he couldn’t find the words. “But, I’m here for you. I want you to know that.”
“Thanks.” Sam watched him go and followed him to the door, easing out and heading out to the living room. Dean met his eyes and Sam nodded.
“Emma set you aside a plate, if you’re hungry.” Wayne said, gesturing toward the kitchen.
“Thanks, I think maybe I’ll pass. I’m still not feeling real great.”
“I think that’s our cue to get out of your hair.” Dean said, inclining his head toward the door. “Tell Dad we’ll call him tomorrow.” Dean held the door and Sam ducked through it, stopping as Eliot looked up from a chair on the porch.
“I’ll call you tomorrow.” Eliot said into his phone, his eyes holding Sam to the spot as he hung up. “You don’t look too good.”
Sam smiled a little. “I need some sleep. I’ll be fine.”
Eliot stood, putting his phone in his pocket. “I don’t buy it.”
“Join the club.” Dean said behind him.
Sam held up both hands and took the stairs down to the sidewalk. He was feeling a little teamed up on and his balance on the edge of his sanity was already precarious. “We need to talk.” Eliot said behind him.
“Right, because we do that so well.” Sam replied, opening the passenger side door of the Impala.
“What we did, before…” Eliot started, his hands on his hips. “...it wasn’t wrong.”
Sam so did not want to talk about that. “Eliot, please. Stop.” His head filled with images of Eliot naked, of him and Dean kissing, all hard and urgent, pushing each other toward the bed. He shook his head.
“Not until I know you’re okay with it. Because we didn’t know about this, about this brothers thing.”
Sam rubbed at the throb in his temples. “Trust me Eliot, right now it’s the last thing on my mind.” Which wasn’t true, but he wanted it to be and in the list of things he had to be a mess over, it wasn’t the biggest. It wasn’t even the most twisted thing he’d ever done in his life.
“Maybe we can handle this when Sam’s feeling a little better.” Dean interceded.
“I’m leaving in the morning.” Eliot answered. “Got a job. I just wanted to get the box to the two of you and see the old man. Wasn’t prepared for...all of this.”
“What kind of job?” Dean asked as Sam got into the car.
“Not entirely sure, got a call from my team. I’m meeting up with them in Lexington.” Sam could still feel Eliot looking at him. “Unless you need me to stay.”
Dean shook his head. “We’re good. We have work to do too, probably need to get moving soon ourselves.”
Eliot nodded, holding out his hand. “So, I’ll call you?”
Dean smiled and shook his hand. “We’ll meet up.”
“You two take care of yourselves.” Eliot walked away, back toward the house and Dean got into the car with a sigh.
“I’m fine, Dean.” Sam said to the unasked question he could feel hanging between them. It was a lie and they both knew that...but Dean’s only response was to put the car in drive and send them toward their motel.
