Chapter Text
The figure was tall, imposing, shoulders broad and hunched below a rough brown jacket. Dean squinted in the darkness because the shape was familiar, and it pulled at something far back in Dean’s heart and mind.
He took a step forward, turning his head to try and see the figures face. But it was too dark. Then suddenly the figure turned. The moon escaped from behind its cloud and Dean couldn’t help the gasping question that slipped from his lips.
“Dad?”
It was impossible, ridiculous. It just couldn’t be. His dad was dead. Had been for years. Dean had been there, had seen the body, had lit the pyre.
Yet there, stood amongst the tall grass and the flowers, was John Winchester.
“Dad?” he asked again taking a stumbling step forward because… this was… this couldn’t be real… right?
“Dean?” the figure asked, loosening his defensive position slightly. “That you?”
When Amara had said ‘I’m going to give you want you need the most,’ Dean had thought she meant something along the lines of a holiday to Aruba. Not ‘here’s your long-lost father back from the dead’.
Dean blinked at the man… his Dad…
and realised he was just stood there, mouth agape and staring.
“Uh, yeah,” he said, shaking his head, still not entirely sure this was real. “Yeah Dad, it’s me.”
Thankfully John seemed to be having just as much trouble catching up with the situation as Dean was. He looked around, up at the trees, down at the grass, up into the night sky, all the while frowning in confusion.
“What happened?” John asked. “Where are we?”
“What do you remember?”
“I-“
Dean could tell the moment that the memories slammed back into John’s brain. He blinked rapidly and stumbled slightly. Dean was there in an instant, placing a steady hand under John’s elbow.
“I was dead,” John said gruffly, his frowning stare turning on Dean.
“Yeah, you were,” Dean said warily, watching his Dad with hawk eyes. “Have been for a while now actually.”
John just nodded and visibly pulled himself back together. Dean let his hand fall away from John’s arm and for a moment felt adrift.
Dean watched his dad cycle through his thoughts, placing each one into their rightful place. Then the man’s bright eyes turned onto Dean, wide and boring and intense, just like always. Dean was pined under that gaze. He had always been.
“Dean.”
John stepped forward and with no other warning wrapped Dean up in two strong arms.
Encompassed in the sturdy arms of his father Dean felt just a small fraction of that weight that had built up on him over the decade crumble away. He let himself, just for a second, give his weight over to his dad, leaning into the sure steady embrace.
With a small and final squeeze John pulled away holding Dean at arm’s length. He seemed to be assessing him and Dean unconsciously straightened his shoulders ready for inspection.
“You look good,” John said with a smile.
Dean had no earthly idea how to respond to that so he just snorted and pulled all the way away. He needed some space… just a bit. He needed to breathe… and pinch himself. This was so surreal.
“Where’s Sam?”
Dean looked back up at his dad then. He had asked it like a man awaiting a blow, steadying himself in preparation for the hurt. Dean couldn’t help the relieved huff of a laugh that escaped his mouth.
“He’s good Dad,” he said with a smile. “He’s...” Dean sobered slightly at the memory of their last conversation. The itch in the back of his mind to find Sam (always present when they were out of line of sight) twitched impatiently. But he willed it down. “He’s probably really pissed at me but what’s new eh?”
John’s shoulders sagged. “You saved him.”
And wasn’t that a blast into the past. That conversation with his dad (the last conversation they ever had) was never something that Dean could forget. And the argument that ensued when he confessed John’s final wishes to Sam wasn’t something easily forgettable either.
But as Dean thought back over the past ten plus years - to the demon blood, detoxing, Lucifer, the cage, the hallucinations, the Trials, Gadreel, the Mark of Cain, Death, the Darkness – and thought of Sam, how he pulled himself back up by the scruff of his own neck every time and came back up fighting… well Dean couldn’t find it in himself to take the credit.
“Nah,” he said with the shake of his head and a small, private smile. “He saved himself.”
-
They managed to find an old pickup parked in a layby. The judging by the dog bowl and blanket in the bed the owners were likely out walking their dog, but Dean had long ago stopped feeling guilt about jacking a ride when he needed it.
The first thing Dean did when he got onto the road was call Sam.
It went to voicemail.
No big deal.
So, he left it a few miles and tried again. Then he tried Cas. Then Sam. After the tenth call in a row to go unanswered the annoyance he felt at having his ‘Hey guys, I didn’t die!’ speech derailed acquired a tinge of worry.
“So where are we headed?” John’s voice pulled him out of his head.
“Back to the bunker. That’s where Sam’s hold up.”
“Bunker?” John asked in confusion.
A sudden jolt of awareness went through Dean as he remembered the Bunker and - in particular - its significance to John Winchester
“Yeah.” Dean cut his eyes over to his Dad and readied himself. “Look Dad, there’s something I need to tell you…”
When Dean had finished telling his Dad about the time travelling trip of Henry Winchester, the Men of Letters and their legacy John looked as close to lost and confused as Dean had ever seen him.
He let the silence permeate for a minute, casting sidelong glances at his Dad’s face.
“Dad. You alright?”
“Yeah,” John croaked out and cleared his throat. “Yes just... Give me a minute.”
He turned then, clenching his jaw and staring out of the window at the passing landscape. Dean had a sudden image of Sam doing exactly the same thing over the years and had to force his tired mind to suppress a snort of laughter. They were so alike it was crazy.
The thought of Sam had Dean pulling out his mobile again and pressing his speed dial. After only a few rings Sam’s phone went thorough to voicemail. Again. Dean pressed the end call button in frustration and tried not to let his worry show on his face.
As always John Winchester read him as easy as an open book.
“Problem?”
Dean breathed and contemplated the merits of lying. But in his experience lying to John Winchester was not a sensible option.
“Sam’s not answering his phone.”
John (who’s last real memory of Sam was of a tumultuous twenty-year-old) just shrugged, seemingly unconcerned. “Maybe he’s busy. Or asleep.”
Dean didn’t mention that it would be a damn miracle if Sam slept deep enough to miss the buzzing of his phone. Instead he nodded, staring resolutely out the front windscreen and pressed his foot harder against the accelerator.
“But you don’t think so,” his dad said after a moment.
Dean shot John a side long glance. “We don’t have the best of luck. And... Amara was kind of a suicide mission. I’d kinda like to tell him I’m not dead and you know…”
“Warn him about me.”
“Pretty much,” Dean admitted.
John frowned in the corner of Dean’s vision. “You don’t think he’ll take it very well?”
“No, it’s not that…” Dean hedged trying to find a way to explain to his dad the tenuous connection Sam had to reality. That Dean was aware of at least one occasion where the devil had already used John’s face to trick Sam and that was only thee time Sam had told him about. That Sam would take one look at Dad and press his thumb into that damn palm so hard it would bleed. But he couldn’t. Not without disclosing a story that wasn’t really his to tell. Instead he shrugged and pasted on a fake grin.
“Just don’t want your first chat in ten years to start with him shooting you.”
John laughed a short deep bark of a laugh. Just like Dean remembered.
A warm feeling filled his chest and he wondered if for once everything was going to be alright.
-
That feeling lasted until they got back to the bunker.
If the unanswered phone calls hadn’t been warning enough, the still and silent atmosphere of the Bunker would have been. Dean was vaguely aware of John behind him, looking around and taking in the place his children now lived; the place his father had once occupied too. But Dean was too busy scanning the library for any signs of life.
And then when he got to the bottom of the stairs he stuttered to a stop.
“Dean,” John started to say from behind him, but Dean had already seen it. The blood.
Dean’s gun was in his hand before he really thought about it.
His eyes followed the trail of puddles on the floor, smeared in strokes like someone had been dragged. Dean’s vision was suddenly filled with a vivid picture of Sam bleeding, hurt and alone, being dragged through the library by some unknown foe. Then his eyes found the blood painted sigil on the wall.
“Dean,” John said again, dragging Dean from his nightmare.
Dean blinked away the terror and allowed a steely anger to take its place. If someone had broken into their home… if someone had hurt Sam… then they’d better hope they weren’t still here.
“Stay here,” Dean instructed harshly, already moving swiftly into the library.
“Like hell!” John exclaimed going to follow.
Dean bit off a curse and took a deep breath willing his patience to overcome the roaring urge to tell his Dad to shut up and sit down. But he bit his tongue.
“This is the only exit,” he explained in a rough voice. Reaching under the war room table he pulled out the revolver they kept hidden underneath. “If anyone’s here I’ll flush them out to you.”
John took the revolver readily and at least seemed placated as he settled his shoulders into a ready stance
With a nod Dean turned and disappeared into the sprawling hallways of the bunker.
-
“Sam,” he whispered harshly into the darkness. He daren’t call out louder, he didn’t want to alert anyone to his presence. But with each step he took the reverberation of ‘Sam Sam Sam’ echoed through his mind.
Kitchen. Shower room. Weapons room. Sam’s room. His own room. All clear and showing no signs of being used in the last few days.
That meant that whoever’s blood that was (not Sam’s, please not Sam’s) hadn’t made it further than the library.
His mind was busy running through all possible scenarios and discarding them one by. What scenarios would leave Sam and Cas unable to answer their phones, a puddle of blood in the library and an empty bunker? The answer to that question left cold sweat prickling at Dean’s brow.
A gun shot firing had Dean running the last few meters back to the library and spilling into the map room, gun drawn.
His shoulder’s sagged in relief as soon as he recognised the being stood at the business end of his Dad’s gun.
“Cas!” he sighed, his gun already dropping down to his side.
Castiel’s wide eyes pivoted quickly to Dean, widening in shock. “Dean,” he said, relief pouring from his voice. Before Dean could even protest, he had been caught in a clamping angel hug.
He really wanted to complain at the invasion of his personal space but, in fairness the last time Cas had seen him he thought he was going to his death. Dean allowed the hug, bringing a hand up to pat at Cas’s back.
“Alright,” he sighed, a reluctant smile forming on his face.
“Dean,” Cas sighed again before pushing Dean away. “You’re alive? But what about the bomb and darkness. What happened?”
“I’ll tell you everything,” Dean promised but there were far more pressing issues to deal with first. “Where’s Sam?”
“He’s not here.”
Dean hadn’t missed the way that Cas’ face closed off at that. The angel turned eyes scanning the bunker, avoiding Dean’s eyes. And that sent all of Dean’s mental alarm bells going. But before he could launch into his interrogation a gruff voice interrupted from the side-lines.
“Someone wanna tell me what the hell’s going on?”
Dean blinked back to his dad, almost forgetting he was there for a moment.
“Er, this is Cas,” he supplied lamely. “He’s a friend of ours.”
“Hunter?”
“No, he’s an Angel,” he and Cas said at the same time.
Later on - when his inward panic and confusion had died away - Dean would laugh at the incredulous look his dad gave him then. But right then he didn’t have the time. Sam was missing.
“Angel. With a capital A,” Dean explained quickly, not having time for mildness. “You know wings, harp.”
“I don’t have a harp,” Cas cut in with an eye roll.
“Right,” John murmured, looking back and forth between Dean and Cas. Dean could tell just from his dad’s face he didn’t believe that for one minute. He probably thought Dean had gone crazy since he had died. Or was playing some kind of elaborate prank. Whatever it was Dead would deal with it later.
“Cas,” he said turning back to his friend. “This is John… Winchester.”
It took a moment for recognition to light in Cas’ eyes but when it did his eyes swivelled to John. “Your father,” he muttered with reverence.
To be fair it wasn’t Cas’ fault. Both he and Sam had told stories of their father in the years they had known Cas. In each of them he was the hero, saving the day, killing the bad guy, solving the puzzle and teaching them all they knew.
John opened his mouth but Dean jumped in quickly. They had wasted enough time as it was.
He turned back to Cas, eyes dark and promising and serious.
“So where is Sam?”
-
Dean was willing the panic down in his chest as he hastily grabbed a bag, handed his dad a fresh gun from the armoury and rushed up to the garage. Some son of a bitch had broken into their home and snatched his brother, doing enough damage to leave a trail of blood through the library.
John was hot on Dean’s heels as they quickly ascended the stairs to the garage. Dean flicked on the lights, his heart lightening at the sight of the Impala sat gleaming below the fluorescent lights.
He heard a small intake of breath behind him and turned to see his dad staring, eyes a little wide and a lot fond at his old car. His one treasured possession.
“You’ve kept her in good shape,” he said, his voice a little rough.
Dean shrugged, fighting down the pleased surge of pride at that small nugget of praise.
“Had to rebuild her a few times but she’s still standing.”
Hesitantly, almost as if he thought the car might disappear if he moved too fast John stepped forward, his large hand brushing gently over the polished black bonnet of the car, his fingers following the gentle curves of the car as it flowed up to meet the windscreen.
“I can see that.” Then he looked up at Dean over the car, his eyes lighting with an old spark. “Now how about we go get your brother?”