Work Text:
John has had a lot of good days in his life. Bad days too, probably more than good. Even so, he really has no clue what to call being resurrected. A good day? He’s alive. He’s not in Hell anymore. He’s with his sons. A bad day? They’re obviously hiding something from him, and if Sam isn’t acting disrespectful and disdainful towards him, Dean is.
It’s only been a day since he’s been resurrected, and he already doesn’t know what to think of his sons. They’re obviously grown up, which is what he pushed for for so long, but now that they are he’s realized he’s lost the modum of control he had over them. Sam obviously has no lost love for him, and Dean is nothing like the happy to please follower he had been.
John’s sneaking out of the bunker, trying to ignore the nervous feeling in his stomach. He’s John fucking Winchester, he has no reason to be nervous! Still, the boys haven’t let him out of their sight. They haven’t let him explore the bunker. He doesn’t know what they’re hiding, but it must be something. Still, he’s craving some fresh air, so he’s exploring around the bunker a little bit.
He hears a soft, muffled noise from nearby. Whipping his head around and clasping his fingers around the small revolver in his pocket, he surveys the area. He looks around, trying to find the source of the noise.
And then he sees it- two people, attached at the lips. And, okay, that’s not abnormal . People kiss. He and Mary used to kiss. And then the person with their back to him spins them, shoving their partner against a tree.
And… Oh shit.
Whoever the man in the trenchcoat is, he’s manhandling Dean. His son , who is currently pressed against a tree by another man.
Well, John thinks, obviously he didn’t raise a fairy as a kid. Dean’s never even shown interest in being one of… those. And anytime he got close, John made sure to show him exactly why .
Which only really leaves one possible, rational answer:
Dean made a deal with a crossroads demon.
John has no clue what the deal might be, though. He’s back and, to the best of his knowledge, not dying. Sam seems just fine. John can’t really think of anyone else Dean would sell his soul for. Plus, he’d be pissed if Dean went and sold his soul for him after he sold his soul for Dean.
Ugh, worst experience of his life, really. Having to kiss Azazel. At least the yellow eyed prick hadn’t had the sadistic streak of the one in the trenchcoat, making Dean basically neck him.
Fucking homosexuals, forcing it on everybody else.
Of course, he wasn’t going to bring it up to Dean. How embarrassing would it be, knowing your father saw you make a crossroads deal and kiss a demon? John would just have to figure it out himself.
The next morning, he wakes up to an argument between his two sons, a bit away from his door. “You can’t not tell him, Dean!” Sam hisses, his voice sharp. “That’s not fair! I get that you need dad to keep having this… this image of you in his head, but it isn’t okay to hide things from him!”
“Oh, like you’ve never hidden anything from him!” Dean retaliates. “Let’s not act like I didn’t see you pretending that tofu burger was real meat last night.”
Oh, his long haired sensitive son doesn’t eat meat. John is nearly surprised he turned out soft.
“Dean, you’re forty-two years old. You can’t continue constantly trying to make him proud!” John, remarkably slow on the uptake, realizes they’re talking about him . He still doesn’t know what Dean was hiding, though. Did Sam know about the demon deal? Was he asking Dean to tell him about it?
It’s not like John isn’t upset about the demon deal. It was stupid, and reckless, and something no self respecting hunter should do. If John could, he would burst out and chew Dean out for it. But John doesn’t have a leg to stand on, seeing how he had made a demon deal to save Dean. If he scolded Dean for being reckless, Dean might be respectful enough not to point out his hypocrisy, but Sam has always been a contrary little fucker.
At least Sam has the good brains to tell Dean to come clean about it. Dean never would have hid this from John as a kid - Dean didn’t hide anything as a kid. Even when he broke a tool and John had to slap him across the face so he wouldn’t do it again, he never hid the broken tool.
What had happened since then that made Dean into such a disobedient little prick? Obviously both of his boys have gotten too goddamn soft without him. At this rate, he’ll walk out of his room and discover they were a pair of fucking pansies.
The argument outside has long since ended, so John gets up and gets out of bed. After he dresses and does the bare minimum to be presentable like usual, he opens his door. Expecting no one else, he’s surprised when he opens the door to Dean, who looks poised to knock.
“Oh, hey Dad,” Dean says, falling back. “I was about to come fetch you for breakfast.”
“Breakfast?” John asks, and Dean’s back straightens as if John had caught him in a moment of weakness.
“Well, we need some carbs to fight demons, don’t we?” Dean’s voice is gruff as he defends the domestic choice of home cooked breakfast to John. And even though John still thinks it’s stupid - why bother with cooking and grocery shopping when you could go to a diner? - he can agree that Dean’s logic was sound. So, of course, he follows Dean to the kitchen.
John half expects Sam to be cooking - the long hair and vegetarian combination bode no expectations to John. However, the food is already plated, leaving John to wonder who had cooked it. Sam is eating his eggs piled high on toast, with sliced and grilled potatoes on the side. Dean, flopping down into his seat, has bacon with his eggs and toast. John is left to choose his own food from the kitchen.
Sitting down, he surveys his sons. They both look content and ready for another day of hunting, like he isn’t even there. There is one odd thing, however. The number of seats at the table. Even though John supposed the bunker hadn’t originally been theirs- it definitely hadn’t been his- the seats were obviously sat in. If they were just mild inconveniences, they should be piled high with clutter or removed.
John only has a few moments to think before the door of the bunker opens and a man in a trenchcoat swans in, setting a burlap bag down on the table. “Sam. Dean. Rowena provided the ingredients you were looking for.”
John looks at the man. Obviously he’s used to the bunker, judging by the way he comes in and heads to the kitchen to grab a single piece of toast and a cup of coffee. Sitting down by Dean, he observed John with a wary eye.
“John Winchester,” he says, and John realizes a few things at once.
One, he recognized the trenchcoat from last night. This meant that not only was Cas a demon, he was a crossroads demon.
Two, that meant that Sam and Dean are working with crossroads demons. Demons that know where they live.
Three, the demon was probably keeping tabs on the people he owned the souls of.
John vaguely wonders how many years Dean has until he’s dragged back down into Hell.
“Why is he here, Dean?” The crossroads demon in the trenchcoat asks, breaking John out of his thoughts. “John Winchester is supposed to be in Hell.”
Dean gets up, patting the demon on the shoulder as he takes his empty plate to the kitchen. “Jack got a little ambitious in his resurrections, Cas. Anyone who we were really that close too, he brought back. You should have thought that that would include our father.”
The demon- Cas - glances over at John with a doubtful look. “Really? Then where’s Bobby?” That was a good question. John doesn’t know how exactly the demon knows who Bobby was, but he isn’t going to ask until he can get his son’s soul back. Anyway, if a demon is resurrecting everyone Sam and Dean had been close with for some reason, well, they had called Bobby their uncle.
“Out on a hunt with Ellen and Jo,” Dean replies, “Even if we’re taking a ‘just defeated the biggest big bad’ break, they aren’t. They weren’t even here for that. It’s some fucking vampires or whatever, nothing big.”
“I’m sure he’ll be thrilled that John is back.” Cas’ voice is deadpan and unemotional, but John figures that's just how his voice is. “When is Jack coming back?”
“We don’t know,” Sam cuts in, “He said he had an errand to run, and he hasn’t gotten back yet.”
“Errand like another member to add to our happy family.” Dean explains to Cas, who nods, almost knowingly. John wonders who this ‘Jack’ is. Obviously he’s another demon, but what could a demon gain from resurrecting the dead? Specifically, the dead close to Sam and Dean?
“So, who is this Jack?” He bites the bullet, making his voice even and level.
“Cas’ son,” Dean replies with a bit of a smile, shocking John. Really, he didn’t know that demons could have kids. Especially kids that powerful .
“Oh.” he says. He feels weak.
“So, what’s on the itinerary for today?” Sam clears his own plate, “I have to work on this spell with Eileen. So, Dean, are you going to work with Dad? It’s been a while since 2006, I’m sure he’d love to know what an iPhone is.” John would not love to know what an iPhone is. The name itself scares him.
“I’ll take him on a simple hunt,” Dean starts, but Cas whips his head around to glare at him.
“Dean.”
“Nothing strenuous, Cas,” he promises. Of course, Cas doesn’t want his precious soul to be damaged in a hunt. “Just a simple ghost. Salt and burn. Claire and Kaia can’t make it and it’s way closer to us.”
“Sam,” the demon says, as if he’s trying to get Sam on his side. John almost wants to reply for him, but Sam speaks before he can.
“Let him, Cas. You can’t keep him here constantly. He’s Dean, of course he wants to hunt. It’s easy enough. And he’ll have Dad as backup.”
Cas’ eyes, sharp, turn to John. “That’s what I’m worried about.”
“Don’t worry, Cas.” Dean slips his arm around Cas’ comfortingly. He removes it the second he seems to remember John is there, glancing nervously towards his dad. Good. Dean still doesn’t stop talking, though. “You’ll come along too.” God, hunting with a pansy demon. What had the hunting community come to?
“Okay, you three are going to go hunt that ghost, and Eileen and I will stay here.” Dean looks over at Sam cautiously. “Don’t worry, Dean, if I need help I’ll call Rowena. Even if she’s a little preoccupied with her son being back.”
Cas makes a grumbling noise and Dean laughs, patting the demon on the back. “Were we even that close to him?” Cas mutters and Dean gives him an indecipherable look, and John just sits there awkwardly. “Fine.”
“Sam, if Jack comes back, he isn’t to hunt. Even if he swears he’ll stay by Claire and Kaia. Say hi to Eileen for me.” Dean stands up, grabbing his jacket and turning to John, “Dad, come on.”
John stands up, following Dean out of the door. Dean leads him and Cas to the Impala, still kept in impeccable state. John runs his hand over the black paint admirably. At least he taught Dean one thing right!
“You’ve kept her in excellent shape, son. At least I taught you that.” Dean gives him a smile, and John tries to ignore the tenseness in his eyes.
“Thank you, sir,” Dean says, and Cas looks between them.
“Dean, was it not Bobby who helped you with the Impala?” Oh, John wants to punch this filthy demon. How dare he undermine what John’s done for Dean? Treat John like he’s some mild annoyance, like he shouldn’t be there. What a bitch!
“Cas, it’s fine. Quickly, though, before you go, can you check up on Mary. She deserves to know that Dad’s back.” Dean doesn’t even tell the demon he’s wrong! John’s about to get mad, but then it registers.
“Mary?” He starts, trying to keep the emotion out of his voice. He’s a man, not some fairy. “ My Mary?”
For the first time since John was resurrected, Dean looks angry at him . “She’s not your anything!” He snaps. It takes a few seconds for what he did to register, and John is already stepping forwards angrily.
“Boy, I ought to slap you for that-” He begins raising his arm, but immediately his hand is held in a vice grip. He looks up to Cas, who is holding his wrist.
“Don’t you dare .” It comes out as a growl, low and intimidating. He moves John’s arm, painfully, back to his side.
“Don’t touch me,” John spits at Cas. What business does this fairy demon have in how he disciplines his disobedient son? For Dean to say that Mary wasn’t his ? How dare he!
“I will do whatever the Hell I want,” Cas steps forwards into John’s space, “You do not control me, John Winchester.” John’s about to hit him, when Dean’s hand snakes around Cas’ bicep.
“Cas, That’s my father.”
“With how he treats you?” Cas steps back, but icy blue eyes are still fixed on John. He can’t help feeling like a piece of meat, like a bit of prey stalked by a predator.
“We don’t choose our family,” Dean replies, and John feels another flame of rage start in his stomach. How dare he! How dare Dean act as if John isn’t the most important person in his life! ‘We don’t choose our family’ his ass! What was Dean trying to do, enforce to the demon that John was a bad parent? As if John had ever done anything but his best!
“I don’t want to ride with him, Dean.”
“Are you throwing a fit like a baby?” John shoots back, something he had to enforce in Dean and Sam plenty of times.
Dean throws his arms into the air, the universal gesture of frustration. “Fine! I’ll see if I can sic Claire on it. It’s an extra drive for her, though.” He looks at Cas as if the demon should be the deciding factor. Cas just shrugs.
“I’ve been wanting to see Claire anyway.” Dean rolls his eyes, and John unconsciously ignores the hint of affection in it. His son whips out his phone, or at least that’s what John assumes that thing is. He taps something out on it, each letter making a small sound.
“I’ve texted her.” Half a minute later, his phone buzzes. Dean looks down at it, eyes flicking over something, “She says she’ll take the detour. Kaia can’t come, though. She says that if you don’t provide her with Monster Energy after the hunt she’s stabbing you.”
He holds out his phone for Cas to read the threat, and Cas nods. “Understandable. You go with John, I’ll head to the store for the Energy now. Call Jack.”
“Yeah, of course. Don’t get distracted by the bees, Cas.” Dean waves to Cas and he nods, walking in an opposite direction. “Come on, Dad, we’ll find something else to do.” Dean gestures with his head, and the two start walking back to the bunker.
“Can’t we just do the hunt without your friend?”
Dean shakes his head. “Cas wouldn’t let us,” he explains, as if it’s any real explanation at all. “There’s not much you’d like to do around the bunker, really. We could play catch up with Sam, but he’s working on the spell and he’ll get pissy if we interrupt him.”
“Sam’s working on a spell?” Sure, sometimes hunters do spells, especially up against witches, but the way Dean talks about it with him sounds all too normal. Almost like Sam regularly does spells. “And who’s Eileen?”
“Sam’s as close to a witch as you can really get without being a witch.” Dean’s voice is casual, and John wants to wring his neck. Letting Sam become a witch ? They were hunters, they didn’t become witches. They hunted them! “And Eileen’s his girlfriend. Honestly, they’re probably going to get engaged soon, but Sam insists that he has to talk about it with Eileen beforehand.” Dean rolls his eyes, “But we need this spell to break someone out of a really powerful djinn spell or whatever. Bobby’s running point on it.”
“Can I see Bobby soon, or do I have to stay locked up in here?” John snaps at him and doesn’t regret it, even though Dean’s recoiling from him. That’s good, the boy had to learn some respect anyway.
“Sorry, sir, we just don’t trust the world to not sic more monsters after you. You’re barely resurrected and we’ve found new things. I’ll call Bobby.”
Dean steps a bit away to use his phone, and John leans back against the wall. Sure, he had a falling out with Bobby, but he’s willing to forgive him. And Bobby must not harbor much anger towards him if he’s still in contact with his sons. John tries to listen in to Dean. His ears must not be as good as they were before, because he can’t hear his son without taking a few steps towards him, but when he strains, he can make out what Dean is saying.
“Yeah, Jack, Claire is coming, so if you could get back from whatever errand you’re on… No, we will not give you beer, you’re five .” John is left to ponder this with no answer as Dean continues to talk to the five year old who runs errands, uses a phone, and drinks beer. Or, tries to drink beer. “Yeah, Claire will probably give you beer, but don’t drink it unless you want Cas to be very disappointed… I knew that would work. Okay, I’ll see you soon. No hunting! But actually, Jack, go see Sam as soon as you’re back. He has something he has to explain to you. Okay, bye.” There's a level of fondness in Dean’s voice that bothers John. Why is Dean fond of this demon kid?
There's a slight pause, and then Dean’s voice picks up again. “Hey, Bobby. It’s me, Dean. Dean who? Winchester!” Dean huffs out a laugh. “Yeah, haha. How’re you doing? Yeah so, you know Jack’s new thing? Yeah, the whole white wizard Gandalf thing. Well, he brought back Dad.” There’s a concerning pause. “Stop yelling! It’s fine, I’m fine.” John doesn’t have time to wonder what an odd thing that is, as Dean keeps talking. “Yes, of course I want you to head back! Drop Ellen and Jo back at the Roadhouse 2.0 and come to the bunker. Well, Ellen definitely doesn’t want to see Dad. Thanks Bobby.”
The slight shuffle of a phone being placed in a pocket reaches John’s ears, and he steps back into his original spot, waiting for his son to come back. “Is Bobby coming?” he asks when Dean comes into view, and Dean nods.
“Yeah, he’s on his way. Jack’ll be here soon, too, and then Cas’ll come back. And then Claire’s coming.” Dean seems to have a thought, and he snorts, “You’ll be meeting the whole family!”
John doesn’t understand this. Jack’s Cas’ kid, and Cas absolutely isn’t his kid. And Claire, whoever she is, doesn’t seem like she’s exactly thrilled to be coming. So probably not Dean’s girlfriend. But, if Dean’s counting her as part of the family… “Is Claire your girlfriend?”.
Dean chokes on nothing, “God, no, Dad! She’s a kid!” It was worth a shot. John still can’t figure out why Dean would count her and the demons are family, though.
“She’s twenty-four, Dean,” a deep voice says, and John’s eyes fly to Cas. Apparently the demon made record time at the store. “Here, I brought you coffee,” he hands Dean a Starbucks coffee cup, and Dean gives him a grateful smile.
“Like I said. A kid.”
John almost can’t believe that this is his son. Twenty-four is legal, at the bare minimum. It’s not really a kid, not anymore. Especially not if the twenty-four year old is hunting. And still, Dean is referring to her like a teenager.
John doesn’t even recognize Dean anymore. The man standing in front of him can’t possibly be his son, can he? His son can’t be standing here, sipping on Starbucks and smiling at a demon, eating home cooked breakfast every morning, seemingly skipping out on going to the gym, referring to twenty-four-year-olds as kids. Settled down, albeit in a bunker. Regularly working with other people.
This isn’t the Dean Winchester that John knows.
Terrifyingly, John realizes that Sam would be proud. That Bobby would probably be happy that Dean’s gotten soft, too. That Dean’s become some average man. An average man who’s a hunter, but still some soft average man.
Everything John wouldn’t have let him become.
He can’t believe how Dean's failed.
“Claire, to clarify,” Cas begins, and he doesn’t even seem to catch his own pun (although Dean does, by the smirk on his face), “is the closest thing I have to a daughter.” And isn’t that a kick in the nuts for John. That this demon’s family is the same thing as Dean’s family. And Sam, sure, and he assumes Sam’s girlfriend. But this demon’s family… Dean considers them family.
John finds himself starting to loathe this demon more and more. The minute he figures what Dean dealt for and gets his son’s soul back, he’s going to exorcize Cas, and Jack, and Claire if she’s a demon, and then punish his son fully for being a soft little bitch. And Sam too. He can’t believe how much they’ve degraded since he’s been gone.
“Why don’t you have a girlfriend, Dean?” he asks instead of letting any of his thoughts show. He can wait. He can wait until he figures out what Dean’s traded his soul for.
“I’m happy here.” Dean says - a nonanswer. He learned those from John, or maybe Sam. It never pissed John off as much when Sam did it, though. Until now. Now it infuriates him . Dean has been nothing but disrespectful and soft for John’s entire resurrection of two days. The very least he owes John is to defend his own pansy choices.
“Really? With your brother and his girlfriend and some people you don’t even know? Waiting for your fairy friend’s family to come around?” John spits, literally, at the ground right in front of Dean’s feet. He doesn’t know what he expects Dean to do. Recoil like he used to? Apologize like he used to? Beg like he used to? Instead, Dean just looks gutted. John barely has time to think that it’s pathetic before Cas’ hands are wrenching John’s hands behind his back.
“Don’t talk to Dean like that,” he snarls, pure and animalistic. A predator protective of… not his prey. John’s seen all kinds of monsters try to protect their prey, and none of them have treated him the way that Cas is treating him. None of them have glanced at their prey to make sure it’s okay that they’re hurting him. “Dean,” Cas says, soft, “can I take him to his room and lock him in there?”
John expects Dean to protest. That’s his son , there’s no way that Dean would allow some demon to lock him up! But instead, Dean looks at John with sad eyes and nods. “Yeah, Cas, go ahead.” Cas wrenches John forwards, like a prisoner. Even though John is Dean’s dad, he shows no care for him. Instead he’s overreacting to John’s words, trying to protect Dean from his own father.
John was right. This demon is a cocksucker. And he’s gone and fallen in love with his victim. And here he is carting John off to his room, as if Dean will ever return his affections. How cruel, for this man to invade Dean, to take pleasure from a demon deal because he gets to kiss a man. John supposes he’s a predator in more ways than one. “If I had the choice, I would destroy you.” Cas says as he shoves John into his room.
“Do it, then.”
“Dean would be upset,” Cas explains, and isn’t that sweet? A demon that cares about human emotions. John almost wants to hurl that back, but it’s probably in his best interest to not let Cas know that he knows he’s a demon.
Instead John calls Cas a slur, and the heavy door of the bedroom slams closed. A lock clicks, and Cas is gone. John sits back on the bed and does not pout.
That wouldn’t be manly.
It feels like an eternity before his door opens. He expects it to be Dean, or Sam, coming with an apology. Instead it’s Bobby, who is scowling at him like he personally killed his wife.
“So. You’re alive,” Bobby remarks in his thick and gruff southern accent, “That’s nice.” He slams the door behind him, “So you’re back to treating the boys like shit, then?”
John stands up in a fit of rage. “They are my sons, I can treat them any way I want!”
“No, you fucking can’t!” Bobby steps close to John. He’s shorter than John, if only by one inch, but the pure fury in his eyes makes up for a few inches. “I have raised those boys better than you. You shouldn’t be here at all!”
“Are you saying I should be back in Hell!?” John isn’t stunned exactly, but he’s surprised. He never suspected that Bobby would ever be so cruel. Apparently, something’s changed.
“With the way you treat my sons? Absolutely.”
“Your sons?!” John bellows, fury coming out of every pore. “Did you have a secret little tryst with Mary, or are you so deluded that you forgot whose blood runs through their veins?! They are not your children , Bobby, they are mine! And I would appreciate if you’d keep your hands off what’s mine !”
“You never seemed to want me to keep my hands off them when you needed to hunt alone. When you wanted to run off and hunt without coming in contact. When Sam and Dean were convinced you were dead, or worse, imprisoned. They’re only your sons because you want to control them!”
“You don’t get to judge my parenting, Bobby. If you cared so much, you should have done something! You only care now because Dean’s a soft little pansy and Sam doesn’t even eat meat. I died for them. What did you do?”
“I died for them too,” Bobby says, matter-of-factly, actually shocking John, “And I’d do it again. You, John Winchester, are a selfish son of a bitch, I doubt you would.”
“I would!” John yells, but he knows that he’s lying. He’d rather stay here. He tells himself it’s for Sam and Dean, but he doesn’t even know if that’s true. But even if Bobby’s right about that one thing, it doesn’t make him right about anything else. Sam and Dean are still his children. Bobby is just some southern bastard who was an occasional babysitter.
He imparts this to Bobby, who looks fuming. John takes pride in it. “If you’re so proud of them, why have you let them befriend demons? We used to hunt them, Bobby. And you were around longer than me.”
“Well, we ain’t exactly working with Crowley. And Rowena ain’t a demon, even if she’s the Queen of Hell.”
“No, I mean the trenchcoated queer that’s parading around like he’s Dean’s best friend.”
Bobby looks shocked. And then he snorts. As John watches, Bobby starts to laugh. John can’t understand why. “And why, exactly, have you figured out Cas is a demon?” he asks.
“I saw him and Dean making a crossroads deal… Can you stop laughing? Why are you laughing?”
“No reason, really. Just not a discovery any of us expected you to make. Now, I’m gonna go talk to Dean and Sam. Hope you don’t get let out of the locked room anytime soon, though. I ain’t willing to forgive you.” He doesn’t add a yet , or a now .
He just leaves, and John is left to suffer in his room alone.
“He thinks Cas is a demon.” is the first thing Bobby says when he enters the library. Dean and Cas look up from the table, where they’re openly holding hands. Sam snorts from his chair.
“And why does he think Cas is a demon?” Dean asks, and Bobby sits down with a huff in the chair across from him.
“Apparently he saw you two making a crossroads deal. ” Dean looks over to Cas, Cas looks over to Dean. Their eyes meet, and they make the same revelation Bobby already did.
“Maybe we shouldn’t have chosen the woods to swap spit.” Dean says, and Cas, Sam, and Bobby all give him different yet disgusted looks.
“Please don’t call it that,” Cas mutters but he sounds resigned, like this is a conversation he’s had before. “And he wasn’t able to come to the conclusion that Dean and I are together?”
“John’s as homophobic as they come. If he found out that Rufus and I spent the better part of our fishing trips in bed I wouldn’t have been y’all’s ‘Uncle Bobby’ anymore.”
“We didn’t need to know that, Bobby,” Sam pinches the bridge of his nose.
“Oh, are you being homophobic?” Dean asks, joking. “My own brother! Homophobic! Who would have thought!”
“I knew you were going to be insufferable about coming out,” Sam groans. “I still don’t think it’s fair to Cas to keep you guy’s relationship hidden, though.”
“Oh, Sammy, you’re missing the point.” Dean responds, face lighting up. “This means we can mess with him! Come on, give that homophobic motherfucker who thinks my partner is a demon a scare!”
“Oh,” a voice comes from behind Bobby, and he spins around to come face to face with Jack. “So if Dean’s Dad is homophobic, is that why I’m supposed to pretend Dean isn’t my dad and that he isn’t in love with Cas when John’s around?” Everyone in the room glances at each other, feeling sorry for him.
“Yeah, pretty much,” Dean says finally.
“Oh,” Jack looks mildly heartbroken at this revelation, and Bobby wants to scoop him up into a hug.
“Hey, look on the bright side.” Dean looks like he’s trying to cheer up Jack, but doesn’t really know how. Jack’s five, so really, it’s unsurprising that he doesn’t understand homophobia. And all of them, who have all experienced it time and time again, don’t know how to help with that. “You and your Dad get to pretend to be demons to fuck with him.”
“Language!” Bobby, who’s not known for stellar clean language hisses. “He’s five!”
“I’m God!” Jack protests. “Well, kinda. I put Billie in charge for now, because I don’t wanna be God right now. You know she’s not bad? Chuck just made her like that.”
Sam mutters some derogatory words about Chuck under his breath before looking up to Jack. “You’re still a kid, Jack. No bad words.” Jack pouts for a second, before it hits him that he really has no clue how to be a demon.
“How do I pretend to be a demon?” he asks, and Dean and Sam both light up with the idea of a plan. Bobby falls back into one of the old armchairs, and watches them scheme.
John doesn’t expect to be let out of his room, especially because he’s sure that Bobby went and told on the fact he knows Cas is a demon. He especially doesn’t expect to be let out of his room by some young woman he doesn’t know.
“God, you’re old,” she says, flicking her eyes over him and managing to make the movement perfectly derogatory. “Dean sent me to come get you for dinner.” She doesn’t say anything more to John, only turns in a way that makes it clear he’s supposed to follow her.
Well, anything to get out of his room.
He supposes that this is Claire. The ‘closest thing to a daughter’ the demon has. Well, even if she’s not demonic, she’s obviously a bitch. He has no clue why she’s the one sent to pick him up, but at least it isn’t her father again. John doesn’t think he’d be getting out of that unscathed.
She leads him to the table, immediately taking the head of the table, leaving John to sit on the side. He’s the head of this family, goddamnit! He should be the one at the head! Sam comes to sit next to him, setting John’s plate in front of him. Bobby comes next, sitting next to Sam. Dean across from John, Cas next to Dean, and some blond boy in his early twenties that John’s never seen sits next to Cas.
“Hi!” he says cheerfully, sipping at what looks like apple juice. “I’m Jack!” he doesn’t extend his hand for a handshake, instead choosing to shove fries into his mouth.
Jack ? The five year old!? This absolutely isn’t a five year old! John supposes that perhaps the demon possessing the twenty-year-old could be five. Odd that Dean respects this… five for a demon must be about twenty for a human.
“Hi Jack,” he says, and he pokes at his roast. Sam has one like it, and he wonders if maybe Sam gave him fake meat. He bites at it tentatively. It doesn’t taste fake. He decides it’s safe, not some stupid plant based fake.
Sam, glancing at everyone awkwardly, apparently decides to try to relieve the awkward tension. “So, Claire, how’s it going with Kaia?”
“Well, she had some shit to do, so it was fine that I fucked off to visit the guy possessing the dead meat suit of my father.” John freezes at that, fork embedded in his meat. Cas… is possessing Claire's father?
“Claire, please.” Cas says, a perfect picture of an exasperated father, “I’ve apologized.”
“Yeah, whatever. Still gonna rub it in.” She takes a sip of her own drink, which might be beer, or might be apple juice like Jack’s. “So, you know. Understanding girlfriends, am I right?”
Ugh. John’s always hated when girls call their friends their girlfriends. It makes them sound like lesbians.
Cas sighs, picking at his own food. He probably doesn’t need to eat, John doesn’t know. He’s never seen a demon eat, but he’s never been close enough to make sure they don’t eat either. Maybe Dean’s just managed to befriend the one anorexic demon. Jack seems to be eating plenty.
And then Dean hits his beer over on accident, straight into Cas’ fries. Cas looks down at his fries, thick and beginning to absorb the beer and says nothing. “ Cristo !” Dean swears, and Cas flinches. So does Jack, fingers crunching a fry into white goo.
John smirks, satisfied.
“Dean, please stop.” Cas says, picking up his fries and pushing his chair back. “You know why you can’t do that,” he gets up and walks to the trash, dumping the fries out. He doesn’t get any more, but it wasn’t like he was eating them anyways. He just sits down next to Dean.
“Sorry, Cas.” Dean takes another bite of his roast, as if the entire interaction didn’t happen. As if John didn’t have the confirmation that Cas and Jack were indeed demons. Claire… no, just some poor girl whose dad’s body was taken over by Cas.
He wonders if Cas is the demon’s name, or the body he’s possessing. Either way, poor girl. Even if she is a bitch. And then his sons and Bobby are just sitting at a table with the demon. As if they don’t have a visible example of the person he’s hurt right there at the head of the table, ignoring them on her phone. Even if she doesn’t seem to care that much. God, was that what Sam and Dean were like when he was dead? Uncaring? Bitch .
Jack finishes his food first, with all the appetite of a voracious elementary schooler. He gets up unceremoniously and dumps his plates in the sink. “I’ve got errands to run, can I go?” He looks to Cas, as if Cas is any authority on who can and can’t leave the dinner table.
“Jack, I’ve told you, you’re five. I’m not comfortable with you going out and kissing people.”
“Dad!” John groans, just like a petulant child. “ Please ?”
“No, Jack. Go hang out with Claire.”
Claire perks up, looking up from her phone. “Can I give him weed?”
“No!” every single adult at the table shouted, except for John. He wasn’t exactly a fan of weed, but the kid was basically twenty. If he wanted to smoke weed, well, John wouldn’t have stopped him. Claire rolled her eyes, but she grabbed her plate and got up, tossing it in the sink.
“C’mon kid, I'll teach you how to make a flamethrower.” Hit with glares from John’s sons, Bobby, and the demon, she sighed. “C’mon kid, I’ll do some age appropriate activity with you. We’ll watch Netflix or something.” Jack beamed, and ran to catch up with her, and they left the room.
“Son,” John began, “Where’s your girlfriend?”
Sam looked up, surprised to see John talking to him. “She didn’t want to be here,” Sam says. “She didn’t want to meet you.” The thought of Sam shit talking John to his girlfriend made John feel outraged. Sam thought so badly of him that he didn’t even want John to meet his girlfriend. Apparently a very serious girlfriend, from the look of things.
“Well, I don’t plan on dying anytime soon so I’ll have to meet her eventually.”
“Yeah, whatever, Dad. It’s not like you need to give me away for the wedding. If she doesn’t want to meet you, she doesn’t have to.”
“Samuel William Winchester, I am your father , and I have the right to meet your girlfriend. If Dean refuses to settle down like a fairy, then I have to depend on you for grandchildren.”
“Eileen doesn’t want kids, and neither do I. We don’t want to introduce them to this life of a hunter, and we don’t think we’ll be leaving it anytime soon. The Winchester name dies with us.”
John can’t believe them. His own sons, both of whom he expected to have children, refusing to have children. Refusing to continue the legacy of the Winchester name. The name he entrusted them with. “It’s my name.”
“You’re dead,” Sam posits, matter-of-factly. “It’s our name now. It’s been our name for a long time, and we don’t want to pass it down. We don’t want to give a child that same curse.”
John wants to stand up, wants to scream, yell, rage. He wants Dean to tell Sam to not speak for him. He doesn’t want this. He doesn’t want to sit, stricken, while his sons, his ex friend, and a demon, all stare at him. Like he’s wrong for wanting his name to be passed on. Like he’s wrong for wanting to meet his son’s girlfriend, like he’s wrong for wanting grandchildren.
“I can’t believe you even expected us to have kids,” Sam continues. “Like, where did that fit in with the hunting thing? To stay with a woman for nine months. To carry a fragile, breakable baby around? Were we supposed to act like you? Have a six year old take care of a baby? Neglect our kids and hit them when they pointed out how much it blew? Train our kids from a young age to hunt and kill and murder? To evade the law? What were your hopes and dreams? Were we supposed to quit hunting? For how long? Expose some poor woman to hunting demons and vampires and ghosts? Some poor, theoretically pregnant woman? Did you even think it through at all?”
“Sam!” John shouts. “How dare you, I am your father! I am your senior! I know better than you!”
“Really? ‘Cause, Dad, you’re only really ten years older than us, and we’ve been hunting longer than you. We’ve seen things you can’t even imagine . And you think that you know better than us.” Sam stands up, towering over where John sat, “We know so much more than you.”
John flies to his feet, raising his hand in a similar motion to what he had done to Dean before. Sam might be taller than him, but he can still reach his face. “You insolent bastard!”
Before he can send his hand swinging, fingers wrap around his wrist.
He turns, expecting it to be the demon again, but instead it’s Dean. His son looks at him with a somber look on his face. “Dad. You can’t hit Sam.”
“I can do whatever I want!” John hisses back as Dean twists his hand down.
“Hitting your child is counted as child abuse,” Bobby says from his spot. He hadn’t spoken all dinner, John had nearly forgotten he was there. And now he’s telling John that he’s abusive. How fucking dare he? How dare they all? How dare they undermine him?
Dean has captured both his hands, and with a quick and light kick, he forces John to walk forwards. “Come on, Dad. Back to your room.”
“You can’t lock me up!”
“Actually, Dad, I think Sam put it perfectly. We can do whatever we want. Before, you had authority because you had been hunting ‘longer’. Now, we’ve been. So, yeah, Dad, we can lock you up.”
“What happened to you?” John snarls, “You used to have some respect.”
“I finally found people who love me, and they taught me that you didn’t . I found people who respected me , and they taught me that you didn’t. I found people who taught me that I didn’t have to be a photocopy of you and that I didn’t have to follow everything you said! Even though you’re back, I’m not letting you take that away.”
“I wish you never met them,” John says honestly, and Dean shoves him into his room. His cell .
“I know you do. The thing is, I don’t care anymore.” With that, the door slams and locks John inside. He shouts out, but Dean’s already gone. That stupid, insolent, child left. He obviously hadn’t taught him enough. Hadn’t taught him respect, or anything else of virtue. Only given himself a child who couldn’t help but talk back. How dare Dean? How dare Bobby, Sam, Cas encourage it?
He wants to scream at them all.
Dean falls back onto his bed with a groan. Cas’ fingers come to rest in his hair, trying to comfort him. “Am I selfish if I want him gone?”
“Of course not,” Cas promises. “He’s been gone, you’ve grown. Of course it hurts to see him back. Especially when he’s been gone for so long and he hurt you so much.”
“It’s hard. And the way he talks to Sammy… I want him out, even if he’s not going to die again. I obviously don’t want to make Jack kill him. I don’t want to put that on him, but I can’t stand having him in the bunker for one more day.”
“We’ll drop him off somewhere. Leave him to find his own way in the world. It’s better than keeping him here. I think if he were to stay any longer I would end up destroying him. All for you.”
“That’s sweet. You know I love you, Cas, right? Even though I’ve asked you to hide our relationship for him. I’m…”
“You’re just not ready.” Cas agrees. He continues to run his hands through Dean’s hair. It’s gotten longer, and Cas seems to love running his hands through it on any given occasion. Dean can’t complain, though. It feels nice, and he can’t deny that he doesn’t instinctively touch Cas’ hair when he can. “He was so homophobic, he made you homophobic.” Cas continues as Dean leans into his touch. “He’s the reason you couldn’t come to terms with yourself for so long. I understand that you can’t just come out and say that you’re bisexual and that you’re dating a man. And I love you too, no matter what.”
Dean has a lot of things he wants to say, a lot of them self disparaging. A lot of them ask why Cas loves him. But with Cas’ thick fingers threading their way through his hair, the way Cas speaks to him, and the dent in the shape of Cas in his bed all tell him that no matter what, Cas does love him. Maybe too much.
But that’s fine, because Dean loves him too much too. He always has. So he leans into Cas’ touch and comfort, blissfully happy as he pulls out his laptop so they can watch a movie or some show.
“After he’s gone, we need a family movie night. I already miss Jack calling me Dad.” Cas’ fingers moved in the way that meant that Dean had said something that he found endearing, and Dean couldn’t help but be pleased by it. Fuck what his dad had said about them never having families, Dean already has his family right here with him. He had Cas and Jack. Claire, too, even if she didn’t call him or Cas dad. His brother, and his soon to be sister-in-law, even Bobby. And all of their friends, family that didn’t end in blood or even obvious connections. And John wasn’t part of it.
John wasn’t a part of his family. The thought made Dean smile, mildly surprisingly. Neither was Mary, really, but she was still more of his family than John. And John was actually the father he had known.
“Dad isn’t a part of our family,” Dean says, wildly thrilled at the revelation. His therapist would love this! Him finally moving far enough away from John that he doesn’t even consider him a part of his family! Keeping the parts of him he likes (the hunting, Baby, the music), and throwing out what he doesn’t (John himself).
Of course, he can’t tell her that John’s been resurrected. Maybe he should start introducing her to all the wild supernatural shit in his life.
“I know.” Cas says, disrupting Dean’s train of thought. “He’s never been. I’m glad you know, though. I hoped that if he had to be back, you would.”
“Do you think Sam knows?”
“Sam’s known.” Cas says, and yeah, that checks out. Dean should have assumed that. But still, it’s weirdly delightful to realize that he doesn’t consider his flesh and blood father his father . By the way that Cas moves in so they can actually hold each other, he’s delighted too, and he understands why Dean’s happy.
“I love you.” Dean says again, leaning in for a kiss, and Cas catches his lips easily.
“I love you too.” he murmurs against Dean’s lips. They lazily makeout for a few minutes or so, Cas’ hands in Dean’s hair and on his waist, and Dean’s arms wrapped around Cas, pulling him close. After a few minutes, Cas apparently gets bored, something that Dean is fully prepared for. He lets Cas roll him onto his back, moving his hands to brace himself over Dean. moving his lips down, he starts working his mouth down Dean’s neck. Dean throws his head back and huffs out pleasured sighs and groans.
Cas works open Dean’s top buttons, working on marking his collarbones. His fingers are slipping into the waistline of Dean’s jeans when there’s the sound of the door opening. Not bothering to separate themselves much, Dean sits up.
“Sammy, I swear to go- Dad?” he says.
It was easy enough to pick the lock of John’s room. It obviously wasn’t meant to be a cell, and John had a lot of practice picking locks. Especially when teaching his sons to pick them, since they had taken forever to learn. The thing was, when he was out of his room, he had no idea where to go.
So he looked around, using small hints to try to find Dean’s room. To yell at his son, the son he knew wouldn’t yell back. Dean was too much of a coward, really. He had called it respect, but that was what it had always been with Dean. Cowardice.
In the end, it hadn’t been so hard. The doors each had little post-it-note stickies with the inhabitants names. John supposed it was the five-year-old demon. “Sam!” one of the rooms read. “Cas (Dad)” another read. “Eileen when she’s here but she goes in Sam’s room anyways” was another room, as well as “Me (Jack).” John didn’t even read the post-it on Dean’s door past the “Dea” before he opened the door.
The demon had been on top of his son. The demon had been on top of his son, whose buttons are undone and marks are blossoming on his chest. The demon’s trenchcoat is on the floor, so is Dean’s jacket. Their legs are still vaguely intertwined, and they’re holding hands. Both are rapidly reddening and look embarrassed, but they aren’t separating.
“You’re a faggot,” John says as he surveys the scene, “I raised a faggot.”
“Dad…” Dean starts, but Cas is already peeling himself off of Dean. He raises his hand, the hand he defiles John’s son with, and flicks it. John finds himself pressed against the wall.
“Don’t call him that.” Cas steps off the bed, staring John down like a predator. Dean, he was never the prey. John, here and now, is the prey. And he’s scared . “ Never call him that.” If his voice was low before, it's lower now, deep and threatening. John has been scared of demons before, but there’s something about this one. Scarier in a righteous way. Terrifying in a cosmic way.
“You’re a filthy cocksucker demon, why should I listen to you?” John says, with blustering confidence and bravado. He can’t let the demon get the better of him, especially not some demon that’s tempting Dean away from heterosexuality. Into the sin and filth of homosexuality.
“I am not a demon,” Cas says, and lifts his hand and drags John up the wall. It’s the classic demon move, but John can almost feel in the motion that Cas is not a demon. It’s too strong, almost. Too convicted.
“What are you then!?” He means to make it sound accusatory, or rude. Instead, it comes out a squeak. He wants to know, though. He needs to know.
“I am an angel.” Cas rolls his shoulders back, and behind him, the silhouettes of enormous wings fan out. They beat. Blue eyes make contact with John and stare him down.
John believes it.
He didn’t know angels did exist. He didn’t know that they were here, with Dean and Sam and everyone else. He didn’t know that they were anything but faith. But here is an angel, holding him against the wall in a fit of anger and passion.
“Cas.” Dean says. “Chill on the dramatics.” Cas’ wings pull in, and John falls to a sitting heap on the floor. Dean comes up behind the angel and wraps his arms around Cas’ body. It’s a gesture of comfort, but it’s also a gesture of something more. Something romantic. Loving, even.
“Are you going to kill me?” He seriously thinks Cas might. He looks furious . John rarely fears for his life, but the way Cas glares makes him feel like an ant under a magnifying glass, burning. His worry is not alleviated by the way Cas looks at Dean. He isn’t comforted by his fate being in the hands of the son he just called a faggot.
Dean looks down at him with cool, green, uncaring eyes, “I won’t kill him.” John has seen mercy before. Maybe Dean is his son, but this is not mercy. Cas smiles. It’s not at John. It’s at Dean. It’s at Dean’s pity for him. “He’s Sam’s father too and he still is, unfortunately, mine. You know what we talked about earlier? Your idea?”
John doesn’t know what his son is talking about. He doesn’t know what the slight widening of understanding in Cas’ eyes is. He doesn’t know what’s happening at all. He doesn’t even begin to process the facial journeys between Dean and Cas before he’s no longer in the room at the bunker.
He stands up. He’s in a field. Some wheat field, golden yellow and pleasing to the eye, somewhere far far away from wherever his sons are. There are purple wildflowers around where he’s standing. He grasps a grain of wheat in his hands. It nips a thin cut into his hand, and he hisses in pain, pulling his hand away.
John looks around. The field looks endless. The blue sky stretches ever further than the yellowing wheat, filling John with a sense of inferiority. He means nothing among the large, empty, infinity of this world. And he feels watched. He feels scared, insignificant, and witnessed. Compared to the angel, so big and large, and the angel's son , and the angel's family. His sons. So much bigger than him. Big enough that they would never be the man lost in a wheatfield, the ant lost in the grass.
He’s not going back to the Bunker. He knows this. He knows that even if Cas was gone, Dean would never let him back. Nor Sam. His insolent, stupid, disrespectful children. His children that know angels. That must not be sinners. That apparently matter so much more than him.
For the first time in years, even before his death, he cries. And he starts to walk. And he walks more, and more, hoping to find an end. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do when he’s out. He can’t really hunt, that’s his sons’ area now. Maybe a mechanic, or whatever. He’s legally dead. There’s not much he can do.
So he walks. And he tries not to think about his sons.
“Hey, what happened to Dad?” Sam asks, a few days later, eating vegan bacon and texting Eileen. “He just… disappeared.”
“Oh, Cas sent him to a wheatfield in Iowa,” Dean answers as he presses a spatula down on a grilled cheese for Jack. “He’s just going to have to walk out of it or something, I don’t know.”
“Oh, I thought you guys just killed him. That’s better I guess, though I hope we don’t see him ever again.”
“I hope so too.” Dean replies, smiling at Cas as he enters the kitchen. He beckons his partner over for a soft kiss. “Love you.” he murmurs against Cas’ lips, and Cas returns the sentiment gently before coming to sit with Sam. “So, Cas and I were thinking: family movie night?”
“Yes, but only if we don’t watch another fucking cowboy movie. I can’t stand another movie night of you indulging in your cowboy kink in the most family friendly way you can muster. I just can’t.”
“Loser. Yeah, we’ll do Claire’s choice. She’s been begging us about this new horror movie anyways.” Dean smiles, and plates the sandwich, shooting a quick prayer to Jack. Immediately, Jack is in front of him, accepting the plate. Dean leans back, watching his family eat. This is his family. Not his dad. Not really his mom either. This . And more too, but not his father. He smiles contently.
“I love you guys,” he calls out, and he’s met with a shower of ‘love you too’s.
Yeah, he’s content.