"Ellie, run!" Adam Milligan shouted to his twin sister as they raced through the house. "Faster!"
"I'm going as fast as I can Adam," Ellie shouted right back at him as they blazed up the stairs of their home. "Shut the door! Don't let it in!"
Ellie had run into the room she and Adam shared, her brother right behind her and he slammed the door shut and locked it, stepping back to stand beside his sister. Their breathing was heavy and came out in pants as they waited. Both fell completely silent and held their breath shooting a wide eyed glance at one another as they heard heavy footsteps coming up the stairs. Soon the door knob began to jiggle about. The lock gave a sharp click and the twins screamed as their door opened and a figure rushed in at them. It picked up the children, one in each arm, and swung them carefully about the room with a laugh.
"I've got you!" their mother cried with a chuckle of mirth and a wide grin on her face as she flailed her children around the room in her arms.
Ellie started laughing hysterically but Adam kept up the act and was screaming, though Ellie could distinctly see the grin spread across his features when she looked over at him.
"Hey Ell Bell, I don't think your brother is having any fun. I think we'll just have to fix that won't we?" their mom said with a mischievous smile on her face as she set Ellie down and took Adam over to his bed and layed him down on it while keeping a hold on his wrists. "How do you think we should try and fix this crisis?"
Ellie's face turned mischievous as well and was almost an exact replica of their mother's as she suggested as maniacally as a seven year old could, "Tickle him Mommy!"
Their mother looked from little Ellie back to Adam, who now had a mock expression of horror on his face, and said, "Well, you heard Dr. Ellie. One dose of tickling ought to do the trick."
With that, their mother began to tickle Adam mercilessly causing him to laugh and squeal involuntarily as he tried to get away from her. Ellie was laughing hysterically in childlike giggles from behind them as she watched. After a minute or so, Ms. Milligan stopped and lay down on her back beside her son who was now out of breath and panting from laughing so much. He was holding ribs as though injured and tears leaked from his eyes though a smile was still on his face. Once he had caught his breath, Adam sent a conspiratorial look to his sister who grinned back evilly knowing exactly what her twin was thinking. Simultaneously they sprung at their mother and began tickling her just as she had Adam. She let out a yelp of shock before being thrown into a fit of laughter. She managed to get her kids off of her and then proceeded to chase them all over the house once again, all three laughing and squealing happily.
It was days like this that Ellie loved the most. Days when her mother was actually home instead of having to work late to keep them afloat. Days when she and Adam didn't have to be more mature than any seven year old should be. Days when her family could be a normal family.
Her father, she knew, was some deadbeat drifter that had been passing through town and managed to get their mom pregnant with them. Adam had always been curious about their father but Ellie had found after a while that she couldn't really bring herself to care about the subject anymore. After all, who was he really to her? He probably had no idea she even existed. Her mom has told them that he had left only a week or two after he had arrived in town which would have been long before their mom would have known she was pregnant.
Around her and Adam's ninth birthday, a man showed up on their front step about the same time their mother had gotten home. He was tall, muscled, with a stern face, short dark hair, and a close shaved beard. He was a rather intimidating man, but he smiled at them. Their mom had explained that this man was their father, John Winchester. Adam had so many questions that John readily answered, but Ellie stayed silent unless someone spoke to her first. She felt like he had cheated. Getting to come into their lives after so many years and pretending to be their father. He hadn't been there when they had been born, or spoken their first words, taken their first steps, or even when they started school. This man who claimed to be their father had never done anything a father should. He hadn't been there to help their mother with them when they were out of control or getting into trouble. He hadn't been there to share in any happy moments like family dinners, holidays or otherwise. As far as she was concerned, John Winchester was not her father. Just a man who believed he could come around once a year around their birthdays and make everything alright.
After that first visit, John would come around once a year around the twins' birthday and take them out to a baseball game, or to go fishing, or something of the sort before disappearing for another year without any contact during the time that he was gone. Eventually Adam grew tired of his coming and going as well and shared Ellie's view on him, though he still liked it when John came back around again.
When their fifteenth birthday had come around, John had come around as well and decided he would be the one to take them out driving for the first time as well as buy them their first beer. Ellie could easily remember that night.
"Come on. Adam you're fifteen, and you too Lainy. I'm getting you both your first beer," John insisted after he had spent the day with them having them drive his 1967 Impala around the town.
Ellie cringed at John's nickname for her because, even though she had never said anything about it, she absolutely hated it. She had realized there wouldn't be a point in trying to push John away any further by arguing with him over the nickname. He may have been a deadbeat in her eyes, but he was all she had besides Adam and her mother.
"How exactly do you plan to do that? Adam and I aren't exactly legal yet, and no offence Adam but you couldn't even pass for eighteen let alone twenty-one," Ellie pointed out blandly as John switched from the passenger seat to the driver's seat and Adam went from the driver's seat to the passenger seat.
"I've known the bartender for a long time. Trust me Lainy, he won't say anything," John assured with his signature smirk on his face.
"And how do you think our mother would feel about this?" she questioned with a slight snappy edge to her tone that only Adam seemed to notice.
"Your mother doesn't have to know unless someone tells her now does she?" John remarked as he made a left turn steering the car in the direction of the bar. "Besides, it's one harmless beer. It's not like I'm suggesting you go out and get smashed tonight or any other night."
"Whatever," Ellie mumbled to herself, just quietly enough that neither of the other two occupants of the car could hear her.
Soon enough John pulled the car into the parking lot of the little local bar and parked it near the door. He turned back to be able to face both Ellie and Adam saying, "Come on then. Your mom will be home early tomorrow morning. We need to get back to the house before two a.m."
Adam had smirked a little bit and raise and eyebrow at John's antics while Ellie just shook her head with a small, dry chuckle as they followed John into the bar. As soon as Ellie walked in she was hit with the loud music that she had been just barely able to hear outside the door and the strong, almost gagging scent of cigarette smoke mingling with excessive amounts of alcohol. Looking around at the surprisingly crammed area of the bar, and dance floor she saw people dancing drunkenly, making out wherever they felt like and having an all out "good time". She honestly wasn't sure if she should laugh at them, feel disgusted, or just flat out leave while she still could. She knew the town well enough that she could get home just fine within a half an hour.
"Don't just stand there Lainy, come on!" John called over the buzzing of the bar as he and Adam made their way up to the counter to order their drinks.
"Sure thing," Ellie replied, mostly to herself as John and Adam were both too far away to hear her, in a bland yet resigned tone before she followed after John and her brother.
Adam, seeing that his sister was being her usual socially awkward self, walked over to her and wrapped his arm around her shoulders saying, "Just loosen up a bit for one night Ell Bell."
She sighed but nodded as they walked over to the bar where John was waiting for them and had already ordered a beer for each of them and two shots of whiskey for himself. He thanked the bartender and knocked back the first shot like it was water when their drinks were brought to them, then gave the twins an expectant look. Ellie and Adam looked down at their beers and then at each other. Adam shrugged and Ellie sighed before they both took a gulp of the amber liquid in their glasses. To Ellie it was bitter, though not horribly so, and it had a pleasant burn to it as it raced down her throat and pooled in her stomach.
"Not as bad as I thought it would be," Ellie and Adam said at the same time, causing John to laugh as he drank his second shot of whiskey before ordering another.
Grabbing the third shot when it was brought out, John clapped Adam on the back, "Let's teach you kids a good way to make money quick. You never know when you might need it."
Ellie raised and eyebrow in skepticism while Adam gave John a cautious look. Both of them had a few ideas floating around in their heads of just what he might be talking about, and a few of them weren't so pleasant. Or legal.
"Oh, don't go giving me those looks. I'm going to teach you how to play pool," John laughed and wrapped his arms around their shoulders. He steered them towards a less crowded section of the bar where four pool table sat, two of them in use by a couple groups of men. The next hour or so John spent teaching Adam and Elaina how to play pool. Ellie took to it like a fish to water, though Adam did not seem to have the same luck his sister did with the new game. Before any of them realized, Ellie had beaten John in a matter of a few minutes.
"You're a natural Lainy! You could quit your day job if you wanted to," John encouraged with a chuckle as he hung his head a little in defeat.
"Yeah, don't let my mother hear you say that. She'll never let you near us again," Ellie warned with a sarcastic chuckle. While she didn't really like John she had come to accept him as a part of her life, even if only a small part. He was the closest thing to a father she would ever have in this life so she might as well accept him.
"How are you so good at this?" Adam questioned with an expression of disbelief.
Ellie smiled at her twin and replied, "Some people have a knack for certain things. I guess this is just one of mine."
John grinned happily at his children. It made him immensely happy to see that they would get to live normal lives, even if it meant that he had to distance himself from them the way he did. Even if it meant that both of them only really tolerated him most of the time anymore. It was more than worth it to see them both safe and happy.