A/N: This story is in the same AU as "Thicker than Water" and "Cry Uncle"; some of what Klaus says may make more sense if you read those first.

Uncle Sam's Misguided Children
By San Antonio Rose

October 1991
Hobbs, New Mexico

"Dad?"

"Mm?"

"Zoing's bored."

Klaus Wulfenbach paused in cleaning his Desert Eagle. Given the tone of voice with which his son had said that, his initial assumption would normally have been that Gil was bored. And maybe Gil was bored. However, harsh experience over the last two years since Gil had managed to smuggle a live lobster out of a supermarket in Toledo had taught Klaus not only that lobsters could get bored but also that a bored lobster was a destructive lobster. Considering that either Gil or Zoing was currently tapping something that sounded an awful lot like "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" against the side of Zoing's tank, they probably weren't many minutes away from the danger zone.

"All right," Klaus said, keeping his tone neutral. "Get his harness. We'll take a walk as soon as I've finished here."

"Thanks, Dad!" Gil replied and jumped up to get the harness he'd devised himself for Zoing, made out of orange fleece with a special collar that would hold enough salt water to protect Zoing's gills for a decently long walk even on a hot day. Today wasn't mid-summer, but the weather was unseasonably warm, so the collar was a good idea, and of course the harness also allowed Gil to walk Zoing on a leash. Fitting it on was a slightly tricky operation, but Klaus still sped up his cleaning so as to be finished when Gil was. This first-floor apartment was cheap, true, but Klaus had been hired on the sly by a detective in the local PD's gang task force whose usual methods weren't working on the gang that was running dope out of this subsidized housing complex, and he already knew enough to know there was no way he was letting Gil go outside without him.

It wasn't a race, of course, but Klaus was still satisfied when he put his rag down at the exact moment the click of the leash clip told him Gil was done.

"You boys ready?" he asked as he stood, slid his gun into its concealed holster, and turned to face his son and their odd pet.

"Yes, sir!" Gil answered, and Zoing waved his antennae and claws in apparent agreement.

Klaus nodded once. "All right, then. Let's go."

The rumble of a V8 approached outside as Gil headed for the door with Zoing scuttling beside him like a dog at heel, so Klaus wasn't totally surprised to open the door and see a black '67 Impala pulling in to the parking space next door. He didn't pay much attention to its occupants, just ordered Gil to wait while he turned back to lock up. The car parked and turned off, and one of its doors creaked open. But Klaus didn't give it his full attention until, just as he pulled the key out of the lock, he heard:

"Son of a—Wulfenbach?!"

Startled, Klaus spun to see that the driver of the car was someone he hadn't seen for twenty years and had assumed he never would see again. "WINCHESTER?!"

John Winchester shut his car door and came up to the sidewalk. "Gunny, what the—man, they pulled you off that minefield in pieces! How—"

"Long story," Klaus replied, shaking Winchester's hand. "What the blazes are you doing here, Corporal?"

"Also a long story. This your son?" Winchester added, glancing past Klaus to Gil, who had picked Zoing up and was cradling him somewhat protectively in his arms.

Klaus nodded and motioned Gil forward. "Gilgamesh," he said, putting an arm around Gil's shoulders, "this is John Winchester. He was a member of my platoon in Vietnam."

Gil shifted Zoing enough to shake Winchester's hand. "Nice to meet you, sir."

"Gilgamesh," Winchester acknowledged, then turned back to his car and nodded once. "Boys," he called as one of the back doors opened, "want you to come meet an old war buddy of mine."

Two boys climbed out of the back seat. One was Gil's age, apparently, stick-thin and freckle-faced, with short-cropped hair that couldn't decide whether it was blond or brown. The other was younger and had slightly longer hair about the same shade of brown as Gil's, though it curled out at the ends enough to be cute, unlike Gil's untamable Wulfenbach mop. The older held the door open for the younger and then closed it, giving Klaus a good look at their clothes, which weren't much better than Gil's. That told Klaus a lot, though it didn't make much sense—Winchester and Guenther had always talked about going home to their girls in Lawrence and settling down to run a garage together.

"This is Klaus Wulfenbach," Winchester told the boys as they walked up to him. "He was my gunnery sergeant in 'Nam. And his son, Gilgamesh. My sons—this is Dean," he added, pointing to the older boy, "and this is Sammy."

"Gilgamesh?" Dean echoed skeptically, shaking hands.

"You can call me Gil," said Gil.

"Is that a lobster?" Sammy asked. "A real live lobster?!"

"Yup. His name's Zoing."

Sammy leaned in to look more closely, and Zoing brandished a claw to tell him to back off. Both fathers put a hand on their respective sons' shoulders and exchanged a look.

Then Klaus drew a deep breath and handed Gil the apartment key. "Take Sammy and Dean on inside. It'll be cooler in there, easier for you to show them how to play with Zoing. Mr. Winchester and I need to talk."

Gil nodded. "Yes, sir."

Dean looked a question up at Winchester, who nodded once. "We can unpack later, Sport. We'll be next door if you need us."

"Yes, sir," Dean replied promptly and herded Sammy after Gil.

"Good boys," Klaus observed quietly to Winchester, watching them.

"They are," Winchester agreed just as quietly. "Take after their mom."

"So does mine."

They waited until Gil had closed the door and locked it, the clack of the deadbolt and the rattle of the burglar chain being audible enough if one knew to listen for it. Then Winchester ushered Klaus into the apartment next door, which had a mirrored layout and nearly identical furnishings but no sign of occupancy.

"Where's your gear?" Klaus asked.

"Still in the car," Winchester replied. "We just got here."

"Mm." Klaus waited until Winchester had locked the door to continue. "What the hell—"

"You first," Winchester chuckled and offered Klaus a seat with a gesture. "Coffee? Jack?"

"Maybe later," Klaus answered, sitting down on the couch. "We can split the difference and have a beer."

"Throw in dinner, and it's a date." Winchester sat down on the loveseat, looked at Klaus a moment, and shook his head. "I still can't—how the hell are you alive?"

"Wish I knew," Klaus admitted and rolled up his left sleeve to display one of the more accessible scars that showed where his severed limbs had been reattached by processes he still didn't understand. He didn't remember much about the explosion, but he did know Winchester hadn't been exaggerating about the condition he'd been in. Until the stitches had come out, he'd looked like Frankenstein's monster.

Winchester let out a low whistle. "Neat work."

"You remember Sun?" Dr. Sun Jen-djieh was a Chinese national who'd moved to Vietnam in the wake of the Chinese Revolution and volunteered as the company medic when the Marines moved into his neck of the woods. He and Klaus still kept in touch.

Winchester blinked. "How could I forget Sun, after the fit he pitched when the Corps declared you 'missing, presumed dead' after you disappeared off the Medevac? It was all over the hospital when he quit."

"—I disappeared off the Medevac?!"

Winchester frowned. "You didn't know?"

"Hell, no, I didn't know. First thing I remember after the mine going off is waking up in a grass hut with Sun and the most gorgeous woman I ever saw."

Winchester leaned forward. "What was her name?"

"Zantabraxus."

"... Zanta—that's—"

"Not exactly Vietnamese. I know. I got the impression she's Mong Leng, and I know the name doesn't fit that language, either. But that's what she said. I wasn't exactly in any fit state to cross-examine her."

Winchester's eyes narrowed. "Go on."

"Sun said something about my having been too critical to evacuate back to Da Nang, so Zanta'd helped him put me back together where we were. Then since I was conscious, he went back to Da Nang to report and left Zanta behind as my nurse. She, um... she helped me a lot." Klaus rubbed absently at the tattoo of wings that encircled his left ring finger like a wedding ring. "I was... not exactly back on my feet yet, but I felt a lot better. And then the night before Sun got back..." He sighed. "Well, she said she wanted an American husband in case the war went against us, and—look, I know," he added as Winchester scowled. "Everyone jumps to the same conclusion. But she didn't coerce me. You'd understand if you met her. She's... she's smart, funny, strong. I fell for her about five minutes after I woke up that first day. I wanted to marry her. And she's... she's..."

"Gorgeous. You said. Seem to recall your using that word when you told us about your ex-girlfriend—y'know, the one that Shanghaied you."

Klaus ran a hand through his hair and sighed; he hadn't forgotten that. He couldn't. Lucrezia Mongfish had invited him over the night before their college graduation to tell him she was marrying Bill Sanders. When Klaus had objected that he wasn't going to let her ruin Bill's life, she'd kissed him—and the next thing he'd known, he'd been on the bus to Parris Island.

"Zanta is everything Lucrezia wasn't," he insisted. "I knew Lucrezia was trouble even before we hooked up. I knew she was two-timing me with Bill. I can't explain why that attracted me, but I was never under the illusion that she wasn't evil. Zanta... i-i-if Lucrezia was Poison Ivy, Zanta is Wonder Woman. You dig? Total opposite. Even down to the hair—Lucrezia's was strawberry blonde; Zanta's was such a dark green, it almost looked black."

Winchester's eyebrows shot up. "Green?!"

"Look, it was probably a genetic quirk. Gil got my hair, but his twin sister's is bright green. Sun didn't seem to think it was weird, so I just rolled with it."

Winchester ran a hand over his mouth and sighed. "All right, so you fell in love with a green-haired Amazon; you married her—"

"Well, unofficially." Klaus rubbed the back of his neck. "I mean, we said vows, but we didn't exactly do any paperwork."

"And then what, you stayed in 'Nam?"

"For a while. Pretty well off the grid. Sun built his own hut next to ours, and he was usually the one who went into town to get any supplies we couldn't scavenge or hunt for ourselves. Didn't get much news, kinda lost track of time. But it... it wasn't a bad life, truly. Not what I grew up with, but we were pretty happy. And then... well, you probably heard about the Yellow Rain."

"Yeah. That was '78."

"Either Zanta or Sun somehow got word in advance. We got over the border into China just in time. And then Zanta told me she was pregnant."

"So your twins were born in—"

"Early '79. February, I think. Like I said, I didn't exactly keep track. What I know for sure is that it was just about a month later that Sun came in and said we'd been spotted and reported to the government. We had two days to disappear.

"It was Zanta who insisted we split up, each take one of the kids. She said we'd be harder to track that way, and Sun agreed. So we... we had one last night together, and in the morning..." Klaus' voice cracked, and he cleared his throat. "They were gone. Her and Zeetha. She took my dog tags, left a note, said... she'd make sure Zeetha found us again someday. So it was just... me and Sun and Gil."

"How'd you get out?" Winchester asked quietly.

"The long way." Klaus got up and started pacing. "First we tried Bangkok, but the embassy wouldn't accept any of my ID, and the one guy who was willing to smuggle us out on his ship wanted $50,000. I didn't have a dime. Found a guy who wanted something delivered to Laos for ten grand, and from there we went back to China, Mongolia, Russia. I started moonlighting for the CIA, Mossad, MI6, you name it. Finally made it to Frisco in '84, only to find out that I'm still legally dead. Thumbed a ride back to Mechanicsburg, and... well, my parents were dead; my brothers wouldn't speak to me; Bill and Lucrezia were dead; Barry'd disappeared; Adam and Judy'd moved to Nebraska somewhere. I had nothing and nobody, like I was a ghost."

Winchester nodded. "And so now..."

"Well, I still work for the law as much as I can. Sometimes I can't. Sometimes I gotta take work that pays, even if it means double-crossing the boss, call the Feds and disappear before anyone finds out it was me. Thank God for Yeltsin—with the KGB gone, things should be safer. But still—"

"Can't put down roots," Winchester agreed, nodding in a way that meant he understood from bitter experience. "Gotta keep moving so they can't find you or your son."

Klaus stopped pacing and frowned at him. "What the hell did you do?"

"Nothing. Not a damn thing. My wife was murdered—and Gunny, you might want to sit down for this part."

"Why? Who killed her?"

"Not who. What. It was a demon with yellow eyes."

Frown deepening, Klaus went back to the couch and sat down. "Come again?"

"November 2, 1983. We put the boys to bed; I fell asleep watching a movie. Woke up when I heard Mary scream." Winchester took a deep breath before continuing. "She was pinned to the ceiling over Sammy's crib with her belly sliced open. And then the fire started. I gave Sammy to Dean, told him to get outside, and I... I tried to get her down..." His voice faltered.

"How do you know it was a demon?"

"I went to a psychic."

"A psychic?!"

Winchester held up a hand. "I know. Most of 'em are fakes. Missouri Mosely's the real deal. She's the only one who didn't tell me what she thought I wanted to hear. Instead, she told me what I did want to hear: that I wasn't crazy, I hadn't imagined it. I didn't even have to tell her—she knew what I'd seen. And then she told me about people who could help me, who track down and destroy all the things that go bump in the night. Now I'm one of 'em. They call us hunters."

"Why? I mean, not—not the name. Why get involved in that scene?" Klaus had heard rumblings about hunters, of course, but mostly in the context of crazies like Gordon Walker who couldn't be trusted. Winchester didn't seem like a psycho, never had.

"Because I need to avenge Mary, and because that thing was in Sammy's room for a reason. Missouri couldn't tell me what. But it was there before Mary walked in, and it killed her for interrupting. And if that's the case, it could still be after Sammy. I've got a hunch you know what that's like, knowing someone's after your son."

"Actually, yeah," Klaus admitted reluctantly. "Few years back, I woke up in the middle of the night, went in to check on Gil, found this old woman bent over his bed. Tried to shoot her, but she just screeched and jumped out the window."

"Shtriga."

Klaus blinked. "Sorry?"

"That's what it's called, a shtriga. Albanian. They feed on children. Hunted one last year, got away from me."

Klaus stared at him for a moment before asking, "Winchester, why are you telling me all this?"

"Three reasons," Winchester replied, settling back in his seat. "One, you're a friend. You asked; you deserve to know. Haven't told Mike Guenther, but Bill Deacon knows, and Jim Murphy does the same thing on the side. Two, I'm guessing you're here about the drug runners."

"Uh, yeah. Gang task force called me in. Haven't learned much yet."

"Their leader's a brujo."

"A what?!"

"He-witch. Reason the cops can't touch him is that he's got a deal with the devil. I'm here 'cause he's been puttin' hexes on the neighbors. And third," Winchester bulled on before Klaus could protest that idea, "I think you're already in deeper than you know. And I'm not talking about the drug runners. I mean that marriage mark."

Klaus glanced down at his left hand. "This? Woke up with it after our wedding night, figured Zanta tattooed it while I was asleep."

"I've only seen a mark like that once—on a man who had a fairy wife."

"WHAT?!"

Winchester leaned forward. "Think about it, Wulfenbach. Think about the stories the locals told, the traditions, the superstitions. You were loaded on the Medevac chopper blown to hell and bleeding out. I got hit with shrapnel from a mine your arm landed on; I went out on the same flight. When the chopper landed in Da Nang ten minutes later, you weren't on it. The battalion couldn't find any trace of you, and the hospital wouldn't believe Sun when he came back to report where you were. Now you tell me you woke up in a hut with a woman who had green hair and who gave you a name that can't possibly be her real name if she's Mong Leng. You lost time in her presence. You were cut off from the outside world, probably didn't even hear about it when Saigon fell, and that doesn't seem to have bothered you too much. Maybe she's not one of the Gentry of the Hills, but I'd bet anything she's a nature spirit of some kind."

"You're saying..."

"She didn't want an American husband because of the war. She wanted a consort—and I'm guessing she helped you because your blood was spilled on her land, while you were fighting her enemies and defending her people."

"So if... then... m-my son is half-fae?"

Winchester shrugged. "Where'd he get the lobster?"

Klaus suddenly felt dizzy, remembering how Gil always had claimed to be able to talk to Zoing, to know what he was thinking and feeling. Before, Klaus had always assumed that was childish imagination, but now... "Damn. Damn."

"Look, don't take my word for it. Let's work together on this gang business, give the boys a chance to get to know each other. If I'm wrong, chalk me up as a nutcase, and we never have to see each other again. But if I'm right... well... world needs good hunters."

"And you think I'd be good?"

"I know you, remember? You'd be damn near better than I am. With good reason."

Klaus drew a deep breath and blew it out slowly. "All right, let's... let's get that beer and some pizza. And then tell me what you know about this so-called brujo."

Winchester nodded. "Deal."

The two men stood and went back to the Wulfenbachs' apartment, where Zoing was in his tank on the floor between Gil and Sammy, seemingly paying rapt attention as the three boys animatedly discussed the DuckTales rerun they were watching. And somehow, with a bittersweet pang, Klaus knew that those three would be as inseparable as he and the Sanders boys had been growing up.

"Who wants pizza?" he asked and found himself smiling when he was met with three cheers instead of just one.

(He didn't quite believe Winchester yet. By the time he destroyed the brujo's altar while Winchester shouted a witch-killing spell, he'd seen enough to change his mind. And when Sammy started pestering Winchester for a pet lobster of his own and Winchester offered the compromise of having the Wulfenbachs move with them so that Sammy could keep playing with Zoing, Klaus was only too happy to agree.)