A/N: This is a one shot in a series of one shots called the Second Hand Sons !Verse. The next chapter is just a note, like this one, to let everyone who added this to their story alerts before I wrote this note - lol. But you can find all the previous parts of SHS in my profile. -Angie

With a Nice Chianti and Some Fava Beans

John sat huddled in the corner of the cabin he'd been holed up in for over a week. Fucking thing was playing cat and mouse with him, like it had all the time in the world. And really, it did. John on the other hand? His cell phone had no reception the entire time the battery had lasted, and even though he'd cauterized the wound in his side – and hadn't that just been a fucking laugh riot – it was still oozing a little. And there was the fever that meant infection was probably beginning to set in. The last of the furniture he'd found in the cabin and broken up was burning in the fireplace. God, he was so tired and beat up that he just wanted to let go. But he couldn't. He'd made a promise. He couldn't die like this, with Dean never knowing, thinking he'd been abandoned. That was the only thing that had been able to give him the resolve to press a red hot piece of metal to his own body.

He grunted with the effort it took to check his gun for the thousandth time, as if there would magically be more ammo. Damn thing had caught him unaware, on his way to the diner down the street from his motel to get takeout to eat while he made notes about his recent hunt before hitting the road to rejoin Dean. His boy had been on an adrenaline rush that morning, fresh off a successful solo job and anxious to meet up again. That's when he'd caught a glimpse of it. He was stunned at first. The aitu was salted and burned. He'd checked to make sure there were no more, found no evidence. But there it was, barely visible, running along the tree line across the street, glinting silver in the late afternoon sun. Beautiful in the way that only something truly evil could be. And it was hunting him.

Could there have been more than one? His mind ran through all the folklore he'd gone over. Nothing had led him to believe that there might be more than one. He was too far away from the room, and there were too many innocent bystanders. So he did the only thing he could think of. He ran for the trees, thinking to draw the thing off and hopefully double back and kill it later. He knew it was wishful thinking, but he had no alternatives. And no Dean to back him up. Damn thing had turned him into the pray. That had happened a few times before, but not often. And it was always a dangerous situation, not to mention fucking embarrassing. The aitu was probably pissed that he'd killed its mate, or parent, or kid, or some such shit. Fucking aitu.

The silver bullets in his gun wouldn't kill it, just disburse it almost the way salt and iron effected ghosts. Buy him time. Time for what, he wondered. For Dean to find him? Out here in the middle of nowhere? It would be like finding a needle in a haystack. Kid was an excellent tracker, so that wasn't the problem. The aitu could make you see what it wanted you to, turn you around in circles. Leave you dying of infection in a cabin when you should have been perfectly capable of just walking out of the tree cover under your own power days ago. He didn't want that for Dean. Not for Dean. He didn't even want to think about what the aitu would do to him once he was dead. For some reason the idea of being cooked and eaten was horrifying even if he wasn't going to be around to watch. Maybe the infection would give it indigestion. He laughed weakly at the thought.

"Ever hear of an aitu?"

"An ah-who?"

"An aitu. It's a Polynesian god. Dad was tracking it. Apparently it was killing and eating the locals."

Dean was going to ask what the hell a Polynesian god was doing in California, but the word 'eating' made him lose track of that thought. "Eating?"

"Yeah. Likes to cook them in different ways. Stews, meat pies, roasts."

"Shit. And that's what Dad was writing in his journal about last?"

"Yeah. Looks like he didn't finish the entry though."

"Did he happen to write down how to kill the sonovabitch?"

"Right here. Some sort of potion. Poisons it. Has to be delivered from a distance, though."

"Bows and arrows it is, then." Dean trusted he didn't have to explain that anything on a bullet would be burned off by the time it exited the barrel of the gun. Hopefully Sammy wasn't that out of practice.

"Got my old carbide bow?"

Dean snorted. "Dude! A Winchester never discards a weapon. Especially sweet ones like that."

Something dark passed through Sam's eyes but was gone before Dean could read it. Sam had been full of remorse and self-recrimination since he found out the truth. A simple, 'I'm sorry I was a selfish little know it all bitch,' probably would have done it for Dean – and most likely John too, but Sam had this way of turning guilt into an art form that irritated the hell out of him.

"Dean… when was the last time you slept?" Dean didn't know what was stronger; his relief that Sam wasn't apologizing again or his annoyance at the suggestion that he wasn't up to saving their father.

"I'm good, Sam," he said, his tone clipped. He didn't want to argue about this. They didn't have the time to spare. Every second they hesitated was another second that their father was in danger.

"Dad would kick your ass for goin' into a hunt half dead with exhaustion. Probably kick mine for lettin' you… like I could ever actually stop you."

"You're gonna do this now, Sam? Seriously? Our father is out there with some bastard 'god' that wants to chow down on him with some flava beans and a nice Chianti and you're bitchin' about how much sleep I got last night?"

"Fava beans," Sam corrected automatically. He snapped his mouth shut and looked slightly startled that he'd spoken out loud.

"What?"

"It's… fava beans?" To his credit, Sammy looked like he hadn't meant to say anything and his embarrassment turned the statement into a question. But this was the one thing that he hadn't missed about Sam. This and the constant arguments with – and about – Dad.

Dean sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. Like it even mattered what the fuck the exact words were – the facts were still the same. "Whatever the hell ever, Sam," he said with exaggerated patience. "Can we just go find Dad before he makes the dinner menu?" And he dared Sam, dared him, to point out that John might already be dead. Because he wasn't sure if he could keep himself from punching the bitch if he did.

"Yeah, okay, you're right. Just…" Sam sighed, "please be careful." And he suddenly looked like a kid. Like that stupid, broken little kid who clung to him and begged him not to leave him. Dean suddenly felt like the worst big brother in history.

He offered his little brother a quick smile. "Always." As long as careful didn't get in the way of getting his Dad back, but he didn't add that because the kid was giving him the damn puppy dog eyes of doom. "Besides, I got my little bro to watch my back."

John snapped awake feeling foggy and out of it. He was ice cold and wet. There was this rhythmic noise and he realized that it was him. He was shaking, the leather covered steel toe of one boot banging against the wall with a dull thud. Hypothermia? Shock? Both or neither? Where the hell was he anyway? Had he been injured on a hunt? Where was Dean? It took too long for him to remember, and even then some things were still foggy. He doubted he could hold out much longer. He for damn sure wouldn't be any match for the aitu if it came for him now. He didn't have his carbide bow, and even if he did he didn't have the strength left to use it. Hell, he could barely lift his gun and check the ammo for the thousandth time.

He sighed out a breath. He was supposed to protect his boys, but he'd failed. He couldn't protect Sam most of the time at Stanford, and he couldn't protect either of them at all if he was dead. He promised Dean he'd never leave, and he was breaking that promise right now. First one he'd made to his boys, either one of them, that he'd ever broken.

He felt himself drift and for the first time didn't fight it. He was thinking of a camping trip with his sons. The weather had been perfect, but Dean had hated nature. Sam loved it though, and the kid wouldn't shut up for a few minutes at a time. He drank in Sammy's happiness; it was so rare to ever get it. Unlike Dean who was happy with just about everything John ever did for or with him. Except camping. He smiled. He missed his boys.

"You should have chosen someone else," he said aloud to whomever or whatever had picked him to protect them. "I obviously fucked the whole thing up."

Sam was nervous as he followed his brother into the trees. It had been a long time since he'd so much as picked up a weapon, let alone hunted. Some things came back like he'd never stopped, but other things… he was rusty and he knew it. He knew Dean knew it too, despite all his talk about Sam watching his back. If anyone was going to get into trouble here and need saving, it was probably not going to be Dean.

He watched his brother stop every once in a while to read the tracks and scowl at the surrounding area like it was personally offending him. That couldn't be good.

"What is it?"

"These tracks… they're about a week old. If Dad's been out here all that time…"

"Dad's a survivor. Remember when he used to take us on those camping trips? Teach us what to eat and what not to? How to make clean water in a desert with your own piss and a piece of plastic?"

Dean snorted. "Yeah. You loved it, too. You big geek."

Sam remembered that Dean had hated nature. He'd learned everything their father had taught him, but he was always the most happy out of the three of them to return to civilization. The whole nature thing was something Sam had in common with John that he'd never appreciated before. "If anybody could survive out here for a long period of time, it's Dad."

They kept moving, Dean shaking his head every once in a while as if to clear it. For his part, Sam didn't know what his brother was following anymore. He didn't see any tracks and the ones he had seen had veered off a while ago.

"Dean, you alright?" he asked, trying to keep the worry out of his voice.

"Yeah. I just… I feel like I have vertigo or some shit. Like I'm seein' double. Only, not two of the same thing. It's like there's a false image on top."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"I know it doesn't. But since when do our lives make sense? What do you see, Sam?"

"Nothing… no tracks."

"You don't see the tracks?"

"Dude… I think you're hallucinating. I read that these aitu can make you see things that aren't really there."

"I think it's tryin', but 'm seein' past it. There are tracks, Sammy… and some of 'em are a lot older than a week. It's like Dad was walkin' in circles. I think he's been here the entire time, but he was injured recently. He's definitely favorin' one leg."

"If it is trying to throw us off, how can you see through it?"

"I don't know. Just trust me. We're on the right track, I can feel it."

Sam frowned at the older man. What if the aitu was leading them on a wild goose chase? Wouldn't they both see the tracks in that case? Maybe it just didn't have the juice to trick them both and it was concentrating on Dean since he was the lead? He didn't know what the right answers were, but he trusted his brother. He swallowed his worries and followed silently.