N.B.: This comes after the story Hell night, but it's not necessary for you to read that to get this.


1 - After You Comes The Flood

Then

Dean hit the dirt, and blood flooded his mouth. He had come to learn to hate the taste of his own blood. Dad smacked him on the back of the head. Not hard, just enough to let him know he got a kill shot in. "Again," Dad said.

Dean pushed himself up to his knees with a sigh. He really didn't want to be doing this anymore. He ached all over, and was sure he'd have some spectacular bruises tonight.

He couldn't remember whose house they were staying at right now, just some vague friend of Dad they had never met. But he had his backyard done up like a gym. There were heavy bags hanging from the limbs of an oak tree, a tackling dummy, some targets for either arrows, guns, or both, and a slightly raised sand pit that Dad was currently using as a sparring ring.

Dean looked up at his Dad, who was back in fighting stance. From this vantage point, he seemed huge and unbeatable. Not for the first time, Dean wondered what the point of this was. He was a fifteen year old kid. He'd been on hunting missions and survived. All this sparring and testing his fighting abilities seemed really pointless. Dean knew he was better at it than any kid his age. Hell, didn't he fight off four sixteen year old assholes the other day? Made them look like the shitheads they were. He wanted to see them bully kids now, with their limps and their casts. Of course Dad got mad at him, 'just 'cause he was better trained than the civvies. Hardly seemed fair.

"Dad, you're too big," Dean said. "I'm never getting the drop on you."

John Winchester looked down at him and scowled. "If you can't take me down, you're never taking down anything."

"I have-"

"You have to be ready, Dean," Dad snapped. "You have to be able to take on things much bigger and harder than you. Your life depends on it. Your brother's life depends on it. Now get up and try again."

Dean felt that like a barb in his heart. He wasn't worried about himself so much, because he'd survived a lot of shit. But Sammy was just a kid, and Dad was gone more often than not. It was all on him to make sure nothing happened to him.

Dean turned his head to the side and spit out blood before climbing painfully to his feet, and taking up his battle stance. He was going to do this, or he was going to die trying.

He had no choice, no matter how much he wished he did.


Later

Dean wasn't exactly jazzed by the thought of Dad leaving them with some of his friends again, especially since he was nineteen and more than capable of looking after himself and Sammy. But then he found out they were staying with the Reyes', and he changed his mind.

"Uncle" Hector and "Aunt" Cecilia were fucking great. They had this awesome cabin in the absolute middle of nowhere in the Northern California highlands, which would normally be kind of a bummer, because he couldn't sneak out to a bar late at night - it was something like twenty miles to the nearest place, and that was just a convenience store and gas station. A real disappointment. But the cabin was pretty tricked out, and they were great. Cecilia had amazing taste in movies, and Hector was an amazing cook. The best food Dean had ever eaten, bar none, was Hector's, and occasionally he'd talk about saving up and leaving the hunting "game" and opening his own restaurant. But when he talked about it, he and Cecilia shared this look that Dean came to think of as "never going to happen" expression. As far as Dean could tell, no one retired from hunting - you stopped hunting when you were dead. Full stop. Which was a real shame, because the world was getting robbed of Hector's cooking.

Sam seemed to like the idea of it too, which was a kind of relief. Ever since the New York thing, where they captured an amanjaku and saved Dad, Sam had been kind of grouchy. Dean figured it was hormones hitting him hard, since he was fifteen, and that wasn't a great age, from what Dean could remember. Weird how so many of his childhood memories were kind of blurred, like he barely experienced them. Maybe he'd already taken one too many shots to the head.

But when Dean thought about it, he couldn't help but feel a little miffed Dad wasn't taking him with him. He was on his way to the midwest, to finally track down this murderous group of werewolves, who seemed to have a serial killer amongst them. They were nasty and hard to find, but Bobby had some solid leads, and he and Dad were going to find them and finish them off. Dean wanted to go, but Dad said it was too dangerous, and he wanted them out of it. Dean took that as meaning he wanted Sam out of it, and Dean was simply collateral, which didn't feel great. But wasn't he used to it by now? Someone had to keep an eye on the kid, and it was almost always him.

At least it was a beautiful time of year for Northern California. The trees were lush, and wildflowers added splashes of color amongst the shadows of the forest as they drove to the cabin.

Finding it was always a trip, as you had to travel down a couple of dirt roads, one of them a long unused logging road that was slowly but surely being swallowed up by weeds. The slightly higher elevation made his ears pop, but the good part of that was they wouldn't have to endure the higher heat of the rest of California. It always seemed a bit cool up in the mountains, which Dean occasionally appreciated. Except when the snow was four feet high and you were freezing your ass off. That he hated.

Dean wanted to play this cool, like it was no big deal, but upon seeing them, Cecelia and Hector came over and gave them hugs, and Dean was so happy he could have burst. They gave the best hugs.

They went with Cecilia to the cabin while Dad and Hector broke off to have a whispered conversation by the car. Dean was dying to know what they were talking about, but he knew he wasn't going to be a part of this hunt, no matter what, so he simply followed Cecilia inside.

And he was so glad he did. It turned out Hector had made a pie for them, grilled peach, which Dean had never had before, but it was immediately the best pie he had ever had. Grilling peaches made them fantastic, and apparently he also put a little bourbon in the sauce as well. Goddamn. Dean wanted to grab a fork and take the whole pie with him, but he supposed he needed to share. Boo.

Even though he still kind of resented being here and not out hunting, there really was no place he'd rather be.


John wondered if he wasn't dumping his problems at someone else's door. If so, Hector and Cecilia didn't deserve it.

Sam had been basically unbearable since the New York City debacle, and John didn't know how much he could blame him for that. After all, it was John's mistake that put him and Dean in danger, and it could have killed them all. Somehow it didn't, and for that he was grateful, but Sam clearly still blamed him. Teenage hormones were probably making this worse, but to be honest, Sam had had a chip on his shoulder for a while. It just seemed to be getting worse the farther he went into teendom. Had he been that way as a kid? John hoped not.

Not for the first time, he found himself wishing Sam would take after Dean more. Did Dean have an attitude about this? No. Dean didn't complain. He knew what he had to do, did it, and went on his way. He was a good soldier. John had found himself wondering where things had gone so wrong with Sam, and he still had no answer.

He knew Hector from their time in the Marines, so the fact that they both ended up hunters was a type of bitter irony that John kept stumbling over in his life. Hector had come by hunting in a very strange way. He'd been working as a sous chef down at a restaurant in Baja when it was attacked one night by vampires. Hector survived, but almost no one else did, and the restaurant was burned to the ground. Cecilia was a female hunter Hector had met when he first started looking into it, and they'd been together ever since. John couldn't help but be a tiny bit jealous of that. His early hunting days were very fraught.

As soon as they greated the boys, Cecilia ushered the kids into the house. She was on the early side of forty, but she seemed much younger, and while on the short side, had surprising strength in a literal sense. John's arms weren't nearly as toned as hers were. She'd cut her long black hair short, but it suited her.

Hector was pretty much the same, as he always had been since boot camp. He was starting to get a bit of a gut, but honestly it just made him seem more formidable. He was a bit shorter than John, but he had the kind of fireplug build of old timey boxers, and was just as tough. And yet, he had this pronounced softer side that liked cooking and gardening, and he loved the boys. Once, he asked Hector why he and Cecilia hadn't had kids, since he seemed like the fatherly type, and Hector said they couldn't imagine bringing kids into this world full of monsters. That was before he knew about the boys, of course. But John couldn't blame them for the sentiment. John didn't like to think about what would happen to them if he got killed by some creepy crawly. Right now, all he could do was hope Dean was tough enough to handle it. Sometimes he had his doubts.

Hector motioned John over, to one side, and he went with him. "So I heard this story," Hector said quietly. "About an amanjaku in New York?"

John nodded. "Some rich asshole was actually importing onis, for who knows what reason. He got a more dangerous one than he was expecting. It was nearly a disaster."

Hector threw a quick glance towards his wife and the kids. "And did I hear right, that the boys caught it?"

"They did, yeah. They got lucky."

Hector raised his eyebrows in wide eyed disbelief. "You make your own luck, and you mostly do that by being good. How do two kids get that lucky?" Hector stepped closer, and lowered his voice even more. "They're just kids, right? They do normal kid stuff?"

John's brow furrowed. "Are you implying something?"

"No, I'm just ... wondering how a nineteen year old and a fifteen year old kid accomplished something that most adult hunters couldn't."

He wished this as the first time he'd heard this question. He could hardly come out and admit it bothered him a little too. Of course, Dean had fucked up by exposing so many people to the amanjaku, and he wanted to point it out, but considering they rescued him from the storage container where Rob had knocked him out, he felt like he couldn't really say anything. No, he could, but he'd feel like a hypocrite. John was also aware he was taking too long to answer this question. "I wish I knew what to tell you. They're really smart. Must get that from their mother's side."

Hector smiled wanly at his weak joke, but John could still see he was troubled. He didn't blame him. John had been back and forth with himself on this. Had he trained them too much? Or, considering how Dean went about it, had he not trained him enough? He went back and forth with himself about this, and he seemed to land on different answers depending on the day.

John could see Hector make the decision to let this go. While he had a perfect stone face, his eyes were always expressive. "So Bobby's got a line on the howls?"

The "howls" was the absolutely asinine name that this group of werewolves called themselves. Supposedly they were a biker gang before someone got turned, and then the whole crew turned, and stayed together. And had a multi-state crime spree running for almost a year. Despite being flashy and dumb, most people were too damned scared to say anything, and while they left a tornado of destruction in their wake, they were eerily good at covering their tracks. But, according to Bobby, they pissed off another group of wolves, who pretty much sold them out. They probably wanted them gone so they could claim their territory, but motive didn't really matter at this point. Taking them off the board would be a relief. John nodded. "Thanks for looking after the boys, Heck. I'll be back as soon as possible."

Hector waved a hand in a shooing gesture. "The kids are a joy to have. Don't worry about it. Just be careful out there. They may be dumbass werewolves, but they're still werewolves. Being dumb actually makes them more dangerous."

"Oh, don't I know it." John slapped him lightly on the shoulder before turning away, back towards the Impala. It did occur to him now and again that maybe the boys would be better off if he never came back. If he left them with someone like Hector and Cecilia for good. Maybe they could cobble together something like a normal life.

But then he'd remember what he found out about the yellow eyed demon, and the vague but menacing "plans" he had for the kids infected with his blood. Unless John found a cure, or a way to kill the demon, that fate was always coming for Sam. Anything resembling a normal life for him would, at some point, implode, leaving him what? John didn't know; he only knew it was nothing good. He owed it to Mary to try and save him. Or ...

No, he wasn't even finishing that thought. He was going to save Sam, or he was going to die trying. That was the only way it could be. Whether they ever forgave him for it or not was totally up to them.