Before Henry could say anything else, especially in trying to explain what the Men of Letters were, Johns attention was on the bedroom door opening slightly. Immediately he was in front of it, hand coming out to stop it from opening anymore. He moved the shotgun down and put it against the wall so that it wasn't seen.

Despite the dark of the room he could make out Deans outline, staring up at him from the side, at the motion of John he had moved away from the door and John nodded at him.

"Go back to bed buddy." John whispered, keeping his voice low and trying to keep any stress out of it. Dean stared up at him, his green eyes that were so much like Marys had too much wisdom and looked too old for his nine year old frame.

"What's wrong?" Dean whispered back at him, either copying John or trying to keep Sammy asleep. A quick glance at the bed showed that Sam wasn't asleep either, sitting up in the bed staring at him too. John managed a small smile at the both of them.

"Just talking to someone, everything's okay." John assured them, reaching out to lightly slide his hand over Deans head. "Go back to bed, its okay."

Neither of his sons looked like they believed him but obediently Dean padded back to the bed and curled around Sam. Sam glanced at him one more time before he laid down and did the same, holding onto his brother.

John spared them one more glance before he pulled back out of the room and closed the door, turning back towards Henry.

Henry had a unreadable expression on his face, his features were soft however. "You have a kid?" he asked, his voice light.

"Kids." John corrected him, still not at ease, still still wishing that he could take his shotgun and get rid of this problem like the others. "Two sons."

Henry smiled at that, moving enough to the side to look at the door. John immediately stepped in front of it, preventing him from looking at it, a fierce surge of protectiveness coursing through him.

"You have sons." Henry said softly and John tried to ignore how much he had missed that voice, patient and calm, wrapping his scraps in bandages. "I'm a grandfather."

Whatever he was managing to hold onto snapped and John came forward. His arm snapped out and he grabbed at Henry, barely restraining from slamming him into the wall, he didn't want to alert Sam and Dean obviously.

"You're nothing, you don't have that title." John told him, his voice low and dangerous. "You might be him but you sure as hell don't have the right to talk like that, to even look at them."

"John, talk to me." Henry told him, either uncaring or ignoring how John was gripping at his jacket front. "What happened? You're not a man of letters, you're...a hunter. How did that happen?"

"My wife was killed by something that came into our home." John said lowly, refraining some snapping at him. "She was killed in our son's nursery."

"I'm sorry." Henry told him and he did sound like it. He seemed to be thinking for a moment. "How did she die?"

John blinked at him. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"If you're saying a supernatural being killed her in your sons nursery room, the first step is to figure out what killed her." Henry told him. "And you can usually tell by how it happened."

John stared at him for a moment, resisting the urge to punch him regardless. "She burned to death, pinned to the….to the ceiling of the nursery room, her stomach cut open." he couldn't help the small shudder that went through him, the image of Mary pinned, horror and pain on her face before the fire started.

Henry's eyes were widened at that. "What else?" he asked urgently. "What else happened that night? Did you smell anything? Notice anything else?"

John stared at him for a moment before he slowly let go of his jacket, taking one step back. "No." he said curtly. "A psychic told me it was something powerful and evil, that's it."

Henry let out a small breath, glancing once more towards his sons room and once again John stepped in front of his gaze.

"John, if it's what I think it is, then...this is going to be bad." Henry told him. "Something I was running away from."

Henry took his jacket off and carefully folded it and placed it on the armrest of the couch. He went to the table and took one of the pencils and a piece of paper. He quickly drew a six pointed aquarian star.

"This is the symbols of the men of letters." Henry said. "We're preceptors, beholders, chroniclers of all that which man does not understand. We share our findings with a few trusted hunters – the very elite. They do the rest."

"What's the point of this?" John asked, just wanting to get to the point and be able to get to sleep.

"Our lineage is a legacy, my father was a man of letters, his father was a man of letters and his father before and his father." Henry said. "And you were supposed to be raised as one as well as your sons."

"Well that's not how it turned out." John said, his voice straining as he tried to keep it down. "What the hell does this have to do with my wife's death?"

Henry obtained a sad, almost pitiful, look on his face at that.

"John." he said gently, the same tone he used when John had brought home a baby bird he had found that was dead. "She was killed by a demon."

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