Chapter Ten
So, Hope was paying a visit to the seventies. 1978, to be exact. And all because her brother was the vessel of Satan.
Yeah, it was a strange life she led. However, with a crazy angel trying to murder her father and Sam and Dean's mother, all so as Satan couldn't use Sam as a vessel. Literal overkill, in Hope's opinion.
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Typically of the world-, Heaven-, Olympus- and Hell-renowned Winchester bad luck, they managed to land right in the middle of the road.
Car horns blared, and all three of them scrambled to the edge of the street, between two cars.
"Did we make it?" Sam gasped.
"Unless they're bringing Pintos back into production, I, uh, I'd say yes," replied Dean.
Then they noticed Cas collapsed against a car. He promptly fell unconscious, blood dribbling out of his mouth.
Hey, at least he got the honeymoon suite.
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Yeah, this was Creepy with a capital C. Hope remembered Dean telling them about his trip to the past, and had kinda enjoyed the irony of the fact that Mary Winchester had been a hunter.
Seeing the actual woman in the flesh was eerie, though.
"Hi, Mary," Dean started, and was met with a cheery (or, like, not) "You can't be here."
"I'm sorry if this is a bad time."
Mary sounded almost scared "You don't understand. I'm not..."- Here she paused to stare at Sam, who was gawking. To be fair, Hope had gawked a little the first time she'd met her mother, too, which had been a fascinating story involving a lot of ghosts, unnerved half-brothers and this whole long argument , as it turned out Hope had inherited her love of loud debates.
Anyway, the sentence was completed with "I don't do that anymore."
And then "I have a normal life now. You have to go."
"I'm sorry, but this is important, okay?" Dean protested, and then Hope took an uneasy step back, because, lo and behold, her father had turned up.
Mary turned to her husband and said "I'm sorry, sweetie, they're just…"
Dean, clearly making this all up on the spot, said "Mary's cousins! Yeah, we couldn't stop through town without swinging by and saying "Hey," now, could we?"
He introduced himself to their father (which was creepy as all Hell) and John-Hope wasn't calling him Dad-told him he looked familiar. Dean feigned ignorance and then claimed they must have met 'sometime'.
Now, of course, Sam looked like he was crying, so Hope decided to distract them with an "I'm Hope, by the way."
Mary glared at Dean like You take the kid on hunts? Hope resisted the urge to say that she was there of her own free will, thank you very much, Mrs Mary I'm-so-pathetic-I-died-on-a-freaking-ceiling Winchester.
There was some waffling about family names, of which Hope possessed only Mary as a middle name-and wasn't that ironic in at least two separate ways.
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Sam kept staring at Mary all teary-eyed, causing Hope to jab him in the ribs and hiss "Quit ogling her, dude!" which got her more teary staring.
It basically got even more awkward when he told Mary she was beautiful, a comment Dean had to salvage with some crap about healthy family ogling and complimenting.
Hope was getting more and more uncomfortable, but then, thank Melinoe, John got a phone call and the real conversation got under way.
The gist of it was that Mary did not like the sudden reappearance of the dude who was there when her parents bit it. Hope saw her point. They were told to leave her alone, et cetera, and finally Sam got to the point.
"You and John are in danger," he said, and that got more than remonstrance.
"What are you talking about?" Mary asked in a low voice.
Dean started to talk, but Hope interrupted "Well, basically, you got your standard revenge-bent freak a-coming to splatter you on the walls."
Needless to say, this blunt statement got shock from the blonde woman, glares from her brothers, and a raised eyebrow off Hope.
"A demon?" Mary demanded, and Dean made some feeble "It's hard to explain," excuse, but Sam got right in there, with the words "An angel."
For once, it was Hope doing the why-did-you-say-that glaring. Mary was just incredulous.
"What? There's no such thing."
"I wish,' Dean said, to which Hope added "Don't we all," and he continued with "But they're twice as strong as demons… and bigger dicks."
"Why would an angel want to kill us?"
"Oh, countless reasons," Hope muttered.
"It's a long story and we'll tell you everything, but right now, you've got to trust us, and we got to go."
Mary looked hesitant, but Dean continued "Look at my face and tell me if I'm lying to you."
Apparently Dean's facial expression was enough as she agreed.
Typically of the aforementioned Winchester bad luck, of course, John wasn't in the hallway.
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So, Hope was later informed that there was this whole epic fight, with, like, broken wind shields and people getting tossed about, but she got left in the car, with instructions to come in only if they weren't back in ten minutes.
She spent the time grumbling to herself about age discrimination.
Just before she was going to go in, they got back.
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"Monsters? Monsters?"
Hope was almost smiling by this point. Her dad, asking about monsters.
"Yes," Mary sounded… was that guilty or exasperated? Possibly both, Hope thought.
"Monsters are real."
Hope leaned against the window until she felt it was her cue.
"How long?" John demanded, and she knew he was talking to Mary, but she couldn't resist the soft "Forever and probably always," that slipped out of her mouth.
A little marital dispute, some empty threats about turning the car around-which sounded awfully familiar and brought back memories of praying he would, praying that she could just go home to Sioux Falls-and Dean broke the uncomfortable silence with "Wow. Awkward family road trip," which got Hope to snort and Sam to mutter "No kidding."
And they got to this frick-awesome hunter hideout that had, according to Mary, been in the Campbell family for years. Probably not as long as the Underworld had been in hers, though.
When she realised they were talking about what would stop an angel, she chimed in with "You got your angel blades, they're the only thing that'll actually kill them, you got your sigils, like Sam did, that'll banish them, you got your holy oil, and you got your blind luck. Dean's got it all in the bag, but blind luck isn't really in stock round us."
Hope stayed with Dean and her father-not that he knew or would ever care-while Sam and Mary went off to set up rings of holy oil.
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I know I stopped like mid-episode, and that can't even be called an approximation of a cliff-hanger, but her, at least I'm updating, right?
-threelittleclouds