December 11, 2007

The search of John's usual hiding places wasn't yielding anything. Dean had to wonder if it was still worth the time it took. He'd done a pretty good job of keeping the booze cleared out of the house. It was rare that he ever found a hidden bottle anymore.

Trouble was, Dean couldn't watch John 24/7, so nothing prevented whatever bar hopping he chose to do. Frequently, Dean would have to find him and bring him home on top of drying him out. It would have been less trouble to just allow him to drink at home, but Dean knew that wasn't a solution. He was in over his head, and all he could do was tread water as best he could manage.

On a good day, he could scrape John together enough to go in to the garage. It didn't ease up the workload by much. Dean always took the time to double check John's work, just in case, but it kept him where Dean could keep an eye on him. He could at least know that he could go home after work, instead of spending an evening searching the usual haunts and pouring his father into bed once he found him. Today hadn't been one of the good ones.

The old place was starting to feel like home again. The shape John had been in, Dean hadn't had any real choice but to move back in and try to take care of him. It kept him busy, and in a way, that was a mercy. He didn't have time to dwell on things. Something more immediate than mourning his losses always seemed to be demanding his attention.

A loud purposeful knock announced that something unexpected had arrived to force its way to the top of his to-do list. Annoyed at the interruption, he stalked across the room to the door and yanked it open. Two men stood in the illumination of the porch light, one about his own age, the other, quite a bit older.

"Dean Winchester?" the older one inquired.

"Yeah?" it was just shy of a brush-off. There had never been a time that Dean was all that interested in hearing about "the good news" or the next state assembly hopeful. Lately, he had less patience for it than usual.

The man didn't speak again right away but just looked at him intently in a way that sort of gave Dean the creeps. "I'm sorry," he said, seeming to snap out of being lost in thought. "I'm Robert Campbell. This is my grandson, Christian." he indicated the younger man who gave a slight nod of acknowledgment.

Campbell, Dean fumbled with the name for the second or two that it took his work-wearied mind to put the pieces together. "You're my mom's Uncle Robert." he announced, catching up with the facts.

"Won't deny it." Robert confirmed.

Some of the stress etched into Dean's features gave way to a relieved smile. The shroud of unanswered questions that surrounded the mysterious "Uncle Robert" fled from his mind, unimportant compared to the implications of his presence here now. Dean stuck out his hand to shake, "It's awesome to finally meet you." he said sincerely. "We hadn't heard from Mom in so long we were starting to worry." He peered hopefully into the darkness behind the two men. "Is she with you?"

Robert clasped the proffered hand, "No, she's not with us right now."

"Wants to look her best when she sees Dad, I'll bet." Dean joked with a wink. "Well, come on in." he stepped back out of the doorway to make way. "Sorry the place is so trashed." he added as they entered. He'd been doing what he could to put the house back in order, but housekeeping just hadn't been the highest priority. Suddenly he was relieved that Mary hadn't come along with them. He was, he realized, going to have to get not just the house, but John as well, as presentable as he could manage before she did arrive.

"We know you all have been in a hard place." Robert assured him as he passed the threshold. "We're not here to judge you, Dean."

In contrast to the words, as Christian passed by he paused to look Dean up and down in a way that Dean had been in enough bar fights to recognize. He was being sized up. He met Christian's look and puffed up a bit, signaling that he wasn't going to be intimidated.

"I want you to know, Dean, how sorry I was to hear about what happened to Sam." Robert's words drew Dean's attention from the non-verbal male posturing. The older man had found his way to the shelves that housed the family photos. The picture of Sam in cap and gown, in the god awful school colors that someone in charge had mistaken for a good idea, was in his hand. I wish I'd been able to know him, while there was still time."

Despite the mystery surrounding him, Robert seemed like an OK kind of guy. Christian on the other hand, was making Dean edgy. He'd wordlessly taken over a spot near the window where he gave the impression of a man serving as lookout.

"Yeah, he was a guy worth knowing." Dean responded, trying to ignore the odd behavior of his new acquainted cousin.

"Is your father around?" Robert asked as he set the picture back in place.

Dean glanced up the stairs, "He's resting." Family or not, he was not telling virtual strangers that John was upstairs sleeping off his latest bender. "Like you said, hard time all around lately."

He realized he was going to need to know when he could expect Mary to arrive so he'd know how much time he had to work with. He figured he had until morning at least, but with all that had to be done, he wanted a more definite idea of a firm deadline. "But it's going to do him all kinds of good to see Mom." he ventured, prodding for information.

Because he'd already been running action plans in his head it took him a moment to become aware of the uncomfortable silence that had taken over the room.

"What?" he asked, unwelcome thoughts that he was reluctant to consider forcing their way into his head. "She's all right, isn't she?" it was almost a plea. He needed to hear it out loud so the troubling speculations would stop.

Robert's pained expression betrayed the answer before he spoke, "Son, I'd give anything there is to tell you yes."

The room seemed to dip sideways and fall away under him. Dean grabbed at the wall to steady himself. "What happened?" he choked out through a tightening throat. "Was there an accident or something?" A wave of nausea threatened to bring up his dinner. It wasn't happening. It couldn't be happening! "Tell me she's going to be all right!" he yelled desperately.

Robert's eyes were sad, sympathetic. "I'm sorry, Son." he said softly.

"You son of a bitch!" Dean exploded, reacting on pure base instinct. He didn't realize he'd crossed the distance and thrown the punch until Robert had deflected it and spun him around into a restraining hold. He struggled to break free. Raw emotion, dammed up for too long, overruled his rationale, leaving him a wounded animal hellbent on ripping into something, anything that got too near him.

"Christian, stand down!" Robert barked. The words broke through the haze of Dean's rage bringing him to his senses enough to become aware of the pistol leveled at him.

"It's all right," Robert calmly continued, "I'd be disappointed if any kin of Samuel's reacted any different." Christian's hesitation to lower the gun only lasted a fraction of a second. He eyed Dean carefully, ready to react should need be.

Satisfied his instructions had been followed, Robert addressed Dean, who had ceased struggling at the sight of the gun, but still seethed in the older man's hold. "Now Dean, I know you're upset, and any other time, I'd let you take a swing or two at me and get it out of your system. I've probably got that much coming, but we've got bigger fish just now." Dean felt himself being leveraged towards the couch. Robert was surprisingly strong for a man his age. "So, I'm going to have to ask you to have a seat, and try to keep ahold of yourself." he grunted out while he wrestled a resistant Dean into position.

He released Dean with enough of a push to send him stumbling backwards. He caught the back of his knee on the edge of the couch, lost his balance, and plopped heavily into the seat. "Getcher hands offa me." he snarled, swatting ineffectively at Robert, trying to retain some of his dignity with a pretense that he'd somehow effected his own release.

"Not bad for a civilian." Robert observed. "If you'd been raised like you ought to have been, you'd have been something to take note of, and that's for sure."

Dean had no idea what that meant, and at the moment, he really didn't care. He didn't dare try to stand back up, not with Christian looking like he'd be only too happy to draw on him again. "What happened to my mom?" he hissed. No way he was just going to sit there quietly and obediently.

Robert sighed as he took a seat on the edge of the coffee table so that they could talk face to face. "Dean, I've got some things to tell you that probably never should have been kept from you in the first place. There's no good way to say it, so I'm just going to tell you straight out, and you're going to think I'm as crazy as a coon-bit hound. I'm asking you to hear me out because that's what Mary would have wanted. Then we'll be on our way, no fuss."

Adrenaline pumped through Dean's system making his pulse race. He was still fuming, and the last thing he wanted was to agree to anything. It didn't seem like he had a lot of options though, and going along looked like the best one. "Fine, talk." he spat, not happy about it.

Robert produced a flask from his pocket. "Are you a drinking man, Dean?" he asked holding it out.

The truth was, Dean did feel like he could use a drink right about then. He'd quit drinking when he'd moved back home. It had been tough, but he knew he'd have to stay sober to have any chance of keeping John sober. It was tempting, but he wasn't about to take anything from this man that had invaded his life uninvited and ripped another piece of it away. "I've been cutting back." he coldly rejected the offer.

Robert shrugged, "Offer's open if you change your mind." He lightly tossed the flask onto the couch next to Dean. "I have a feeling you will." He ignored Dean's snort of contempt.

It didn't seem to Robert like Dean was going to get much more receptive, so he began. "The first thing you have to know is, I loved Mary like she was my own girl. Loved her enough to step back and let her take her chance on the life she wanted with your father, even though every part of me was saying no good could come of it."

Dean bristled at the perceived insult. "I'm not bad-mouthing your father, boy." Robert hastened to explain. "I only met John the one time, at my brother's funeral, but I thought he was a fine young man, still do. That's the first reason I ignored my gut. The other was, what Mary wanted, she found a way to get, and she wanted John. You've got her fire in you, no two ways."

Dean refused to acknowledge the compliment. "So far, I'm not hearing anything I need to know." he sneered.

Robert couldn't help a little smile of pride. The boy had a strength in him that no one can teach or learn. "Fair enough," he conceded, "what you need to know is, this family, your mother's family, we have a responsibility, and a little bit of a reputation to go along with it. Here lately, that's made things a lot more dangerous for all of us."

Whatever all this was, Dean was getting tired of putting up with it. "Oh sure, it's some kind of mob thing, right?" he quipped sarcastically. Christian responded with an aborted snort of a laugh.

Robert spared a disapproving glance at his grandson before answering. "No Dean, it's not a mob thing. That would be easier, but it is a family thing."

"OK, sure, let's talk about family." Dean challenged, his emotions running hot, overriding the discretion brought on by the earlier confrontation and the knowledge that at least one of these men was armed. "How about you get to the part where you call my mom out of the clear blue and con her into leaving her family? I mean, you've been AWOL my whole life, so what the hell?"

"Dean," Robert said hesitantly, sounding genuinely surprised, confusion apparent on his face. "I didn't call Mary."

"She came to us." Christian spoke for the first time since arriving.

Confusion knitted Dean's brow. That didn't check with what Dad had told him. Maybe, he considered, if he could expose a lie he could put an end to this game. "Why would she do that?" he tossed out a piece of bait.

For a tense few seconds Robert considered his answer before saying, "Because she hoped we could find out what happened to Sam."

That took the wind out of Dean's sails. The circumstances of Sam's death had never made any damn sense. Sure, people disappear sometimes, but Sam had turned back up almost 2000 miles away. He had no connection to the area or the other three victims, not one Dean knew about. The cops hadn't had any answers, just a bunch of questions for them. They were "working on it", which as far as Dean could tell, meant rearranging paperwork while the case got cold enough to justify filing it under unsolved.

He eyed Robert suspiciously. He had no reason to trust this man, and yet, if there was a chance at understanding what had happened, no matter how slim, he had to take it. He'd never forgive himself if he didn't. "And did you?" he ventured, bothering to really listen for the first time.

"Some," Robert answered, "but it won't be easy for you to hear."

"I can take it." Dean responded confidently. What could possibly be any worse than what he'd already been through? They'd had to have a closed casket. Even before weeks left to rot Sam's body had been savaged, but his ripped open torso hadn't been the worst of it. His face, frozen by death into a twisted mask of mortal terror, that was the image that haunted Dean's dreams, the one he had tried unsuccessfully to drink away. He'd been told not to look. He wished he had listened.

"I'd put money down that you can." Robert said with approval, "but I don't mean that the way you think. It won't be easy for you to believe. You like spooky movies, Dean?"

Dean shrugged, "I guess." He didn't know where this was going, but he was curious enough to go along with it, at least, for now.

"What if I told you," Robert continued, "that monsters aren't just in movies? That there's ghosts and even demons, right here in the real world? That the Campbells, we've been fighting things most people only ever see in nightmares since way back in the old country?"

Dean deflated as all the air went out of his hopes. "I guess I'd say that you were right about this much. You are all kinds of crazy, old man."

Robert chuckled, "Yeah well, you just might be right about that." Then he turned serious, "Son, I'm sorry to put all this on you so fast, especially now, when you've got to be hurting so bad, but I just don't have the time to gentle you into it. If I could spare you this, so help me, I would, but I closed my eyes once before, and this is where it got us."

Something about how earnest Robert seemed had Dean's mind flirting with the impossible even as he searched the old man's face for signs of deception. "What does this have to do with Sam?" he heard himself asking.

"What we know," Robert answered, speaking as if this was all perfectly normal, "is back in '73 a demon, powerful one, started collecting kids, ones that weren't even born yet. Spring of this year, all those same kids died in the same ghost town in South Dakota where none of them had any business being." He left out the part about the parents' demon deals. Dean was at least listening, but Robert knew that would turn on a dime if he told the truth about Mary's secret. Dean wasn't ready to hear about that, not yet.

"What we don't know is why, what the demon was trying to do." he went on. "Now it's possible that it just wanted death for death's sake, bring misery down on all those families."

"But you don't think so." Dean observed not quite believing he was even listening to any of this.

"No, I don't," Robert confirmed. "Doesn't make sense to go to all that trouble when it would be easier to just kill folks at random. No, this is some kind of plan playing out, and for some reason, your brother was a part of it."

"We don't know what kind of storm is blowing in, but it's a big one. I've seen more demon sign in the last six months than I'd seen in the whole rest of my life, and that's saying something coming from an old huntin' dog like me."

"Whatever they're doing, that hellspawn doesn't like us poking our noses into it. Mary isn't the only person I've lost this year. We've all got targets on our backs, and that means you and yours too."

It was too much to process. The whole unbelievable tale flip-flopped in Dean's mind and he found he had to remind himself that it was all utterly impossible. He searched what he'd heard, wondering if, like most lies, there were any hidden grains of truth within it. Was Mom really dead? Was this guy even really her uncle? His eyes flicked towards the flask.

"Go ahead," Robert urged him, "its a lot to swallow without something to wash it down."

If there was ever a time to fall off the wagon, this was it, and that was all the permission that Dean needed. He tentatively reached for the flask with a shaky hand. The metallic scrape of the cap as he unscrewed it seemed loud in the lull of conversation. Dean took a good sized drink followed quickly with a second one.

"Feel better?" Robert asked, his concern genuine.

"No," Dean choked through the burn. He could put away his fair share of beer and then some, but he'd never made a habit of anything stronger.

"Give it time to work." Rober advised him.

"You two do know you're both a few slices short of a whole pie, right?" Dean rasped, thumping his chest with a fist.

"You sure?" Christian spoke up. "Sure enough to risk your life? Your family's lives? Because that's what's at stake."

"Christian's right, Dean." Robert quickly seized back control of the conversation. The last thing he needed right now was for these two hot tempered young bucks to go to butting heads. "It's not pretty, but the truth usually isn't. We attracted attention when we turned this rock over. We've got demons out for blood, our blood, and they've taken a fair amount of it already. We're in an all out feud with Hell, and the truth is," he paused, carefully considering what he was about to say, "we need all hands on deck."

"All hands," Dean repeated. "You mean me?" he exclaimed in shocked disbelief.

"Late start or not, I'd wager there's a damned fine hunter in you." Robert confirmed Dean's assumption. "This is your birthright, boy, who you were supposed to be. You've got a family waiting to welcome you home." he said with intensity. "And just you keep in mind, those demons, they don't care that you never hunted a day, or what you do or don't believe. Sooner or later they'll be coming, and you'll either be ready or you'll die, or worse."

Dean fumbled for a response, dismay splayed across his features, The liquor was starting to make his head sluggish and it was all just too surreal to get a grasp on.

"Whatever you decide, we're going to try and look out for you. I figure I owe Mary that much, but it'd be a damned sight easier with you back in the fold." He fished a notepad from his pocket and scribbled down a number that he dropped on the table. "Don't take too long deciding. I can't promise how long you've got." He stood and jerked his head towards the door, signaling Christian that it was time to go.

It might have been the whiskey kicking in, making the ridiculous seem more reasonable, or maybe protective instinct on guard against even the least likely of threats, but something made Dean call out, "Wait!" before they reached the door.

The pair stopped and looked back expectantly.

"I...I've got a kid," Dean explained, his voice strained.

"We know," Christian told him. "Best thing for him is he doesn't get raised with his eyes closed like you and Sam did. You see where that got him. Like grandpa said, decide fast."

"Christian," Robert began to speak, but Christian wasn't listening.

"No, grandpa, I'm sorry, but he needs to know. We've wasted enough time on babying him."

Robert looked at Dean sympathetically and sighed, "It's not fair, Son, but he's not wrong."

They were barely out the door before Dean was already wondering if the whole bizarre series of events had even really happened, the defensive mechanism that makes humans explain away anything too strange to deal with kicking in. He noticed that Robert had left his flask behind. Under the circumstances, having another drink seemed like the reasonable thing to do.