A Brother's Sacrifice

by ayosb2000

Completely AU. John really did want Dean to have a home and for Sam to go to school. At Sonny's, Dean saw the possibility of another life, but chose family. Sam is chafing under his father's thumb. An exploration of what might have happened if Dean stood up to his father and decided that normal and hunting could co-exist. A large re-write of a previous story I wrote years ago.

25. March 2002

A/N Let me know if you recognize the mysterious Luna in this chapter! And big thanks as always to mak2018 for her beta work! We're getting closer and closer to the reunion between the brothers :)

Hunter Corp

To John, it sounded like something out of a Bugs Bunny cartoon, right up there with Acme rockets and explosives.

All that was missing was Elmer Fudd on their company letterhead, but Dean had been so excited when he suggested the name that his father didn't have the heart to shoot the idea down. It wouldn't be the first time that his eldest son exhibited more than a trace of immaturity and John knew deep down inside that it was most likely a psychological byproduct of all the years that he'd made Dean eschew his actual childhood for a man's burden. Occasionally, the little boy that had been forcefully buried inside of Dean wanted to come out and show itself in a display of silly jokes, bad puns and an affinity for Saturday morning television.

Another one of his son's coping mechanisms for the terror filled life John had forced him to live.

So Hunter Corp it was.

On paper it was a completely legitimate company that employed bounty hunters nationwide. Every member of the staff would have all the appropriate licenses that members of the profession required, including ones for their smaller handguns if they were ever stopped by law enforcement and needed a more reasonable explanation for carrying than "I didn't want the werewolf I was tracking to rip my heart out".

Those select hunters that were recruited would receive respectable weekly checks through the payroll company that John had contracted with, as well as a reasonable expense account for travel costs and other more unusual necessities. Routinely this would be used to cover mid-range hotels that offered sheets without questionable stains and carpets that didn't contain scary bacterial ecosystems hidden in the thirty year old shag. It would also pay for adequate fuel and upkeep for the vehicles in the event of things like possession by a pissed off spirit that drove them into the side of a barn, ripping off a front fender in the process. As well as decent meals that didn't come out of a vending machine or at a too-cheap-to-be-edible truck stop, delivered by a waitress who didn't look like the type to follow standard hand sanitizing guidelines.

And because hunters had an unfortunate tendency to play Russian Roulette with their body parts, John had even enrolled the company into a health insurance benefit program through the payroll service so that all employees, and even the families of the few that had one, would be covered just like regular folk in case of illness or injury. Although the community's medical go-to Dr. Robert was discrete in what he did for them, the man also had a not-so-secret oxy problem that was responsible for the impending loss of his license to practice as well as a steep decline in the success rate of his treatments.

So it was probably better all around that the hunters could start seeing someone a little more legit when they needed a finger reattached. No longer solely dependent on a drugged up Freddie Kruger lookalike, complete with scalpels and hypodermic needles, and the barely legal and perpetually dour Eva. His part-time nurse and full-time fuck buddy who looked more suited for a career as a dominatrix at Helga's House of Pain than in the medical field.

Most importantly, all Hunter Corp employees were going to receive a company funded life insurance policy. Simply because life was short and hunters' lives tended to be shorter still. After what had happened to the Winchester family, first with Henry's disappearance and then Mary's death, John was determined that there would never be another spouse or child that was left scrambling in case a hunter was eaten by a wendigo or some other kind of nightmare.

Fortunately Henry had been fully in favor of the idea, which made everything significantly easier since it was becoming apparent that the two oldest Winchester men rarely agreed on anything.

Henry approved not only because the formation of such an organization was obviously very important to his son but because the concept wasn't all that dissimilar to how things used to work back in the day. The Men of Letters had a long standing practice of running dispatch on their own group of elite hunters and had always provided for them accordingly. Being able to do something that would both please John as well as continue the legacy of the Letters was certainly a plan that Henry could immediately get on board with.

With the right documents in hand a business account for Hunter Corp was immediately set up at the bank in Lebanon with both Henry and John in control of the disbursements. Also, because neither man wanted potential interested parties to have access to any employment records in case of a misunderstanding that might lead to a hunter being taken off the chessboard by a fugly looking for a little revenge, John had hired the stoner kid Ash from the Roadhouse to digitally hide the trail from one of the MoL accounts in Chicago that would be used to fund all Hunter Corp expenses.

Just in case someone got nosy.

At the end of several very intense and terse discussions, most of what John wanted for the organization was ultimately approved by his father, but the one thing that had not sat well with Henry was the inclusion of hunters in the bunker itself.

In the interest of maximum efficiency when lives were at stake John proposed getting the infrastructure for Hunter Corp into place as soon as possible, but he was also crystal clear that he didn't have time to run it all by himself until the Demon was dead. It shouldn't have come as a surprise to anyone that the hunt for Azazel was going to continue to be the first priority for John's time for the foreseeable future. So he told Henry, in no uncertain terms, that he wanted to include his closest friends on the board of the organization to help run it in his absence. Ultimately digging his heels in and holding firm when his father balked at the notion of strangers having access to the Men of Letters' deepest secrets and resources.

It had taken some skillful intervention by Dean to remind his grandfather that with something like Hunter Corp in place the kids of hunters wouldn't have to grow up like he and Sam had been forced to. Generally homeless, usually broke and always worried about their hunter parent making it back in one piece before the rent on the motel room was due again.

This was a sore spot in the relationship between John and his father and something that Dean also knew Henry considered to be a failure on his part because of his decision to choose duty over family the night of his initiation. It wasn't a secret that the years John and his boys spent on the run upset his grandfather greatly. Dean also gently reminded Henry that John valued Singer, Pastor Jim and Caleb enough to trust them with his own kids on many occasions. Knowing how suspect John was of just about everybody, Henry had to grudgingly admit it that it was no small thing that these men were first granted and then allowed to maintain inner circle access to the Winchester's little family unit long after the boys were grown. So eventually he relented.

Henry had been forced to make peace with the fact that it was John's wish that Bobby Singer and Jim Murphy be the public faces of Hunter Corp in the community. Both men were trusted and well respected by just about everybody, including all the people that John had pissed off during his time hunting. Which, as Henry was quickly finding out, was a very long list.

Singer and Murphy were going to recruit and run dispatch, taking turns on shifts at the Bunker with Caleb and Dean alternately filling in since neither of the older men could be so far from their own homes on a regular basis. Jim had a parish to think about, with duties there that he wasn't prepared to entirely give up no matter how much he liked the new hunting concept. Singer was also just too set in his ways to walk away from his home and business to spend the rest of his life underground in a building full of Winchesters that tested his nerves on a good day.

Regardless, both men were immediately onboard.

They knew which hunters were doing the job full time and needed the support. They also had very strong opinions on how the job was being done and agreed that only a select group of hunters were going to be invited to join the organization. Other hunters with questionable ethics and the ones who did the job with a very apparent death wish were not going to be considered for membership since Henry was clear that he wouldn't fund reckless behavior that could get another killed.

Although he did consent that information in general be made available to all that called with questions.

Caleb, being the one among them with the most expertise in weaponry, was going to run the bunker's fairly exotic armory. He'd just about had a stroke when he was shown the collection the Men of Letter had amassed over time. Hunters already had their preferred weapons of course but the items in the bunker were more than a little out of the realm of the every day. Before any specialty item was loaned out to a trusted member Caleb was going to conduct a complete analysis of all contents and create a full catalog of the armory's potential specialties and capabilities.

Tolerance did have its limits, however, and the one hard and firm stipulation that Henry refused to negotiate on was his insistence that no one that did not currently carry the last name of Winchester was to be left alone in the bunker at any time. For his son's sake Henry was willing to go a little out on a limb, but it was going to be a very short tether.

John himself preferred to mostly stay out of the day-to-day operations for now. While it was all his idea and very important to him that something like Hunter Corp existed he was still too focused on his personal hunt to devote a lot of time away from it. As far as he was concerned he was more valuable to the community out in the field and doing the job. One day, after it was all over, he assured his skeptical father that he would come in and take his place at the head of a new combined organization which he hoped to make out of the Men of Letters American Chapter and Hunter Corp. A community that would incorporate the brains as well as the brawn under one roof.

Henry didn't really like the idea of outsiders running the ship, still being very much someone who looked down on hunters as nothing more than flannel wearing apes, but he also knew he risked alienating his only child even further if he refused John's request so he forced himself to consent. The integration between the Letters and hunters would obviously be frowned upon by the other MoL chapters worldwide once its existence was known, of that he was sure. However, since none of the other chapters had bothered to step in after the massacre and repopulate the American chapter, Henry felt comfortable with unilaterally deciding that they had lost their right to have a say in how he carried on the tradition.

He also knew enough about the other chapters to guess that the Brits would likely be the most vocal opponents, being the pompous gits that they were in the words of Millie's late grandfather. It was prudent for Henry to make it his first duty to watch their movements and be ready for them if they decided to kick up any kind of fuss about it. Traditionally the chapters had little involvement with each other, but one never knew when a pretentious upstart might get combative.

For now there was a lot of work to be done with getting Hunter Corp up and running. The network of information and resources that they were building were enough to change the entire face of how hunting was traditionally done and there wasn't a moment to lose when lives were at stake. With the radar providing exact information on threats, Singer and Murphy could coordinate and assign jobs in a much more efficient manner. Especially when it was likely that none of the hunters working with them would question the information or instructions after years of relying on the two men as reliable sources, and thus ensuring that no one outside the Winchesters and the trusted three would ever need to know about the bunker period.

With Jim Murphy only able to be away from his church one week per month, Singer and Dean would be doing most of the traveling back and forth, both now being based in Sioux Falls and two hours closer to the bunker than Jim was. Because Dean already had an established history of working at the salvage yard, no one was going to bat an eye seeing him there watching over the business when Bobby wasn't around. Especially since Bobby was still known to take the occasional hunt himself to keep in practice. It meant that the salvage man could spend more time at the bunker than he normally would have been able to otherwise. It also helped that the bunker had a switchboard that they rewired to mimic Bobby's home phone bank to cover law enforcement calls for pretexting hunters that he could field in Kansas, thus completing the illusion that he was still mostly in South Dakota.

A large part of the time Singer and Murphy worked in the bunker would be spent duplicating the various libraries and archives. The bunker had a huge resource section already, but the other hunters had some materials that would be a valuable addition too. Likewise, it was just good planning to have other copies of the bunker's lore books and materials squirreled away offsite as well.

Hunter Corp's first expenditure was several commercial grade copiers and cases of paper that were distributed to the bunker, the salvage yard and the rectory in Blue Earth, as well as new, state of the art computers for all locations. John was currently debating the merits of hiring Ash to be the company's IT guy but hadn't decided yet. He liked the kid well enough after everything he had done to help with Sam, but he didn't always get the feeling that the mullet sporting genius was exactly reliable.

Dean grudgingly agreed to spend some time playing copy boy at the salvage yard, but he also planned on starting his car restoration activities when he wasn't out hunting as well. Ordinarily John might have balked over his son spending more time working on cars than in the field if he wasn't also taking a short leave of absence from regular cases while he immersed himself in the bunker's archives. The amount of material that the Men of Letters had collected on demon-olgy and lore was absolutely stunning and it made John dizzy with possibilities that he'd only ever dreamed about. It was going to take some time to pour through it all but as far as he was concerned hunts could be done by others for the time being using the new resources available to them.

Not that John had ever been the type to consider himself more valuable than anyone else. It wasn't that he was offering other hunters up on a platter by declining to take cases as they came up. It was just a matter of allocating resources where they might be of best use and right now he considered the work he was doing in the archives to be even more important than field work. The knowledge that he now had access to could potentially save thousands of lives once he had ingested it all and then passed it on to others. More than he could ever do as a single hunter on the average case. It was simply a question of numbers.

It helped soothe his guilty conscience that Singer and Murphy didn't disagree with him. You could say a lot about John Winchester, but no one was ever going to deny that he was a top hunter. If he felt that the work he was doing at the bunker was that important then his friends were going to back his play.

Privately, Henry was thrilled. Having his son safe in the bunker instead of out on a hunt where anything could happen was worth all the concessions he was giving to create Hunter Corp in the first place. While it may make his other pursuits a little more tricky to handle, Henry was also fairly confident that John's focus would be on his research and not necessarily on what Henry was doing upstairs in the lab.

All in all, Hunter Corp was off to a good start.

/

A slight shifting of the bed was enough to wake Sam up from his post-coital haze.

The bright afternoon sun streaming in through the French patio doors that led from the master bedroom out to the backyard patio made him squint as he licked his dry lips and stretched. Turning his head on the plump, soft pillow to the left he could see the bare skin of Amanda's back, the Egyptian cotton sheet that covered them falling away when she reached over to the nightstand and grabbed a liter of Evian. She uncapped the bottle and took a large sip before laying back down against the headboard and offering it to him. He reached out to take it and greedily sucked down at least half of the contents, stopping only when he heard her laughter.

"My, what a thirsty boy you are," she teased, eliciting an embarrassed flush to his face as she turned to her side and began to trace lazy circles on the hard planes of his toned chest.

Sam closed his eyes and hummed agreeably, letting the sun's warm rays bathe his face. He lay still and quiet for a moment and then, without warning, reared up and grabbed Amanda by the shoulders and put her on her back as he straddled her. Dipping his head, he bared his teeth and began to nip a trail down her neck all the way to the dark brown nipple of her very firm left breast where he halted his travel south to give it his full attention. She moaned from the little shocks that the flicks of his tongue against the sensitive area sent through her and Sam smiled against her warm skin as he felt her fumbling to open the nightstand's drawer and pull another condom from her seemingly endless supply.

He obeyed quickly when she reached down to lightly smack his left buttock, her usual signal informing him that she wanted to drive, rolling off of her and onto his back. Already hard again, which wasn't exactly a tough challenge for an eighteen-year-old even if their last coupling had been less than a half hour ago, he lifted his arms to grab at the spindles of the headboard. Determined to last this time until they could climax together, he curled his fingers into a tight grip and focused while she smoothed the condom down over his erection and mounted him. With a quick, sultry raising of her left eyebrow, it was off to the races.

Amanda had a lot of rules in the bedroom. For a boy whose only other sexual experience had been with a sweet, young girl that wasn't particularly adventurous, most of what went on between Sam and his professor-slash-boss was positively eye-opening and thoroughly enjoyable. But other restrictions, like her hard and fast rule that he wasn't allowed to touch her while she was on top, which was by far her favorite position, made him frustratingly crazy.

He had rapidly discovered that he liked his sex a little on the rougher side but what happened between him and Amanda seemed more like something that was being done to him as opposed to with him. Don't get him wrong. Sam was very much a willing participant, even enjoying Amanda's in-charge attitude between the sheets to a certain extent, but he also would have preferred a little more time behind the wheel himself.

Although to be honest, Sam had a little bit of a strong, female authority figure kink.

It started a few years ago at a school in Dubuque, Iowa when a beautiful girl in his tenth grade biology class named Suzie Heizer had coerced the cute newcomer Sam to an 80's themed dance and dressed as the blonde from Van Halen's Hot For Teacher video. Strutting around in a white blouse and tiny black mini-skirt, Suzie spent the entire evening shimmying against Sam and playfully scolding him like an unruly student as she pulled him on and off the dance floor by the skinny tie that Dean dug up for him at a Goodwill.

All while he desperately tried to hide the growing tent in his pants that wanted to stay after class with her and put in some work for extra credit.

Still painfully shy, Sam didn't manage anything more that night than a quick goodnight peck on her cheek at the end of their date and a marathon shower back at their motel. After the dance there was only another week of anatomically suggestive flirting in class before his dad pulled them away to the next job, but even Dean had heard enough about Suzie Heizer to know that she was still the biggest sole contributor to Sam's spank bank.

So when Dr. Stilner took him by the hand and led him into her bedroom three weeks after he began working with her and ordered him to strip in a no-nonsense voice that went straight to his dick, he found himself complying without a moment of hesitation.

Of course there was a part of him that found the whole situation between them wrong. She was, after all, not only his professor but also his boss for as long as the research project went on. It was obviously more than borderline inappropriate on so many levels for her to expect that kind of performance by him and he was perfectly aware of that.

The simple fact of the matter was Sam just didn't care, no matter how much he knew he should.

In the lecture hall Amanda was Dr. Stilner. A complete professional when addressing him at all times and expecting nothing less from him than the respect that her position in the classroom entitled her to. Although the other students were well aware of Sam's special status as her research assistant there was never any indication that he was her favorite in any way. On the contrary, she was much more curt and demanding of Sam than any of his classmates, often throwing out obscure questions to him that none of the others had any chance of answering correctly. Sam himself, even having the advantage of working much more closely with her on their subject material than his peers, was usually only able to answer sufficiently about half the time.

What the other students didn't know about these random tests of knowledge was that they only took place on days when Sam was scheduled to work off campus at Dr. Stilner's home office.

Sam knew based on his classroom performance what kind of work atmosphere he was in for when he arrived at his mentor's Mission Revival home each work day.

An incorrect answer during a lecture meant a serious work session afterwards for Dr. Stilner, his very respected and exacting employer who barely interacted with him unless it was to give him a further assignment. There was no playful banter or stories about her travels gathering materials for her books over a cup of the Yaupon that Sam had acquired a fondness for and certainly no sex. Instead, he would be directed to the plain work space that had been set up for him in one of the smaller bedrooms and he would be expected to toil away on research for the required two hours on his own in silence. An experience that had Sam feeling like a naughty first grader being put in time-out.

A correct answer had an altogether much more pleasing result.

On those days the door to the home office would be answered by Amanda, the lithe and stunningly beautiful thirty-five year old author with as much enthusiasm and passion in the bedroom as she had for her research.

They did do actual work on those days as well, but Sam was allowed to join her in the open plan living room, heavy with the scent of ever-present burning incense, where she would have all of her materials spread about to organize them. There would be a lot of flirty discussions and overt touching as they passed files and books between them. As well as cups of the Yaupon that were often spiked with a little something sweet and alcoholic that Amanda would claim was to loosen Sam up a little more. Ultimately they would end up in the master bedroom where Sam would be instructed in far more than Native American lore and history.

The best days, the extremely rare ones, were the days when Sam's answer really impressed his professor.

Those were the days that no research work was done by them at all during their afternoon session together.

Dr. Stilner would tell him to stay after class, waiting for the last student besides himself to leave before Amanda would sidle up to Sam and whisper Good Boy in his ear. A breathy praise that stroked the need to excel part of his ego that had always had him striving for perfection. On those days Sam knew he could arrive at Amanda's house, the secretary dismissed for the day, and simply take his professor anywhere and anyhow he wanted her.

Amanda encouraged this behavior. Allowing Sam to indulge in every dirty fantasy he'd ever dreamed up from watching the endless hours of pay-per-porn that Dean purchased at their motels and left for his little brother to enjoy while the older Winchesters were out hunting. She gave him no instructions during these encounters. Simply dropping the robe she wore and laying back on the bed to give him free reign over her body to do as he pleased with her with absolutely no restrictions. Spurring on his creativity and mid-range depravity with raving affirmations of his impressive intellect and physical beauty. Her adoration pleasantly stirring the dark inner core of himself that liked the intoxicating feel of immense power after a lifetime of shyness and insecurity.

These days didn't happen all that often and while Sam thoroughly enjoyed them he also realized, after usually feeling like he was coming down from a high when they were done, that it was a bit like letting a dangerous tiger out of a cage. The more it happened, the harder it was getting to put the animal back inside when it was over.

A growing feeling that scared him more than a little.

/

The closer John got to his destination the more trepidation he was feeling. What used to feel like home to him had become somewhere that he would have avoided like the plague even if he was bleeding out.

Enough time had passed to eventually soften some of the wounds but they were too grievous to ever really be healed over. Truthfully, he was also painfully aware that he may never again feel like he was a wanted visitor there, but at least after the past year he also knew that he wouldn't be thrown out on his ass either.

It was a small victory.

Once upon a time it had been his standard venue both for recon and rest. Somewhere that he would drive hours or even days to reach when he needed help or simply to recharge. An oasis in a desert of crap. Then that last terrible hunt happened and he was once more cast adrift on his own, unable to face the fallout of the impossible choice he'd been forced to make. It wasn't only the loss of a good friend that John suffered. It was the loss of an entire support network that even a normally solitary hunter depended upon on occasion.

Meanwhile, although he had legitimate business there today for Hunter Corp, the real purpose of this trip was very, very personal.

The less than a two hour drive from the bunker was more than enough time to get his nerves worked up without the additional stimulants that came with the four cups of coffee he drank on the road. John was realistic enough to accept that the guilt that chewed him up inside every day wasn't going to be cured by what he was about to do, but if all went to plan then at least there was a chance that he might someday get to look his friend in the eye again when he passed this life. Assuming he was sent to the attic instead of the basement which was questionable for his afterlife on a good day.

There was no forgiveness possible for what had been done and John didn't actually expect any, but he was hoping to make some kind of amends.

At midday the parking lot of Harvelle's Roadhouse was practically barren. The hunter trade wouldn't be there until the evening and anyone inside now was most likely either a garden variety day drunk or a lost tourist who decided that the rundown structure was part of the local color. At least that's what he was hoping for anyway and why he had chosen to come at this time.

Talking to Ellen was going to be hard enough as it was. He certainly didn't need an audience.

Pulling into the dirt lot he shifted his truck into park and sat for a few minutes with his engine idling while he summoned up the courage to go inside. His brain attempted to reason with his nervously beating heart that Ellen had already allowed him in on a few occasions in the past year and incredibly offered more help and support with Sam than John had any right to expect. Confirming once again that she was a fine woman who could put aside her personal grievances if there were more pressing matters at hand. Something John had always known and admired about her and which only made his trespass against her even more egregious because he genuinely loved Ellen as a good friend.

As far as John was concerned there was no such thing as better times after Mary's death, so he couldn't accurately use the term to describe the relatively good hours he'd spent at the Roadhouse years ago. The closest description he could think of was temporary reprieve from shittier days. Way early on it was Ground Zero for his hunter training and where his children had spent a little time in Ellen's company while John was out learning the ropes. Long enough ago that neither of the boys had any recollection of the place to his knowledge.

After that it was where he drifted to after a bad hunt to get his head together until he felt rational enough to collect his kids from wherever he had stashed them for the duration of his absence. Far too many shots pounded back at the bar to drown out the memories of his latest nightmare hunt. Far too many faceless women pounded into a mattress in one of the back rooms to drown out the memories of his dead wife.

He would emerge the next morning, eyes bloodshot and head splitting, to take off for a run on the dirt paths between the neighboring cornfields until he sweated out some of the booze. By the time he returned Ellen would be up and at the grill flipping pancakes and eggs to fill his stomach and soak up the rest, a strong pot of coffee on the counter waiting to be drained. Didn't matter what hour John roused himself in the morning or how quiet he tried to be. He always managed to make it back at the exact moment that Ellen's hangover breakfast was ready.

The woman seemed to have a sixth sense when it came to the people around her and most definitely about John.

A fact that was proved once again when he saw her now exit the front door and stand on the porch eyeballing him while she calmly wiped out a beer glass with a dishtowel. John hadn't been there with the new truck yet and Ellen should have had no way of recognizing it, but somehow she always just knew. Giving him what could only be described as the facial version of the Mom voice, she cocked an eyebrow at him and jerked her head slightly in the direction of the door before heading back inside.

Not only a clear invitation to join her but an actual demand to do so when John might have lost his nerve and pulled right back out again. He smiled to himself and shook his head fondly before taking a deep breath, shutting off his truck and grabbing the two manila envelopes on the seat next to him.

As he suspected the place was practically empty. There were a couple of weathered men lounging at the far corner table, each with a half drunk pint glass in front of them. They both looked up when John entered, assessed him and then quickly lost interest. Either too hardened to be intimidated by his physical presence or just too old to care. Ellen was back behind the bar, a stack of empty bowls and a couple of large bags of pretzels in front of her that indicated she was refilling the snack bowls for the tables before the evening trade started to arrive. She didn't wait for John to walk over before grabbing a bottle of Jack and two shot glasses and filling them.

Sitting down on a bar stool with a deep sigh, John took the glass he was offered and raised it.

"To Bill."

A split second of pain pinched Ellen's eyes before she pushed it back and cleared her throat. She nodded once and then threw back the shot as John did and dropped the glass on the bar a little harder than probably intended.

"How're your boys?"

Studying his empty glass instead of looking at her, John allowed himself a small smile and rubbed the day's worth of scruff he had on his chin. Dean had checked in just before John left for the Roadhouse and assured his father that his youngest was healthy and happy.

"They're good," he said, quietly proud, his words bringing a soft smile to Ellen's face. "Jo?"

She chuckled, making John lift his eyes enough to see her fondly shake her head.

"That girl is doing her level best to cover my head in gray hair. My daddy would've run outta trees to make a switch if I got up to half the trouble Joanna Beth does."

John let out a genuine laugh at that remark. He remembered Ellen and Bill's little girl from a time when she was in pigtails. Raising havoc in the Roadhouse and making Ellen's voice go up two octaves from all the scolding. She had Bill wrapped around her little finger though. Sweet as sugar and all love and cuddles when her daddy was around.

The memory sobered him a little and Ellen poured another round when she saw the look in John's eyes.

"What can I do you for today, John?"

He took the offered shot and knocked it back, relishing the familiar burn down his throat. The conversation was going to take a little liquid courage and he knew that Ellen with her sixth sense had already figured that much out for herself.

"Well, I need to have a little talk with Ash," he started, working up the nerve. "But it's really you I wanted to see."

With that he slid the two envelopes across the bar towards her and nodded to indicate that she open them. The one on top had her name on it so she picked it up and slid the blade of her pocket knife under the sealed flap. With John watching her with obvious anticipation on his face she reached in and drew out a check made out to her.

For a second her eyes grew wide as she read it and then she looked up to give John a disbelieving stare. "What is this?"

"Not even close to what I owe you," he answered quietly. "That's a debt that can never be repaid. This is just a little something for you to fall back on. Maybe take Jo away somewhere and live a quieter life if you want. Or build a couple more of these places if that's your fancy. It's whatever you want it to be, Ellie."

Stunned, she put down the check and opened the envelope with Jo's name on it. Reaching in she pulled out a few pages of legalese that she thought she might be misreading at first.

"It's a trust fund for Jo," John confirmed. "So she has choices."

Ellen exhaled a deep breath and couldn't seem to make herself put the documents down. This was the absolute last thing she expected from John Winchester and right about now the tough-as-nails barkeep could be knocked over with a feather. All of a sudden her mind was spinning with possibilities even if she wasn't quite convinced that John was on the level with her. Hunters never had money like this legitimately.

"This isn't about making us square, " John clarified as he spun his shot glass in his fingers nervously. "I'm not trying to cheapen Bill's memory by suggesting that it does. But the truth is I can't change what happened, even though I wish every day that I could. I just know that he would want me to make sure you and Jo were taken care of. I'm only sorry it took so long."

For a moment Ellen just stood there and assessed him with an indescribable look on her still attractive face. The years that had passed since they were both much younger hadn't really left too much of a mark on her beauty. The wavy chestnut hair that Bill had lovingly stroked every time he and John returned from a hunt was even more voluminous than it had been in her younger years. Framing her soft features like a halo and accentuating her liquid brown eyes. A lesser woman would have wilted away from the heartbreak she suffered and the rough life she led, but not Ellen. She was a real woman of substance.

She reached out now to gently grasp John's hand to stop him from spinning the glass, a tear trickling down her face. "I forgave you for that a long time ago, John," she insisted when he looked away in shame. "I think it's time you forgive yourself."

The look he gave her was enough to convince Ellen that her suggestion wasn't likely to happen any time soon. Not that she was surprised. John Winchester routinely carried the weight of the world on his shoulders and it wasn't as if she herself hadn't repeatedly damned him in her heart and mind for years after Bill's death. He might never let himself be absolved of what happened on the last terrible hunt.

"How did this happen?" she asked, clearing her throat to change the subject and holding the documents out to him. "You win the lottery or something?"

That at least brought out a small chuckle as he showed her a hint of dimpled smile. "It's a very long story, but I assure you the money's clean."

John was a skilled liar. Most hunters were and the ones that weren't got dead real quick, so Ellen had learned long ago to tell the difference. However he'd managed to acquire this kind of cash really was legitimate and after everything he wasn't likely to expose either of the Harvelle ladies to more hardship. But clearly he wasn't talking about it and she knew that once in a while you just didn't look for teeth in a gift horse. So she'd just take it like she knew Bill would have wanted her to.

Very deliberately she gathered up the envelopes and brushed away another stray tear from her face. She needed some personal time to process this unexpected turn of events.

"Dr. BadAss is in," she told John with a hitch in her throat. "Why don't you go wake his ass up while I get these things in the safe?"

John smiled, allowing a tiny peep of dimples to poke out from under his scruff. He knew a dismissal when he heard one so he stood from his stool, gave her a parting nod and turned to make his way towards the back rooms where he'd spent far too much time over the years.

/

Miles Carter Ashley was a genius.

He was also an idiot, but that appellation was more an expression of frustration by the recipients of one of his many practical jokes instead of a commentary on his intellect.

Born the son of a coal miner father and a store clerk mother in Mannington, West Virginia, Miles was also the type of kid that made everybody want to take him by the shoulders and shake the sense that the good Lord gave right into him. He had a scary high IQ and it became apparent early on that school just bored him. But because his humble parents had no idea what to do with a son that could already do complicated mathematical equations by the time other kids were just learning to tie their shoes, more often than not they let Miles create his own entertainment.

An unfortunate decision because a child genius could be very creative indeed.

Miles spent more time in the principal's office than he ever did in the classroom. He wasn't trying to hurt anyone with his pranks, he just liked to see their reactions. The same kid that rigged an air horn under the seat of the principal's secretary and nearly gave her a heart attack when she sat down was also the one who volunteered to fix her antiquated desktop computer when it had her practically crying with frustration.

He didn't fit in with the bullies in the school because he wasn't one himself. At first they thought he was, because he genuinely liked to mess around with people, but when they realized that he wasn't going to be mean about it they targeted him as well. It was a stupid mistake on their part because every beating he took from them resulted in often costly non-physical payback that no one could pin on Miles no matter how hard they tried. Of course most bullies aren't particularly bright, so they never really learned to just leave him alone in the first place.

The student athletes didn't like him much either. Something that was bound to happen when you rewired the scoreboard to give all the touchdowns to the visiting rivals or streaked naked across the field at halftime during the biggest football game of the season. You don't mess with the Friday night lights in West Virginia.

During his early teenage years Miles developed a habit of slinking around one of the town's bars. He was obviously way too young to be in there, but he played a decent game of pool that the paying customers liked to bet on and the bartenders turned a blind eye as long as he wasn't trying to get served. Pool is ultimately all physics and geometry so it was no wonder that Miles had some skill. Not that anyone ever really shared much of their winnings with him even though he was the one sinking all the balls. Just a few bucks occasionally with the stingier gamblers thinking it was good enough to sneak him a beer here and there.

Miles was still just a kid and not particularly good at money management or sobriety, so whatever pittance he won playing pool got blown immediately. Usually on dime bags of the regionally grown pot that was available pretty much everywhere. The beers he was given, and the half-drunk ones he stole when no one was looking, were also turning him into more of a brawler as he grew up. Bars could get rough after patrons had a few too many and Miles was a smart ass who provoked the more ornery ones way too easily.

It wasn't unusual for fists to fly when the right people were over-served.

Ultimately, there was only so much pushing and shoving one could take before you started to fight back though. Miles was small and wiry but he was getting better at giving punches instead of just taking them.

After close to a year of betting, drinking and fighting, the boy's time at the bar came to an abrupt end one night when the cost of damages from the latest scuffle exceeded the business his pool game prowess brought in. With the bartender finally fed up, Miles was summarily booted out the door into the downpour of a mid-summer storm but not before he snagged a bottle of tequila from the shelf on his way out. Ignoring the pounding rain he ambled his way drunkenly through town and up a small rise, taking pulls directly from the bottle as he went. At the crest of the hill he glared up at the night sky and rage screamed for five solid minutes, daring whatever higher power was up there to "take your best shot, asshole!"

No one was more surprised than Miles was when the lightning struck.

A sizzling bolt came straight for him on that hill, ripping through his body and shattering the tequila bottle as he gripped it in his right hand. The pain was excruciating but somehow it didn't stop his heart. He lay in a dazed kind of agony for a few minutes, maintaining enough of his mental faculties to remind himself that only ten percent of people struck by lightning actually die from it and wondering if he was going to be one of them. As time passed and he appeared to keep breathing, he methodically assessed his physical injuries as much as his boozed addled mind would allow and let a wave of regret pass over him from the loss of the tequila that was now also soaking the ground beneath him.

Miraculously he managed to make it home that night and he spent the next week in supreme pain as the skin of his back blistered and bloomed into a picture perfect Lichtenberg figure. Literally scarred for life, it was then that Miles decided he had real beef with God.

Getting caught ripping off the poor box of one of the local churches for a 12-pack of PBR got him a month in Juvie three days after his sixteenth birthday. It was the pastor that finally put an end to some of Miles' out of control shenanigans. Miles' father had passed away the previous year after losing a particularly aggressive battle with lung cancer. His mother was too busy trying to keep the lights on to pay attention to the son who'd been nothing but a source of irritation to his parents. Pastor Smith could see the boy rapidly spiraling downward and decided that someone needed to take an interest.

He was the one who finally got the school counselor to understand just how scary bright the boy was. More than just the town pest that he'd been classified as for far too long. Between the two of them they got Miles to settle down some, his time in Juvie helping to alter his overall behavior. Miles wasn't exactly scared straight or anything drastic like that, but he didn't particularly enjoy it either.

The combined efforts of the only two people who had ever really put some effort into understanding Miles slowly cleaned him up enough to turn his academic record around and ultimately get him an interview with a recruiter from MIT. It took some pretty slick convincing on the part of the recruiter who saw a spark in the oddball kid but eventually Miles was awarded a full scholarship to one of the top institutions in the entire country. Something that left the rest of the residents of the small town in shock considering that most of them were convinced that he was going to wind up dead in a ditch someday.

No one was more happy than Miles was to get on a bus for Cambridge and leave Mannington behind in the dust.

For the first time in his life he was actually challenged in a classroom setting. Miles loved the work he was doing and it opened his eyes up to so much possibility that he had trouble containing his excitement. Things would have been fine if he'd just been left alone to his own devices to explore and research and take the opportunity to grow as a person.

Luck never really holds though, and unfortunately for him he found out pretty quickly that people were shitty all over. Because it was clear early on that he had a natural intellectual gift that allowed him to sail through materials that most of his fellow students struggled with, it wasn't long before the jealousy started. The other kids at MIT were obviously no slouches in the brain department either, but most of them had to work hard to keep up with the challenging curriculum there. It was almost offensive to them that a backwater stoner could immediately grasp concepts that eluded them. Miles was unfairly looked down on as nothing more than an interloping country redneck. Openly mocked for his drawl and sleeveless band shirts and his insistence on sporting a hairstyle that was ridiculous fifteen years earlier when everyone seemed to have one.

For a while he found refuge with a group of like-minded boys who were steadily hacking their way through some of the world's most secure servers. They were happy to teach someone like Miles all the tricks they'd acquired along the way and he was happy to introduce them to a more entertaining way of living by scoring beer and blunts to encourage his new buddies to chill out once in a while.

It was in that little circle of friends that Miles finally dropped his detested first name altogether and became Ash. A name that sounded a little more badass than Miles which made one think of a scrawny little virgin with glasses. Some who didn't really know him might have assumed that it was just a nickname derived from a shortening of his surname Ashley, but really it came from his talent in sourcing premium weed for his buddies.

Ash was happier in Cambridge than he had ever been before but it didn't change who he was fundamentally. There was always going to be a large part of him that was lazy, mischievous and bristled when provoked. A persistent problem which wasn't helped any by the financial aid stipend he'd been awarded that gave him ready access to cash to pay for alcohol that was easy to get even if he was still under-aged. The change in geography also wasn't going to magically dissolve the Sequoia sized chip on his shoulder that he carried around after a lifetime of feeling neglected and inadequate.

The increase in his drinking perfectly paralleled the increase in his fighting. Mostly with his fellow students but sometimes with his professors which really didn't go over well at all. He was a clearly bright and talented young man so he was given more chances to shape up than he probably should have been, but his luck couldn't hold out forever.

It wasn't necessarily a shock when MIT was finally forced to kick him out after yet another fight with a staff member.

That was the end of his official academic career. From there Ash started to wander, surfing on every couch that his computer hacker buddies owned before growing tired of the Boston area when he was no longer a student with a chance to make something out of himself.

He hitchhiked his way down the Northeast coast, ending up at some point in New York City. With enough in his bank account from his student loans to scrape by for a while if he was careful, he crashed at the Y and lived on cheap slices of pizza and started designing his own computer. In the beginning he spent most of his time on the lower east side of Manhattan hanging out with students from Cooper Union and NYU that were mutual friends of his buddies from MIT. They helped him with access to lecture halls, where he sat in on the occasional class that interested him, and time in the computer labs honing his skills. He also got recommendations from them about a couple of hole-in-the-wall places on Canal Street for parts to build his rig.

When he wasn't working on his rig he was hitting up the local music scene and catching a set by one of the thousand classic rock cover bands that seemed to pop up everywhere like weeds. That was fun for a couple of months until his money finally started to run out and he was about to be out on the street. Fortunately for him the lead singer of one of the less talented bands he followed took pity on him and invited Ash to crash at his place in Queens for as long as he wanted. The guy couldn't carry a tune in a bucket if his life depended on it, but he had a nice place and steady supply of pot that he was happy to share with his house guest.

Something that didn't come as a surprise to Ash since he'd only started going to the shows because of the easy contact high he got from the other attendees.

As good as the set-up was, it was only so long before he began to get restless again. A friend of his host had a band of their own that was about to leave on a cross country tour and needed a couple of strong backs to haul equipment around. The job didn't pay much, they never did at this level, and the venues were going to be in mostly smaller, rural towns but Ash decided that he'd taken a big enough bite out of the Big Apple and climbed aboard the tour bus.

That was how he spent the next three years of his life.

It was an endless stream of low level gigs. Smokey bars with sticky floors populated with drunks who got a little wild with enough liquid courage running through their systems. When he wasn't humping gear around Ash slept all day and spent his nights drinking, toking and fucking his way through the towns that time forgot. Most of the people that met him along the way wrote him off as nothing more than an unambitious bum with a bad sense of humor.

But still waters run very deep.

By this point his rig was long finished and his skills had flourished. He could have easily set himself up for life with a few keystrokes but it was wealth he didn't need. He liked his life just the way it was. Simple, uncomplicated. Of course his talents didn't go completely to waste. The pastor of the church that he had robbed years earlier received a generous and anonymous endowment that would ensure it's continuity for years to come. The school counselor that got him into MIT was given stewardship over a scholarship program for promising but underprivileged kids in their hometown. A mystery benefactor paid off the mortgage of his mother's house.

Ash himself floated along from one place to the next. Never worrying about anything more pressing than the next gig.

Until that night in Atlantic, Iowa.

What started out like any other set took an entirely unexpected turn when the lights in the bar started to flicker and the temperature dropped twenty degrees in less than a second. You could easily tell that most of the patrons knew that something wasn't right but had no idea exactly what was happening and they just looked at each other in a confused kind of helplessness. It wasn't until the screaming started that Ash saw them begin to understand that shit was about to get real.

Growing up in West Virginia everyone had heard about the Mothman at one time or another. In fact the whole state was lousy with reported paranormal activity. The ghostly towns hit heavy with battle and death during the Civil War. Haunted prisons and insane asylums. Spooky college campuses and hotels. Every old busybody in his hometown had a story to share over a cup of coffee at the local diner about something they swore they personally witnessed.

So it wasn't a hard stretch for him to believe that it was all real. Especially when he was watching a shadowy fist rip a man's heart out at a corner table next to the stage.

In the midst of all the screaming, people were scurrying like rats trying to get out of the doors that wouldn't open even though they weren't locked. Partially in shock, Ash stood in the middle of the room, not even able to move a muscle when a wispy figure of a woman wearing a fifties style cocktail dress, her skull partially caved in, came zooming towards him.

Not exactly the kind of situation you find yourself in every day. Between the petrified cries that were echoing around him from the people who were simply unable to process the inexplicable horror they were witnessing and the shivers running through his thin frame that rivaled anything outdoors that Mother Nature had been throwing at them lately, Ash simply froze.

His unimpressive life flashing before his eyes right before a large crowbar came swishing through the air and sliced the woman in half before she disappeared.

It was the coolest thing he'd ever seen.

Without even thinking about it he held out his hand for the crowbar, surprised when it was given to him, and then jumped right into the fight.

She showed up a couple of more times and each time Ash was there to hack at her with blunt force cruelty. His swing would have rivaled any pro golfer at that moment because it was amazing how calculated you could manage to be when your life was literally on the line. Across the room, the man who had given him the crowbar was now armed with something that looked like a poker for a fireplace and a large metal tin of coarse grain salt which Ash raised an eyebrow at but didn't question. The few times the spectral woman appeared closer to the mystery man, he not only slashed at her but showered her with salt as well.

Giving a whole new use to seasoning that Ash certainly never would have thought of.

Between the two of the them they kept her at bay and out of peoples' chests right up until her last appearance when she appeared to burn up, screaming as she disappeared in a shower of sparks and flames.

Experiencing that kind of thing was not something that you just let go.

Ash was hooked, plain and simple, and he wanted to know more. The next day, once he'd sobered up from the enormous quantity of alcohol he'd needed to imbibe before being able to sleep, he fired up his rig and delved as deeply as he could into the world of the supernatural. He surfed around for hours, discarding the obvious fraud sites, until finally coming across multiple references to similar events. He cross-referenced the names of people mentioned, mostly obvious aliases, and hacked his way to their real identities until he had records of them all at some point congregated at the same place.

Deciding that his life on the road had come to an end he immediately grabbed his stuff from the tour bus, before wishing his buddies farewell and then climbing onto a Greyhound heading for Nebraska.

Miles Carter Ashley might not have believed in God before his introduction to the hunting world, but Someone sure got him to the Roadhouse just in time to help John Winchester keep his son safe from demons.

And when John showed up one day and offered him a job as IT man for a hunter network, where Ash could use his considerable skills to help save lives on a regular basis, he knew he'd been led to Nebraska for a reason.

Maybe it was time to make up with his creator.

/

Dean had taken two scalding hot showers since finishing the hunt with his father in Fort Collins, Colorado. Realistically he knew that both his body and his clothing were squeaky clean by now, but there was something about taking out a handful of ghouls that made him still feel absolutely skeevy long after any trace of their ick swirled down the shower drain of his hotel bathroom.

He had been making his way back to the bunker after a quick visit to check on his little brother when he got the call to meet up with his dad. Laying eyes personally on the kid had lessened the guilt that came with being preoccupied over everything that had been going on the last few weeks, and neither he nor their father had been able to make the time to take the trip all the way out to Cali any sooner. Sammy was fine, of course, according to the reports that came in like clockwork from the hunters keeping watch over him, but now that his anger at his sibling had all but dissipated there were going to be times when Dean just needed to see for himself.

Dressing up as inconspicuously as possible, Dean had quietly slipped onto campus four evenings ago and patiently hid in the shadows until his little brother appeared in the courtyard right on schedule. The kid looked well enough from the short distance between them as he chatted animatedly on his phone. A little too much on the thin side for Dean's comfort, but certainly healthy and energetic.

As desperate as Dean was to barrel into the courtyard and physically bundle Sam into the rental car that Dean was driving in order to avoid unwanted attention with the Impala and just take the boy home with him, he couldn't make himself do it.

Sam's continued estrangement from their family was probably the biggest bone of contention that existed right now between the other Winchesters, and considering everything that the three men had on their plate at the moment, that was really saying something. Henry certainly had an exceptionally dedicated interest in gathering their entire little family together under the protective roof of the bunker and he took every opportunity to say it. While assuring Dean about how happy he was to be getting to know his eldest grandchild, Henry wasn't the least bit quiet about his desire to meet John's other son as well. Which was understandable considering how much he and Sam were likely to have in common.

This was only becoming a problem because Dean had mistakenly been under the impression that his father, the man who had all but ordered Sammy out of their lives for good, would share his opinion that the youngest Winchester was right where he should be for the time being.

Sure, things had changed drastically for their family and Sam had every right to know about it, but after seeing his little brother happy and thriving at school during his trip out to Stanford right after Henry's appearance, Dean continued to strongly feel that Sam needed to be the one to decide to come back on his own. Without the pressure of extenuating circumstances that might ultimately be enough to convince him into giving up the life free from hunting that the boy had always wanted.

Not having his kid brother around was often physically painful for him, but Dean also loved Sammy more than anything in the world and sometimes you made huge personal sacrifices if you felt it was in the best interests of the people who were the most important to you. Nothing would have made him happier than to have his little geek boy's shaggy head riding shotgun in the Impala again, but it wasn't what he thought was best for Sam.

Clearly Henry disagreed, raising the point that it wasn't fair to Sam to keep his grandfather's unexpected reappearance and the huge shift in their family's fortunes a secret from him.

But Dean knew Sam better than anyone else and wouldn't be swayed from his position that Sam would be unjustly persuaded to give up his dreams of a safer life away from his hunter family. He could easily see Sam returning to the fold because he felt he had to and not because he necessarily wanted to. Sammy would be excited, no doubt, about all the news. He might even be happy about coming home to them at the beginning. But after a while, once the novelty started to wear off and the reality that they were still hunters at the end of the day set in, he'd regret giving up his chance at school.

The protective older brother hadn't come to this conclusion lightly, especially after everything that had happened since the day the Winchesters moved into the little house in Sioux Falls. Partly because he assumed that John agreed with him on this issue since his father hadn't immediately taken off for Stanford to pack his kid up and drag him home like he would have normally done if he felt strongly about it.

So he was more than taken aback when his father brought the subject up at the last dinner they were sharing together after the ghoul hunt before splitting up.

It was their first job together since the framework of Hunter Corp started to be put into place and John was determined that they get off on the right foot immediately using their new resources. Instead of their usual no-tell motel for their base, Dean had received a text message from his father instructing him to meet up at the very nice Marriott in Fort Collins.

They already knew what the job was thanks to the radar at the bunker giving them the exact details of the type of creature they were hunting and precisely where they were located. A far cry from the not-so-distant days of hitting the pavement for clues before sussing it all out. A pack of ghouls was something that John could have easily handled himself, even without knowing exactly how many he was dealing with. In good spirits for a change, John managed to barely suppress a snicker at the look of disgust on Mrs. Butters face when she relayed the information to him. The very proper wood-nymph not shy about her low opinion for the dead flesh eaters.

There was a more than likely chance to get relatively dirty because the ghouls were filthy creatures that had to be caught in the act. Because John and Dean needed to be sure they were getting the right monsters before blowing their heads off, so they would also need a base with fairly discrete first floor entrances. The Marriott, while a standard mid-range chain hotel that had all the necessary amenities, also had two less used rear entrances with fast access to the elevators so John and Dean could come and go with relatively few observers. It was simple for them to slip in through one of the back doors with their key cards and head quickly for their rooms to clean up after the ghouls had been almost effortlessly dispatched.

After the first long hot shower for each and a change of clothes, the two hunters met up again downstairs in the onsite Copper Creek Restaurant to share a meal together and a few drinks. Their waiter was a boy around Sammy's age and similar in looks. Maybe slightly older because there were no issues about him serving them the bottles of El Sol that they ordered, but still obviously young. It didn't help either Winchester to not think of their own kid so far away.

For a few minutes the men drank in companionable silence, giving passing attention to the basketball game that was playing on the flat screen TV hanging on the wall across from their table. It was only after their appetizers were served, shrimp cocktail for John and Buffalo wings (hold the veggies) for Dean, that John broached the sensitive topic.

"It's time for Sammy to come home."

Dean just about choked on the spicy flat he was gnawing on like a hungry chipmunk. It had been less than a month and a half since John had sent him to see Sam for the first time at school with very clear instructions to avoid doing exactly what he was now proposing. Across the table his father was using one of the colossal shrimp to scoop up a large dollop of cocktail sauce before popping the whole thing in his mouth, the matter-of-fact look on his face a sign that he wasn't expecting his words to be taken as a suggestion.

Dropping the half eaten wing back onto his plate, Dean wiped his saucy fingers with one of the Wet-Naps that he'd been given and then took a sip of his beer.

"No."

John's eyebrows raised almost comically high as he shot his son a glare. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me, Dad," Dean said quietly but firmly. "Sammy stays where he is. He's happy and you've been telling me for months that he's safe. So unless you were shining me on about that, there's no need to pull him away from there now."

Assessing the occupants of the tables around them John took a deep breath to calm himself because he wasn't about to start a brawl with his son in a public restaurant no matter how much Dean was pissing him off right now. He had been expecting his firstborn to be over the moon with his decision, not to fight him over it.

"I don't like your tone, Son."

Dean felt the involuntary warmth of his face flushing from the reprimand, but he wasn't planning on backing down. This was a problem he'd been wrestling with himself for months and it had taken the strength of lions to head out of Palo Alto the other day and leave his kid behind for the second time. He wasn't about to let his father screw up Sammy's chance at happiness.

"I'm sorry sir," he apologized, squaring his shoulders and looking John in the eye. "I don't mean to be disrespectful, but Sammy needs to stay in school. It's what's best for him."

"I'll decide what's best for my son," John snapped, his back up and getting defensive. "When you have kids of your own, you can make the decisions. Until then you shut your mouth and do what you're told!"

Dean recoiled like he'd been slapped and he clamped his mouth firmly closed before he said something he would regret. His father's words hurt in more ways than one but he wasn't about to give John the satisfaction of seeing them break him. If the argument between them had been about something that Dean wanted for himself he would have already caved by now and dropped it entirely. But this was for Sam and Dean always managed to have just a little more fight in him when it came to his baby brother's needs and happiness.

With his hand shaking a little, either from nerves or rage or maybe a combination of both, Dean took another swig of his beer just as the young waiter arrived with their entrees. Father and son stared at each other in a silent detente as Not-Sam placed a plate of beef medallions with mashed potatoes and onion straws in front of John and a NY Strip with cheddar mash and arugula in front of Dean. The frightened look on the boy's face showed that he realized he'd interrupted something tense between two very scary looking men so he offered them another round of drinks and fled as quickly as he could.

Dean finished draining his first beer and shoved the empty bottle aside, fortifying himself before addressing his father's earlier remark.

"Look me in the eye and tell me that this has nothing to do with locking Sam up in the bunker until you're sure he's not evil, and I'll get in the truck with you right now and go get him."

No one else would have caught the minute flinch that John's right hand gave before he picked up his fork and and knife and began cutting his meat. But Dean wasn't anyone else. John was the one who taught him to look for tells and nervous behavior and Dean knew his father better than anyone on Earth.

"Don't be ridiculous," John scolded as he took a bite of a medallion and then a drink of his beer. "Sam's had his fun and now it's time to come back home where he belongs. You heard your grandfather. Sam should know him and be a part of what we're doing."

Dean took a sad look at the perfectly cooked steak in front of him, sorry that he no longer had the appetite to eat it. Nothing like having his father straight up lie to him to upset his stomach.

"You sure this has nothing to do with the dungeon with the built-in devil's trap that we found last week?" he continued, a small flash of satisfaction running through him from watching John's face tighten a fraction. "It doesn't have you thinking that maybe we could set up a bed in there for Sam until you can figure what makes him tick?"

"Jesus, Dean," John sighed as he threw his napkin on the table. "What exactly do you think of me?"

"Tell me I'm wrong, Dad," Dean pressed, his chest pounding with a crushing weight of worry for his family. Wanting his father to deny his darkest suspicions. "Tell me that you want Sammy to come home because you love him and miss him and not because you want to lock him up so he doesn't go dark side."

John heaved in a deep breath as he rubbed his face with his hands and felt about twenty years older than he was. He knew the things he had done to his kids, as well as the things he hadn't done for them. John wasn't about to try and pretend that Dean's lack of faith in him wasn't at least partially justified, but the kid was way off the mark here.

"You're wrong, Son," he answered finally before taking a long swallow of his second beer. "You want the truth? Here it is. Of course I worry about your brother crossing a line someday. We have no idea of knowing for sure why the Demon did what it did to him or what it might turn him into."

Dean sucked in a quick breath that had John trying to suppress another flinch, his eyes flaring open in shock at his father's admission. Only holding his tongue when John held up his hand to indicate that he wasn't finished.

"But it's not any different from how I worry about whether or not he gets sick or...or hurt out there when we're not around to take care of him," John continued. "Or how I worry about you when you're out hunting with someone besides me. Or you dying of a heart attack before you're forty because I can't get you to eat a damn salad. You two boys are my children, Dean. There will never come a time when I don't worry about either of you. Let me finish," he snapped when Dean opened his mouth again to interrupt.

"Yeah, I want Sam in the bunker," John admitted, his voice loud enough to get a weird look from the table next them that had him sighing and lowering it again. "Not even going to deny it. Hell, if I thought I could get you to agree to it then I would want you locked in there too so I could keep you both safe forever. But that's not the reason I want him to come home. That's the truth."

John was breathing heavily by the time he finished his little speech. His obvious distress making Dean look down at his plate and poke at his lukewarm food as he processed his father's words. After so many years of reading the man he saw as an idol, he knew without a doubt that John hadn't been lying just now. Although Dean wasn't going to feel guilty about wanting to protect his brother, he was starting to feel more than a little bit of shame for not even trying to see the situation with Sam from his father's perspective.

Dean had helped raise Sam, that much wasn't in question by any of the Winchesters, but he'd always had John to fall back on when things got really rough. Ready and able to hand over the reins to his father when the responsibility became too heavy. And while Sammy may have always relied on his big brother more, Dean knew exactly how much their dad loved his youngest son.

"Does this count as salad?" he asked, raising a forkful of the braised arugula from his plate and quirking an eyebrow at John before shoving it into his mouth and swallowing with a grimace.

John chuckled quietly and took the peace offering for what it was. "It does today, kiddo. Finish your dinner and I might even let you have some pie."

Mutually calling a ceasefire, both of them backed down and although the tension didn't fully leave the air while they slowly ate their meals, afterwards Dean did get his pie.

Over a slice of chocolate pecan for him and cherry for his father, with a snifter of top-shelf brandy each that had them both enjoying the finer things, John made his firstborn a promise. He was still going to head out to California and see for himself whether or not Sammy was better off at school. That part wasn't negotiable. But he was going to take a pause, evaluate the situation as fairly as he could and give careful consideration before making any final decisions about upsetting the apple cart and dragging the kid home.

It wasn't a guarantee that the youngest Winchester was going to be allowed to stay, but it was at least a chance.

After breakfast together the next morning John hugged his son tightly and took off for California. Dean had planned to head back to the bunker to check-in, but as he cruised along I-80E he found himself speeding past the exit for 10S that would take him to Lebanon and kept heading east. He was kind of on an actual work schedule now that gave him personal time off and he didn't really have an official reason to be there. It was Jim Murphy's week to run point for the handful of hunters who were already on staff and Bobby was back in Sioux Falls watching the salvage yard and working on the copies of his library.

No one was going to stop him from heading in, of course, whether he was there to work or not. Henry would be over the moon to see him stop by for any reason and Dean had been trying to make an effort to get to know his grandfather better. But after the last few days, first with checking on Sammy and then hunting and fighting with his father, Dean just wanted a little time away from Winchester family drama.

He wasn't sure where he was headed. He just felt like driving.

Caleb was supposed to be at his place in Lincoln, gathering some of his own lore books to bring back for the collection, so eventually Dean decided to detour there and give him a hand. Although he probably should have called first considering he found the house empty and realized it was likely that they passed each other on the road. A quick call to Henry confirmed that Caleb had already made it back to the bunker and was deep in research. Henry also assured him that there were no active hunts that weren't already assigned to other hunters and advised that his grandson take the downtime while he could and enjoy it.

Usually Dean would stay with Caleb while he was in Lincoln and he hadn't really planned on anything else. He knew that his friend wouldn't mind if Dean crashed there and got some shuteye for a few hours even if he wasn't home himself, but before Dean conked out he got a craving for a box of his very favorite doughnuts from a place downtown that he made sure to hit up every time he was in the area. It wasn't a particularly convenient place for a doughnut shop and parking was a bitch, but they were sooo worth it. A few minutes later he was cruising through the busy traffic and luckily managed to find a spot that wasn't a terrible place to leave his baby for the few minutes it would take to get some sugary goodness.

The line was pretty long once he was finally inside.

He growled a little under his breath and checked his watch, scowling when he noted how late in the day it was. But to be fair the place was open twenty-four hours a day and it looked like the racks of doughnuts had just been recently refilled so the timing could have been worse. Everything smelled so good and he was simply unable to decide between them all when he finally reached the counter. Eventually he just ordered three dozen of the little beauties as well as a large coffee, ignoring the nagging voice in the back of his head that sounded too much like his little brother's exasperation over Dean's sugar addiction. Before he was even out of the store he had a large maple bacon puff in his mouth, happily chomping and emitting sounds of pleasure that were probably too graphic for a public sidewalk.

As he walked back to the car a thought occurred to him.

There was no real reason to camp out at Caleb's house.

For the first time in his life Dean had serious plastic in his wallet that didn't come with the nerve wracking risk of getting rejected. One of the perks of having a premier account with the shadow bankers was their positively sublime customer service. While setting everything up with the accounts and trusts in Chicago Henry and John had taken advantage of a routine courtesy for account holders that entitled them to guaranteed fast-track membership with the elite credit card companies that had special arrangements with the bankers.

It was one of those things that you didn't question. You just enjoyed it.

After their return from the Chicago trip, John had handed Dean a black AmEx Centurion card. The titanium rectangle with practically limitless spending power that Dean had heard rumors about but never expected to see in person, and certainly not in his name. There were rules for having it of course, because his father didn't want Dean attracting any unnecessary attention with overly wanton spending, but as long as he used the card responsibly it was his. It was a family membership card attached to John's own bank account, with one for Sam too should he ever come back to them, and Dean was authorized to charge up to a rather generous amount each month that his father would personally cover.

Dean hadn't even begun to get used to a more financially secure life. Old habits were definitely going to be hard to break after years of living hand to mouth, but it was time that he started to try.

Across the street from where he had parked the Impala was an Embassy Suites hotel. He'd heard of the chain before but obviously had never stayed in one. Anything that had furniture less than twenty years old in the rooms was generally out of the price range for the Winchesters. The Marriott he had stayed in the previous evening with his dad was probably the nicest hotel he'd ever been in and he'd been so upset by his fight with John that he hadn't even enjoyed it.

Tonight, he decided, was just for himself.

Parking was in a garage attached to the hotel by a closed-in walkway suspended across the road. Thankfully he didn't need to valet park because he didn't like strangers getting their grubby mitts on his baby. The walkway took him to the lobby next to an enormous open atrium dotted with couches, tables and rock waterfalls. There were several people seated or milling about carrying drinks and small plates of food. Always observant, he took in his surroundings first before cautiously making his way over to the sign for Registration.

Dean hadn't planned on doing anything out of the ordinary during this trip so he wasn't exactly dressed up. He did have some nicer clothes that he bought to help blend in at Stanford when checking on Sammy, but today he was wearing his favorite pair of worn jeans with fraying holes in both of the knees, a flannel covering his charcoal gray Henley under his dad's old leather jacket and his steel toed boots. With his Army surplus duffel swung over his shoulder, he didn't exactly scream businessman or family man.

The woman behind the registration desk was fixated on her computer and barely noticed him when he stepped up. She was radiating the air of someone who was about twenty minutes away from finishing her shift for the day, so he leaned over and gave her his best smile.

"Hi."

The perfunctory tapping on her keyboard stopped long enough to acknowledge him, her demeanor changing very quickly as she got a good look. Internally Dean was rolling his eyes because that kind of reaction happened all the time. His pretty face was generally a good ice breaker.

"Good evening, sir," she said brightening up considerably. "Checking in?"

Dean chuckled and gave her a flirty eye blink. God, it was so easy. "Why yes I am. I don't have a reservation. Will that be a problem?"

"Not at all," she assured him, turning back to her keyboard to tap some more. "I have a king suite available or if you need something a little bigger, there's also a premium corner suite."

Dean's cool exterior faltered for a minute as he thought about the options. It was only himself, and while he had occasionally booked a motel with a king bed since he'd been traveling alone, he'd never had a reason or a budget to get a whole suite. Did he really need all that room?

"Sir?"

He cleared his throat and smiled again and decided fuck it. "I'll take the corner thing."

The receptionist, Rachel, according to her name badge, smiled again and turned back to her computer screen. "Okay. I'll just need your ID and a credit card."

Here goes nothing

Dean reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. Casually opening it to extract his real driver's license as well as the Centurion card and sliding them across the counter. Rachel had them both in her hand before realizing what he was giving her, her eyebrows shooting up as she gave Dean a second assessing look. Obviously it was more than likely that she'd had a guest pay with one before, but Dean certainly didn't look the type who ranked high enough to have one.

He might have just imagined the way her interest in him seemed to shift from Guy I'd like to meet at a bar for some fun to Guy I'd like to marry and bear his children.

It also took a little longer than it should have to finish checking him in because Rachel was clearly a bit flustered, but she was perfectly professional as she pointed out the other guests enjoying the Manager's Reception which was what was happening in the atrium. She then gave him the information on the in-house restaurant, room service and the cook-to-order breakfast the next morning and handed him his key card, showing him the wi-fi pass code printed on its envelope.

"Is there anything else I can help you with, Mr. Winchester?"

Dean didn't miss the quick glance she gave his wedding ring finger or the slight smile on her face seeing it unadorned. Her attention to him normally wouldn't have been a problem when he was out at a bar and creating a whole new identity for himself to entice her into his bed. But there was something about her interest in his new reality that made him decidedly uncomfortable.

"Nah, I'm good. Thanks."

For a brief second he was half expecting her to take the initiative and make a pass at him, especially since the AmEx, besides having unparalleled spending power, also apparently upgraded his worth as a human being. But she didn't push and he didn't either.

He thanked her and hoisted his bag back onto his shoulder. The unease he was feeling as he strode away from the registration desk had him heading straight for the atrium's bar. Rachel mentioned that it was serving complimentary cocktails for the guests for another forty minutes and he could really use a drink so he stood in a short line before ordering a whiskey neat and tipping the bartender ten bucks. He sipped at his glass as he slowly eyeballed the room, realizing too late that his coffee and doughnuts were still in the car when his stomach growled.

Halfway around the atrium he found the bank of elevators, getting in one that was already waiting and punching in the button to take him up to the right floor. He watched through the glass doors as the ground fell away from underneath him up six flights. The slight shake of the hydraulic motor made his empty stomach queasy for a moment and he was glad when the doors finally opened. Following the room number signs he walked along the corridor, the open atrium precariously high to his left, and found his room at the far end.

It took a moment to get his card to unlock the door and right about then he was missing the comfort of a real key in his hand. They weren't fancy, but they usually went right in and did the job without too much fuss.

Kind of like him.

Finally the mechanism tripped with a buzz and upon entering his room for the night he couldn't help the low whistle that came out of his mouth as he looked around the main seating area. Directly across the door was an open kitchen complete with a breakfast bar and three bar stools. To his left there was a dining room table that seated five in front of a curtained window that looked out at the atrium. To his right was a very nice looking sofa, a stuffed chair and two end tables across from an enormous flat screen TV mounted on the wall.

Dean had lived in apartments that weren't as big as this and it wasn't even the whole suite.

He put his duffel down on the thick carpet and walked further into the room. Directly past the kitchen area was the cleanest bathroom he had ever seen outside of his own little home, complete with a shower equipped with a sunflower head that he couldn't wait to get under. Further past the bathroom he finally found the bedroom part of the suite with a pristine white king bed that looked so comfy he just flopped down on it with a tired sigh.

There was no familiar floral scent on the linen but it certainly smelled clean. The whole place did. There were no scary stains on the carpet. No peeling wallpaper or rusting pipes. He wondered for a moment who these people were. The ones who stayed in a place like this all the time and had no freakin' idea of the crap all around them that he'd spent his life keeping them safe from.

Did they appreciate how good they had it? Or did they just take their charmed lives for granted?

His stomach growled again as he lay there in thought and he knew he was going to have to get up and get himself fed. Reluctantly he hoisted himself up from the bed and shuffled into the bathroom where he turned on the sink's faucet and cupped his hands to scoop water up to splash on his face. The whiskey was probably not the best idea for an empty stomach when he was feeling this worn out. A quick look in the mirror showed the scruffiness of his face which underlined how tired he really was.

Miss Registration Rachel might have liked the rugged look on him but it was more a sign of exhaustion than fashion with Dean at that point in his life.

He remembered seeing a plastic binder laying on the bar in the main room and wondered if it had information on the restaurant downstairs. Strolling back out he grabbed it and started flipping through the pages until he came across a three page menu for the Bar & Grill. Ordinarily he would have gone downstairs and hit up the bar and maybe grabbed some snack food while he tried to score for the evening but he wasn't in the mood for any company tonight.

Besides, his ridiculously large hotel room came with a full dining table just for him. It would be a shame to let it go to waste.

Looking across the table he saw the closed curtains for the window next to the entry door which just creeped him right the hell out. A window looking into a hallway? That just wasn't normal in his opinion. Moving towards his duffel, his first thought was getting out some protection for the room before anything nasty showed up unexpectedly. But then he halted and looked around at the nicer furnishings and realized that laying lines of salt and penciling warding on the wooden frames of the doors probably wouldn't go over really well in a fancy joint like this.

That was something he was going to have to bring up with his father now that the hunters wouldn't be holing up in rundown motels where another few marks more or less on the furnishings didn't even warrant a blink from management.

It didn't mean he wasn't planning on being cautious however. Shit happened in nice hotels too and he wasn't going to forget every word of his training and get complacent just because he was staying in a place where he probably wouldn't get the clap from a toilet seat. Pulling a Sharpie from his bag he darted back into the bathroom and grabbed one of the large, fluffy towels. He took it back into the main room and spread it out on the table and then carefully drew a devil's trap on it before laying it face down on the floor next to the door.

Then, just because he was still getting the jeebs from the freaky window, he laid a salt line on the sill and grudgingly promised himself he would clean up the mess in the morning before he checked out.

Picking up the menu again, his stomach now roaring with impatience, he called down to room service and placed his order. Thirty minutes later he was happily snorkeling his way through an order of Maryland Crab Cakes, a bowl of French Onion Soup with a basket of warm rolls, the Smoked Paprika Filet of Beef with onion rings, the Capital City Mac & Cheese and two slices of Caramel Apple Cheesecake. Afterwards he crawled over to the sofa and sat back with his jeans unbuttoned and the occasional belch bursting from his overstuffed gut, idly wondering how people with money didn't all weigh a metric fuck-ton if they could eat like that all the time.

Too full to move far, he picked up the remote and started to scroll through the channels and then found the button for the pay-per-view selections. There were some pretty decent offerings in the adult entertainment category which surprised him even though it probably shouldn't have. After all, traveling businessmen liked to get their freak on just like every other guy. He even gave real consideration to the new Casa Erotica movie because it was starring Carmelita, his very favorite sexy señorita.

But he wasn't particularly interested in porn right then, which was pretty much the first time that had ever happened.

Scrolling through the movie channels again didn't improve his mood when he saw that he could buy the new Lord of the Rings sequel that had been out since December. It was far too painful to think about how much fun he'd had with Sammy the previous year when the two of them went out to see Fellowship of the Ring during Sam's Christmas break from Holy Rosary. Sammy had been insanely excited about the blockbuster from the moment he first saw the trailer months earlier and he'd been badgering Dean to go with him ever since. Dad was even home with them at the time but had insisted that the boys go out just the two of them. A night out just between brothers.

They went for pizza beforehand and still managed to buy out half the concession stand because Dean insisted that they'd starve during a movie that long if they didn't have enough supplies. Sam geeked out over the cinematography, which of course Dean had to tease him about because the way his little brother's eyes were bugged open in awe was just so adorable. While Dean thought Aragorn was absolutely the biggest badass he'd ever seen, even if he mistakenly loved the Liv Tyler elf instead of the superior beauty of Cate Blanchett's Galadriel. Sam pretended to gag when Dean opened his package of licorice Twizzlers and then offered to share his bucket of popcorn with Raisinets mixed in so his big brother could see what a good snack tasted like and Dean called him a heathen with no taste and wondered how they could be related.

After it was over Sam fell asleep on the way home with his shaggy head propped against the passenger side door and a line of drool hanging out of his open mouth and of course Dean took a picture. Because that's what big brothers did when little brothers willingly gave them blackmail material.

It had been a good time.

They had gone to see the movie another three times before it left the theaters and were both absolutely stoked for the sequel. Already making plans to watch it together at the same theater in Sioux Falls no matter where they were at the time. Dean had even acquired a copy of Fellowship for them to pre-game with before Sammy's summer vanishing act.

Driving by theaters during the holidays this past year without Sam by his side and seeing ads for The Two Towers everywhere was still like taking a bullet.

He might be sitting in the nicest hotel room he'd ever stayed in, having just finished one of the best meals he'd ever eaten, but Dean felt very alone. Sam had a life of his own now. One that didn't include the brother that loved him so much. It made him realize that it didn't matter anymore if he had money if he had no one to share it with.

Pulling his phone from his temporarily way too tight jeans pocket, Dean pulled up his contact list and sent a brief text. A moment later the phone buzzed with a reply and he smiled.

The next morning Dean left Lincoln after making a couple of shopping stops and headed east. An enormous bouquet of flowers and an eye-watering expensive box of candy in the front seat next to him and a motorized miniature fire truck, just the right size for an almost three-year-old boy to drive, in the back.

/

It could have been a fun day.

As far as assignments go, the demon riding Amanda Stilner had been given worse. At least this time around she got to play house using John's Winchester's precious baby boy as her personal pet.

There were a few things that she and her demonic father disagreed on but Little Sammy wasn't one of them. He was almost certainly the one they had been waiting for. The kid acted like he had no idea how much pure natural power he radiated. Truthfully he probably didn't really know because it was for demonkind alone to see, but she was pretty sure that way deep down inside he just might have a small inkling that something was very wrong with him.

Then again, Baby Winchester had proven to be fairly oblivious.

For a kid that had been raised by one of the most feared hunters in the world, you would think he would have noticed his near 24/7 security detail by now. Those other children thought they were clever but it was actually amazing that they hadn't managed to get themselves killed yet with the way they skulked around. Not even bothering to be discrete with the protections they laid down or how they shadowed their distant cousin with absolutely no finesse whatsoever.

Hopefully they weren't under the illusion that they were at all competent. She had spotted them the moment she stepped onto the inadequately warded campus.

Whoever was training these little upstarts had at least a working knowledge of ways to keep her kind away, but they clearly had no idea of what higher level demons were capable. Their stupid parlor tricks weren't going to work on something that had been walking the Earth and ripping the entrails out of people for centuries. Especially the B-grade spells they used in a laughable attempt to make the campus hallowed ground. True, it would have slowed down a newbie demon fresh from the rack, but not someone like her who could trespass on the real deal.

To be fair, it was a common mistake that hunters made. Demons weren't typically allowed out of the pit all that often unless they held a certain rank so there wasn't a lot of the lore that hunters relied on to give up the state secrets of the bigger fish. The lore was only as good as experience made it.

She had her weaknesses of course. Holy water still burned like a bitch, but it wasn't a deal breaker. A devil's trap could hold her for now, but her unholy father promised her the spell to break them if she pleased him with her current work, and the average exorcism wasn't getting her out of Amanda's pretty little body when she'd branded a binding link into her wrist.

Oh those dewy puppy eyes when she told Sammy about the horrible pain from getting burned by a hot poker as a child! He genuinely felt bad for her, the sweet little sap.

For now she would put up with Frick and Frack and...whatever the girl hunter was and all of their hapless attempts to investigate her. The orders were very clear and she had no plan on disobeying them. She might be her father's favorite but that didn't mean that he wouldn't subject her to unspeakable torture for the rest of eternity if she crossed him by swatting one of the human flies that was off limits to her.

Because the rules were simple.

You find a cause, and you serve it. Give yourself over, and it orders your life.

A mantra she had once learned a long, long time ago when life was a lot harsher and you needed a strong will to survive.

Because the demon that was currently riding the lovely Dr. Amanda Stilner was old.

Very old.

Old enough to have been born a human in Rome, Italy during the time of Emperor Charles V.

Like most families, hers wasn't particularly distinguished in any way, but she wasn't illiterate either which was unusual for a girl of low birth. The gaps between the social classes back then were much wider than they are in today's modern world and the access to even the most rudimentary educational resources for girls depended solely on how important your father was.

She did have the advantage of being quite a pretty little thing with a sharp mind as well. Something that was noticed by the noblewoman that her mother worked for as a seamstress.

Her father was a man that she didn't know. The story that her mother told the girl when she was very young, and to everyone else that ever asked, painted him as her fisherman husband who died in an accident at sea shortly before their daughter's birth, but that was a lie. One that was necessary to preserve the illusion that her mother wasn't a woman of loose morals which would destroy any chance she had of respectfully providing for her child in a time when The Church ruled with an iron fist and reputations tarnished easily.

It was a closely guarded secret until she was eight years old. Like most children the girl didn't always show the proper amount of respect and gratitude for the hard work her mother did for them or the sacrifices she made. There were times when she said hurtful things about the impoverished single room they lived in. The simple food on the table and lack of toys that she had seen other children playing with. It was during one of these petulant, spoiled outbursts that her mother finally admitted the truth in a moment of worn down weakness. The girl's father did make his living on the water, that was true, but he was a sailor not a fisherman and had never married her mother despite his promises to the contrary. He also knew nothing about his daughter nor was he likely to care about her even if he did know and her mother was very clear to point that out.

The girl was very young but smart enough to understand what revealing the truth would have meant for her mother and herself because of similar things that had happened with a neighbor woman. It would mean a life of shame and ridicule and unimaginable poverty. The life they were fortunate enough to be living was a paradise in comparison.

From training she had received from her own mother, the girl's mother was skilled with a needle. A true artist who managed through hard work and a little luck to secure employment in the household of a good family with six girls. All of whom needed appropriately stylish clothing to denote their upper class standing. She worked long hours until her fingers were numb and in danger of bleeding and sometimes required her daughter to assist her on the days when there was just too much to do alone.

It was during these times that the noblewoman took an uncharacteristic interest in how the clothing for her own daughters was progressing. She wasn't the type to routinely lower herself to interact with the staff on a regular basis. The girl understood the honor that the special visits to the workroom represented for her mother and she went out of her way to use her best manners and sweetest voice in order to not offend the noblewoman in any way.

Even in the best circumstances life was hard during that period of time and the average life span significantly shorter before the advent of better overall hygiene and more advanced medical knowledge. The girl was only a little more than ten years old when her mother got a jagged cut on her hand from a broken water pitcher that rapidly became a deadly infection from receiving inadequate treatment.

At the time of her mother's death the girl thought she was lucky at first. Because with no other living family that she was aware of to care for her she was left all alone in the world and it was a supreme act of unexpected kindness when the noblewoman generously took the girl in. Offering her a roof over her head and the chance to be raised along with her own daughters. For a young girl who feared a forced entry into a convent or worse a life on the streets, which was the usual outcome for an orphan in her position, to be given shelter with a respectable family was a dream come true.

Until it wasn't.

For years afterwards she had been fed and clothed and housed by the nobleman and woman. Treated kindly by them and by their children, which wasn't necessarily a given when status and rank were everything. She wasn't quite a member of the family but she was regarded better than a lowly member of the staff. She was taught to read and write in three languages by a tutor hired especially for her. Also to play instruments and appreciate music and dance beautifully. She'd always known that she'd never have a dowry to attract a good husband like the daughters of the house, but the kindness bestowed on her had made her confident that she would be allowed to remain living there as an honorable spinster who would care for her foster parents in their later years.

She didn't know until it was too late that all of the time spent on her upbringing was merely an investment in the high price that the loss of her virtue would bring after it was auctioned off to the highest bidder.

Although it was the seat of the almighty Holy Roman Empire, with the Catholic Church having dominion over a supposedly devout flock, there were a surprisingly large number of brothels dotting the streets of the Eternal City. Prostitution had long been legal and supported throughout most of Europe at a time when married women were all but confined to their homes to keep them respectable and chaste. The lack of wives mingling in society left a gap in the entertainment for men that was ultimately filled by the class of women for hire.

At this point in the Italian Renaissance there was also more than one type of prostitute. Most of them were the basic licensed and regulated sex workers. The ones providing a very distinct carnal service for the men who patronized their run-of-the-mill brothels. These were women of common birth and no education whose long term prospects for something more respectable were practically nonexistent if they didn't manage to marry young. Of course there was a certain stigma attached to their profession and, more often than not, significant risk to their personal safety from disgruntled clients, but in those days being a sex worker wasn't always the worst thing that could happen to a woman.

Just ask some of the more unfortunate wives.

On an entirely different level above them was La Cortigiana or the courtesan. The much pricier and significantly rarer breed of professional women who provided the same entertainment in the bedroom but also so much more. These were the ladies of the evening who spent their time at the royal court on the arms of Italy's most powerful men. The ones who held parties in the salons of their own homes to entertain only the most honored guests of the day. They were paid for their services as hostesses as much as for their time on their backs.

And then, even between the courtesans of Italy, there was a clear difference in rank.

All courtesans had the benefit of a superior education that was normally only available to the sons of the wealthy. Women in general were not encouraged to read more than their bible if they wanted to be considered pious. The cortigiana di lume or "light courtesan" was a bright and beautiful woman of a better pedigree with more hospitable talents than a common prostitute. She was trained to engage with her clients using her body and her mind. Heavily sought by men who were wealthy but not the highest members of the elite, she was well compensated for her services. Sometimes even being a married woman who was the main breadwinner of her family. Her husband an understanding man of a lower rank than her regular customers who accepted his wife's profession as a necessary means for a comfortable lifestyle.

The rarest of all was the cortigiana onesta or "honest courtesan". These were the women with unparalleled beauty and brains. Skilled in many different disciplines and desired mostly for their superior companionship. They were the independent women, usually trained by a mother who had been one herself, who owned their own homes and accrued their own wealth at a time when married women had no rights. They were accomplished artists or writers with a sort of celebrity status when other women were invisible.

La Cortigiana Onesta led a charmed life if one was skillful enough to navigate the treacherous waters of the viper pit that was a royal court. Carefully sidestepping the landmines of secrets and intrigues that were constantly in play behind closed doors. Usually their benefactors were royalty or maybe even a high ranking Cardinal. So popular with the clergy that they even had their own reserved seating in church where their stunning beauty and luxurious clothing could be appreciated by the people that attended.

These women weren't respected, especially by the spouses of their clients, but they were admired and envied.

It was to this profession that the nobleman and his wife aspired for the girl in their care. Years earlier it hadn't escaped the noblewoman's notice how much interest her own husband showed in the comings and goings of her seamstress and young daughter. While the seamstress herself was quite lovely looking, it was her little girl that showed the obvious signs of becoming a real beauty one day. Enough encounters in passing with the pair convinced the noblewoman that the little girl also had a curious mind and a strong nature that she kept carefully concealed out of decorum, while her husband was barely able to contain his lustful gazes.

The nobleman spent more than his fair share of time in the company of Rome's courtesans. It was a perk of his rank and a pleasure that kept him away from their family home more often than not. His wife didn't mind these extracurricular activities. On the contrary, she encouraged him. Quite frankly, he wasn't the nicest of men and she had already given him two sons and six daughters. As far as she was concerned she had done her duty as his wife and now she could be left alone without risking another episode of his cruelty. As well no longer being constantly compared to his depraved preference for young girls that unsuccessfully hid under the cloak of sanctimony when he tried to portray himself as an honorable man.

She was the one who whispered in his ear about the girl and the potential that the wife saw in her. If the husband agreed to have her cultivated properly, she would blossom into the sweetest fruit just waiting to be plucked. Their investment in crafting a profession for her would be repaid a hundredfold by her first commission and after that the husband could have her as his own.

He could become her sole benefactor and keep her at the ready in a manner that society accepted.

The nobleman saw the sense in his wife's argument. He might have married a woman of good birth because it was required of him, but she was also uneducated, unattractive and frankly repulsed him in every way. Their large family was solely the result of his dedication to the teachings of the Church on procreation and a great deal of alcohol. It appealed to his ego and a false sense of sophistication on his part that he could custom design a more interesting companion without damaging his place in society.

On the day of the girl's sixteenth birthday her foster parents invited her into their private salon and broke the news that she was going to become a whore.

At first she couldn't understand what they were saying, simply because the words coming our of their mouths were too horrific to comprehend. By the time she realized that they were speaking in all seriousness she became so sick to her stomach that she vomited all over the noblewoman's cherished Chinese silk settee. The girl refused, of course, because she was a good girl. Devout and pious and the very idea of letting a man, multiple men, do what her foster parents now said they would be allowed to made her feel faint.

Trying to reason with the obviously evil creatures she had loved was worthless. Her insistence that she would never consent to do such a thing resulted in a vicious beating by both the nobleman and his wife that kept her bedridden for three days. She would not repay their years of kindness with defiance, they insisted. They were owed for her food and lodging. The clothing on her back. All the lessons she had been fortunate enough to receive.

It was time to pay the bill.

Something in the girl died then. All the peace and happiness she had felt when she thought her life was secure had vanished in the blink of an eye. There would never be quiet years of reading and needlepoint and devoted affection to the kind couple who had taken her in.

When she had physically recovered from the abuse, body mended even though her spirit seemed broken, the special tutors were brought in. The ones who trained her in the way of the courtesans. They were the experts on conversation and hospitality and taught her how to maneuver and manipulate the men who would be her benefactors. They also taught her how to pleasure her clients with whispers and songs as well as her mouth and her hands.

She was a good student. Focusing on the tasks at hand with single minded determination was the only way she survived the betrayal she felt so deeply. Nothing existed for her besides accepting her lot in life and making the best of it. Holding out the hope that by becoming the best of the best she could acquire a home of her own where no one would dare to deceive her.

On the night of her debut at court, the night when the men in attendance would vie for her chastity in an obscene display of their wealth, the girl put away her former life forever and declared her intention to be forever known as Luna. For her life in the sun had ended and she was now a creature of the night, so it was only fitting to her to associate herself with the moon.

The bidding that night for the breathtaking young woman on offer went higher than any other auction previous to it. Ultimately, it was a wealthy Roman Senator who prevailed for a price that had even the most prolific courtesan benefactors stunned. A percentage would go to Luna herself, but the lion's share went to her former foster parents to compensate them for their investment. The loss of Luna's virginity was going to amply cover handsome dowries for her former foster sisters and ensure that they all married well.

It was a bitter pill to swallow.

The Senator that paid to defile her wasn't cruel, so she supposed that she was lucky in that sense. During their time together that first night Luna disassociated herself from her body and let her training take over. Focusing on his pleasure was the only thing keeping her from screaming out her pain and she did such a good job at it that he begged her to consider him again in the future when the night ended.

After that, Luna's life began to improve.

Before her first night at court she had been moved into a residence owned by her primary tutor where she could conduct business, because of course she could not operate out of the honorable home in which she had been living. For a percentage of her earnings she was given a suite of rooms for herself with her tutor acting as her facilitator. It was meant to be a temporary arrangement, because the nobleman who had sponsored her training was adamant that Luna become solely his after her lucrative debut.

What the nobleman hadn't even bothered to think about was whether or not the girl he'd ordered defiled would agree to any further relationship with him.

Luna had only one hard and fast rule for the clients who lined up outside her door for her services. Her facilitator was never, ever, to allow the nobleman anywhere near her ever again.

Of course this development enraged the nobleman. Years of careful planning had gone sailing out the window and there was little he could do about it. A wife and a daughter and even a common seamstress were required to do as they were told by the men in their circle, but La Cortigiana chose her clients and could do as she pleased. Especially one who had an enamored and powerful Senator on her side.

While Luna was using her intelligence and wit to carefully cultivate a select clientele who were steadily making her wealthy in her own right, the nobleman fumed.

It had been Luna's primary tutor who had taught her the mantra that she was now steadfastly adhering to. Lying in the sumptuous bed of her new residence, nervous and panicking while she waited for the Senator to be allowed inside that first time, the older woman had taken Luna by the hands and looked straight into the girl's eyes.

"You find a cause, and you serve it, bella. Give yourself over, and it orders your life. This is your life now. Crying over what could have been does not benefit you. They only buy your time. They can never buy you."

Luna would never forgive the only man she had loved like a father. She also knew that his only interest was in owning her. Body, mind and soul. She would never ever give him the satisfaction.

The nobleman didn't take her rejection well. He felt personally insulted to be known as the one that made her rise among the courtesans possible in the first place and still not allowed to have her. Every gathering he attended where Luna was the center of attention was an affront to his reputation and dignity. It didn't help that he could see the smugness in his wife's face over the slight by the girl they had raised to be his companion. As each day passed, he became more enraged and unstable.

Soon after her debut Luna had earned enough to be able to purchase her own small but tasteful residence, complete with a staff to attend to her needs. Slowly she had been learning to take what pleasure she could from the encounters with her clients. Some of them weren't even sexual in nature at all and were simply hours spent in conversation and entertainment. Once she had accepted her fate she blossomed into a highly sought out companion, known for her beautiful eyes and sharp wit. She was flattered and showered with gifts and it was almost enough to overcome the bitterness that lived deep inside of her.

Then the unthinkable happened and it was the beginning of her path to darkness.

Courtesans held a level of prestige among their customer base, but they were still at risk for scorn and retaliation just like the more common variety of their profession. If a courtesan did something that truly angered a client, she could be subjected to harsh physical or financial punishments for her disrespect without resulting in real consequences for the man that carried it out. In the extreme cases courtesans ran the risk of being raped if they really angered the wrong man. As revenge, an angry client or lover would kidnap a courtesan and subject her to a trentuno, where she would be raped by thirty-one men.

It wasn't something that happened often, but it was known to occasionally occur and it kept the courtesans fearful enough to hold their tongues most of the time.

After four months of denying the nobleman of what he considered to be his right, Luna was abducted from her home one night and dragged outside the city to an open field where a crowd of men, including many servants of the nobleman, waited for her.

She was gagged and tied down, her expensive clothes ripped from her body as the men lined up to take their turn assaulting her. In the darkness, her eyes swimming with helpless tears, she could see that the throng of unwashed rapists numbered much higher than thirty-one. The nobleman who had raised her and sold her had arranged a special revenge for her. The unspeakable trentuno reale.

Gang rape by seventy-nine men.

After it was over, she was left for dead in that field, and quite frankly death was a preferable outcome to getting back up again. Lying in the grass in layers of filth, Luna didn't even have tears left to shed as she waited for her life to come to an end. Her body was mutilated and forever ruined. What strength she had managed to summon to exist in her new life completely depleted.

But before she died, she was found by a farmer working his land. Her appearance causing him to cry out and cross himself repeatedly as he whistled for his two sons to help him load Luna into their oxcart. Slowly, very slowly because her injuries were excruciating, they managed to get her to the local church for help. There she was carried inside, her blood leaving a trail in her wake.

So disoriented she was that, at first, she thought she just imagined that the doctor that eventually was brought in to treat her had red eyes.

Like many before her, Luna was convinced to make a deal in order to receive justice for all that had been done to her. It wasn't done blindly. The girl had been raised devout and superstitious. She believed in Heaven and Hell and all that went with it. But being a good girl hadn't worked for her. It had only brought pain and suffering. The desire for revenge outweighed any concern she had for her immortal soul.

It was a lucrative deal for the ten years that it lasted.

All traces of her assault were erased from her body as if it had never happened. Every rapist, save the nobleman, was brutally slaughtered in their own homes. The nobleman's fortune and reputation were ruined. Not because of what he had done to Luna, because she wanted that kept quiet, but because he was mysteriously accused of cheating some of the other men at court. His wealth and property were confiscated and his family thrown into the streets. The nobleman himself was brought to Luna by the demon and she personally oversaw his torture and death while she lay nude on her bed to remind him of what he would never have again.

For the next ten years Luna exulted in her life of luxury. Becoming one of the wealthiest and most popular courtesans in the city. Sex was ruined for her completely unless she was in control and she hated to be touched while she ground out her anger over her assault on the cocks of her clients. She paid handsomely for four loyal guards who kept everyone away from her without the proper invitation and she used her fortune to support dozens of former prostitutes who had fallen on hard times.

When the hounds came for her she went without a fight, still bitter over what she had been forced to become, and when she was given the chance to get off her rack and pick up a scalpel, she jumped at it.

Her preferred flavor of damned soul were rapists, of course. They were the ones who received very special attention with her tools that came to the notice of Hell's chief torturer. Alastair took personal note of her rage and talents and tapped her to become his apprentice. She excelled under his tutelage as well, and when Azazel, one of Hell's princes asked her to join his special crusade, the demon she had now become remembered her human mantra and accepted the job without hesitation.

Her work for her demonic father allowed her time topside as well as special abilities granted by both the strength of her many millennia-old age of demonhood and gifts her father bestowed upon her. She had repeatedly possessed humans in the course of her duties to Azazel, preferring young beautiful women such as she had once been herself. Her father allowed her limitless fun during these possessions as long as she ultimately achieved her objective.

When Sam Winchester was coerced into leaving his family to strike out on his own, both she and her father knew it was the perfect time to see if the boy was the special child that Hell's supreme ruler required. John was annoyingly protective of his children and kept them on the move and hard to track. And unlike the lackluster security of Stanford, the demons had a hard time getting close to the kid when he and his brother uncharacteristically settled down in that grungy little mid-western city last year. She herself could have been put into play, but her father had wanted to see what Sam did when he had the chance to be a real boy.

Two attempts had been made since darling Sammy came to California to get him interested in a pretty little thing that could lead him around by the nose, but the kid was all emo about his estrangement from his family and spent all his time studying instead of having fun like most college boys. Then finally Father made the decision to infiltrate the faculty and try that approach instead.

And it worked.

John wasn't as swift as he thought he was. One of the demon soldiers that Father had watching that little hole in the wall roadhouse caught John's stink and tracked him to California, so it wasn't a surprise to her to watch from a distance as his black phallus on wheels roared onto Campus Drive.

Too bad she was forbidden to engage him. Because she would have loved to tell the mighty John Winchester just exactly what a demon was doing to his baby boy.

But her time was coming. She just needed to be patient.

Until then she'd enjoy leading little Sammy down the dark path of his own destiny.

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