Ok, the next chapter wrote itself faster than I thought. Enjoy!
Chapter 4
When Clint left the hotel, he saw a black Impala from the year 1967 outside the door. The classic car was in top shape and Clint could not resist the temptation to take a closer look at it.
When the driver's door opened and Dean got out with a smug grin, Clint could not say that he was surprised, this car really couldn't be overlooked.
"Nice car", Clint said impressed.
"Still runs like clockwork." Dean looked proudly at his car. "I repair and maintain it myself."
"Just let me go to my car and then we can drive."
"Throw your things on the back seat. I will follow you to your car."
"Not in the trunk? It looks like it is big enough."
Dean laughed. "It is but I don't like to open the trunk on the open road when there is so much public traffic." There were actually a lot of people on the road. "At the next stop I will show you why."
Clint shrugged he could wait. They were on the move within 5 minutes.
For a few minutes, Clint just enjoyed the ride in Dean's car. Clearly this car was well cared for and loved. Clint thought wistfully about his farm, which by now certainly looked neglected. After the dissolution of Laura and the children, he could not bear it there anymore.
But now it was time to focus on his mission again. "Ok, why didn't you want to open the trunk in the city?"
"Let me put it this way, the weapons and items Hunters use to hunt supernatural beings are a little unusual."
"I understand", Clint said thoughtfully. "How do you become a hunter?"
"Usually when someone in your family gets killed by a monster." Dean swallowed hard. "In the case of my father this person was my mother. A demon burned her at the ceiling; he murdered her because she got in the way of his plans with my brother."
"How old were you?"
"I was four, my brother 6 months old."
"Does that mean your father raised you as a hunter?"
"Yes, he has. The family motto, 'Saving people, hunting things'." Dean's voice sounded a little strange when he quoted the family motto. As if a part of him really believed it and was proud of it, but a part of him also loathed it.
However, Clint could imagine why that was the case. "How old were you when you…?"
"Killed my first monster? 16 years, it was a werewolf. But I learned to shoot as I was 9 years."
"So you were raised as a child soldier?"
"That may be put a little too hard but in a way yes. My father loved me and he even died for me, however." Dean shrugged and didn't continue to speak.
Clint could understand that Dean felt a little ambiguous about his father but it certainly beat the hate he felt for his father. "What would have happened if he hadn't raised you in this way?"
Dean looked baffled at him. "No one has ever asked me this question. But I think my father would be dead, I would be a meat suit for Michael or dead, and Sammy would either be dead or the meat suit for Lucifer, a destiny worse than death."
Dean laughed harshly. "And this world would no longer exist, it would have gone up in fire and flames, it would be without people and without life. Lucifer and Michael would have had their little private feud and that would have torn this planet apart.
My father and I had a complicated relationship but he taught me how to survive and too fight evil, and I'll always be grateful for that."
"So you prevented an apocalypse too?"
"One apocalypse? Try two or three, at one point in time you simply stop counting", replied Dean slightly bored.
Clint looked uncertain at Dean. At first he thought that Dean was either kidding or what was possible too, trying to impress him with alleged heroics. Dean seemed to sense that Clint was looking at him from the side and returned his gaze. The look in Dean's eyes revealed, that no, Dean meant every word dead serious.
"At some point you have to tell me more about what happened to you but give me first the crash course I was talking about."
Dean shrugged and started talking.
Clint listened for nearly 4 hours as Dean told him about demons, werewolves, vampires, ghosts and other monsters, how to kill them, and what to look out for when you hunted them.
"How about a break?" interrupted Clint finally Dean with faint voice.
"There's a rest area up front and we're lucky, it's completely empty", Dean said understandingly.
Dean stopped, Clint got out and went into the small grove that joined the parking lot. It took him a while to process all this information and reconcile it with his world view.
When Clint returned to the parking lot, Dean was sitting on the hood of his car with a can of beer in his hand and a second can next to him.
Dean took it and held it out to Clint. "How about a beer?"
"Thanks, I can use it."
Dean looked at him sympathetically. "It is all a bit much, isn't it?"
"I have the feeling that my head is about to explode." Clint shook her head. "Man, my life is strange. And I thought the invasion of New York by aliens were bizarre."
"I know how you feel. I too always wonder why me?"
The two men sat together in companionable silence for a while and drank their beer.
"Come on, I'll show you the trunk", said Dean finally. "We have to go now, we still have a long way to drive."
As Clint looked at the arsenal in the trunk, he whistled appreciatively through his teeth. "Ok, I can understand now that you didn't want to open the trunk in the city. And all this really works against monsters?"
Dean laughed amused. "I'm standing in front of you and I'm still alive, right?"
Clint shook her head. "I'm still not completely convinced of the supernatural but I bet this trunk comes really handy when you have to transport a body."
Dean snickered. "You have no idea who and what I already transported in it. And I anticipated your scepticism I didn't expect anything else. But believe me, you are doing much better than many others. Wait until you get to know Castiel, then you'll be convinced. Or Crowley, or any other of the beings that I expect to burst in at the meeting."
"My life is really strange", repeated Clint with a sigh.
Dean patted Clint comfortingly on the shoulder than the two men got back in the car and drove on.