I don't own supernatural

Reason for delay; I wrote most of this, then realized it was too long. I only have a little to finish of the rest chapter, so I'll probably update soon.

FOR JOHN LOVeRS! I'm gonna tell you the same thing I told Souless666: I get where you're coming from with John. I like good John, but I also needed a reason why the universes would be different. I didn't originally plan for this to be an alternate universe, so I painted Sam and Dean like I really picture them. Family is the only constant thing for the Winchesters; the only thing that would make a major difference in the universe. I couldn't change Sam and Dean, so John was the only other choice. :(

Anyway, I'm not gonna say it won't play a part in how Sam and Dean act, because obviously it will reflect in how the act towards John, but I don't plan on making it a huge deal. That's why I brought Sam and Dean here; for recovery and time with a good father.

On with the story!

Chapter 6 Awkward Conversations

Dean sighed and went back to grabbing the honey for Sam. He handed the small jar off (receiving a nod in thanks from his baby brother) and grabbed a box of cereal and a bowl for himself.

"So," John began awkwardly as he watched his sons. "Is this hopping universes thing normal for you two?"

"Normal enough," Dean threw back nonchalantly. "I think time traveling is a little more common, but dimension hopping seems to be somewhat of a favorite to the odd angels we associate with."

"So you've done this before?" a man at the head of the table asked.

"Yeah," Dean replied. "Who're you?" he continued when he couldn't place the man in his memory.

"Your grandfather," Hadrian Winchester answered with raised eyebrows.

"Great," Dean declared sarcastically. "I swear you have be better then the last grandfather we had. Well, at least I hope you are; the other one made my 'people to kill' list."

"Dean Jonathon Winchester!" his father reprimanded angrily. "You do not threaten to kill family."

"Hey, if you'd met the man you would've killed him in an instant. He tried to kill Sam!" Dean defended.

"Oh yeah," Sam cut in, "just ignore the fact that your life was on the line too. No, the only thing we have to worry about is that he tried to kill me."

"Glad we've got that straight," Dean retorted with a smirk.

"He tried to kill you?" a man who Dean identified as Uncle Danny asked incredulously.

"Oh yeah," Dean grinned as though this were of no real consequence. "He was Mom's dad. Went a little insane when he was brought back to life but Mom stayed dead. He thought he could make some kind of deal; my life and Sam's for Mom's. I don't know what he was thinking. I doubt Mom would've been very pleased to be returned to the living plane only to realize her father had killed her sons."

"What happened to him?" Caleb asked resignedly. He knew people who messed with Dean Winchester's baby brother didn't usually live long. Unless, of course, they were actually human; then their lives just became a whirling vortex of pain.

"Sam shot him," Dean declared like he didn't really care one way or another.

Over twenty pairs of stunned eyes turned to Sam.

"What?" he asked, looking up from where he had been quietly eating his oatmeal. "He wasn't human by that time anyway. He got turned into a monster by this one monster who was the mother of all monsters. Confusing, but the honest truth."

"Let me get this straight," John said incredulously. "You're grandfather somehow came back to life and tried to kill you." He received nods. "Then he got turned into a monster, Sam shot him, and he died again?" More nods.

"I think I need a drink," Caleb groaned. "And I just woke up too. You guys seem to have a way of making me feel the need to drink myself into bloody oblivion. You always get the worst cases, for some reason…I don't even want to think about how I was dealing with all of this."

"Oh you weren't," Dean proclaimed as he looked up at Caleb in surprise. "Why're you here, anyway?"

"I live here dipstick. I'm your cousin," Caleb told him distractedly. "Why wasn't I involved in this seemingly giant problem?"

"That would be because you were dead," Dean told him solemnly. "I'm really sorry about that, by the way. Meg killed you."

"Who the hell is this Meg?" Uncle Luke spit the name 'Meg' with such rage that even Dean was impressed.

"I'm guessing you're his father," Dean observed. "Meg is the daughter of Azazel. Nasty little bitch. She doesn't like staying dead either," he frowned.

"Who the hell is Azazel?" John asked confusedly.

"Y'know, it's kinda hilarious to hear you asking about him. You've only been hunting him since I was four," Dean hinted.

"The thing that killed your mother?" John questioned, perking up in his seat.

"Yep," Dean confirmed. "The one and only Azazel, also known as the yellow eyed demon, and a fallen angel, according to Cas. Cas is another angel, in case you're wondering."

"Did we ever kill him?" John inquired.

"After your death and Sammy's death, yes," Dean divulged darkly. "I shot him. You actually clawed your way up from Hell to help."

"And Hell is a real place?" Uncle Mark asked into the horrified silence.

The fact that Sam had died was being temporarily ignored. It was important, but Hell seemed like a bit of a concern too right now.

Besides they probably didn't want to think about Sam dead. Not that Dean did either. It made him want to tear his hair out and throw himself to the ground sobbing, but he was Dean Winchester, and he just didn't do that. So he tended not to think about it.

"Course," Dean chirped. "I've been there, Dad's been there, even Sammy's been there. I don't advise going though; it's not an ideal vacationing spot. Too hot."

"Why were you in Hell?" John inquired with trepidation. He didn't want to think of any version of his babies in Hell. He couldn't care less about himself; his own wellbeing was optional, as long as his children were safe.

"Well," Dean replied, "you sold your soul for me, I sold mine for Sam, and Sam purposely jumped in to save the world from frigging Lucifer."

"How old are you again?" Caleb questioned. It was odd for him to see Dean so calm and nonchalant. Normally Dean was all fire and snarky comments.

"Thirty three," Dean replied. "But if you're counting the years in Hell, seventy three. Time goes differently down there. One month on the surface is ten years down stairs."

"You've been really quiet, Sam," Uncle Calen interrupted before anyone could answer that. "Are you ok?"

Dean was fairly sure Sam was fine. He only wished he could still get worried about simple things like Sam not talking. Sam was always quiet now-a-days. Hell, Jess's death, and everything else they had been through had left their mark on his baby brother.

Sam turned to Dean, seeming to ignore their uncle. "Dean," he whispered. "Lucifer's standing over there, and he brought Michel with him this time. Michel's alive in this time…. it's like a tiny piece of his grace is following me around. I think he could actually hurt me if he tried."

Dean looked to the place Sam had slid his eyes to with alarm. "You think we should draw sigils?" he muttered back.

"We don't have the enochian on our ribs anymore," Sam reminded him.

"Damn," Dean growled. "You think we can trust Cas in this time/universe?" he asked reluctantly. "I don't want to, but I don't know of anyone else who could help."

Sam thought about it for a minute. "Let's just leave it unless something happens," he decided.

They both looked up to find John watching them quizzically. "You ok?" he repeated his oldest brother's question to his youngest son.

"I'm fine," Sam assured him with a fake smile. He had a feeling John could see through his façade, something his own father had never been able to do.

"Right," John drawled, drawing out the 'I' sound. Then his expression turned serious. "What did the angel mean when he said you had a bad father?" he inquired.

"He just…he didn't care," Dean finally settled on with a shrug. "He was never there. If you had asked Sam who his father was before he turned four he would've said I was. His first word was actually Daddy, and he was talking to me. He started talking late, too. I always thought it was because of the trauma of watching Mom's death."

"I remember that," Sam agreed. "All the other toddlers at the day care were getting picked up by their Mommies and Daddies, so it made logical sense that the person who picked me up was my Daddy."

"Only I was the one picking you up," Dean finished with a nod. "It took me forever to get you to stop calling me that in public."

"I made you beg," Sam laughed.

"For twenty minutes!" Dean cried, outraged by this fact even twenty six years later. "'Please Sam, people will think it's weird if you call me Daddy.' 'Don't care,' with your arms crossed and pouting. 'But Dad'll be mad.' To which you responded with a phrase he had taught you," Dean scowled at the end. He had never liked that his three year old brother had known almost every swear word in the book because of their father.

"Yeah…..you weren't particularly happy about that," Sam winced.

"Hell no I wasn't!" Dean exclaimed.

Caleb started chocking on the bacon he was eating because he had tried to laugh. Stupid dick.

Dean was almost jealous that Caleb could have bacon, but he didn't dare get the stuff anywhere near his baby brother.

Hell had left Sam with a horrible aversion to eating anything that even remotely resembled charred human flesh. Another words, he wouldn't eat any meat. The simple smell of it sometimes made his throw up.

So Dean made an effort not to eat anything like that near him. Unfortunately, that consisted of about half of his diet, and he was regulated to eating Sam's rabbit food.

It took two of the kids sitting next to Caleb pounding on the man's back for Caleb to stop chocking.

"Sorry," he squeezed, "that's just so typical of you, Dean. You tell Sam not to do something, and then turn around and do the same thing."

"'Course," Dean grinned. "That's why I'm such an amazing big brother."

"Lead by precept, not example," Uncle Mark agreed with a grin. Dean had the feeling he was going to get along very well with the man.

"Back on topic?" John asked, sounding apprehensive. Dean thought Gabriel might be right about this version of John Winchester; maybe he really did care.

"Dad left alone for long periods of time before Sam turned eight. We would be all alone for a month or two, and have no idea if he was even alive. We ran out of food, sometimes, no matter how hard we tried to ration it. That was a real nightmare," Dean's eyes were dark as he reminisced.

"That's horrible!" John cried, sounding truly shocked.

"Yeah," Dean agreed. "And that worst part's that it effected Sam's growth. The first time he was gone long enough for us to run out of food, it was an accident."

"Dad was hunting a werewolf, and it found him before he found it. He ended up in the hospital for about two months. Sam was five, and I had just turned ten. He never bothered to mention that he had kids to anyone at the hospital; didn't even call us to tell us he was held up."

"I honestly thought he was dead. He was only supposed to be gone for that one night," Dean shuddered. "We ran out of food around a week after Dad left, and I'd been giving us less each day. We'd been robbed, too. Thankfully it was while Sam and I were at school and they just took food, but it really put me on edge."

"I finally called Bobby around half a week later after we ran out of food. Before that we just kind of scavenged and nicked things from the gas station when we had to."

"After that Sam never ate like he did before. He was always afraid it would be worse when we didn't have food again. He wouldn't eat much, no matter how much I begged him. He shot up after he went to college because he actually ate there."

Both boys looked so broken and young. Their father was obviously not a topic they wanted to deal with.

"Almost the same thing happened here, didn't it John?" Caleb almost whispered. "Except John hit his head really hard and didn't remember who he was for a month. He had arranged for Bobby to check in every two days, and when Dean said John wasn't home after a week Bobby high tailed it to them as fast as he could."

John nodded. "He was a couple days away, though. I got a baby sitter too; I wouldn't leave my sons alone. I had a cleaning lady check in every time she made her rounds. She went around two or three times a day after they finished school, and stayed with them nights, so it was fine."

"Better then our father," Dean agreed. "But even how he treated us then was better then how he treated us after Sammy found out about the supernatural. Brutal training secession for hours every single day. We got up at four thirty in the morning to train before school, and then had more training after school. He didn't leave us alone anymore because he took us on every hunt."

"But what about all the nasties out there that only prey on kids, or the especially dangerous hunts?" John interrupted.

"What about them?" Sam asked blankly. "We went on all the hunts until I was fifteen. Then Dad started leaving us home again. Started is off alone again with a bang, too," he added grimly.

Dean shuddered at the memory. The panic he had gone through…

"What d'ya mean?" John questioned.

"Six months," was Dean's answer. "No warning. Just woke up to an empty bed and a note saying he'd be back when he'd finished taking care of business."

Both boys grimaced. "That led up to the Flagstaff incident," Sam remembered with a wince.

Dean's face blanked and he pulled Sam closer to him.

"What was the Flagstaff incident?" Uncle Calen asked in concern.

"The second time I was an absolutely horrible big brother," Dean replied darkly.

"No it wasn't," Sam insisted.

Dean didn't agree with him though. He was thoroughly convinced that he had been an absolutely horrible big brother during that time.

"Dad had been gone for almost six months, which was a new record, and Dean was worried. We had long since run out of food, and the mechanic he was working for was threatening to cut him. We were snapping at each other over the smallest things, always on edge. Dean was hustling nights just to get us by already because my school was being especially demanding when they wanted me to participate in every event."

"I was having trouble with the other kids too. I always have trouble with the other kids, of course, but it was way worse in that town," Sam shuddered and Dean pulled him closer still, frowning as he was told this for the first time.

"I…I guess I kind of broke. I had always depended on Dean with the bullies before, but he was worried about more important things and I didn't want to bother him. The other kids saw that Dad was gone and Dean was never home and they used it to taunt me. It took five and a half months, but I broke and ran off."

Dean bit his lip worriedly. He knew how hard it was to break Sam. His baby brother was one of the strongest people he knew. Hell, even Lucifer hadn't broken Sam. So what had these kids done to him that was so bad? Overwhelming rage filled him, and he resolved to ask Sam later.

John's quick intake of breath was enough proof that his had never happened here.

"I was alone for two weeks. I honestly never thought about how Dean felt during that time, which was undeniably probably one of the most selfish things I've ever done. Right up there with leaving for Stanford, actually," he added as an afterthought.

"Uh-uh," Dean disagreed. "Not if they broke you, Sam. I know how much it takes to break you, and I don't even want to think about what those kids must have done to you."

Sam shrugged. "Lucifer and Michel did," he shot back.

"And how long did that take them?" Dean asked with a raised eyebrow.

Sam mumbled something and looked away.

"That's what I thought," Dean said smugly.

"You found him, didn't you?" John asked worriedly.

"Course," Dean assured him. "After two weeks."

Everyone around the table winced.

"But the worst," Dean decided thoughtfully, "was the way Dad talked to Sam. When we were training he only mentioned the bad things we did; never the good. It worked fine with me because I always liked knowing exactly what I'd done wrong so I could fix it. It didn't work so well with Sam. You have to encourage Sam and tell him he's doing a couple things right too, or he feels like he's no good and shouldn't even try."

"It was worse then that, though. Dad always compared Sam to me. Sam isn't me. We're good at different things. We complement each other, and that's why we work so well together."

"Dad didn't understand that. With him it was all, 'by the time Dean was your age, he could shoot all the cans off the fence no problem' or 'by the time Dean was your age he didn't care about school anymore,' or ' by the time Dean was your age he could run around the block in ten seconds'. Sam's better with a knife then he is with a gun, his love of school was what made him so great at research, and he was shorter then I was so running was harder for him," Dean informed then.

"And it wasn't like Sam wasn't trying. He did try, but no matter what he did it was never good enough. If Sam got his personal best in any area of training he wasn't compliment and told he had done a good job, he was told he could've done it a little better."

Dean frowned as he realized this for the first time. When it had actually happened that wasn't what he had thought. Of course, back then he had also thought his father actually cared about Sam. He guessed he could chalk both faults up to being too naive and trusting.

"So I guess bad doesn't really cover it," he said darkly. "He was neglectful and emotionally abusive, and that's only what I know. He was obviously somewhat different with Sam."

Sam appeared to be trying to disappear.

"Well, uh, I gotta get to work," Uncle Mark interrupted the awkward and horrified silence that followed Dean's deduction.

Everyone left after that, muttering random excuses of their own.

Dean didn't mind, and Sam certainly didn't either. Dean actually knew his baby brother was relived there weren't as many people to stare at him.

John seemed to be in shock, sitting at the table with his head in his hands and a heartbroken expression. Dean guessed he was feeling pretty destroyed right now. He knew he would've if he was told a different version of him had abused his baby brother.

Dean used their father's distraction to do a disappearing act of his own. He had a talk he needed to have with his baby brother.

So there it is.

John lovers are going to hate me. sigh. Just FYI, though, this version of John isn't going to change. He's going to be just like he was with his versions of Sam and Dean. He might even be more affectionate with them because their father was so horrible. I don't have everything worked out yet.

I'm listening to "Solitude" by evanescence. I really love that band. She looks a bit goth, but their songs are a bit goth, so I guess it fits.

Thoughts?