Alastair – Knight of Hell, Grand Inquisitor of Hell. Within ranks, Defender, linked to Nemesis, ancient spirit of divine retribution.
Things fall into a pretty good rhythm after Bobby leaves, and John's surprised at how easy it is to make a routine. He and Seth spend all of their mornings on the panic room, usually stopping to have lunch before going back into the afternoon. It's a lot of collecting scrap and cutting it, making sure that it's iron, and buying rock salt in bulk so they can bless the iron before it goes in the room. Seth usually handles the Latin, throwing in what John guesses is Enochian occasionally.
Dean and Sam are on their own for most of the day, although John sometimes recruits them to hold things down or help carry things when the job turns out to be too heavy for two men. Dean excels at it, and Sam is always asking about the symbols or the language Seth uses. They stop long before supper, and once they've eaten, Seth gets to assigning both Sam and Dean symbols to copy out the next day. Dean hasn't stopped calling it homework, since Seth always checks how they're doing the next day, but Sammy has yet to complain.
It feels good. Right up until the day Dean and Sam get into a fight.
John doesn't even know what's going on until Sammy bursts into the house and slams the door behind him, completely ignoring both Seth and John where they're in the front yard sawing new boards for the studs to go in the new walls between the iron braces. Seth freezes in the middle of a cut to watch Sammy storm into the house. John is already jogging to the other side of the house to scan over Bobby's salvage yard. He spots Dean beside the shed where Bobby keeps most of his mechanic tools, including his lift and jacks. Dean's calm, so there's no danger anywhere around. John shoots a look over his shoulder to Seth, and Seth immediately starts waving his thumb in the vague direction of Bobby's front door.
"I … I can …" Seth's eyes are trying to stay on John but they keep darting back to the front door where Sam has disappeared to.
John grimaces but nods Seth into the house. Seth really does have a tendency to listen to Sammy with a lot more patience than John usually does, which will leave Dean in John's hands. Seth drops his hand and hurries into the house on long legs that make him look like a colt or a giant. Stupid tall guy.
John walks over to the work shed and pushes the rusty door open. Dean is bent over an open hood of a car — a Bel Air sedan from the body work, it looks like. He doesn't even look up when the shed door swings open, which is really the only way John knows that Dean's upset at all.
"Sammy decide to work on homework?" John asks in the leading way he's learned from interviewing people. It's good for victims and potential witnesses, but he's found out that it works pretty well on his sons, too.
At least, he's always thought it does, but then Dean throws the wrench in his hand straight into the wall of the shed. John looks at the new dent in Bobby's wall and hopes that's not something Bobby will want John to repair. He has his hands full enough with the iron-and-salt-and-blessed-blasted-wood "panic" room. Dean leans both his hands on the edge of the hood and lets his shoulders sink down.
"He's such a brat sometimes," Dean mutters.
"He's your brother."
Dean almost never complains about Sammy and how much he has to take care of his little brother. Even when Dean is the one to walk the kid to school and make sure he gets on the right bus in the bigger school districts. He's the one to take care of Sammy after school and pester the kid into doing his homework. Dean pushes himself off the car and throws his arms out like he can't take this anymore.
"That doesn't mean I want him hanging around all the time." With his arms flying out to his sides, Dean actually looks like a teenager throwing a fit, which he never looks like. "I mean, at least during school, I had my own classes, y'know. He keeps asking me to play catch or go into Bobby's study with him."
John shrugs and saunters up to the wreck of the car casually. He leans one hip against the car and peers down into the dirty engine.
"Well, the last time he was here, he was probably about two and a half," he says. He hasn't taken the boys to Bobby's very often. "He's still exploring."
Dean rubs the back of his wrist — one of the few places on his wrist not covered with motor oil and dust — against his temple.
"Can't I just work on this without the little brother time?" He waves his hand towards the exposed engine in front of him.
"Yeah."
John studies the engine. It looks like Dean's trying to dismantle the V8 inside the trunk, though John doesn't quite know his purpose yet. Maybe just to find out what makes it tick.
"Just …" he starts and can't figure out how to continue. Dean glances up with his eyebrows raised, but John studies the engine, with the transmission disconnected. "You're his hero, Dean."
Dean's eyes widen, but then he turns back to the engine. John can just barely see the kid's cheeks flush, which is weird because Dean hadn't even blushed when John gave him the "how-not-to-get-a-girl-pregnant" talk.
"You're the one that took care of the bullies in Indiana," John says.
"How'd you …" Dean's head snaps up suddenly, his blush still altogether there.
John cocks his head and indulges himself in giving Dean a sideways look with a little smirk.
"I'm not an idiot, son," he says. "I know what a shiner looks like."
Actually, he had thought at first that Sam himself had been getting into fights and had marched to the principal at the school, fully ready to ream the man out for allowing violence when John had just passed a colorful poster about bullying in the hallway. But then the principal had described injuries to all these bullies that Sam couldn't have caused; he didn't have the strength or the training. Dean, however, does.
Dean scrubs his hand across the back of his neck and stares down at the car.
"Yeah, well." He shrugs in a mostly aborted gesture as if John is supposed to glean the rest of the his meaning from just that.
And for all the John had never had a big family, he thinks he gets it.
"Just a little time for myself, Dad." Dean lifts his eyes to his father. "Is that so hard?"
John shakes his head. There are still four whole years between his boys, and fifteen is a very different age from eleven.
"I'll talk to him," he promises.
Dean nods decisively and then turns to pick up his wrench, hunching his shoulders a little sheepishly.
John calls that a good talk and leaves the shed and Dean to his car parts. He circles the house again, heading for the sawhorse where the dogwood boards for the studs are still on the ground. But Seth isn't back yet, which means he either stopped for a break or is still talking to Sam. Either way, John wants him back to help brace the wood so he can saw it without any trouble.
Construction is not John's area of expertise.
John walks into the house, closing the screen door quietly behind him. With an immediate scan of the open rooms, John can see Seth isn't in the living room or kitchen, so he heads for the study, where Seth spends most of his free time. Halfway down the hallway, John hears the muffled murmur of voices coming from upstairs. Apparently, Sammy takes a little longer to calm down than Dean does. He walks up the stairs and figures he can make sure Sammy's feeling alright and being productive. It is summer vacation after all.
"That's his job," Seth says.
John stays where he is and tells himself that this is just another way of getting information from his sons. Besides, Sam never talks with him like this, and John knows just enough about parenting styles to know that he's the disciplinarian. Mary was always softer than he was, too.
"Little brothers have a different kind of job," Seth says while John leans his back against the wall beside the bedroom door.
"Research?"
John doesn't even have to look in the room to see Sammy roll his eyes with that line.
"No." Seth doesn't sound indulging or sympathetic. Not yet. "Making sure the big brothers don't get too big for their pants."
That's what that tone is in Seth's voice. Seth sounds amused. And John can admit that sometimes Sammy is very good at bringing Dean back down to earth. Nothing like a little brother to make a teenager feel like he's not as cool as he thinks he is.
"How d'you do that?" Sammy mumbles.
"Make fun of them, tell them when they're wrong," Seth says. "Sometimes it means you have to fight."
Neither of them say anything after that, and John nearly holds his breath. He can't stop his boys from fighting, he knows that. It'd just be nice.
"Did you fight with your brother?"
John feels his eyes grow wide at Sam's question. This is the first time he's ever heard that Seth had a brother. It's not like it really matters, not when Seth is the one helping out.
"Yeah," Seth breathes. "Especially when we were both grown-ups."
"You're not both grown-ups now?" Sammy asks with a tone that clearly says he thinks that makes no sense.
The wording is a little weird, and John can't really think of an explanation for it at first. Seth rarely makes a mistake when he's speaking; he has a tendency to measure his words carefully before they ever come out of his mouth.
"He's not …" Seth says hesitantly.
And then John remembers that for all the Men of Letters is a family business, Seth is the only Man of Letters John has ever met.
"Did he die?" Sammy asks quietly.
John doesn't breathe.
"I don't know." Seth's voice is even quieter now.
For a while, nothing comes out of the bedroom the boys are sharing, not even the squeak of mattress springs or anything else that would signal people moving around. John is so quiet, he can almost see both Seth and Sammy frozen together in the room.
"There are a lot of ways you can lose someone," Seth says quietly. "I was on a hunt with him and someone else. The … the thing we were hunting found us."
Seth is obviously editing down the story so it's appropriate for Sammy. But John can read enough between the lines to think that this is Seth's experience with demons and also why he hunts them just like John does.
"Your brother's … lost?" Sammy says slowly, almost guessing at the right answer.
"Yes."
Seth's voice is strangled, hurt in a way John hasn't heard a hunter's voice in a long time. Any hunter's voice, really. It's not like hunters are a caring bunch who share the reasons they get into the business. With something still tight in his chest, John tiptoes back down the hallway and halfway down the stairs, all while Seth and Sammy are silent.
"Seth!" he calls once he's pretty far down the stairs.
He turns around and braces himself on the railing and the opposite wall of the staircase, as if he's pulling himself up to the second floor. Before his slow plodding feet can take him up further than two steps, Seth burst out of the boys' room. His eyes are wide, but not red.
"What?"
His voice isn't even wobbling or quiet like it was a moment ago.
"You planning on coming back to work sometime today?" John tilts his head so he can jerk it down towards the first floor, a half-assed gesture but Seth seems to take it at face value.
"I'm coming," Seth sighs and starts tromping down the hallway and following John down the stairs.
John purposefully doesn't look too hard at Seth, but he does see Sammy come out of the bedroom and hover just inside the door jam.
"You okay in your room, there, Sammy?" John says. He doesn't really want to encourage Sam to go outside again when Dean's already asked for some "me" time.
Sammy just gives a half-hearted shrug and then nods very, very slowly.
"Come outside if you get bored," John calls over his shoulder. "I bet I could find something for you to do."
With that threat issued, Sammy spins on his heel and flees right back into the bedroom. When Seth stifles a half-smile as well, John calls it a win on all fronts.
o0O0o
John rests his coffee mug on Bobby's desk and bends over his sixth book for the morning. The sun isn't even up yet, and nothing he's found has anything on the demon named Azazel. At this rate, he's going to have to ask Seth if he brought any more texts with him. He's been avoiding really talking with the man since he overheard the conversation with Sammy. It's not like John's about to approach him and confess to overhearing the conversation or bring up his supposed missing brother. There's just something about the story that nags at John in the back of his mind. Something that he feels like he should be connecting but isn't. Not quite yet.
The study door bursts open, and John looks up expecting to see Seth. Surprisingly, Dean leans into the room, still wearing his sleep pants and a plain T-shirt. His eyes are wide and wild.
"Dean—"
"Something's wrong with Sammy," Dean says immediately. "He won't wake up."
John leaps out of the chair and launches himself for the door. Dean presses himself to one side just in time for John to rush past him and swing himself around the corner and up the stairs. He shoulders his way into the open door to the boys' bedroom and sees Sammy lying in the trundle bed, on his back and completely still. The covers are thrown off his body, and the skin under his nose is red and wet again from a nosebleed.
"Sam." John surges forward and grabs both of Sammy's shoulders with his hands.
Sam's eyes stay shut, and he doesn't move, not even to groan about needing five more minutes in bed.
"Sam!" John's arms jerk as he shakes Sammy, just once.
Sam's head flops back and forth on the bed, and he lets out a grunt like John just slapped him. The sound twists itself into John's stomach and stays there, but he waits to see if Sam will open his eyes. With another groan, Sam rolls his head back and then peels his eyes open.
"Dean?" Sammy breathes.
Suddenly, Sammy's eyes fly open, wild and dilated, and he jerks up in John's hands, pushing against the grip John has on his shoulders. John leans back enough so that he's not holding Sammy down against the bed any longer, and Dean surges forward to slip into the space John left open.
"Sammy, you okay?"
"Dean!"
Sam throws his arms around Dean's neck, practically falling into Dean's space. But Dean just catches his brother and wraps one hand solidly against Sam's back.
"Hey, kid, what's wrong?" Dean rubs his hand up and down Sammy's back.
John pushes off the bed and scoots down to the end of the trundle bed. Dean readily takes his place — half-sitting on the edge of the bed and leaning hard over Sammy — without even glancing at John.
"I didn't mean to." Sammy's fingers dig into Dean's T-shirt. "Dean, I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
"Sorry for what?" Dean says. "I'm not mad."
John stands up so he can take two steps in one side and see both of his boys at the same time. Sam's face is still red, and the blood under his nose is smeared across his mouth like paint now. Some of it stays on Dean's shirt, a red stain like someone hit him in the chest and broke skin.
"I shot you." Sam's eyes squeeze shut, leaking tears down his face. "There was a ghost, and I was so mad, and I shot you."
What the heck? It sounds like a bad dream, sure, but there's something desperate about Sam's hold on Dean's shirt and the way he's gasping for breath.
"I'm sorry," Sammy sobs.
"It's okay," Dean says. "Hey, it was just a dream, right? It's okay."
John's not so sure, suddenly. He pulls a clean cloth from his pocket and unfolds it, looking for blood stains leftover from Sam's accident on the drive a few days ago. Seeing none, he passes the handkerchief over to Sammy and waves it a bit in front of his face.
"Here," John says. "Pinch your nose."
Sammy immediately ducks his head as he snags the cloth, but he remembers enough to tip his head back as soon as the handkerchief goes under his nose.
"Sorry," he mutters through the fabric with one hand on the bridge of his nose.
"You having bad dreams a lot, Sammy?" John asks.
Djinn usually put their victims in a coma, and they're not really nightmarish figures.
"I dunno." Sammy tries to shrug even with both hands busy.
"What are they about? What do you dream?" There's a legend somewhere that nightmares come from actual mares, horses that carry victims off.
"I dunno," Sam says, louder this time.
"Dad."
Dean looks over his shoulder at John and almost frowns. Almost, but then John can't see any frown a moment later. Immediately, Dean turns back to his brother.
"I got this." Dean takes the handkerchief out of Sammy's hand and folds it over to use the clean edge to wipe away at the blood that's smeared over Sammy's chin.
"I'll be in the study," John says, just so Dean knows what to do when he's done with cleaning up Sammy.
Dean only nods without looking back at John. So, John marches out of the room and back down the stairs into Bobby's study again. He walks past the stack of books, the only ones he's found in Bobby's library to list any demon names, and stares up at Bobby's bookcase again.
Mares are Old English, he remembers that much. But hags can cause nightmares, too. John's had an argument with Bill Harville about hunting hags because there was some disagreement about whether or not hags qualified as human, like witches did. He'll start with the mare, that seems the most likely. Where the hell does Bobby keep his books on Old English monsters? How does he find anything in this mess?
"You're up early."
John looks up from the book in his hands just enough to glare at Seth. He follows Seth's eyes around the room and sees the mess of books he's left behind, as well as the books he's already pulled off of Bobby's shelves with this new search.
"Did you bring any more books on demons?" John snaps at Seth. "I can't find anything in here."
He needs to find something on at least one of his searches. So far his supposed reconnaissance is not very productive. Seth nods easily, like he was just waiting for John to ask instead of drive himself crazy trying to find something in Bobby's library.
"I got a couple in my car." Seth jerks his head back towards the door. "I'll get them."
He pauses for a minute, but John doesn't know what else he's supposed to give the man. John goes back to the book in his hands and scans the Table of Contents. Black Dogs, also Hellhounds. Cunning Folk: Witches or healers? Pixies vs. Brownies.
"If you're gonna stay in here all day, I'll take Dean," Seth says from the doorway. "We need to finish the studs so we can put up some sheetrock for walls."
"Fine."
John doesn't even care. He has a Knight of Hell to worry about, and now Sammy is dreaming about ghosts. John just has to rule out the worst possibility before he tags in this stupid construction project with Seth again.