Sorry for the delays, but I have all of Season 15 done now so I hope to post one fic/week until we're through. And after that, I'll be returning to S6 to write for all the soulless-Sam episodes I glossed over before, so I can really say there's a fic for each ep. Stay tuned! -KHK
Another Man's Sons
K Hanna Korossy
Knock, knock, knock.
Sam was in the kitchen, in the midst of explaining yet again why Dean was so very wrong, when the rap at the front door silenced him mid-sentence.
Dean's surprised expression matched his own. It was rare that someone unexpectedly knocked on their door. No roofing salesman, poll worker, or Jehovah's Witness could find the place, and those who knew where to look tended to be either invited guests or enemies who rarely bothered to knock.
The thumps sounded again, not quite banging but verging on impatient. And quite clearly not intending to go away.
Dean jolted into action, hurrying across to the stairs and up, Sam close behind him. At the door, however, Dean hesitated. "Who is it?"
"John Winchester."
Sam saw his brother's eyes widen and his color drain. He was pretty sure he looked similarly pole-axed.
"You're sure you crushed the wish pearl, right?" Dean whispered loudly to him.
Sam knew his exasperated expression was answer enough: duh. "You didn't touch something in the storeroom again, did you?"
"Dude, that was one…" He eyes flicked to the side in a quick mental count. "…two times." Dean's hiss carried its own vexation. They were mostly beyond this: clumsy mistakes, secrets, deals.
None of which explained whoever was at the door.
"Hello?"
He sure sounded like their father. If more civil than Sam would've expected.
Dean's eyebrow lifted in question, and Sam tipped his head in answer. Might as well.
Taking a breath, Dean opened the bunker door.
It was indeed John Winchester standing there.
Sort of.
He was in jeans, leather jacket over a Carhartt shirt, and work boots, hair close-cropped and stance Marine-ready. But. The jeans were a designer label, the boots an expensive high-end brand, and the leather tailored. Even stranger, while his face was lined with decades of difficult living, his hair was still dark and stylishly cut. Dyed, Sam realized with horrified fascination.
He was pretty sure Dean's mouth was hanging open.
John took them in from top to bottom, then gave a rueful grin.
"Hello, boys."
00000
It didn't take long to figure out what was going on. By the time they'd made sure John was an unpossessed, uninfluenced human and invited him in for a beer—which he'd examined with a critical eye and then politely declined—the mystery was solved. This really was John Winchester, but not from their world. An alternate Sam and Dean had come through weeks before, similarly elegant and upper-crust, and they'd said their dad had also set out with them.
And here he was. Drinking the most expensive scotch they had and resting a hand with a sizeable onyx ring on the library table as he did so.
Sam was pretty sure his brother's brain was short-circuiting.
"So…Mo- Mary was killed by a werewolf, and you…started a hunting company," Dean was saying slowly.
"Corporation. And it wasn't quite that simple," John said with a small smile. He turned the glass idly on the tabletop and occasionally glanced around the room, noting each new feature with a flicker of surprise. "I had some money from both sides of the family, and of course my sister helped with you—with the boys, but—"
"Wait," Dean interrupted, brow furrowing. "Your sister?"
"Yeah." John's eyes moved between the two of them. "Joanie, my little sister." Realization dawned. "She isn't—?"
"Our dad was an only child," Sam filled in.
"As far as we know," Dean muttered. Louder, he said, "That might explain why you weren't as…" He trailed off, suddenly awkward.
John frowned.
Sam jumped in, because he'd been thinking the same thing as Dean. "As messed up as our dad. He didn't know what killed Mom, and he didn't have anyone else besides us."
John rocked back in his seat, gaze thoughtful. "Let me guess. Training kicked in and…what, he went to ground? Defensive measures?"
"Something like that," Dean admitted, uncomfortable as he always was when Dad was the subject. "He didn't go full-on Ted Kaczynski—"
"Who?"
"Never mind," Sam quickly said.
"—but he wasn't exactly a model of sanity, either."
"He raised us like warriors," Sam interpreted. "Living off credit card fraud and odd jobs, in sketchy motels and cheap rentals. Dean didn't have a childhood—"
"You, either."
"—and Dad never really…got over it, you know?"
John's face creased and, for the first time, he truly looked like the dad they knew. "You think I did?"
Dean poured him some more scotch, and John drank it.
"I figured it out. What was out there, how to fight it, how to make a living off it. I did all right. But you think I ever stopped thinking about her?" John asked, meeting their eyes squarely. "Sam and Dean—my Sam and Dean—they had everything you didn't: a home, college, choices. But Joanie was pretty much their mom, not Mary. Once they got past those first few months, they weren't grieving anymore. Not like me. Or you two, I'm guessing."
Neither of them argued. Even though Sam hadn't remembered his mother as a kid, his brother and father's crusade eventually became his own.
"Huh." John's gaze swept the library again, and the two of them. "Not sure which of you has it better."
Sam knew the answer to that one.
They shared stories for a few hours more. How John had found their Garth—who'd been a VP in HunterCorp in his world!—and thus Sam and Dean. How his refined sons sometimes baffled him and amused him, a kid who'd grown up with hand-me-downs from his cousins and who'd left high school early to enlist. How he hadn't found his sons yet, but he wasn't too worried.
And Sam told him about their last decade-plus, or at least the highlights. Demons & angels. Apocalypses. Saving the world, a lot. Dean interjected some details—Sam's determination to cure him of the Mark and free him of Michael, Sam overcoming Lucifer, werepires—but mostly just kept quietly refilling his own glass. John, on the other hand, forgot to drink after a while and just stared, wide-eyed, as Sam kept talking.
They went on long enough that Dean slipped off to make them some of his incredible burgers. Sam saw John clock Dean's mad kitchen skills along with the rest of the differences between the two sets of brothers. And the resulting sympathy and respect. Maybe even a little envy.
The brothers offered him a bunker bedroom for the night, but John demurred, and Sam found himself grateful. It would just get weird—weirder—prolonging the reunion with this person they'd never met. Dean had graduated from quietly buzzed to pretty much shut down, and Sam couldn't get enough of a response from him to figure out why: being reminded of their long-gone dad? Or the differences between John and their dad? Between their lives and their doubles'? Between their lives and normalcy? Or was it "just" the continued weight of Chuck, and Jack, and Amara, the threats that hung over this world that John thought was safe?
They all paused at the door in uncertain silence.
"So…Brazil," Dean said. "Not sure if they went, but we talked about it."
Which was news to Sam, but he hadn't been there for that goodbye.
John just nodded. "I'll find 'em," he said simply. He reached out a hand and gave them each a firm handshake and a long, surprisingly soft look. "You two take care. I'm glad you have each other to look out for you."
"Yes, sir," Sam and Dean chorused quietly.
John smiled and left. They'd told him to call if he needed something, but Sam was pretty sure they'd never see him again.
Dean shut the door and stood there leaning against it, forehead pressed against the wood and his eyes closed.
Sam stood next to him, watching and waiting.
"I thought they were th' lucky ones, Sammy," Dean finally spoke, voice scraped rough.
Sam blinked.
Dean pushed up from the door, rubbing a hand tiredly through his hair. "Their mom died, but they kept going, made somethin' good out of it. I thought at least somewhere, someone did it right, you know?" He looked at Sam. "But they're not even like us."
"No," Sam agreed. He waited a beat. "But I think John kinda wished they were."
Dean looked somewhere between confused and disbelieving.
Sam spread his hands. "Dean, we've saved the world, how many times? Ours is the only one left standing. We've sacrificed everything, everything, for that and for each other. We've been beaten down, over and over, and we keep getting back up again. Meanwhile, his sons," he pointed vaguely at the door, "seemed like they cared more about their clothes and hair than about saving people. Or about each other." He pointed now at Dean. "They are nothing like us."
Dean digested that a moment, then wearily closed his eyes again and nodded.
Sam felt a moment of powerful love for this brother who always thought so little of himself. "C'mon," he said gently, giving Dean's arm a tug. "Let's get you hydrated and in bed."
"I'm not drunk," Dean protested, but he stumbled a little on the stairs.
Sam kept a hand flat on his chest until they alighted at the bottom. "I didn't say you were."
"Chuck…"
"Chuck'll still be there in the morning." Sam just hovered a hand at his brother's back now so Dean wouldn't fuss at him for fussing.
Sam rather doubted his double had ever put his dejected, grieving, wasted brother to bed.
Dean muttered something, but he kept going until he reached his room and toppled headfirst into bed. He mumbled thanks when Sam pulled his boots off and was already asleep by the time Sam flicked the light off and closed the door partway.
Sam stopped, washing a hand down his face.
A home. College. Choices.
That would have been really nice, and it was hard not to think sometimes, what if? But if it was all of that, or Dean and their friends and all they'd done, the decision was easy. No matter how things went down with Chuck.
Behind him, Dean grumbled something in his sleep.
Dropping his hands, Sam glanced at his brother's room with a small smile and shook his head. Then he headed for his own bed to rest up for the crises the next day would bring.
The End