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Sam and Dean were sitting in the library going back and forth on theories on werewolves when there was a bright light and they turned and quickly erected a personal defensive ward, just in case. This place was supposed to be airtight, but apparently they had a flaw in their wards somewhere if someone was coming through. When the light cleared, they saw a young man who looked almost familiar standing there looking at them in confusion. “Where is my son?” he asked frantically.
“Who is your son and why would he be here?” Dean asked narrowing his eyes at the guy. The only people there at the moment other than the two of them were Gabriel, who was checking out something in the storeroom, and the werewolf they had locked in the dungeon. Despite the strength of their wards that this guy just waltzed through, they highly doubted this was God, so either he was in the wrong place or the werewolf was his son.
“John Winchester. Where is he?” the man asked taking a step forward only to run into a seemingly invisible wall.
Sam blinked in shock for a moment. “You’re Henry? But you died in the explosion way back in 1958”
“Explosion? Back in…wait…when am I?”
“This is the year 2014. I’m Dean Winchester. This is my brother Sam.”
“So, the men of letters survived,” Henry said relieved. He had been worried about that. They had apparently lived up to their promises and taken care of his family.
“Nope. The last traces of them were wiped out in 1958. We found this place abandoned a few years ago and moved in,” Dean told him.
“Then you’re not men of letters?” Henry asked completely confused.
“We’re hunters,” Dean told him with a smirk, having read enough of the men of letters books to know exactly how little they thought of hunters and had always wished he could have a confrontation like this.
“Oh, dear heavens. Hunters with access to all the secrets of the universe…we’re all doomed,” Henry said fearfully.
“Oh, please. You think this stuff here was anything special? It took us all of an hour to tear down the vaunted wards on this place and put our own in place ten times stronger. Your little library here was complete crap. Almost everything in it got trashed before we replaced it with real knowledge. We know more than your pitiful organization could ever have dreamed of,” Sam scoffed at him.
“For example, we can see by the sigil behind you that you came here, probably fled from the attack on the chapter house that killed everyone else, by a blood spell. You came here because John is dead so we’re you’re closest relatives alive in this time…your only relatives actually…and it was altered to take on a temporal aspect by…” Dean pulled down their shields now that they knew this guy was no threat and walked over to the sigil to inspect it. “Demon blood. Looks like we’re about to have company, Sammy.”
“On it,” Sam said going into action. “Step over here please,” he told Henry, who followed instructions in a complete daze and watched in shock as Sam began casting a complicated ward far beyond anything he could follow covering the area in front of the sigil. They had been doing a little work here and there on curing demons, working from the original men of letters’ flawed research, but hadn’t actually come across any demons to experiment on. They had been lying low since the whole averted apocalypse, but if one was about to stumble into their laps, they would be fools to throw away the opportunity.
“This demon is far stronger than a demon ward can hold,” Henry couldn’t help but point out.
Dean rolled his eyes. Didn’t this guy get the hint yet? “This isn’t your standard demon ward,” Dean told him as Sam was just finishing drawing the blood sigils around the border to anchor it semi-permanently. “Sure, it’s a bit of an overkill if stunt demon number 12 is coming through, but we prefer to be on the safe side. This will trap anything demonic, no matter how strong, all the way up to the prices of hell. Sure we killed Azazel already, but Asmodeus, Dagan, and Ramiel are still out there, so we don’t take chances.”
“But…you…there’s no way to stop demons that strong,” Henry insisted.
“Definitely not with the crap you guys studied from,” Dean said smugly. “Let me put it this way, kid.” Despite being their grandfather, he looked younger than them and certainly wasn’t nearly as smart as them so he was a kid from their point of view. “What you and your little friends did was the equivalent of kindergarteners trying to figure out nuclear physics. Some of the artifacts you’ve found have come in handy, but about the only other useful thing you’ve managed is to be able to spark actual ideas in us grown-ups with your cute little research. So why don’t you just stay out of the way for now, and once we have your little demon mess cleaned up, we can chat and we might even teach you something.”
Sam looked at his brother and raised an eyebrow at how harsh he was being. He knew that Dean had always taken great offense at the obvious disdain the men of letters had for hunters, and the way Henry had been treating them since they said they were hunters had just brought that all back to the forefront, but there was no reason to be so nasty about it. He quickly figured out what Dean’s problem was though. Not only had a flaw in their wards been found and taken advantage of, but a threat was on the way as well and it was only luck that Dean’s wife and son weren’t here right now and that had him on edge.
Right about that time, Gabriel came in, holding a mostly empty jar. “Hey guys. We should probably restock our wolfbane soon…” he trailed off and raised an eyebrow at the new person in the room and the containment ward coming off the wall. “Another Winchester…an old Winchester…” he said curiously as he turned his eyes towards the wall and saw the sigil. “Ah. I see. I’m guessing we’re about to have more company then?”
“That’s what we figure,” Sam said with a shrug wondering what was taking so long. No sooner than the thought crossed his mind there was another flash of light and a bloody redheaded woman was standing there with a smirk on her face. She stalked towards them but was thrown back by the containment ward as Sam, Dean, and Gabriel studied her.
Sam and Dean quickly cast a spell to allow them to see supernatural fields temporarily to figure out what she was and how strong she was. “Definitely not stunt demon number 12,” Dean said tilting his head curiously.
“Nope, but I don’t think she’s as strong as Azazel or Lilith were either,” Sam added.
“Knight,” Gabriel told them, figuring it out first. Their sight spell allowed them to see mostly what he did, but he still had a little bit of a leg up in that area. His natural sight was able to break it down better and since it was normal for him, he had a lot more practice at processing the input. “She’s a knight of hell.”
“Nice,” Dean said appreciatively. “She will do nicely for our research.”
“You can’t do that. She’s possessing some poor woman,” Henry said scandalized, worried about his friend Josie in there.
“Obviously,” Sam said rolling his eyes. “We have no intention of harming it’s meatsuit. Or allowing it to do so. We’re not monsters, you know.”
“What have you done? This is impossible!” the demon cried, frantically trying to get out.
“Oh, I assure you doll. It’s definitely possible,” Gabriel said with a smirk, glad that the ward muffled her powers too so she couldn’t see what he was. “Don’t worry. We’ll take good care of you.” Somehow that didn’t make her feel much better. “Sammykins, why don’t you go move our werewolf friend into the secondary dungeon, so we can put this one in the primary where the wards are stronger. Deano, why don’t you go double check the wards on the primary dungeon. Best to be careful.”
“We still need to figure out how they were able to get through the wards surrounding the bunker,” Dean said nervously.
“Oh, that’s easy. You remember when we were rebuilding the ward scheme, we didn’t see much need in wiping the identification memory since the men of letters were extinct. They were still recognized by the wards and granted access. Once we have all this under control we can fix that.”
“Right. Yeah. I forgot about that,” Dean said sheepishly. That had been rather shortsighted of them. “Hey! No wandering off!” he called as Henry started walking around looking at the books they’d added.
“I have every right to be here,” Henry said shortly.
“No. You HAD every right to be here. Fifty years ago. This place is ours now, and I’m not sure we trust you yet,” Dean told him. “Gabe, keep an eye on him,” he said as he headed out to check the dungeon wards.
Gabriel rolled his eyes and pointed at a chair. “Sit,” he told Henry who did so with a glare. Gabriel handed him Sam’s first year arithmancy book and said, “If you’re really bored just sit still and read that.” Gabriel wasn’t sure the guy needed a babysitter at all, but he could understand Dean’s discomfort so would do as he was asked. He did notice the regular winces from the guy due to the demon’s threats of what she was going to do to them when she got out, but he was just ignoring her posturing.
It wasn’t long before Sam and Dean returned. “Werewolf is moved,” Sam told him tossing Gabriel the cuffs that would hold the demon for transport.
“Primary dungeon wards are in perfect condition,” Dean told him.
“Good,” Gabriel said with a nod. “Get ready to bring the containment field down when I signal.” He stepped through the field that would allow things in but not out. There was no question that he was the one that would handle her being the most resilient of them. There was a bit of a fight to get the cuffs on her, but once they were secure, Gabriel nodded to the boys who dropped the containment field and they all, Henry included, marched her down to the dungeons and secured her in the restraints that had been upgraded to hold anything in existence. “We should put a three-way blood binding on the restraints,” he suggested.
“Good idea. Who knows how good she is at playing with people’s minds? She would never be able to control all three of us at the same time though,” Sam nodded and they each stepped over and cut their palms drawing their own sigils and giving a chant that would only allow the restraints to be opened by all three of them together.
That settled, they could handle the smaller of the two problems. Henry. They led him back to the library and motioned for him to sit down with them. Before any of them could say anything though, they heard the door open. “Anybody home?” they heard the voice call.
“In the library, Bobby!” Dean called. Bobby had long learned to announce himself when coming in from outside unless he wanted a gun pointed at him.
“I got your pig hearts,” Bobby called as he dropped the cooler in the kitchen on the way.
“And I don’t even want to know what you need them for,” another voice called as they entered the library.
“Jodi!” Sam said cheerfully as he got up to give her a hug. “It’s great to see you. What brings you out here?”
“I think some introductions are in order before we get to the small talk,” Bobby said eyeing Henry distrustfully.
“Right. Sorry, Bobby. Bobby, Jodi, this is Henry Winchester, traveled here by a temporal portal from 1958. Henry, this is Bobby Singer, he runs the hunter’s network, and Jodi Mills, our liason to law enforcement and part time hunter.”
“Temporal portal? They could do those back then?” Bobby asked curiously.
“Not exactly,” Dean scoffed. “They could do a blood travel spell. The demon that followed him altered it to add the temporal dimension.”
“Ah. That makes more sense,” Bobby said as understanding dawned. He knew that they had learned blood travel spells in their first year. Came in really handy when they needed to get to each other quick.
Jodi decided to answer the question that was asked before. “I got a few weeks vacation, and figured I’d come down and check out this new setup you boys got.”
“That’s right. I forgot you’ve never been here,” Dean said giving her a hug of his own. “Come on. I’ll go get you set up in a guest room,” he offered taking her bag for her.
Henry jumped into the conversation with a question about the book Gabriel had given him to read. “Is this the kind of stuff you fella’s know now?” he asked holding up the book.
Sam couldn’t help but laugh. “That’s one of our first set of books that we got when we were eleven. That’s about as basic as basic gets.”
“How is this possible?” Henry asked. There was no way that so much progress could be made in such a short amount of time. Especially if the men of letters were killed. They would have had to start all over. “We…we thought we knew everything. Or were on track to learn the little we didn’t know.”
“Yeah, ‘all the secrets of the universe’ you said?” Dean laughed as he came back in. “Don’t worry. We simple hunters don’t mind teaching you a thing or two.”
Over the next few years, Sam, Dean, and Gabriel taught Henry everything they knew. Mostly they just handed him the books, starting with their first-year books. They did have to get a little more hands-on with the defense training. Henry was very good at picking up information from the books with very little personal instruction. It was clear where Sam got his intelligence from. When it came to the physical stuff though…he was crap. He was clearly little more than a bookworm where he came from. It took almost a decade to get him up to par in hand to hand combat and daggers. Forget any other weapons.