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After their down-time weekend LARPing with Charlie, they pick up a poltergeist case, the pissed-off spirit easily destroyed by Dean. It certainly makes their lives simpler, not having to research the origins of the restless ghosts they encounter, now that Dean can just send them into the light or whatever. But there is a part of Sam that fears his research skills will get flabby, relying on his brother to just get his smite on. He doesn’t share his fears with Dean though; he’d rather not get bitched out for missing something as tedious as research. Dean is still getting used to his angelic nature - the fact that food wasn’t really appealing anymore was still a massive sore spot that Sam was sure Cas was still suffering the backlash of - even though they’d mostly gotten over the massive breach of trust his moulding Dean into an archangel had been. The last thing Dean needs is to a reminder of how much of their job has changed as a result. Not now that he’s starting to really enjoy himself again.
They’re just preparing to check out, packing up the last of their things, when the closet door slams open and a man in a bright blue suit comes barrelling out of it. Sam and Dean can only stare as he demands to know which of them is John Winchester. Sam wishes he could say this was the strangest thing that had happened to him this week, but frankly, their lives are ridiculous.
“Demon?” Sam immediately asks, because angels usually don’t produce surprise from Dean when they pop in unannounced- he can sense their grace before it appears on the mortal plane, or something. Sam still doesn’t understand the finer points of Dean’s abilities, and it’s not like his brother is keen on volunteering information about himself, let alone on a touchy subject.
Dean doesn’t get a chance to answer, before the stranger again demands to know which of them is John, and Sam replies in the negative. The man looks dumbfounded at this news, and proceeds to try and hot foot it out of there, but Dean simply grabs him by the shoulder and drags him further into the room. The man is clearly surprised that he can’t twist away, and Sam enjoys a moment of grim satisfaction at the shock on his face. Dean might look like an average guy but archangel strength is like having a whole building decide to sit on you, and he doesn’t stand a chance.
“Please,” he says, “There are matters of great importance, I do not have time to deal with-”
“You’re not going anywhere, double oh seven.” Snaps Dean, shoving him into the motel chair that Sam had helpfully dragged into his path. They cuff him to it, and Dean steps back to give him a cold-eyed once over.
“You’re not a demon, so what are you?” he says, and the man gives him a curious, calculating look.
“How can you tell?” he asks, but Dean ignores him.
“When one of us pops out of your closet, then you can ask the questions.” Sam counters and the man just sighs.
“Yes, my apologies. Is it absolutely essential that I remain in this chair?”
“You’re not going anywhere until we get some answers.” Says Dean, and the man gives a short burst of laughter in response. He eyes them both with disdain and annoyance flares up underneath Sam’s skin.
“I’m quite sure this is all beyond your understanding, my alpha male monkey friend.” The stranger says.
“Let me tell you what I understand!” Dean barks, “Some ass-hat pops out of my closet asking about my Dad, and thinks he can just skip off without any explanation. You can start by telling us everything before I beat it out of you.”
“John Winchester is your father?” The man suddenly seems far more vested in the conversation, but before it can proceed any further, the fixtures and furniture begins to rattle. “What is that?”
Neither of them has an answer; even Dean’s looking around in confusion, but the man’s face quickly clears in realisation.
“Oh my god!” He jumps up, still tethered to the chair by one arm, “Run.”
For the second time in a few minutes, the closet door slams open with a burst of light, and a red-headed woman in a bloodied ballroom dress swaggers in.
“Henry,” she laughs without humour, “Silly man, you forgot to lock the door. But then spells never were your best subject were they?”
“This one is a demon,” Dean snarls, leaping forwards and slamming his hand against her face. She screams in agony as bright white light erupts out of her, before dropping like a sack of bricks onto the hard floor.
Henry gapes in horror, as Dean shoves him back into the chair. “Start talking!”
“Josie...” he whispers, eyes still firmly fixed on the fallen woman’s corpse, and Dean huffs with impatience. Sam’s pretty sure he’s about ten seconds away from just diving into the man’s brain and having a rummage around for answers.
But apparently Dean’s not reached his tolerance level yet, because his face softens and he offers the man a consolation prize; “Her soul went to Heaven.”
“How could you possibly know that? How did you- what are you?”
“I’m an archangel. Kind of in the job description, pal.”
“An arch- but you claimed to be John’s child! How could you possibly be both?” Henry’s bewildered face resembles Dean’s, back at the start of Cas’ reign in Heaven. When nothing seemed to make sense, and he was constantly surprised by the limitations of his power- as in, the fact that there didn’t seem to be any.
But before either of them can say another word, Henry changes tactic. “If you could just take me to John, we could clear all this up-”
Yeah, there’s no way Dean’s going on an impromptu trip to Heaven with this asshole. “That’s not happening. Now, you wanna tell me who Betty Crocker was?” He hefts a thumb in the dead woman’s direction and Henry finally seems to realise that continuing to evade an archangel’s questions wasn’t going to end well for him.
“Abaddon.”
“And where did you come from?”
“She’s from Hell.”
Dean’s bitch face could probably eviscerate lesser demons if he put just a smidgen of his grace behind it. Luckily for Henry, he quickly keeps talking; “I’m from Normal, Illinois; 1958.”
There is a beat of disbelieving silence, broken by Dean’s indignant response; “Seriously? Dudes time-travelling through motel room closets, that’s what we’ve come to?”
Sam very wisely doesn’t point out the fact that Dean could easily do the same, were he so inclined. It’s well within his power to dump Henry back home, no more explanation needed, but their lives are never that simple.
“If take me to John-”
“I told you that’s not gonna happen.”
“And why not?” Henry seems to have been cured of his awe of Dean, if his raised voice is any indication.
“Because he’s dead!” yells Dean with equal insistence, and Henry’s face pales. Sam’s curiosity spikes, and he finally asks what he’s been dying to know since this idiot interrupted their peaceful morning.
“What’s it to you?”
“Everything.” He pauses, clearly to collect his thoughts. “I’m his father.”
Well. Whatever he was expecting, that wasn’t it.
--
Dean flies out to the Atlantic ocean to lay Josie’s body to rest. Stretching out his wings helps to quench his anger; it always does, these days. For all that he was born human, an earthbound creature, he firmly belongs to the heavens now, and too much time on land makes him ansty. The amount of flying required in his day job generally keeps those feelings at bay, but sometimes he just needs to circle the world a few times, racing through the atmosphere and occasionally to other planets, when it all gets too much. It’s funny, because as a human, driving the Impala at ridiculous speeds and ganking monsters provided the same stress relief; the scale might have changed, but his nature has essentially remained intact during the level up. It’s reassuring, and Dean only makes one short detour to Greenland on the way home; startling a polar bear in the process. The cold needs to be really cold in order for it to register with Dean’s body, and it goes a long way in quelling his temper. Then it’s back to the good ol’ US of A to join Sammy and Henry for lunch, and a goddamned explanation for this retarded little adventure they’re having.
Dean steals a few of Sam’s fries, distracted by the feel of molecules bouncing along his tongue, as Henry explains how he skipped out on his family using the power of his soul. Sam voices what he’s thinking; “I thought only angels could do that?” and then looks at Dean like he should have an answer for why it isn’t so.
“My knowledge isn’t infinite Sam. There’s bound to be rituals and spells I haven’t heard of.” Or rather, downloaded, his mind helpfully supplies. The great thing about tuning into angel radio and asking for assistance, is that Enochian is kind of like Japanese, with thousands of meanings and nuance for the same characters. The amount of information available in a few clipped words is tremendous, and returning to the Host is like plugging yourself into an electrical outlet, automatically absorbing all that news like a sponge in water. It takes a great deal of effort to conceal information from the Host, but Dean does it automatically now, the perks of being an archangel and not a regular grunt.
Apparently Henry’s ignoring Dean’s otherworldly nature to drop an information bombshell of his own; he’s part of some secret order (with the world’s lamest name, Christ) and he was expecting Sam and Dean to be a part of it too. He demands to be taken to Illinois, and Dean, thoroughly irritated by his entitled tone, complies.
Dean grins with petty vindictive triumph when Henry immediately throws up in response to the flight. Unfortunately, Sam’s also sporting a pretty epic bitch face at the unexpected teleportation, but Dean isn’t the least bit sorry. It would have taken them roughly four hours to drive here, and frankly, he doesn’t want this case to take that long in its entirety , if he can help it.
Henry’s pretty mortified at having hunters for grandsons - even if one of them is an angel - and keeps trying to shoehorn them out of the investigation. Dean wants to smite him on principle, but Sam’s puppy eyes manage to garner some compliance. Henry’s secret HQ has turned into a comic book store, but the punk chick behind the counter provides some assistance with her laptop; and they discover that Henry’s old pals all died in Abaddon’s little quest to get Henry’s mysterious box. Still, next stop is the graveyard, and Dean digs up the dummy grave in a matter of minutes whilst Sam smirks at the dumbfounded look on their grandfather’s face.
Henry’s friend can actually give them answers. Apparently, Henry’s got access to some kind of research HQ, and from the way he describes it, Dean pictures a Bond-villain style cave complete with flickering fireplaces and sharks with laser attachments. It turns out he wasn’t far off.
The three of them fumble around, trying to get their bearings; Henry alternating between joy at being allowed access to such a place and a kind of crippling agony at all the memories of his friends it drags up. Despite himself, Dean feels a twinge of something like sympathy for him; he knows what it’s like when all your friends are dead.
It’s been a corker of a day, and there’s nothing Dean would like more than to down a liquor store to get a buzz, but he doesn’t want to deal with the silent judgement he’d get from Sam, or worse, a verbal castigation from Cas, if He decides He requires Dean’s presence. It’s just one more reason why he’s on edge, and the confrontation that’s been building with the time traveller all day finally comes to a head. Sam’s been reading through their Dad’s journal to look for information on Abaddon, and apparently she was a knight of Hell, whatever that means. Dean makes a mental note to ask Cas about it later, whilst Sam gushes about looking through the new resources. The revelation that the journal was actually intended to be Henry’s doesn’t improve Dean’s mood at all. Revealing some nasty truths about John’s life to Henry doesn’t actually make Dean feel any better, but he steamrolls ahead with it anyway, because at least this way, he’s not the only one feeling like shit. It’s not the least bit Righteous, and his wings shift uncomfortably, attempting to twist away from such spiteful behaviour.
Dean ignores them, before stalking off to explore the (admittedly, rather fascinating) bunker. He finds a shooting range and a stocked garage, plus a boatload of bedrooms. They could really make this place their home base, and it hurts, in some intangible unnameable way, that Dean will never experience it as a home, they way a human would. He will never prepare food in the kitchen, or claim a bedroom to sleep in. He might work on some of those cars though, if he can control his strength. It’s difficult to know how much pressure to apply on delicate things like engines- more than once he’s had to delegate the Impala’s maintenance to Sam, rather than risk snapping valuable parts it would be a bitch to replace.
At some point a few hours later, Henry comes looking for him. He wants an express trip home, to fix things for John, to try and prevent Mary’s death. Dean doesn’t know what to say to that. There’s no telling what could happen- they survived the apocalypse by a sheer dumb luck last time, and the likelihood of them managing it a second time is pretty slim. Still, it’ll only take Henry a week for his soul to manage the trip, no angelic assistance required. Dean tries to convince him what a monumentally stupid idea it is, but the man’s on a grief-stricken war path, and Dean’s heart isn’t really in it. There’s a tiny piece of him that will always wish his mother could have been saved, that would never stop trying for a do-over. Sam isn’t there to talk him out of it, so Dean grasps Henry’s shoulder, stretching out his senses, dragging the threads of time through his feathers until he finds the right date, and with one powerful beat of his wings-
It burns. Distantly, Dean can hear Sam screaming, Lucifer laughing maniacally, the world around them melting into ash and dust, lava rolling through Dean’s grace, pain so paralysing he can’t even scream, let alone beg for it to stop-
WHAT HAVE YOU DONE.
Cas’ voice is like a sudden plunge into thick ice. Dean is suspended somewhere dark; a formless, shapeless thing. He has no voice to answer with. He thinks of Henry, and his choice, and feels Cas respond in kind, thankfully with fond exasperation rather than divine wrath.
MY BELOVED. ALWAYS SO HOPEFUL. AND FOOLISH.
In a brisk rush of minty air, all is as it was, Henry swaying before him drunkenly, and Dean is so stupidly grateful that when Sam comes stumbling down the corridor demanding to know What the fuck just happened, Dean, shit- he just pulls him into an embrace, and Sam sags into it like the giant girl he still is.
So it looks like Henry is here to stay, after all. Wonderful.