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“Oh shit.” John swore noticing the young boy bundled in blankets lying on the delapatated, rotting couch. He had killed the coven of witches but the question now was who this boy was. And more importantly what.
“Hey kiddo, what’s your name I’m here to take you to safety.”
The child gasped and crawled further into the bundle. He was clinging on to a small teddy bear. The thing was soaking wet and missing it’s left eye.
“I won’t hurt you I’m not like them, where’s your mommy?”
“She’s dead, the witches cooked her. Are you a hunter?”
“Yes I’m here to save you.”
“No! Don’t hurt me!” The small boy screeched inhumanly. “I’ll be good. I am good. Please you gotta believe me!”
The child started shaking and crying, John decided to pick the boy up. He wished Mary had joined him on the hunt she would know what to do. She was amazing with kids but refused to have any of her own. Something about not wanting to put her children at risk. He walked to the impala the child started panicking and whimpering.
“Where are you taking me?”
“Home.”
“But I’m not like you.”
“Come on son, lets go.”
When he pulled up to the scrapyard the boy was asleep snoring softly in the backseat, Mary walked out to greet her husband. When she noticed the boy she lifted an eyebrow; John had always wanted a son to call his own but he couldn’t have children. He couldn’t adopt either with the required social work visits and the fact the Winchester’s were technically homeless.
“Who’s this?”
“I don’t know, He doesn’t have a family.”
“John?”
“Please can we just clean him up and make sure he’s not hurt.”
“Fine, go and run a bath I’ll bring ‘im to Bobby.”
The child was passed over to the woman and he started to whimper. He was brought into a lounge area and introduced to a middle aged man. Introduced used loosely, more like sprayed with holy water.
“Hello, I’m Dean.” He Spoke shyly, “I’m not a witch, they stole me from home.”
“Where is home?”
“The beach in what you call California.”
“What are you?”
The boy started speaking in another language, he started crying.
“Do you not know the name of what you are?”
“No. Not in English.”
“Is that the language you normally speak?”
“Yes.”
John ran downstairs with a large towel. Dean frowned and walked towards the bath holding the necklace around his neck it was a sharks tooth. It looked real too. He walked up and sunk into the bathtub, then he screamed.
He cried. He started thrashing in pain, the little four year old was in pain. Even worse was that he simply apologised, for wasting their time on a creature like him. He was four he should not feel like this. What had those witches told him.
When the screaming stopped the boy had a long fish like tail, he had sharp knife like teeth and his skin was greyer. His eyes were a little scary he had kind of a third eyelid that covered his eyes for the water that he would blink with. And his hands which were currently wrapped around his tail had long claw like nails and scales running down his arms.
“So you’re a merman.”
The boy nodded. Bobby stood back moving to grab some shampoo. He looked at the bottle in his hand, merpeople had more sensitive skin than humans.
“Bobby are merpeople violent or cruel?”
“Nah, they’re normally alright. Why?”
“Because... what do they eat?”
“Fish mostly, they’re omnivores though so they can eat whatever.”
“Well, Dean would you like to stay with us until we can get you home?”
“Yes please.”
The merman grew up like a normal boy- he enjoyed school and took extra curricular activities like karate. He wasn’t allowed to join the swim team, much to his dismay. But they took him to the beach every other weekend, except when John was on a hunt. Years passed where he lived under Bobby’s roof as his adoptive grandchild of sorts. He gained a brother when he was seven. The 3 year old was adopted into the family and Dean favoured him. The kid was like nothing John had ever seen before. He had large hulking wings but they could shrink into his back to become tiny.
Dean never went back to the sea, he visited it often but he never ever left for it. John treated the boy like a son, and when Mary died, John died a bit inside too. Mary was killed in a freak car accident, not by supernatural means. At least by what John could tell, he checked everything he could but the stuff from the wreckage had been cleaned. But it made John vengeful. He was overprotective over his children and didn’t want Sam to go to Harvard.
“Dad please, this is my one chance. Please I don’t want to hunt my whole life!”
“Sam it’s dangerous out there. You don’t know who your roommates will be.”
“I don’t have to have a roommate I could just have my own house.”
“That’s more dangerous!”
This was the third argument in the past week and he could hear it from Bobby’s couch. They were only staying at Bobby’s to update his journal.
“I’m sick of them, we have to fight monsters because who else will.”
“Dean, it’s alright to take a break. If Sam wants to go somewhere else he can.”
“But you wouldn’t quit your job to become a hunter?”
“And its a dangerous job with a high mortality rate. How many enemies does your father have?”
“A lot.”
“And how many times have you personally gotten injured.”
“A lot.”
“Sammy might be the last of his kind maybe he doesn’t want that.”
Dean huffed and looked towards the tv, it was old and playing reruns of some 1980s show, it was nearing 20 years old and the attitudes presented in this shone through. He wanted to work on some cars but with it being mid summer it was too hot for him to be in the sun for too long. Bobby was taking notes in his journal about the pair, Dean would not dare to ask but he was curious. He would peak over sometimes and notice large sketches of Sam’s wings in comparison to his height. Bobby had a chart since age 3 and it was quite detailed.
Suddenly Bobby received a call; it was on his wall phone.
“That’ll be the newbie.” He rolled his eyes and walked to the chair. “Hello Garth.”
...
“Mermaids you say?”
...
“They’re not hostile, what did you do?”
...
“I’ll send one of my boys down to check it out.”
Dean perked up, he could deal with merpeople quickly after all most conflict came from misunderstandings rather than actual conflict. Language barriers often were the biggest issue. But Bobby’s face twisted into a large frown, he seemed confused like it was something he hadn’t seen before. And hadn’t heard of.
But before Dean could ask his brother stormed into the small living room. It was an odd sight to see his wings all fluffed up like a birds, it was an odd sight to see his wings. The teen looked annoyed, furious even. His hulking wings oftentimes scared threats away however they couldn’t comfortably be put under a tee shirt for extended periods of time even shrunken down. What would his future lover say when they saw the wings? What could Sam do?
“He won’t let me go.”
“That’s it Sam Dean you two are going on a hunt. I’ll try to arrange something with John.”
So the two followed Bobby’s order and left for a lake just off the city of Chicago. Dean was confused.
“What’s a merperson doing in Chicago? It’s far too cold to swim in the winter and it’s too populated to find an excuse to swim.”
“Must be trying to get somewhere.”
“Or find somebody.”
“Sam, who would they even look for merpeople are reclusive.”
“I don’t know?”
When they arrived in Chicago they met with a young man, he was fresh faced looking about 24 or so.
“You must be Garth.” Dean spoke.
“Yeah.”
“Listen, we’ll see what’s up with the mermaid. But we don’t kill her okay.”
“What why?”
“Because.”
“Why?”
“Ok you’re the boss.”
Back at the motel Dean was looking over the lakes in the region, he wasn’t going to cram himself into a small bathtub and the quicker they found the mermaid the better. He had circled three main bodies of water but something didn’t add up.
Unless raised in a human environment a mermaid would never ever approach a human. And the mermaids he knew well, to put it in words they fit the idea of ethereal beauty to a t. Apparently this mermaid was ugly. Dean decided to go to the water and check.
There he saw a creature who was definitely not a mermaid, at least not from the western mythology. It had a hollow face and a predatory grin as it slowly climbed out of the water. It was going to attack him. That was impossible, nothing tried to attack him. Nothing. He grabbed his gun, shot at it. That did nothing. Then he decided to run, that thing was a water creature it couldn’t traverse land as well as he could. After starting the impala he drove home quickly.
“Sam!” He screeched walking through the front door.
“What?” He complained sleepily.
“It’s not a mermaid.”
“How do you know?”
“I saw it and it tried to eat me.”
Turns out the monster could be killed with a silver sword (or knife) dipped in mermaid blood. Garth plunged the knife in and the monster melted into seafoam. They walked to a diner after the kill. It was in this dirty roadside diner somewhere in the outer city themed after mermaids. This city took legends pretty seriously.
“Don’t worry bro-os, I’ll keep your secret a secret.”
“You better.”
“If you dare share this information I will actually kill you.”
“Okay,”