Chapter Text

Looks Can be Deceiving.

I know you think you know what you thought you saw,

but I don’t think you realise that what you thought you saw

was not quite what happened.

Chapter One: Accounts

John

John Winchester was an imposing figure as he steered his fourteen-year-old son towards the bank to open an account. He was the sort of man people stepped aside for and avoided eye contact with, tall and broad-shouldered. Mostly it was that he carried himself with the air of a man who knew who he was, and how to take care of himself. Even though taking care of himself had long since moved down his list of priorities.

His son, fourteen-year-old Sam, was the opposite. Something about him drew people in. Women especially. It was like they could somehow sense he had been deprived of a mother’s care and wanted to provide it. Sam was John’s world and his first priority in everything. But Sam was growing up and John knew it would be a disservice to him not to let him, even when Sam doubted the wisdom of the process himself.

Inside the large ornate building they got in line for a cashier. Sam fidgeted nervously, straightening his shirt and smoothing his hair as if they might not let him open an account if he looked scruffy.

John had put on a tidy long-sleeved shirt at his son’s insistence but not gone as far as Sam who was wearing his Sunday clothes. “You OK there, Kiddo?”

Sam paused in patting down his hair to make it tidy. “Maybe we should wait and do this when I’m older,” Sam suggested, looking worriedly up at his dad.

“You can handle this,” John said, squeezing his shoulder reassuringly. “You’re starting high school this year and besides, you’ve earned the trust.” Being a single father had been hard but he was proud of his boy. Sam made good grades and would probably become the captain of his soccer team next year.

The boy was looking in equal parts scared and proud. “But what if something happens?” He looked up worriedly into his father’s face.

“Like what?” John tried to keep from smiling.

“I don’t know. I could lose the card, or someone could rob the bank?” John could see the anxiety growing in his boy and rested a reassuring hand on his neck.

“If you lose the card, you notify the bank and get another one, just like anyone else would do. And banks don’t get robbed any more. When was the last time you even heard of that happening?” John was struggling to stay serious enough to reassure his son. Wicked smart, Sam was conscientious and serious, prone to overthinking things and working in extremes, much like John himself. “Besides, I don’t think putting your money in your name instead of mine will make a difference.”

“Maybe I should start small,” Sam pondered. “Just my allowance or something.”

“Sam, it’s your money, it should be in your account.” When Sam thought he was right, there was no telling him otherwise. But when he was unsure it seemed he was always reaching out for a crutch that was missing; he’d wobble and falter. John smiled at him. “We can open a separate savings one for the college money and then a checking account for every day.”

“Two accounts?” Sam spluttered.

John chuckled.

Some parents might think Sam was too young for so much responsibility but John had faith in his son. Not that he was planning to put all the college money in Sam’s name, but there was some money, money that was Sam’s, that should go straight to him. It was money that John would rather have nothing to do with.

They had just made it to the front of the line when all hell broke loose.

Gun fire had John automatically dragging his son to the floor. Crouching protectively over his boy, he tried to get a read on what was happening. A man was firing wildly into the air and yelling something about a robbery but John didn’t catch the words.

People were screaming and the man fired into the air again.

“Get down, dammit! Come on! In the middle, on the floor! Hurry up, come on!”

People started to huddle around John and Sam, their backs to the tall counter. John stayed protectively over his son, but he watched the gunman carefully. He knew killers. He’d faced killers. He’d been one himself in the war. There was something in you that broke when you took life, he knew that. Looking at this man, his wild eyes and crazy gunfire; it was clear he was manic, desperate, but John didn’t think he was broken, at least not yet.

The screaming was starting to die down.

“Now, there's only one way in or out of here,” The gunman yelled. “And I chained it up. So nobody's leaving, do you understand?”

John didn’t understand. What kind of bank robber locked himself inside the bank? Was this a terrorist thing? Something about hostages?

His eyes searched the area, looking for options, opportunities, further threats, anything that would help him survive. John’s long sleeves covered his tattoos but leaving active service didn’t mean you stopped being a Marine. He was getting his boy safely out of this.

His reconnaissance was interrupted by a casual call that rang across the room which was so out of place it made John wonder if this whole thing was a dream.

“Hey, Ronald.”

Despite being light and jaunty, the new voice made everyone, including the gunman, flinch.

John watched as a young man, barely old enough to be out of school, strolled forward, hands raised passively, waving slightly and giving a sheepish smile. He was tall, sort of roguishly handsome, and wearing a maintenance uniform that John narrowed his eyes at, suspecting instantly it wasn’t genuine. The sense of being in a dream, or - more accurately – a nightmare, increased. His heart hammered at the soft cheek of his son clutched against it. John wrapped his arms tighter around Sam.

“You!” The gunman yelled, drawing John’s eyes. Ronald – as the young man had called him – aimed his semi-automatic at the young man who paused, though didn’t look overly worried, more resigned to playing along. “Get down. Get down now!” He shook his gun.

The young man rolled his eyes but then went down onto his knees. “Chill out, Dude, before you shoot someone, especially me.” There was that grin again. You’d think he was admonishing a friend for risking taking someone’s eye out by waving their hands about, rather than facing down a crazy man with a semi-automatic and a bunch of hostages.

Ronald adjusted his aim at the young man, looking determined to shoot. “Why are you here? I knew you were lying. Are you working for the mandroid?”

The whole situation was just too surreal and were it not for Sam, John thought he might have started laughing manically.

The young man just sighed impatiently. “What are you doing, man? Let these people go.” He swept his gaze over the cowering hostages, his eyes snagging briefly on John but not lingering.

“Nobody’s going anywhere. Especially you,” Ronald insisted.

As the young man’s attention returned to the gunman, John swallowed, hopes that he was wrong slinking down to his stomach to be dissolved in the acid churning there.

Sam’s face was still pressed into his chest and he kept him there. Not that it mattered. Unlike John, Sam wouldn’t recognise Dean. Sam hadn’t seen his older brother since Sam was six months old. John had never even shown him a picture. He had tried to save his son from the full account of what happened and, so far, the boy hadn’t asked many questions. Sam knew he had a big brother out in the world somewhere with his mother and that they were drifters and criminals.

But John had never told him the full story of the night he’d discovered his wife had lied to him their entire marriage. There had been a dead body in Sam’s nursery, yet the account she gave to the police, lies! Then the account she gave him, different but still more lies. He had seen and heard the truth for himself.

Going from a blissfully married father of two to the discovery that his wife was a cold-blooded murderer whose actions had permanently damaged their first-born, was traumatic enough. He had no intention of reliving it or giving that grief to Sammy. He had already lost one son to her madness; he wouldn’t let it impact the other too.

Except now that firstborn, the bright giggle-bag, was darker, harder. He was a man, pretty much. He didn’t seem to be armed but he was somehow in cahoots with this crazy bank robber. Despite a determination to put them behind him, John knew a little about the subsequent lives of his ex-wife and eldest son. He had even seen a few pictures. They had a mutual friend who they both still kept in contact with. He also knew she had no permanent address and no job. He had long suspected she survived by some sort of illegal income. Dean’s presence and connection to this crazed gunman supported what he’d suspected.

John focused back on the conversation between the gunman and Dean.

“So now you believe me,” Ronald was saying.

“I always believed you, man. We were just trying to keep you out of it.”

John caught the ‘we’ and his eyes glanced around the room. But there was no sign of his ex-wife.

The young man stood, heedless of the automatic rifle still pointed at him. John narrowed his eyes as Dean moved from target to accomplice. All his worst suspicions about the life of his ex-wife and firstborn were confirmed as the hostages, himself and Sammy included, were gathered up by both men and driven at gunpoint towards the vault.

John made his decision as he used the jostling crowd to keep a distance between himself and Sam – and Dean. He hadn’t caught everything Dean and Ronald had said to each other, and he didn’t much care. He didn’t care what insane danger his ex-family had brought to his door once again. He didn’t care what crazy accounts those two crazy men had for their crazy shit. All he cared about was doing whatever it took to get Sam out of here alive.

thebankjob