mangacat201 | A Hunter's Legacy

It was the darkest part of the night when they neared the gates that were familiar and comforting for the two men in the car, but they posed an entirely different kind of challenge for the rider on the horse. The car glided underneath the arching sign of metal-plated letters without a hitch, but Ben felt Brigid go tense and unsettled half a mile away, and when they neared the gate she refused to follow his lead for the first time in his life and reared on her hind-legs, before they could pass the entrance to the property. Ben felt it too, an oppressive cold seeping into his bones through her instincts, terrifying and seemingly unconquerable. She pranced in front of the entrance and he let her reigns go to give her freedom, since he knew that she would not go right now, even if he tried to force her. Sam and Dean seemed to have noticed instantly that he’d stayed outside and got out of the car once they’d parked it, to jog outside and see what was the matter at hand. Ben slid out of the saddle and pulled the reins in to calm Brigid down enough, so the brothers could come near without immediate danger of being kicked.

“What is it?”

“This is a salvage yard, you didn’t tell me we were going to stay at a fricking salvage yard.”

Both brothers looked mightily puzzled for a moment, until Sam seemed to understand and slapped his hand over his eyes.

“Of course, I’m sorry Ben, I didn’t think.”

Dean glanced between them and looked very much out of the loop if his expression was anything to go by.

“Anyone care to enlighten me here?”

“Dean, it’s the horse and Ben… they’re saturated in Fey magic, and the one thing that gets to the Fey other than fire is cold iron. Stacks of huge hunks of metal are scattered all around this place. It’d be like a devil’s trap if the gates were closed.”

Finally, Dean seemed to get it, and he rubbed the back of his neck looking from the entrance to Ben and back with a look of annoyance on his face.

“I see, does that mean you can’t stay here at all?”

Ben pondered the question for a bit.

“I’m not sure. I mean, for me it’s not that big of a problem, but Brigid… it depends, is there a big enough space inside that’s free of metal, and something I can stable her in? Preferably made of something natural, like wood.”

Sam answered: “Well, there’s the yard around back of the house, it’s about thirty feet across and I suppose we could muck out the shack for you to put her in. The double doors should be big enough to let her in.”

Ben nodded and patted her neck comfortingly.

“That might work, I'll have to lead her inside carefully though and probably ward the doors of the shack. But we should be able to manage like that for a short while.”

Dean snorted and rubbed his eyes.

“Great, Bobby’s going to be just ecstatic about that.”

Sam shushed him and grinned at Ben as he slowly led the way.

“It’s going to be alright. Good thing is, we didn’t even consider that, but this place is like a stealth cover for the fairy radar. No way they’ll be able to find us like this. We’ll be a blank spot on the map.”

Ben considered the remark for a moment, but had to concede that Sam was right. A little discomfort wouldn’t keep him from shunning the protection and potential knowledge this house could provide. The space around them was vast and empty, if he let Brigid out and allowed her to run the plains on a regular basis, she should be alright for the foreseeable future. And it wasn’t like he had much time to spare, since they had to find a solution in less than two months time, or he was sure that not even a cage of metal would keep the Queen from rending apart the fabric of reality, seeking to claim what was hers by right. While he led the horse through the stacks of dead and gutted cars, he tried not think of the way to the house as a gaping chasm with no way out, but more of what might await him on the other end of the driveway. When the house finally came into view, it was ramshackle, dilapidated, but standing with a little defiant touch of its former glory, and, despite the lateness of the hour, there was a light showing in the windows of the lower storey. Sam and Dean didn’t seem surprised, and as they made their way through darkness of the yard, their sure steps showed that knew all about what might have been obstacles on the way. He wondered how often they’d walked across this ground in day or night, and what kind of person would be awaiting them at the door.

It turned out to be a grizzled man of undetermined, but advanced age, wearing a ball cap and grease, like it was the most natural attire in the world. He was sitting in a wheelchair, but that seemed kind of unimportant compared to the malevolent glare he sent them, looking them up and down as his growling voice welcomed the brothers with, “What the hell have you done now, you idjits?”

Ben stared, dumbfounded at this man who made Sam and Dean look like toddlers, caught with their hand in the cookie jar, before they had even started to explain why they’d come here. He marvelled at the man who could cause the two strong, confident men to stand there as contrite as any pranksters and take the scorn just like that, without even a flicker of defiance. And that had only been a single sentence so far. The air around them seemed to crackle with a certain kind of familiarity, and with emotions that Ben could only associate with one kind of bond. It unsettled him so much that he didn’t think, before he let his mouth run away.

“Are you my grandfather?”

From the look on his face, that was exactly the last thing the man had expected to hear, but he recovered quickly enough. He studied first Dean, then Sam, and then returned his gaze on Ben to scrutinize him again, with even more care than he had shown before. Ben refused to look away and met his eyes bravely, even though, once again, he had the feeling that he was missing out on some very important details here. Before long, the man’s gaze snapped back over to Dean, who stood tall for a moment and then actually looked down at the floor, color rising high on his cheekbones in a blush that looked so out of place on his face that it must have been years since it had last happened.

“Bobby, I can explain…”

“I bet you can. Boy, you sure better give me a really good one for this. Heaven forbid that you show up at my doorstep for a simple cup of coffee, ever. So come in then.”

The man – Bobby – jerked his head to indicate the way into the house and then wrenched his wheelchair around to retreat into the hallway, obviously expecting them to follow without question. Along the way he muttered something about “Damn Winchesters…” and “multiplying…” and “…can’t ever…”.

Dean walked after him instantly, and Sam nudged Ben to cross the threshold, before he entered the house as well. Once again Ben felt wards, but they weren’t as powerful and foreign in terms of magic as the angels reinforcements had been. He fancied he even knew some of the spells himself, though these had been done thoroughly but inexpertly, like someone reading from a book in a language that they’d heard before, but never learned themselves. They were led into the dilapidated kitchen, and Bobby fumbled four shot-glasses out of the cupboard, lining them up on the table and filling them from a bottle containing some smoky liquid, going through the motions like it was a well-known and highly regarded ritual.

He didn’t fill them all the way, just enough to get a taste really, and, when he was done, he put the bottle down on the table and picked up one for himself. The intention was obvious, but Ben did look at Dean for a moment, before he picked up a glass of his own at the man’s almost imperceptible nod. Bobby threw back the liquid with practiced ease, same as Dean. Sam frowned at the glass for a second but knocked it back as well, with a grimace of what might have been either pain or dislike. The brothers exchanged a look, and Ben noticed a faint tremor in both their hands when they set down their glasses, looking at him expectantly. He knew without a doubt that it was a potent drink, and that it would be no use putting it off by sipping, so he screwed his eyes shut and let the liquid flow over his tongue with one single move. It tasted like clear spring water and a lick of concentrated fire melding together, and swallowing it like that made him cough and sputter while he set the glass down on the table top. It wasn’t the first time he’d tasted alcohol, it was quite common with all the feasts and state affairs the Queen held in her court, but the younger ones had never been allowed to drink something as potent as this.

Ben wondered whether it was some kind of test of his manly prowess, though what good that would do as a welcome for all guests he had no idea. From the appreciative gazes all around, he supposed he must have passed, since nothing else happened for a heartbeat or two. Then Bobby moved again suddenly, and with just a pursing of lips told Sam to stay put and watch over him, while he ushered Dean out of the room with a jerk of his head. Ben watched the silent exchange, and the two man leaving in direction of what was possibly the living area. He turned back to Sam, who gave him a reassuring smile and not much else to go on.

When they arrived in the living room, Bobby rounded on Dean, crowded into his space and lifted an eyebrow. Dean stayed stubbornly silent for a few moments, unwilling to give in to Bobby’s manipulative tactics, but he had never been good with oppressive silences. It only took about a minute until he snapped.

“What!?”

Bobby still didn’t say anything, but started to smooth down the scratchy beard on his chin with an air of defiance that told Dean on no uncertain terms that he was screwed.

“Ok, fine, he’s mine, alright?”

The sentence hung in the air between them like a bell ringing, and Bobby’s eyes widened in surprise at the admission, but Dean wasn’t really paying attention, because he got it now. Finally it hit home just what Ben was to him, now, and quite possibly since he’d first seen him all those years ago, in the garden gushing over that CD. It literally knocked the air out of his lungs and made his knees so weak they couldn’t hold him up anymore. He slumped into the couch that was sitting conveniently behind him, otherwise he would have ended up on the floor in a very undignified heap and laughed hysterically at the fact that he was only just really realizing that he had a son.

Sitting there, breath wheezing too fast and too shallow, his eyes watering from the lack of air, Dean understood that he had now, what he had given up long ago and thought he’d never achieve. A family, ties that bound him to another person, that only a very small circle of people on the world could claim, and while it was just as messed up - fucked six ways from Sunday in fact - as his family had always been, it was his.

And that bitch of a fairy queen had better be on her guard, because if she tried to keep what was his, he was going to do her in so deep that she wouldn’t know what hit her. No one crossed a Winchester.

A stinging pain on his cheek jerked Dean out of his internal ravings and he gasped and looked at Bobby with wide, glazed eyes, before he got his bearings again.

“What the hell?”

“Yes, boy, indeed, what the hell? What are you on about?”

“I… I’m sorry, Bobby, I guess it just didn’t hit home until now.”

Bobby looked at him with disbelief clearly written all over his face.

“Are you serious? You really want to tell me that young man is yours? Have you SEEN him?”

Then Dean remembered that Bobby had never known about Lisa and Ben, and that he was not aware that the boy was supposed to be… well a boy still.

“He’s eleven. Or, he would be if he hadn’t spent a large part of his adolescence in the Netherworld at the court of the Fey Queen.”

“He WHAT?”

Dean looked sheepish at Bobby’s outburst, but he didn’t know how to break the news to him any other way.

“Yeah, you realize, we’re in a bit of a pinch, because he’s to join the Wild Hunt in a couple of months, and we’re not exactly all that keen on the dying part, even if he IS apparently a Winchester. Never mind how I’ll explain that to his… Son of a bitch!”

“Dean, what, slow down boy, I really can’t follow you.”

“She knew about it. She knew and lied into my face about it. That’s just… I mean, I noticed before when Ben told me, but I should have realized what kind of threadbare excuse it was right there the first time.”

“Son, you’re really not making any sense. Are you saying you met this boy before?”

“Yes of course, it’s… this is a right mess.”

“Right now, Dean, I can’t really help you in anyway if you don’t tell me what exactly is going on.”

Bobby’s voice had taken on that sharp, cutting edge that made his presence known to everyone and showed that a lot of people underestimated him still – or especially now. It jerked Dean out of his mutterings and drew his attention to the older man.

“What?”

“Why don’t you start at the beginning?”

And Dean did.

“So… is he?”

Sam turned to Ben with and inquisitive eyebrow.

“What?”

“My grandfather?”

Sam looked at the closed door behind which Dean and the man in the wheelchair where conversing, with a forlorn expression.

“Bobby? No, of course not. Well… technically, yes, he’s as close as you’re going to get in this part of the family, but genetically speaking? No.”

“So, your parents aren’t alive anymore.”

“No, they’re not. Haven’t been for a long time.”

Ben felt a short stab in the middle of his chest, for a loss that looked a lot harder on Sam’s face than he'd thought possible, and, sure, he had never met those people, but now he knew for sure that he wouldn’t ever get the chance, and it made him sad that he’d missed so much about his father’s life. The regret must have shown on his face since Sam’s expression softened and when raised voices rang through the door at the other end of the room, the tall man waved him out of the house and to the car where he started taking out their clothes and gear. They worked silently for a few moments, and when they’d deposited all the duffels onto the veranda and Ben had surreptitiously ogled all the weapons in the hidden compartment in the trunk, Sam led them around to the back of the house to where a ramshackle wooden shed was leaning precariously in the wind.

Ben summoned Brigid with a whistle, and while she still looked ruffled and uncomfortable with her surroundings, the space around the house seemed to be wide enough to spare her the greatest discomfort. He helped Sam clean out some tools and debris, and when they opened the double doors to let it air out for a bit it became apparent that, while it might not be the most luxurious quarters for a horse, it would do for the foreseeable future. Ben then took care of all the gear he'd packed for the journey, he’d travelled light of course, but all his precious weapons were there. The dagger he kept on his body, the sword strapped to the saddle alongside with his bow, and a quiver full of specially crafted arrows that would hit their target with magical precision if you knew how to wield them. He checked over all his things and noticed that Sam watched him avidly and appreciatively.

“You know, your real grandfather, John, would have been quite smitten with the idea that his grandson is a hunter.”

Ben’s eyes widened at the casual interjection, and he whipped around to stare at Sam.

“What? My grandfather would have wanted me to join the Hunt!?”

Sam rolled his eyes and threw him a half-smile.

“No, heaven forbid, of course not. I forget so easily that you don’t really know anything about us… there are people like us, not a lot, but always a few. They search for evil and supernatural badasses in all forms and try to do what they can to save people and destroy the things that harm them, even though most folk think they’re legend. We call ourselves hunters, and it’s our family business if you will. Has been for a long time.”

Ben let his arms sink and looked at Sam for a minute, while he worked through what he’d just been told. He hadn’t exactly been told a lot of the background on what happened when he met Sam and Dean for the first time, but in hindsight, he should have known that you don’t just happen to know how to gank a monstrous fairy godmother just because. It made him want to laugh at the irony that, all this time he’d wanted to be nearer to his dad by going back to his normal life and maybe convince his mother to tell the truth, but he'd never once thought that getting taken by the Sidhe to be raised at the Fey Court would do the trick.

Sam must have seen something of the things that played on his face for he nodded, told him that he would answer everything Ben wanted to ask about soon and clapped him on the shoulder for reassurance. That was when the tall man noticed that Ben was still wearing his armour.

“Oh hell, we’re going to have to get you something to wear, I mean, that’s got to be uncomfortable.”

Ben wanted to say – not really, he’d spent a good deal of the last seven years in mail and vambraces, and it was not that much of a bother. But then it suddenly hit him that he wanted to take back a little shred of normalcy just for himself, just for a few hours, which was why he agreed. Sam rummaged through their duffels for something suitable to give to Ben, but while he wasn’t a scrawny seventeen-year-old, he wasn’t exactly up to par with the enormous frames that were Sam and Dean. Finally Sam found him one of Dean’s ridiculously old, washed-out, favourite Metallica shirts that he only ever wore for comfort after a hunt – which was probably the sole reason it was still in existence at all, and a pair of pants that made a decent fit once they were rolled up a little over the belt. He felt ridiculous and young in a way he hadn’t for a long, long time, and it was marvellous.

When they came back down into the kitchen, Dean and Bobby were already there, apparently throwing a meal together. When they noticed Ben and Sam standing in the doorway they turned, and Bobby wheeled over to give him a proper introduction this time.

“Hi, I’m Ben.”

“So I’ve heard. You look quite like your father, boy, let’s just hope you’re not quite as big of an idjit as him, right?”

The jab was delivered with a lot of snark, but also an incredible fondness that tugged at Ben’s insides and made a lump appear in his throat - a lump that kept him from answering anything else but “Mhhmhm.”

Dean shot Bobby a reproachful look from the stove, but Sam only chuckled and busied himself laying the table. Ben tried to help, but between the well attuned and familiar movement of the three men, he felt clumsy and awkward in the small space, so he kept out of their way after some half-hearted attempts to find out where everything was. The meal was a silent affair with everyone at the table savouring the simple food, and when they were done putting the dishes away Ben followed the three into the living room and marvelled. It had the same half abandoned, half lived-in feel as the rest of the house, but in addition there were books. Lots and lots of them, towering precariously in foot-high stacks directly from the floor, or wobbling on a big, heavy mahogany desk that looked terribly out of place with the rest of the room. Ben could see that they were all musty old tomes, most fairly simple, others largely decorated, and all in all they looked worth a fortune put together.

The three men moved about the stacks with efficient familiarity, too, and Ben knew that they’d all spent a lot of time together like this. They apparently all had their favourite spots for reading, though Dean looked like he’d rather not do it at all, while Sam burrowed himself in a stack so fast and natural that it seemed as if he had been doing nothing else all his life. Only the way he moved, with sinuous grace and precision, belied the fact that he definitely hadn’t. Ben could see the muscles playing under his layers of shirts, and he could see that Sam's stance spoke of fighting experience of the hands on kind. Yet he looked totally happy among all the dusty paper and parchment surrounding him. When Ben looked up again, he noticed that Bobby was beckoning him with one finger from behind the desk, and he walked over to the older man.

“Tell me about this Wild Hunt of yours.”

Ben nodded curtly and launched into a tale of the Fey court, and how his life had gone in the last seven years. He made sure to pay proper attention to detail, especially concerning the fey customs and laws as far as he knew them. Bobby made affirmative noises whenever he recognized something and surprised grunts whenever he hadn’t previously heard of something. The older man started rifling through the book stacks and accumulated a good pile of tomes, some heavier and some lighter, dumping them all on the surface of the desk while Ben was talking. Ben couldn’t tell for sure about Sam, but he got the impression that Dean was paying a lot more attention to his words than to the page in front of him. When he was finished with the tale, the sun had already risen high in the sky, and his eyes were starting to droop due to the excitement, not to mention the journey through the night. Dean finally got up and ushered him out, up the stairs, into a room with two beds and made him lie down to sleep. Ben wanted to protest, but Dean pushed his shoulder down, so that he had to lie flat on the mattress and ruffled his hair, which earned him a swat of Ben’s hand. Nevertheless he was out like a light, once he had turned around to pound the pillow into submission, and didn’t even notice Dean leave the room.

Dean walked down the stairs, carefully avoiding the creaks, and ambled back into the living room to find Bobby and Sam in an animated discussion about fairy lore, and their current situation.

“So, what have we got?”

The two sitting men turned around to face him, and Sam answered, summing up what they’d ascertained so far.

“Basically, what we know about the Wild Hunt in general is true. They ride out on the stormiest nights of the year, picking up unfortunate souls who are out past their time. It helps if you’re close to death, but the riders will be happy to help you along on that one, although everyone is given the choice to die or join the ride, regardless of who they are. Most of the riders nowadays are human – or at least they were – but once you die and join, you change through time and take on traits of the Sidhe, until you’re turned completely. It’s apparently something about exposure to the Fey magic, since a Hunt will spend almost their entire time in what Ben called the Netherworld, where they do much the same things a medieval court was wont to do – hunting for sport and feasting that is – only it doesn’t affect our reality that much.”

Bobby pitched in, taking over from Sam.

“What is new would be the fact that there are a lot more Hunts than just one. Apparently every higher-up worth their dime leads one of his or her own if they can manage to get the approval of the King or the Queen and come up with a sufficient entourage. They all focus on a different kind of straggler, some do soldiers, others wanderers, and yet another takes sailors for example – hence the legends of ghost ships and such. The strongest ones are of course the Hunts of the Erlking himself, which is the most famous one, and the Queen, whom Ben has named Freya Huld, and that is the most worrying part. Her speciality is lost children, whom she picks up and raises to be warriors, before they join the Hunt officially in a ceremony that I obviously need not describe as to what it entails. Her name is composed of two aspects of a female goddess, found in the canons of the Norse and Germanic gods. Freya is known as a goddess of fertility and growth as well as a very high ranking noble, while Huld is a deviation of Frouwe Hulda the weather maker.”

Sam rifled through a book in his lap and showed Dean a crude woodcut of a regal and powerful looking woman.

“If we assume that this Sidhe Queen is behind both of those manifestations of a goddess – and they’re both assumed to be quite powerful in their own right – we have an adversary here that has more boom in her little finger than she’d ever need to flatten a small town.”

Dean rubbed his brow tiredly and wondered whether the Winchester family would ever manage to piss off an entity that was NOT able to screw with the entire universe as they pleased.

“Ok, what’s the good news then?”

“Well, the Sidhe have a few weak points, for example they will never speak anything but the truth, though, when you’ve had centuries of practice in deception and omission, I figure this one won’t help a lot. They’ve got a mortal fear of red fire, whatever that might mean other than what we've already seen before, and there’s the issue with cold iron. The lower order don’t have so much of a problem with it, even though it hurts them considerably, but long term exposure, like shackling, for example, will eventually kill them. The nobler the blood though, the worse the effect. The fey are really tough creatures, but hit one of the royals with a pure iron blade, and they’ll be poisoned to a lethal degree in no time.”

“That’s good isn’t it?”

“Yeah, except that you’re never going to get anywhere even close to the Queen with iron on you. I don’t think we can consider killing her as an option to sever the bond. Never mind that we’d most likely be in the midst of an army of very enraged warriors that would butcher us for harming their leader. No, I think our best shot is trying to lift the pact with a counter. We just have to find it.”

Dean was tempted to remark upon how well that had worked out the last time, but the subject was a bit too touchy to even attempt a try with a ten foot pole, so he wisely kept his mouth shut.

The following days quickly turned into monotonous and exhausting cycle of research, development of theories, more books acquired and yet more research. Quite frankly all of them were fed up with the crinkling sound of parchment, and the musty smell of old tomes that spewed an irregular amount of dust onto anyone opening or closing them, Ben was reaching a breaking point with lightening speed. Brigid faired well enough, given the circumstances, but that was only due to the fact that he let her run by herself most of the day, for as long as he estimated his strongest masking spells would last. He didn’t dare ride with her though, for the sake of not tempting fate. He had already been quite lucky to find shelter and help in his more or less unplanned great escape, but he wouldn’t jeopardize all that just for a short rush and tumble. He stood outside and watched Brigid nibble discontentedly at the little scraps of dry grass and wondered at his newfound place in the world. He had been sucked into the circle of the Winchester Clan like there was no other possible way, but still he observed the tells and gestures between the brothers that formed a kind of silent communication nobody but the two of them was privy to. He envied this companionship, since he’d had to leave all his friends behind, (who were now as far away from him as if an entire ocean separated them.) and while there were other apprentices at Freya’s court, there had never been an opportunity to develop that kind of close relationship and intimate connection. It didn’t help that, while he remembered a lot of things of modern origin quite clearly, he hadn’t had to make use of them in his daily life for a long time, and it felt occasionally as if he’d stepped into an unreal, artificial world of two-dimensionality, that cut off his breath and made his head spin.

He’d gotten used to doing so many things with magic instead of mechanics, and, because of that, the silence at the dinner table after he’d absentmindedly cleaned his teeth with a touch of his finger was both stunned and awkward beyond measure. Now it was two weeks since he'd arrived, and they still hadn’t gotten any further with their findings, but ‘we can’t kill her, and the bond won’t be unspelled’. Time was running out for him fast, and it put a strain on all of them. Castiel had called a couple of times to get an update, and to admit that he hadn’t found anything useful yet either, and that was that. Ben sighed and stomped back into the room, rifling idly through books and papers, considering whether it would lighten his mood if he punched the wall, when Dean suddenly perked up and shouted out for Sam to come over. They all huddled around Dean, and he pointed down onto a page in the book he was currently flapping through. It showed another woodcut of the goddess Freya, and Dean was pointing at a big gleaming gem around her neck.

“What is that? I’m sure I’ve seen at least two dozen different pictures of her by now, and they all look different. But she’s got something like that in every single one.”

Trust Dean to be able to find anything remotely to do with any of their key words in all the texts they set in front of him, but to be blind to anything else that was written on the pages around the designated passages.

Sam answered with a long-suffering sigh. “Brisingamen, Dean. That’s the name of the necklace, and it’s got to be at least mentioned in two thirds of the stuff you've had in front of you. It’s her most precious token, presumably a gift from the king, and it’s said that she never takes it off.”

Dean beamed at that and went on: “Oh, and it wouldn’t by chance be the magical necklace that contains all her power, and that would break all her deals when we destroy it, would it?”

Ben shook his head and Dean’s face fell.

“It’s not magical, or at least, not as far as I know, but it surely doesn’t harness all of her power. Although it’s true that it’s very, very important to her. It’s bespelled to never even come off should someone try to take it outside of her chambers, or while she’s awake. And you better not even think about destroying it, because I think she would as soon level the world than let you get away with that. She might do it anyway, just out of spite after she’s killed you.”

Dean pouted as another of his possible angles was dashed to pieces, and Ben’s chest seized, because the expression made his face smooth out and, had him looking much younger than he normally did. He had observed a lot about his father and uncle in the last few weeks, and the most prominent feature they shared was a kind of bone deep wariness that was an undercurrent to everything they did. It seemed lightened in moments like this, even if it was just for a couple of precious seconds. Ben know it was due to what had been going on in their lives long before he had barged into them, but while they had told him a lot of stories, he knew that they were keeping the worst to themselves. Looking at the brothers while they were futilely trying to work out how to help him, made his frustration surge again, and he stomped his foot like a child in a temper tantrum, unable to quell the urge.

“This is fricking useless. We’re never going to find something in time. We can’t kill her, that’s for sure, and there’s no other way to break this bond, but for her to release me out of the service herself. And we can’t just bloody well ask her.”

Sam, Dean and Bobby looked a little stumped by the outburst, but not overly surprised. It seemed like they had anticipated such a rant for some time. The real surprise happened a moment later, when Dean suddenly brightened again and said:

“Well… actually…”

Part Five

A Hunter's Legacy - Part Four