UNDER CONSTRUCTION

“I thought it was candy that did that.”

“Sugar in general.”

“i’d like that.” mary responded, her grin widening as she stood on tip toes so that she could kiss him again, her eyes drifting shut once more as fingers played with the hair at the nape of his neck.

“Give me,” he huffed out a laugh, returning the kiss almost carelessly. “Just a minute.” All he had to do was call his boss and give them a reason, it’d be easy.

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“But you see, I’m the one with the leverage here,” that small bit of conversation had taken up the elder brother’s time.  "And it seems you’re out of time, Johnny Boy.  Do tell him that I gave you a chance.“   He wasn’t going to keep the boy quiet for a few years this time.   He was going to let this have an impact.  There wasn’t even a wave of his hand as the young Winchester brother’s neck snapped and he fell to the ground.

Confusion was written across John’s brows, wondering what the hell this demon could do to change John’s mind. And then, there it was. Chris, laying on the ground with his head at an awkward angle. The demon was still in there which meant Christopher was still alive, but only if the demon stayed in there. “No,” he said quickly, rushing into the circle rather foolishly, to check on his brother. To check for a pulse.

“so..” mary started, tilting her head slightly as she looked up at her husband, her eyebrows raising slightly. “do you have to get back to work or do we have some time to catch up..?” she asked, leaving the suggestion open as she smirked soflty,

John chuckled, not quiet willing to back away from his wife just yet. Technically, he did have work, but there was no way he was gonna waste this opportunity. “I think I have a few personal days that I can cash in.”

“I think you have that turned around,” he stood tall in front of the elder Winchester.  "I don’t want to leave, I happen to like this body.  So does quite a few others if you know what I mean.”  He couldn’t help but play a little.  “I’m going to be nice and give you five seconds to decide how this is going to end.”

“I don’t really think you can be calling the shots when you’re all trapped up in there,” John mused, pacing around the devil’s trap. Binding link... binding link... “Five seconds? I could do this all night.”

Laurel lost the fight with her grin when he barked out that laugh. Wow. Talk about one cocky son of a bitch, huh? Honestly though… She could relate which was why she was just as quick to shake her head, a well-meaning scoff leaving her before she could think better of it. “John Winchester. Uh huh, couple of decades… So that means you’re kinda past it, right?” Years. She’d spent years not caring about this man and for the life of her, she just couldn’t make her damn words reflect that. She was joking. She was gonna, what? Hunt with him? That was just—

Thought promptly interrupted, Laurel spun on her heel as the second knife she’d thrown (the first hitting thigh, knocking the witch off balance) landed somewhere fatal. She let out a breath before turning her attention back to him. “I’m Laurel Alvarez, sweetheart. Just as long as you can aim straight then we’re all good, John Winchester.”

Alvarez, now that was a familiar name. He couldn’t believe he missed it before, the similarities between this girl and... her. It wasn’t just those stunning looks, singular traits that only that woman could have passed down. No, it was the attitude, too. The easy back and forth, the teasing insults- they were all trademarks of a woman he had met... what, once? Twice, maybe? He whistled, watching as the witch fell to her death. Her aim was just as incredible, too.

“Alvarez?” He spoke, making light conversation as his eyes scanned the crowd-- most of whom had run in screams. Ah, there was one. “I don’t s’pose you’re related to Elena Alvarez, are you?” He already knew the answer, but it did no good to assume.

He made eye contact with the witch, that decided right then and there that it was going to charge at him. He grinned, pulling his bat back, waiting for the perfect moment.

“Alright y'all, time to clear out! C'mon now, the show’s over!” Her words were effectively punctuated by the warning shots she’d aimed up into the air and they were still ringing as the crowd made a break for it. It almost reminded her of clearing out the Roadhouse after last call. No scratch that, it was exactly like clearing out the Roadhouse after last call. Ellen had moved seamlessly, hardly making a sound when she didn’t want to and she’d picked out the ones who hadn’t reacted how they should have. The ones who weren’t dressed up as circus extras. She had paused though. She couldn’t help it- it was professional curiosity. Ellen hadn’t hunted with John in… God, she didn’t even know. But she still remember him making rookie mistakes, still remembered drilling the basics into him but now, well. He wasn’t making any rookie mistakes. Cotton candy coated collateral. The sides of her mouth twitched despite herself but that was when she caught it, the movement she’d been looking for in the chaos and it was moving a little too close for comfort. John was certainly a spectacle and that was enough to draw the witch over his way but before they could get any kind of creative, Ellen had squeezed the trigger. “Hey! You missed one, hot-shot.” When was the last time she’d smiled like that?

Any sane person would have at least flinched when they heard the gunshots, but not John. With years in the military under his belt, as well as the decades hunting-- it was stupid easy for him to almost ignore the sounds as he delivered another swift blow to the witch- just to make sure they were dead. He heard another shot, this one closer to him, and spun around just in time to see the other witch hit the ground. “Figured I’d save at least one for you,” he replied, yanking his bat from the witch’s head. But now wasn’t the time to chitchat and they both knew that. Those gunshots and John’s ridiculous display was drawing attention, the kind of attention they both wanted and didn’t want. “Careful now, Ellen- some of these people aren’t in their right minds.” They had to be able to decipher who was actually a witch, and who was being controlled.

“Right, yeah. This isn’t your conversation.” But her mind was still reeling over the second world-shaking revelation in as many minutes. What even was this day. “I’m definitely going to be talking to her later.” She didn’t sound nearly as threatening as she wanted to. “Right. We’ve got witches to kill.” She agreed, finally getting to her feet and taking a few steadying breaths. “I have my knives, at least. But nothing else.” She managed a genuine smile, and an attempt at a joke at that. “Can a zombie really have a mid-life crisis?”

“We can do it. We’re hunters, we don’t have a choice.” She tried to smile at him, but her mouth wavered a little. She was at maybe seventy-five percent, when she needed to be at one hundred. She couldn’t fight anyone if she still felt too shaky to stand. “I’m sorry, what? No. You can’t mean my mom. She was involved with the life because of my dad. She never wanted to be a part of this world, but he dragged her in.” She’d been so confident in that statement all of her life, until right this very moment, when the man who’d killed her father was telling her her concept of their family was a lie. “No…She couldn’t have been a hunter. She couldn’t.” But Jo couldn’t actually think of a time when her mother had said the words your father brought me into this life.

She was absolutely right, once again, but times like this... he didn’t want that to be the case. He wanted to feel like their kids- his, Ellen’s... and the other hunters, too- he wanted to believe that they were safe. That they didn’t have to grow up in the life. “This is starting to sound an awful lot like a conversation you should be having with her,” John said, really not keen on being a part of this. Then again, he was pretty sure at this point that he was dead either way-- Ellen was going to murder him if he said something he shouldn’t have. “Come on, sweetheart,” he said, swinging his back over his shoulder again. “Now’s not the time to have a mid-life crisis.”

Asmodeus didn’t see himself going anywhere.  It wouldn’t be the first time the younger Winchester brother tried to get rid of him.  "It seems Christopher has been talking about me,“ he shook his head.  "I’ll have to teach him a lesson.  I thought he learned it the last time."  He looked down at the ground with a smirk.  It was a devil’s trap.  So he wasn’t going anywhere but that didn’t mean he was the losing side.  “Break the circle.”

John paced just outside the circle, staring down the demon inside his brother. “This isn’t going to go the way you want it to, I can promise you that. I’m sure you’ve heard of me, I’m sure you’ve heard of my sons. So instead, let’s try this. Break the link, or I’ll break it for you.”

“I hope snapping me out of it helped a little, at least.” He was still John, still the same person. She could tell he felt terrible about it, too, which made it that much harder for her to figure out how she felt. The logical part of her said that this changed nothing, the deed was over and done with decades before, and she’d accepted the basics from the mouth of a demon who wanted to hurt her with the information. She could handle the details from someone also grieving her father. “I should. I want to. I’m a hunter. I can’t sit back and let people get hurt because I’m caught up in my own problems.” She knew he was giving her a free pass because of what he’d admitted, that if this were his own kids he’d be ordering them back into the field. She didn’t know much about their dynamic, but she knew enough to know he saw the world as a war and his sons as soldiers. “No, you shouldn’t find my mom. She’ll won’t want to see you, she’ll be….” Irrationally, she expected her mother to be angry with John, like somehow Jo knowing the truth meant that Ellen’s anger would be ignited, but that was a foolish thought. “I mean–I’m sorry, I don’t know what I mean. I don’t need my mother, though. She is? I mean, she really only started going out hunting when I did, and she fought me the whole way. I’m not sure how good she is, officially.”

“As do I. But unfortunately, we still have our work cut out for us.” He watched her and waited, waited for some kind of sign that she couldn’t handle this. Hell, John could barely handle this, but the difference between them was that John had hunted under this kind of strain his entire life, whereas Jo- Well, he hoped she didn’t carry a chip on her shoulder every time she left the house. He was proud though, of her decision. She was right, that things like this should always come before little problems like this, but he wasn’t going to push her.  Eyes scanned the crowd as he looked for more enemies, but they fell back on Jo pretty easily. “You’re kidding, right? Ellen was the best damn hunter I knew. Taunt me everything I know. Okay, maybe not everything, but it was pretty damn close.

“Oh,” She breathed, still feeling shaky. They could probably both use a drink after this was all over. “I think I really hate witches.” She still couldn’t look at him. “They’ve been spelling people? How many other people?” She needed to get her head back in the game, to shake the feeling of a hundred cotton balls stuffed in her ears and help the others who had been affected. But her heart hurt–the ache of her father’s death feeling brand new despite the years gone by–and she wasn’t sure she could do it. “I think, um…I need a minute. I’ll–I’m going to help, but I need a minute.” Maybe if she sat down for a moment she could bring herself to meet his eyes.”

“I don’t blame you,” John commented, keeping his voice low. He was now paranoid- worried that he would startle Jo if he even spoke too loudly. The girl probably hated him- she should hate him. “It’s hard to say. Unfortunately, their power grows with every person they have, which means we have to dwindle down their numbers, or break others out of the spell.” And breaking the others out of the spell wasn’t easy, they knew that from experience. He watched her sit, clearing his throat. There was a part of him that wanted to run away, to go off and fight witches and forget this ever happened, but he couldn’t just leave her. “You don’t have to help, you know. We can find Ellen, get you out of here, if you’d rather not.” He couldn’t be positive, but he had always thought Ellen would keep Jo out of this lifestyle. “You’d be safer in her hands, anyways. She’s the best hunter I’ve ever met.”

“when i made that deal, to bring you back all those years ago. i just– i wasn’t even thinking straight, i just couldn’t let you die because of me– but everything i did to save you, it only ended up causing so much more pain. everything that happened to sam because of my deal, i’ll never forgive myself for that.” mary said, wrapping her arms around his neck. “maybe– this is our second chance, john. i mean, i know none of this is normal. we’re trapped in a town by a supernatural barrier, we’re both supposed to be dead, but we’re here– we can be a family.”

John shook his head, his hands smoothing down her arms. PDA had never bothered him, even before. He especially didn’t care now, now that he finally had his wife back. “You couldn’t have known, Mary. You saved me. If you hadn’t done that, our boys wouldn’t be here.” His hands settled on her waist and he couldn’t fight the smile off of his face, even if he tried. “We’re together again and that’s all that really matters. Everything else... we’ll figure that out.”