Zephyrus

It ended with a fresh start.



“You’re sure about this?” John Winchester sat at the kitchen table with his son’s college application in his calloused hand. This was the second time he’d dealt with one of these things, and the first hadn’t exactly gone according to plan. “University of Wisconsin?”

Adam Milligan was in the seat across from him, ass half-hanging off the chair in anticipation as he tried to gauge John’s reaction. He couldn’t quite tell what it was – somewhere between a mixture of confusion and denial. “Yeah, I’m sure. I wanna go for medicine. Pre-med. Mom seems happy with that. I just...she wanted me to show you first. See what you had to say.”

John huffed and slid the completed application across to Adam. “I think you don’t give a damn what I have to say.”

“And that’s exactly right.” Adam snatched the paper up and studied his own neat handwriting, the way he’d filled out the letters ever so carefully, the way he’d left blank the ‘father’ spot. “I’m just asking because Mom wants to know your opinion.”

“Your mom wants whatever’s best for you. She always has.”

“And you?”

John furrowed his eyebrows, stumped by the question and the viciousness with which it was asked. “What do you mean, ‘and me’? Of course I want what’s best for you, Adam.”

Adam scoffed a bit and rolled his eyes. “Right. That’s why you only drop by on my birthday. Because you want what’s best for me. I get it.”

John bites back a growl of frustration and sits up in his seat. “You think I don’t care about you? You think I just drop by out of obligation?”

“Oh I don’t think. I know. You couldn’t be bothered any other day of the week. I called you three months ago when mom got that fuckin’ virus, and all I got was your voice mail.”

John’s eyes flicked away from Adam’s. He’d gotten Adam’s message, of course. The fact that it was on voice mail didn’t stop him from listening to his son’s panicked phone call, his worry that his mother Kate wouldn’t make it, the blind fear that he wouldn’t have anyone to turn to or anywhere to go, so could John please make it back to Minnesota until Kate either recovered or passed? Please, John?

John hadn’t gone. He’d been busy in Paramus, New Jersey, getting rid of a particularly nasty nest of vampires run amok. It was a prime concern; the vamps were starting to pick off victims in broad daylight, getting bolder and bolder with every kill. And so Adam was kept on voice mail and the hunting job was in the forefront, as always, but he couldn’t very well tell Adam that. The college-bound boy had no idea what John’s lifestyle was like, what was actually out there in the dark, what things his father hunted down and gutted on an almost daily basis. Vampires were just the tip of the iceberg. Demons. Skinwalkers. Werewolves. Tulpas. Witches. Rakshasas. The list was never-ending but John always kept on his person a journal in which he recorded all of his experiences and took notes on the creatures he encountered. All hunters had one, and though John’s wasn’t the most organized or coherent to an outsider, to him it made perfect sense.

John finally turned his gaze back to Adam. Perhaps he was old enough now to warrant an explanation. Maybe now was the time, now that he was looking at colleges and about to go out into the real world on his own, now that he’d be separated from his mom for a few months at a time, maybe it was better if John taught him about the dangers he could face in the dark, the things that went bump in the night, the boogeymen in the closet and under the bed...

But as John surveyed Adam’s face that so resembled his mother’s, as John caught the flash of blue storm in his eyes, he realized he couldn’t do that to him, especially not now when he was about to go off to college and make something real of himself, go to college, get a degree, become a doctor, do something with his life that didn’t involve throwing it away to chase monsters and nightmares.

“Adam,” John began. He caught the roll of Adam’s eyes but didn’t scold him for it. “I do want what’s best for you. I know you might not believe me now, and it might not seem that way to you, but maybe when you’re older...maybe when you’ve finished college and gotten that degree....maybe then you’ll understand.” He put a heavy hand on Adam’s arm. “You’re my son. I only ever want the best that you can have.”

Adam looked away, forehead crinkled with confusion. John was usually never this affectionate. Maybe it was the impending college application process turning him soft. That had to be it. No other explanation.

“You’re gonna do great things with your life one day, Adam,” John continued. He shoved his chair back with a scraping noise and stood slowly, stretching out the muscles in his back. “That, if nothing else, I can promise you.”

Adam swallowed hard and nodded, uncharacteristically touched by the unusual tenderness. “Th-thanks, John.” He never could get used to calling him ‘Dad.’ The man was rarely, if ever, here, so he didn’t exactly warrant that title.

As Adam showed John to the door, the seasoned hunter turned to look at his son again, smiling wanly. “Take care of yourself, Adam.”

“You too.” Adam paused. “John...” Another pause. “Maybe...maybe you can come visit when I’m at school. I can show you around campus or whatever. I mean, I’m banking on U of Wisconsin but I still have to get accepted and—”

John interrupted by pulling Adam in for a bone-crushing hug; the strongest of monsters couldn’t have separated them. “They’d be stupid not to accept you,” John reassured him, breathing the confidence into Adam’s straw-colored hair. “Don’t you worry about it. And...I’d love that. Gimme the best tour of the campus you can come up with.”

Adam nodded and pulled away with what John believed to be the first genuine smile on his face in ages. “It’s a deal. Promise you’ll be there? No unreturned phone calls, no bailing out, nothing like that, okay?”

“I promise.”



John Winchester died two months later, making a deal with the demon Azazel to save his eldest son Dean’s life. He was sent to Hell to be torn apart on the rack, day after day, until he broke. But he absolutely refused to break, especially for Amaymon, the demon son of a bitch who liked using his razorblades as much as Sweeney Todd.

“You’ll break for me,” Amaymon hissed in John’s ear one day, his razor making its home in between the cracks of John’s ribs. “You don’t think you will, John Winchester, but when push comes to shove – or in this case, stab – you’ll break for me, and it’ll be glorious.”

John gritted his teeth against the pain and spat out, “Never.” He struggled to keep speaking despite the urge to cry out. “I’m gonna make my way out of here, Amaymon. I am.”

After all, he had a promise to keep.