John kept his gaze on the man, shotgun pointed on him directly towards his chest. The boys were still in the motels bedroom, mercifully still asleep. The man had his hands up, palms towards him.

"John, you need to believe me." the man said, his voice familiar that it hurt. It was patient and calming and John hated every last sound coming from him.

"I don't need to do a damn thing." John said lowly, anger keeping it down and the desire to make sure the boys remained asleep. "Either you're a shifter that I need to kill, or you are who you claim to be and I want nothing to do with."

That seemed to pain the man at least and John relished that look on his face. "John-" he said, taking a step forward.

John immediately raised the shotgun up a bit more, keeping his finger on the trigger. "Only reason you're not dead is cause I want to know your game." and if he was able to, keep his sons asleep.

The man breathed out slowly, keeping his hands up. "John, it's me." he said softly. "I promise you it's me."

John sneered out a breath of a laugh. "Might've worked a few years ago, but I don't believe you." he barely registered the urge to go closer to the man. "But I know what's out there, and I know what they can do."

The man nodded, at least accepting that. He looked around the room for a moment, distaste clear on his face as he took in the less than great conditions of the motel room, but his eyes settled on the silver knife on the table. "Then let me prove who I am."

Without taking his eyes off of the man John slowly stepped towards the table, keeping him in his gaze as well as the shotgun aimed right at him. He quickly snatched the knife off the table and walked towards him.

The man reached for the knife but John jerked back, narrowing his eyes. The man sighed and moved slowly to pull his sleeve back to reveal plain skin and held it out to him.

John didn't waste a moment as he let his hand snap out, making a cut on his arm. The man flinched at the pain but otherwise nothing else happened. He reached into his breast pocket to pull out a handkerchief and dabbed at the cut. "I'm human John."

"You might be human, but that doesn't't mean you are who you say you are." John said, gritting his teeth as his mind tried to figure out what was happening. He was tired and drained, his sons were feet away from this potential danger, and he wanted nothing more than to just go to sleep and end the day.

The man nodded and seemed to think to himself for a moment. "You and I often went to the movies, you liked the driveins the most." he said, a fond smile on his face. "You were a rambunctious child but you still had a bit of fear of the darkness in your room. I got you a small music box, it played 'As Time Goes By'."

John blinked rapidly, his breathing becoming heavier. He still sometimes remembered that music box and at times he could hum the song for Sam and Dean.

"Your mother, bless her, was the best cook we ever knew but my god that woman was able to burn everything when she tried to bake, by some chance she never burned the house down when she baked." the man continued. "But we still pretended to like her baking to not hurt her feelings. The last thing she baked that we had together was this strange concoction of chocolate and ginger, we both thought she used the wrong spice with the ginger but she was so proud that we just ate them."

John willed himself not to shake, tightening his grip on the knife's handle and trying to resist the urge to bury it into the man's chest regardless. "You left." he said lowly.

"It wasn't supposed to be like that, I wasn't supposed to be gone forever." the man, John didn't want to name him just yet. "I was just trying to get away from Abaddon and as soon as I was able to, as soon as I could recover enough, I would've come back."

"Who the hell is Abaddon?" John couldn't help but ask. "And what are you talking about?"

"Abaddon is a demon." Henry told him. "Something I'm sure that you're familiar with at this point."

John raised an eyebrow at him. "At this point?" he repeated.

The man nodded. "Of your studying and readings." he said obviously. "What level have you reached?"

John blinked for a moment and finally forced himself to let go of the knife but kept his tight grip on the shotgun. "Again, what the hell are you talking about?"

The man stared back at him as well in confusion. "If you don't know what I'm talking about how do you know about shifters?"

"Because I regularly hunt them." John snapped at him, anger shortening his patience and barely remembering to keep his voice low. "I'm a hunter."

He stared at him in horror, the look was very reminiscent of when John had come back home after school with a black eye from fighting. "You're a what?" he asked in a hushed voice.

"I'm a hunter." John repeated, anger clear in his voice. "Now you better tell me what the hell is going on now."

"None of this makes sense." Henry murmured, running his fingers through his hair. "You're not supposed to be a hunter, this wasn't supposed to be like this."

John's eyes followed him as he walked around the room. "What are you talking about?" he finally asked, trying to sort through the feelings that were coursing through him.

Henry looked at him. "I'm talking about your legacy, you were supposed to be initiated as a Man of Letters."

I do not own Supernatural.

60/365

I do take requests so if you have requests you can send them to me.