The crackling of the small fire was pleasant and Dean let his thoughts drift. It wasn't every night they made one—there was no real need to cook, and fire could draw monsters like a beacon—but today had been both unusually cold and unusually slow in the monster department, and so Dean and Benny had made the decision together. Fire. Now Dean sat with his back to a stump, one knee up and the other leg out before him, sharpening his blade, and Benny sat not quite across from him but not quite with him either, seemingly lost in his own thoughts. In the flickering glow the night felt almost peaceful.

"Ever do this as a kid?" Benny asked.

Dean glanced up from his blade. "Do what?"

"This." Benny shrugged. "Campfire. Time was I could sit out there for hours on a summer night, just watching the flames and listening to the woods around me. Good days, those."

"Oh." Dean shook his head, and watched a little wistfully as one of the logs collapsed, sending up a shower of embers. "Nah. Not really. I mean, Dad taught us some marine stuff but we never just sat out there. Couple of times at Bobby's I guess." He snorted softly. "Tried to roast marshmallows with Sammy once or twice but it turns out people disapprove of ten-year-olds setting fires in motel parking lots."

"Well," Benny said, "you missed out."

Dean nodded, setting the blade down. It was sharp enough. "I'm getting that."

They fell into companionable silence again, sitting that way until the fire started to gutter. They'd been at this for weeks, now, running, fighting, searching for Cas, and slowly Dean was beginning to feel something unexpected—real friendship. And more than that, he was actually beginning to trust the guy. It was more than he could say for anyone, really, since Cas's betrayal, though of course Cas was…a special case.

He was pulled from his thoughts a second time by a foreign sound in the woods behind them, the subtle but unmistakable crackle of leaves underfoot, and it was close. Much closer than Dean should ever have allowed it to be. Well, this was the price they paid for their fire and their peace. No different from the way things were at home, really, but at least here the tradeoff was unambiguous.

In a fluid motion he met Benny's eyes, grabbed his blade and stood, pivoting to meet the threat behind him, and he could see Benny doing the same, fangs extending. As soon as Dean was up the creature shot toward him. Impossible to tell in the flickering firelight what monster the soul had belonged to but as Dean ducked a forceful blow from a spiked weapon he caught a glimpse of wild eyes and thick hair and ragged clothes—something familiar about it all but he couldn't say what—then the moment was gone, the figure out of the dying firelight and charging at him again. They parried and hacked for a few seconds—damn it this monster was good—until Dean turned and swung with his blade but missed, the ragged man letting Dean's momentum carry him forward and slamming the club into the side of Dean's leg just above the knee. Dean dropped to the rocky ground with a yell but as he did Benny came up from behind, taking his place. He and the monster traded blows quickly as Dean stumbled to his feet but when Benny landed a forceful punch to the man's side the man doubled over with a grunt and Dean saw his in. He charged forward and rammed the man against the nearest thick tree trunk, knocking the makeshift mace out of his hand and holding his blade to the man's throat, snarling the question he asked of every monster they defeated.

"Where's the angel?"

"The what?" the man snapped.

More than anything it was his voice—gruff, irritated but so much the same—that made Dean freeze and stare at the face in the orange glow of the dying fire, unbelieving. For the man's voice, his eyes, the way he moved and fought weren't just familiar, he was— "Dad?"

John Winchester stared at him, equally uncomprehending. "Dean?"

Dean blinked several times but his father's face didn't leave his vision, haggard and angry but unmistakably Dad under the beard and the grime and a long scar clipping one ear. Dean let his blade relax, though he'd seen enough in Purgatory to know not to let it drop completely, and asked breathlessly, "What the hell?"

John, or at least the man who looked like John, glanced down at the blade still pinning him to the tree, then back up at Dean. "Silver blade?" he asked.

Dean nodded reflexively, aware Benny was watching with interest but completely at a loss to explain anything for himself, let alone to the vampire. "Yeah," he said, drew a small knife out of his back pocket, flipped it open, and used it to slice the arm still holding the larger weapon to his dad's throat. When nothing happened John nodded, once, chin scraping Dean's blade, and raised his arm slowly for Dean do the same. The skin split but there was no tell-tale hiss and after a moment Dean put the small knife back in his pocket, took half a step back, and let the arm holding his stone cleaver drop.

"Dad," he said, then shook his head, opening and closing his mouth a few times before other words actually found their way out. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same," John said.

"I thought you went to Heaven," Dean said. "After Yellow Eyes—you went up in a flash of light—how did you end up here?"

"Never made it," John said, shrugging slightly. Dean blinked, still trying to process the fact that this conversation was happening at all, let alone the words his father was saying. He glanced at Benny and the vampire was watching impassively…but then how could he possibly know what this meant? How crazy this was? "Felt something grab a hold of me," John went on. "Everything got brighter and I thought I was on my way upstairs. Then it all stopped and I was here. Like I got yanked back. Don't know why." He narrowed his eyes at Dean. "Why are you here? Did you die? What about Sam? Is Sam all right?"

Dean shook his head. One thing at a time. "Sam's fine," he said. "And I'm not dead, at least I don't think so." As for the rest of the story, well, the full version would probably take a whole hell of a lot more time than he wanted to spend just then. Not to mention dredge up several things he wasn't sure he wanted his father to know. "Had a run-in with some leviathans back home," he said simply. "Turns out you explode one, it sends you here. Been running and hunting since." And looking for Cas. But that was really a story for another day.

"You know your footwork is rusty," Dad said. "Never used to be so easy to knock you down."

Dean opened his mouth to answer, but closed it without a sound, caught halfway between a reflexive yes sir and arguing that his fighting technique was just fine, especially considering he'd recently spent weeks in a full leg cast. But it was more than that. This was Dad. The man he'd alternately loved and mourned and hated and feared he was becoming, over and over again, and they were practically making small talk in the gray wasteland of Purgatory as though none of the last seven years—the last thirty years—had happened. What made it stranger was that he'd imagined this moment so many times after Dad died. Wishing for forgiveness or revenge or simply answers…and now that he was here he had no idea what to do. He wanted so many things—to reach out and envelop him in a hug, to hit him as hard as he could, to shove him against the tree again and demand explanations for every choice that had screwed him and Sammy from the day Mom died to the day Dad leaned over his bed and told him he'd have to kill his brother if he couldn't save him—but instead, he just stared, and Dad stared back. An eerie sense of déjà vu reminded Dean of the last time they'd stood almost like this, their positions reversed, a monster looking out through Dad's eyes and spouting words that had reverberated in his mind for years after because they were so true. But things had changed. Dean had changed. And he had absolutely no idea what to say.

"I hate to break up this moment," Benny said.

Both Dean and John's heads snapped toward the vampire, who raised his hands in a pacifying motion.

"What's up?" Dean said, immediately alert. He stepped back from John a bit more and scanned the woods around them, tightening his grip on his blade.

"Just hoping someone could fill me in on what's going on here," Benny said.

Oh. Dean let out a breath and let the weapon drop again. He'd grown used to Benny's vampire senses picking up approaching monsters he'd been ready to fight at the sound of his companion's voice. Of course it was a good thing they weren't being attacked but to be honest he might have welcomed the distraction. Hunting here was simple. Pure. Figuring out what to do with any of these feelings… not so much. "Benny, this is my father," Dean said, then let out a single laugh and gestured between them because he couldn't think of anything else to do. "John, Benny. Benny, John."

"Nice to meet you, John," Benny said.

John didn't return the greeting. Instead, he glared at Dean as soon as the vampire had spoken. "You're hunting with a vampire." It was more a statement than a question, and the betrayal in his voice was plain. Dean wondered at it for a moment until he remembered that Dad had never met vampires who didn't drink people, nor demons who'd put aside their hate to work on a common cause nor angels who'd fall for a couple of humans. In Dad's world the supernatural was always wrong, and to him any alliance was akin to selling one's soul. Somehow, Dean imagined, neither a century in Hell nor five years in this wasteland had done much to dispel that belief.

He sighed softly and answered anyway, though he knew it was probably futile. "Benny's been nothing but good to me, Dad," he said, and Benny gave a slight nod of acknowledgement. "He also knows the way out."

"There's a way out?" Dad stared at Benny again, disbelieving, and addressed him directly for the first time since they'd met. His voice took on a strange timbre that might have been hope. "You know a way out?"

"Soon as Dean finds his angel," Benny smiled.

At this, however, John's eyes narrowed again and he studied Dean. "You did ask me about an angel," he recalled. "What does that mean?"

"Angels are real," Dean said, shrugging. He remembered his own introduction to that fact, and how little he'd wanted to believe it, but he couldn't exactly fathom a way to break the news gently. "God, Heaven, all of it. God's been kind of an absent dickbag, though."

"Can't be," John said, glancing between Dean and Benny as if the vampire could offer some kind of explanation. "There's no such thing. I'd know."

"I thought so too, Dad," Dean said softly. Benny nodded. "Believe me. They're real. Most of 'em, you wouldn't want anything to do with, but Cas…"

"The angel you're looking for," John clarified. Dean could practically see the gears working in his head, the lines in his forehead deepening in disapproval. But then, Dad had never welcomed the unknown, and to Dad Cas had to seem as unnatural as Benny and just as undeserving of real concern. Still, if this was going to work at all, he had to try to make him understand.

"Cas is my friend," Dean said, ignoring the way the disbelief on his dad's face shifted until it bordered again on betrayal, or worse, disappointment. He set his jaw and gazed back at Dad evenly. "And I'm not leaving here without him."

Big thanks to my awesome friend Becky for helping me plan this story as well as looking this over and offering suggestions. You're the best!