Feathers of Bronze
Title: Feathers of Bronze
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: Forced to Hurt Somebody
Word Count:2,401
Warnings: None, save for language
Summary: Henry Winchester intended to land away from the meeting of the Men of Letters. Instead of going sixty miles away from his location, he went sixty years away - and landed in the closet of his great-granddaughter, Liesel Coulter. Deaf!Dean Verse
It was all a blur. Henry Winchester was trying to remember what exactly had been going on at the meeting. There had been screams, someone had shoved a small box into his hand, told him to guard it with his life - and, after more screams, a flash. The world had finally stopped spinning. He had to find John. His son was only nine years old - he had to get him away from the danger. They would go to the safe place - and sort out what happened. He slowly opened his eyes and frowned. He was in a closet and as he sat up, he could see his reflection in the mirror hanging on the door. A moment later, he realized - the closet belonged to a girl. Where was he? He could hear muffled music - but the tune was unfamiliar. He slowly stood up, when he heard someone speak.
“Leroux? You're... but if you two are both...”
A moment later, light flooded the closet and something jabbed against his stomach, knocking him back.
“Who are you and what are you doing in my closet?”
Henry blinked and shook his head to clear it. Standing over him, welding a baseball bat, was a small girl with intense blue eyes and dark brown hair. “I'm not going to hurt you.”
He could see her tighten the grip on the bat. “You're in my closet in my house. I want to know who you are and what you're doing.”
“Just... just calm down.” Henry slowly got to his feet, noting that the girl stepped back a pace, and he picked up his hat, eying her nervously. “My name is Henry, and I'm not entirely sure how I ended up in your closet.”
She blinked at him. “Are you an angel?”
He gaped at her. “No. Why would you think that?”
She lowered the bat a fraction and hit the floor a few times, and then raised it again. “It's a long story that I'm not going to tell you.”
He heard someone rushing up the stairs, and then a voice called out. “Liesel?”
The girl, Liesel, stepped back again and Henry was able to come into the doorway of the closet, seeing the room a little more clearly. The first thing that caught his eye was a flat screen that was propped up on the desk - it looked a little - futuristic. The door to the room flew open and a man, around his age, almost ran into the room.
“Liesel, what...” The man caught sight of him, took the bat out of his daughter's hands and pushed the girl behind him. “Who are you and what are you doing here?”
“My name is Henry Winchester and I don't know what I'm doing here.” He really didn't want to challenge the other man - he was of sturdier build - and had the home field advantage, so to speak.
“Henry Winchester is dead. He's been dead for decades.” The man frowned.
“What?” He made a face. “I assure you I am not dead.” He paused. “Decades? What year is it?”
“It's two thousand seventeen.” Henry noted that when the man spoke, the 't' sound didn't sound fully clear, like the man had a cold. “That still doesn't explain what you're doing here.”
He took a step forward, keeping his hands up, showing he had no weapons. “I'm looking for John Winchester. Can you tell me where he is?”
“He's about one thousand miles north of here.” The man's voice turned venomous. “Although why you're looking for him, I have no idea.”
“Wait, you know John?” Henry was growing more and more confused.
A horrible crash sounded in the closet behind him and he turned around, standing in front of the man and his daughter as the being that had been at the meeting came into the room.
“You're a hard one to catch, Henry...” The demon said and then there was a whooshing sound. “What the?” The woman wheeled around as a man with short black hair appeared in the closet.
“Abaddon.” The man said and then swung his arm in an arc, the palm of his hand slamming onto her forehead. “You might want to cover your eyes.”
“What is going...” Henry started to say and then blinding light, followed by an unearthly scream filled the air and he turned away, putting his hands over his face. A rank smell of burning flesh that reminded him of his time in World War II filled his nostrils and he nearly retched.
Then it was quiet.
“The demon is gone now.” The man said and Henry straightened up. Where the possessed woman had been a moment ago, there was nothing but a pile of ashes. He sank to the floor in response, stunned. “Henry Winchester. So this is where you turned up after vanishing in nineteen fifty-five.” The man stepped past him and went over to the other two. “Are you all right, Dean, Liesel?”
“I'm fine.” The man, Dean, coughed. “Smells terrible.”
“I thought all the demons were supposed to be locked away.” That was the girl.
“There's a fairy tale if I ever heard one.” Henry interjected and was rewarded by a poke from the unnamed man.
“You have been, as they say, out of the loop for sixty years. Things have changed.” He brushed his hands on his shirttails. “A lot has changed in that time. There have been wars, plagues, famines, earthquakes, floods...”
“I get the picture.” Henry turned and looked at the two standing behind him. “I still don't understand how I got here.”
“I suspect there was a miscalculation in your attempt to escape.” The man frowned. “Instead of going through space, you went through time. In doing so, your landing was eschewed by locking onto the strongest signal, so to speak.” The man went over to the pair as he stood up. “Which is why you're in Austin, not Ann Arbor.”
“What do you?” He looked from the man to Dean and Liesel. They were strangers to him - except there was one thing - they both had the same stubborn chin. His stubborn chin. John's stubborn chin. “I see...”
“Cas, what's going on?” Dean asked, still not giving him a trusting look.
“It's complicated.” Cas replied. What sort of name was Cas?
“What level of complication are we talking about?”
“Major.” Cas took a hold of Henry's shoulder and pushed him back from the two - Winchesters - forming a sort of shield between him and them. “But as the demon's gone, the rest is just...” He shook his head. “Details.”
“I just...” Dean stopped talking and then pulled a flat something out of his pocket. “Excuse me for a moment.” He went into the hallway.
Henry watched him go and then the man, Cas, went into the hall, standing in the doorway. He turned to the girl. “You said it's two thousand seventeen?”
“Yes.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and she took a step back. “That's an interesting pin.”
“Oh.” He glanced down at his Men-of-Letters pin and then back to the girl. “You're name is Liesel? Where did your father get that name?”
She stared at him. “It's from The Sound of Music. It was my mom's favorite movie.”
“I've never heard of it.” He ran a hand through his hair, feeling nervous. “Do you have any cousins, Liesel?”
“No.” She said, very matter of factly. “Which is probably for the best, considering Uncle Sam killed a cactus and Uncle Adam doesn't like kids.” She made a face. “Well, he likes other people's kids. He can give those back.”
“And do you have any siblings? A brother?”
Something changed in the girl's face so fast, he was suddenly rather afraid she'd pick the bat back up and hit him with it. “No, şovină porc.”
He stared at her. “What did you call me?”
“I called you a şovină porc.” She folded her arms. “Or as we say here in America, a chauvinistic pig.”
He shook his head. “I suppose I deserve that.”
“Liesel?” Dean called from the doorway and then, to Henry's shock, began using American Sign Language. “There was an accident out on the highway and they need everyone available. Cas is going to stay here with you and Henry.”
“Okay Dad. Be careful.” She turned back to Henry. “Don't feel bad. You've just jumped a huge amount of time. I mean, it's not like you asked me how I was liking elementary school.”
“I think we should go downstairs. I have the overwhelming urge to wash my hands and the soap in the kitchen is the strongest.” Cas broke in and they headed downstairs.
Henry stopped on the stairs at the sight of a family portrait. There was Dean and Liesel, and this Cas fellow, whoever he was, and two people he didn't know. The man was older than him - well, he looked older - with dark hair that had gone mostly gray. The woman was younger than the man, her hair was streaked with gray and she had a very impish smile. The only people who looked remotely alike were Dean and Liesel, and even then, it was just the chin. Good lord, were Dean and Cas... He suddenly felt like someone was staring at him and he looked down the rest of the way to see Cas standing there. “I uh...”
“It's not what you think. Dean and I are... brothers of a sort.” He lifted his chin. “This is very complicated, as I said earlier.”
“I'm sorry.” He came the rest of the way down the stairs. “I was wondering if it would be possible for me to go and see John now.”
“That's inadvisable. John Winchester has not seen you since the night you left your home.” He gave him a solemn look. “The shock might kill him. He's not a little boy any more, but a man of seventy.”
He felt his shoulders slump, the weight of everything crashing down. “What are you, Cas?”
“I'm an angel of the Lord. My full name is Castiel. I'm also a bit of a refugee in this place.” The angel took him by the arm and led him into the kitchen. “And you are Henry Winchester, the Lost Man of Letters.”
*
He would never see John again.
It was sort of odd, thinking that. He'd just left the nine year old boy hours ago and now he was in the future, confused, and more than angry. Angry at himself, angry at the Men of Letters, he was even angry with John. It was all over, according to Castiel. There had been a war in Hell two decades ago and it ended with the gates being sealed. Angels walked amongst humanity, slaying the monsters that hunters used to. The back of Henry's head still smarted from where Dean had slapped him for insulting hunters.
Henry had a low opinion of hunters, but whoever Mary Campbell had been, she had given his grandson a courage that was remarkable and unshakable. A courage fully fostered by Elisa Coulter who looked like she was going to claw out his eyes when he made the remark 'despite being deaf' and she -
She was twice as scary as Dean.
Henry might have told Castiel to go fuck himself and go back anyway, but given what he'd done to that demon, odds were, the angel would just follow him and drag him back here. It was horrible, it was unfair and yet, he knew that changing the past could do unspeakable things to the future. Odds were, it would erase Liesel from existence for one, and possibly Dean and his brothers as well.
It was too big of a gamble.
The only question was - what was he to do now? He had no skills or way to live here in 2017 - he'd heard how much a gallon of gasoline cost these days and he'd nearly fainted. Liesel had been nice enough to loan him her American History book - so he could attempt to learn a little about what happened while he'd been - lost.
The war in Southeast Asia. The war that John had gone to. John should never had to see war. Henry had wanted his son to go to college, to become something - and well, it wasn't like Dean was the best person to talk to about John. And Henry didn't blame him.
If Joel Patterson wasn't already dead, Henry might just have had to kill him. He wasn't exactly mad at his late wife remarrying - she had thought he ran out on her and John. Joel had kept John from his Winchester relatives far more than he should have - more than he had a right to. The anger and resentment had been unleashed on Dean. Or at least, from what Henry could assume. But John had left Dean behind before the damage grew to a point where the boy would have ended up dead.
Castiel was right. It was confusing.
There were other wars in countries he wasn't sure he could find on a map. Places like Iran and Iraq.
The president was murdered in 1963, in front of thousands of people. Michael told him that's when people started to lock their doors at night.
Natural disasters that made his stomach clench to see the aftermath. Thanks to Liesel's science textbook, he saw cities in Japan, New Zealand and California laid to waste to earthquakes. The Gulf Coast and Central America ravaged by hurricanes - tornadoes and blizzards that destroyed the Midwest. Floods, famines, all of it - and all of it made Henry feel ashamed for having vanished. As if he could somehow have stopped any of it.
He closed the textbook, not really wanting to read anymore.
Instead, he drew the blank notebook that Liesel had also given him, opened it, picked up a pen, and began to write.
The Journal of Henry Winchester
March 2, 2017
I now know how an angel can kill a demon...
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: Forced to Hurt Somebody
Word Count:2,401
Warnings: None, save for language
Summary: Henry Winchester intended to land away from the meeting of the Men of Letters. Instead of going sixty miles away from his location, he went sixty years away - and landed in the closet of his great-granddaughter, Liesel Coulter. Deaf!Dean Verse
It was all a blur. Henry Winchester was trying to remember what exactly had been going on at the meeting. There had been screams, someone had shoved a small box into his hand, told him to guard it with his life - and, after more screams, a flash. The world had finally stopped spinning. He had to find John. His son was only nine years old - he had to get him away from the danger. They would go to the safe place - and sort out what happened. He slowly opened his eyes and frowned. He was in a closet and as he sat up, he could see his reflection in the mirror hanging on the door. A moment later, he realized - the closet belonged to a girl. Where was he? He could hear muffled music - but the tune was unfamiliar. He slowly stood up, when he heard someone speak.
“Leroux? You're... but if you two are both...”
A moment later, light flooded the closet and something jabbed against his stomach, knocking him back.
“Who are you and what are you doing in my closet?”
Henry blinked and shook his head to clear it. Standing over him, welding a baseball bat, was a small girl with intense blue eyes and dark brown hair. “I'm not going to hurt you.”
He could see her tighten the grip on the bat. “You're in my closet in my house. I want to know who you are and what you're doing.”
“Just... just calm down.” Henry slowly got to his feet, noting that the girl stepped back a pace, and he picked up his hat, eying her nervously. “My name is Henry, and I'm not entirely sure how I ended up in your closet.”
She blinked at him. “Are you an angel?”
He gaped at her. “No. Why would you think that?”
She lowered the bat a fraction and hit the floor a few times, and then raised it again. “It's a long story that I'm not going to tell you.”
He heard someone rushing up the stairs, and then a voice called out. “Liesel?”
The girl, Liesel, stepped back again and Henry was able to come into the doorway of the closet, seeing the room a little more clearly. The first thing that caught his eye was a flat screen that was propped up on the desk - it looked a little - futuristic. The door to the room flew open and a man, around his age, almost ran into the room.
“Liesel, what...” The man caught sight of him, took the bat out of his daughter's hands and pushed the girl behind him. “Who are you and what are you doing here?”
“My name is Henry Winchester and I don't know what I'm doing here.” He really didn't want to challenge the other man - he was of sturdier build - and had the home field advantage, so to speak.
“Henry Winchester is dead. He's been dead for decades.” The man frowned.
“What?” He made a face. “I assure you I am not dead.” He paused. “Decades? What year is it?”
“It's two thousand seventeen.” Henry noted that when the man spoke, the 't' sound didn't sound fully clear, like the man had a cold. “That still doesn't explain what you're doing here.”
He took a step forward, keeping his hands up, showing he had no weapons. “I'm looking for John Winchester. Can you tell me where he is?”
“He's about one thousand miles north of here.” The man's voice turned venomous. “Although why you're looking for him, I have no idea.”
“Wait, you know John?” Henry was growing more and more confused.
A horrible crash sounded in the closet behind him and he turned around, standing in front of the man and his daughter as the being that had been at the meeting came into the room.
“You're a hard one to catch, Henry...” The demon said and then there was a whooshing sound. “What the?” The woman wheeled around as a man with short black hair appeared in the closet.
“Abaddon.” The man said and then swung his arm in an arc, the palm of his hand slamming onto her forehead. “You might want to cover your eyes.”
“What is going...” Henry started to say and then blinding light, followed by an unearthly scream filled the air and he turned away, putting his hands over his face. A rank smell of burning flesh that reminded him of his time in World War II filled his nostrils and he nearly retched.
Then it was quiet.
“The demon is gone now.” The man said and Henry straightened up. Where the possessed woman had been a moment ago, there was nothing but a pile of ashes. He sank to the floor in response, stunned. “Henry Winchester. So this is where you turned up after vanishing in nineteen fifty-five.” The man stepped past him and went over to the other two. “Are you all right, Dean, Liesel?”
“I'm fine.” The man, Dean, coughed. “Smells terrible.”
“I thought all the demons were supposed to be locked away.” That was the girl.
“There's a fairy tale if I ever heard one.” Henry interjected and was rewarded by a poke from the unnamed man.
“You have been, as they say, out of the loop for sixty years. Things have changed.” He brushed his hands on his shirttails. “A lot has changed in that time. There have been wars, plagues, famines, earthquakes, floods...”
“I get the picture.” Henry turned and looked at the two standing behind him. “I still don't understand how I got here.”
“I suspect there was a miscalculation in your attempt to escape.” The man frowned. “Instead of going through space, you went through time. In doing so, your landing was eschewed by locking onto the strongest signal, so to speak.” The man went over to the pair as he stood up. “Which is why you're in Austin, not Ann Arbor.”
“What do you?” He looked from the man to Dean and Liesel. They were strangers to him - except there was one thing - they both had the same stubborn chin. His stubborn chin. John's stubborn chin. “I see...”
“Cas, what's going on?” Dean asked, still not giving him a trusting look.
“It's complicated.” Cas replied. What sort of name was Cas?
“What level of complication are we talking about?”
“Major.” Cas took a hold of Henry's shoulder and pushed him back from the two - Winchesters - forming a sort of shield between him and them. “But as the demon's gone, the rest is just...” He shook his head. “Details.”
“I just...” Dean stopped talking and then pulled a flat something out of his pocket. “Excuse me for a moment.” He went into the hallway.
Henry watched him go and then the man, Cas, went into the hall, standing in the doorway. He turned to the girl. “You said it's two thousand seventeen?”
“Yes.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and she took a step back. “That's an interesting pin.”
“Oh.” He glanced down at his Men-of-Letters pin and then back to the girl. “You're name is Liesel? Where did your father get that name?”
She stared at him. “It's from The Sound of Music. It was my mom's favorite movie.”
“I've never heard of it.” He ran a hand through his hair, feeling nervous. “Do you have any cousins, Liesel?”
“No.” She said, very matter of factly. “Which is probably for the best, considering Uncle Sam killed a cactus and Uncle Adam doesn't like kids.” She made a face. “Well, he likes other people's kids. He can give those back.”
“And do you have any siblings? A brother?”
Something changed in the girl's face so fast, he was suddenly rather afraid she'd pick the bat back up and hit him with it. “No, şovină porc.”
He stared at her. “What did you call me?”
“I called you a şovină porc.” She folded her arms. “Or as we say here in America, a chauvinistic pig.”
He shook his head. “I suppose I deserve that.”
“Liesel?” Dean called from the doorway and then, to Henry's shock, began using American Sign Language. “There was an accident out on the highway and they need everyone available. Cas is going to stay here with you and Henry.”
“Okay Dad. Be careful.” She turned back to Henry. “Don't feel bad. You've just jumped a huge amount of time. I mean, it's not like you asked me how I was liking elementary school.”
“I think we should go downstairs. I have the overwhelming urge to wash my hands and the soap in the kitchen is the strongest.” Cas broke in and they headed downstairs.
Henry stopped on the stairs at the sight of a family portrait. There was Dean and Liesel, and this Cas fellow, whoever he was, and two people he didn't know. The man was older than him - well, he looked older - with dark hair that had gone mostly gray. The woman was younger than the man, her hair was streaked with gray and she had a very impish smile. The only people who looked remotely alike were Dean and Liesel, and even then, it was just the chin. Good lord, were Dean and Cas... He suddenly felt like someone was staring at him and he looked down the rest of the way to see Cas standing there. “I uh...”
“It's not what you think. Dean and I are... brothers of a sort.” He lifted his chin. “This is very complicated, as I said earlier.”
“I'm sorry.” He came the rest of the way down the stairs. “I was wondering if it would be possible for me to go and see John now.”
“That's inadvisable. John Winchester has not seen you since the night you left your home.” He gave him a solemn look. “The shock might kill him. He's not a little boy any more, but a man of seventy.”
He felt his shoulders slump, the weight of everything crashing down. “What are you, Cas?”
“I'm an angel of the Lord. My full name is Castiel. I'm also a bit of a refugee in this place.” The angel took him by the arm and led him into the kitchen. “And you are Henry Winchester, the Lost Man of Letters.”
*
He would never see John again.
It was sort of odd, thinking that. He'd just left the nine year old boy hours ago and now he was in the future, confused, and more than angry. Angry at himself, angry at the Men of Letters, he was even angry with John. It was all over, according to Castiel. There had been a war in Hell two decades ago and it ended with the gates being sealed. Angels walked amongst humanity, slaying the monsters that hunters used to. The back of Henry's head still smarted from where Dean had slapped him for insulting hunters.
Henry had a low opinion of hunters, but whoever Mary Campbell had been, she had given his grandson a courage that was remarkable and unshakable. A courage fully fostered by Elisa Coulter who looked like she was going to claw out his eyes when he made the remark 'despite being deaf' and she -
She was twice as scary as Dean.
Henry might have told Castiel to go fuck himself and go back anyway, but given what he'd done to that demon, odds were, the angel would just follow him and drag him back here. It was horrible, it was unfair and yet, he knew that changing the past could do unspeakable things to the future. Odds were, it would erase Liesel from existence for one, and possibly Dean and his brothers as well.
It was too big of a gamble.
The only question was - what was he to do now? He had no skills or way to live here in 2017 - he'd heard how much a gallon of gasoline cost these days and he'd nearly fainted. Liesel had been nice enough to loan him her American History book - so he could attempt to learn a little about what happened while he'd been - lost.
The war in Southeast Asia. The war that John had gone to. John should never had to see war. Henry had wanted his son to go to college, to become something - and well, it wasn't like Dean was the best person to talk to about John. And Henry didn't blame him.
If Joel Patterson wasn't already dead, Henry might just have had to kill him. He wasn't exactly mad at his late wife remarrying - she had thought he ran out on her and John. Joel had kept John from his Winchester relatives far more than he should have - more than he had a right to. The anger and resentment had been unleashed on Dean. Or at least, from what Henry could assume. But John had left Dean behind before the damage grew to a point where the boy would have ended up dead.
Castiel was right. It was confusing.
There were other wars in countries he wasn't sure he could find on a map. Places like Iran and Iraq.
The president was murdered in 1963, in front of thousands of people. Michael told him that's when people started to lock their doors at night.
Natural disasters that made his stomach clench to see the aftermath. Thanks to Liesel's science textbook, he saw cities in Japan, New Zealand and California laid to waste to earthquakes. The Gulf Coast and Central America ravaged by hurricanes - tornadoes and blizzards that destroyed the Midwest. Floods, famines, all of it - and all of it made Henry feel ashamed for having vanished. As if he could somehow have stopped any of it.
He closed the textbook, not really wanting to read anymore.
Instead, he drew the blank notebook that Liesel had also given him, opened it, picked up a pen, and began to write.
The Journal of Henry Winchester
March 2, 2017
I now know how an angel can kill a demon...