Reckless [Dean Winchester]

5. What to Do, What to Do?

5. What to Do, What to Do?

We crash at the motel room. Somehow, I'm still around. By who's mercy, I can't be sure.

I'm bored out of my mind, so I'm leaning against a wall while sitting on the floor. Sam is at the table reading some sort of journal, and Dean is on a laptop. Henry's on the couch, whistling some tune that sounds comforting to my ears.

"What is that?" Dean asks through the silence. "I know that tune."

"'As Time Goes By,'" says Henry. "I hope so. It's from 'Casablanca.'"

"Right," Sam speaks. "Dad used to whistle it from time to time."

"Your father saw 'Abbot and Costello Meet the Mummy' at the drive-in one night. It scared the beeswax out of him. So I got him this little music box that played that song to help him sleep at night. It worked like a charm."

Too bad I never slept with a music box, it sounds like a soothing method. I could use that right now: a quiet place, with low music going.

"Wow, it's hard to believe Dad was ever scared of anything."

"Hey," Dean cuts in, "uh, according to county records, Tom Carey lives in Lebanon, Kansas, and is a very happy one hundred twenty-seven-year-old." He closes the laptop lid. "I say we get some shuteye, head over first thing in the morning."

"Wait, wait, wait. Listen to this. According to Dad's journal, he once tortured a demon that said he made his bones working for Abaddon, who, it turns out, is a Knight of Hell."

I yawn. "What does that even mean?" I rub my eyes.

"Knights of Hell are hand-picked by Lucifer himself," Henry tells us all. "They are the first-fallen, first-born demons."

"Sounds fantastic."

"So very pure, very strong," Sam says.

Henry rises off the couch, which gives me the cue to crawl over and occupy it now. "Legend has it that Archangels had killed all of them," he says, "which, as we have witnessed, is not the case."

"Unless she's the last of her kind," I guess.

Henry gestures to John Winchester's journal. "You say that belonged to your father?"

"Yeah," Sam confirms.

"May I?"

Sam slides the journal across the table to Henry. "It's a hunter's journal. I assume Men of Letters-you use journals, too?"

"I intended to. I sent away for one the day before my initiation." I watch as Henry picks up a small photograph and continues to stare the journal down. "As a matter of fact, judging by my initials here, this one, I believe."

"That was yours?" Dean asks.

"It must have arrived after..." A pause. "I'm beginning to gather I don't make it back from this time, do I?"

"We don't know for sure," Sam says. "All we do know is that Dad never saw you again."

"What did he think happened to me?"

"He thought you ran out on him," pipes Dean.

"John was a legacy. I was supposed to teach him the ways of the Letters."