Chapter 1

~~Chapter 1~~

There are times in which one may not know the family ties that hold one’s family together. They see what is there, not what is unseen. This is what has happened to one member of the Winchester family, well one of the youngest members to be exact.

~~~

“Danny!” came a call upstairs to a young boy’s room. He knew that his family was mostly here- except for the Grandpa- but no one likes him around.

“Coming Mom!” he called down to her, slowly standing up from where he sat on the floor playing with his Legos.  

“Hurry up!” came another voice- his Mom’s twin sister- his aunt. He was never told to hurry up, so the boy hurried down the stairs. What was so important?

He jumped down the final few steps and looked around for his Mom and Max. “MOM! Where you at?!” he said, slightly louder.

“Dining room!” came yet another voice- his uncle Sam’s voice.

“Oh what is going on?” the boy muttered, “Why am I the one who was getting summoned for a family meeting?”

“We just- talk time!” Max said.

“About what?” he asked, just as sharply.

Leslie groaned and said, “Sit down. It’s important.”

“Mom....what? You are kinda scaring me. What is going on? Why aren’t the others here?” he asked, with a look of questioning.

“Just sit,” came the sharp tone of Uncle Dean.

The boy knew that if you made Uncle Dean angry then you wouldn’t live it down for a while, so he quickly slid into a nearby chair. “Where’s Aunt Bai and Uncle Cas?”

“They are outside with the others. They have no part in this. This is a pure Winchester family meeting,” Dean said as he slid into a chair, his hands sitting on the table.

“Dean, stop,” Max said, “you’re scaring him.”

“Am not,” He muttered as the boy’s Mom sat across from him.

“Leslie, would it not be best if you weren’t here? You will not help get the message across to him?” Dean said.

“I am going to be here, no matter what you say,” Leslie said, crossing her arms. “And besides someone has to be here to make sure Max doesn’t make a mess of her words.”

Max grinned, “Yeah, true, I do that sometimes.” She nudged Dean.

Dean muttered, “Well I guess she can stay. But we should get onto it, though.”

Leslie nodded in agreement, her gaze traveling to land on the boy. He swallowed hard, -“Did I do something wrong? Was I getting sent away?”- thoughts flew through his mind.

“Danny,” Max took a deep breath, “What do you know? About what we do, who we are.”

“We are just a normal family, what else is there to know?” Danny replied. “As far as I know Mom’s a chef, you’re a writer, Uncle Dean is a mechanic, Uncle Sam is a lawyer, and Aunt Bai has her own store.”

Danny heard a groan coming from Uncle Dean. He looked over and saw him shaking his head, looking at his sisters. Danny saw Dean whisper something, but what didn’t get was what he said, “Les? He doesn't know anything?!”

“No, I haven’t told him. Before now I didn’t think of it as needed. He did ten years just fine without knowing.”

“He needs to know now...” Max said.

“I know,” Leslie whispered to them.

“Come on, we are looking very strange sitting like this,” Dean whispered, before he gets to his feet, and walked over to him.

“Will someone tell me what is going on!” Danny said, his voice tense.

“Well, sweetheart,” Leslie began, “We have something to tell you, something that is very important for you to know.”

Dean just nodded in agreement before he started, “Everyone else in this family knows what the family is, and the secret that is hidden from the rest of the world. We are the only ones besides the few people who know what the family does.”

“And do ya wanna know what it is?” Max asked, a cheeky grin on her face.

“Do I have to know?” he asked, just wanting to leave.

“Yes.”

“It is important for your future. You need to know this. If you were my kid, I would have told you sooner, but Les decided not to,” Dean stated as if he were talking about straight forward facts and not the sanity of his nephew.

Danny pushed the chair away from the table, and said, “No.”

The young boy heard a sharp intake of breath and a loud struggle as Leslie tried to control her anger. “Sit. Down. Right. Now,” she said in a way that he knew he was in trouble.

“Les, calm down.” Max said, “Danny, please.”

Leslie just left the room, muttering under her breath as she went.

“I don’t wanna. I don’t want to know anything about this family. It must be something bad if Mom didn’t want to share it with me. Now she can’t even stay in the same room!”

“Well, I wouldn’t say bad, exactly.....” Max trailed off.

“Bad or not. I don’t care about it,” Danny said.

Dean just glared at both his sister and his nephew. “Knock it off both of you!”

Max stuck her tongue out at Dean. “Love you too Deany!”

“I’m leaving,” Danny muttered, as he walked from the room.

“Daniel!” came an echoing call after him.

“I am not coming back! I do not want to know about this family. There are times that I don’t even want to be here,” Danny replied back.

“Danny!” Max exclaimed, frustrated.

He was standing on the stairs to head back up to his room, his arms crossed. “Please don’t. I really don’t want to know. What should I have to know? If Ma wanted me to know this bad, she would have had told me before now.”

“Danny, she didn’t tell you because she wanted to protect you,” Max explained.

“Protect me. She has done nothing but hide me away from the rest of the world.  She hasn’t done anything besides smother me in a protective world. I haven’t got a chance to go through and do stuff I want to do. Why does it matter? Why should I know this?” Danny told his Aunt Max.

“Because if you don’t you could get hurt! We care about you, and want to help you!” Max was starting to yell now too.

Danny turned to look at her. “It’s just stupid.”

Max opened her mouth, but shut it, looking to her elder brother for guidance. Dean stood beside Max, his hands in his pockets. Even he didn’t know what to do.

“Danny, just please come here. If you don’t want to follow the path our family is on, you won’t have to do. Sam and your mother both stepped off of the path. That’s why your Mother is a chef and Uncle Sam is going to college with Aunt Bai.”

“I did too, for a while,” Max put in.

“Fine,” Danny replied simply.

He began to walk down the stairs, the couple he had gone up, to rejoin his uncle and aunt. Dean just turned, without a word, and headed back to the dining room. Sam was still waiting in the room, staring down at the table, waiting for his elder siblings to bring Danny back. As Dean walked into the room, Sam looked up. As he looked up he saw Max and Danny walk into the room.

“You ready to learn about the family, Danny?”  Sam asked.

“I guess..” Danny muttered.

Max took a deep breath. Dean stood, his arms crossed.

“Well, I don’t actually know when our family got into this path, this “job”.  But your Grandmother’s family were hunters,” Dean started.

“Hunters?” Danny asked.

Max nodded. “Not like hunting animals. Hunting....other things. Things that shouldn’t exist.”

Danny was still confused as Sam said, “Hunters of nightmares come to life.”

Danny’s eyes went wide and he took a deep breath. “What do you mean ‘nightmares come to life’?”

Dean took a deep breath and said, “What are the things that you have nightmares about?” His tone was serious, and he sounded exhausted, but his voice was firm, so it was clear that he expected an answer.

“The usual things. Vampires and things. The things that every child has nightmares of,” Danny responded, watching his uncle and aunt.

Max exchanged looks with her brothers and said, “Well..it is those things that, as far as we know, started with your Grandmother’s family. Vampires, werewolves, shapeshifters, and much more..”

“Are out there. It is up to the Hunters in the world to keep them at bay. If they kill, we kill them. It is the natural order of life here,” Dean said quietly- as if he was afraid his nephew would break if he talked too loud.

“We protect as many people as we can. We protect each other, but we protect those who have no reason to be involved with the reason of supernatural beings,” Sam finished.

Danny remained sitting, his mouth opened wide. Disbelief, shock, and anger flooded through his veins as if it were a part of the blood that did too. His small hands balled into fists, and he turned his gaze away from his family. “No,” he stated, “I refuse to believe it.”

“You have to, Danny. We’re not asking you to kill anything or be a hero. We’re just asking you to understand.” Max said.

“This doesn’t sound even sane! You are all crazy!” Danny exclaimed.

Dean took a deep breath and muttered, “Danny. Stop it.”

Sam just nodded in agreement and said, “We weren’t even your age when we found out the truth about the world.”

Max sighed. “I was what? two? three?” she shook her head. “I was barely walking.”

“I wasn’t really told about anything till I managed to start talking and walking. I was just about six months when we started to learn about the true nature of the world,” Sam explained.

“I was what, four? I was the one who was told most of it. I was the one that was supposed to protect Max, Les, and Sam while Dad was off on trips just in case something happened,” Dean explained.

Danny just shook his head and said, “No. I don’t want to know.”

The young boy was in denial about what he was being told. Nothing seemed to make sense.

“Danny, please, you have to believe us!” Max said forcefully, grabbing Danny’s hand.

Danny just looked away. “No, this isn’t real! It isn’t sane!”

Sam took a deep breath and turned and paced in front of the window. “This is all sane. This is all real. Would we lie?”

Dean nodded with a grim face. “We have faced this since we were younger than your age. We were four, two, and just a young baby.” He motioned towards his siblings.

“Please believe us, Danny,” Max said. “We need you to believe us.”

“If I don’t?”

“You die,” Max said flatly.

“If I die, I die. I don’t have to believe in this disease of madness that has spread through you all! I am a sane person, unlike the rest of you,” Danny replied back sharply, glaring at his aunt.

Max looked hurt. “I’m perfectly sane, Danny.”

Danny stood up, the chair pushed back from him. “Just give it up. I don’t care about this. I am not going to do the family business. You all though that I didn’t know anything about this, but you all thought wrong. None of you thought to make sure I wasn’t anywhere near once you started to talk about ‘“hunting things.’”