Dean slid her one of the boxed-up breakfasts and a plastic fork. Inside, there were two pancakes, an egg, hashbrowns and two pieces of bacon. Typical diner heart-clogging breakfast.
"John?" He licked at his lower lip, opening the box in front of him to go to work on the pancakes.
He supposed it was possible that his dad was a legend even 30 something years in the future. He didn't know what Ellen knew and didn't know. She knew about him and Sam, but did anyone who wasn't family really know about them? The real deal? Heaven, Hell, Azazel?
"Professionally or otherwise?" Dean asked, cramming a forkful of pancakes into his mouth.
He didn't wait for her answer.
It was hard, to talk about him. Still.
"He was a good soldier. Came back from Vietnam with medals, picked his life right back up."
That was before, though. After?
"There isn't a thing in the world he wouldn't have done for me and Sam. Not a thing.,/i>"
His voice shook, just a little. He remembered seeing John standing there, behind Azazel, aiming the Colt at the demon. He remembered the way John looked at him afterward.
He remembered Alastair talking about John, John on the rack. The mask was back on, now. No more emotion would show in his face. He'd broken before John had, and he knew that. John didn't break. A righteous man shed blood in Hell. The demons wanted it to be John. As far as Dean knew, John still hadn't broken.
"He was a tough, stubborn sonofabitch," Dean finished. "A great hunter. And a good father."
He ate a piece of the bacon, and talked around it.
"The car's his," Dean said. "He taught me everything about that car. He was a mechanic, before--"
Before he had to be a hunter. Before Mary died. Before everything changed.
"He didn't ask a lot of questions about the job," Dean said. He remembered teaching his dad, who was a kid at the time, Dean back in the 70s, how to draw an Enochian sigil. John didn't ask what it'd do, or why it had to be human blood, only how big, and where did he put it? It was a growl, too, that growl Dean grew so familiar with.
He raised his eyes to Ellen. "He just wanted to get it done. The details didn't always matter."