Midday painted the motel parking lot with soft golden light as Dean secured the last of their bags in the Impala's trunk.
The past twenty-four hours had been a whirlwind of chaos - battling an armored werewolf knight, discovering his father's secret weapon, and learning that Dracula - actual fucking Dracula - was after his little brother.
Just another day in Winchester paradise.
"Easy, Dad. We've got you," Sam murmured, supporting John's weight as they shuffled toward the Impala.
John Winchester looked far too frail. His face was deeply lined, hair almost completely gray, and his once-strong frame now hunched with pain.
The Dark Spear had extracted a terrible price.
"I can walk," John insisted, though his grimace betrayed him as a spasm shot through his back.
"The doctor was clear," Sam reminded him gently. "Your spine can't handle the stress of sitting upright for extended periods. You need to lie flat during transport."
Dean opened the Impala's back door, watching as Sam helped their father inside. John's face contorted as they eased him onto the backseat, a groan escaping despite his obvious efforts to suppress it.
"The painkillers should kick in soon," Sam said, arranging a pillow beneath John's head before setting up the portable IV stand.
The medical equipment took up the remaining space in the backseat, the clear fluid dripping steadily into the line connected to John's arm.
The rumble of an approaching engine drew Dean's attention. A boxy green Land Rover Defender pulled into the parking lot, its rugged frame and mud-splattered exterior a stark contrast to the Impala's sleek lines.
Trevor Belmont emerged from the driver's side.
He wore the same clothes as yesterday - dark jeans, boots, and a leather jacket that had seen better days. The chain whip remained coiled at his hip, a constant.
"Ready to move?" Trevor asked, approaching the Winchesters. His eyes flicked to John's prone form in the backseat, assessing.
"Almost," Dean replied, turning to Lucien who stood nearby, looking exhausted despite having slept. "Lu, slight change of plans. You'll need to ride with Belmont."
Lucien frowned. "Why can't I ride with you guys?"
Sam gestured to the Impala's backseat. "We forgot to tell you, but the doctor said that Dad needs to lie flat, and the IV setup takes up the rest of the space. Plus, I need to be able to monitor his condition and administer medication if necessary."
"I'm fine," John protested weakly from inside the car, contradicting his own statement with a pained wince as he shifted.
Dean watched uncertainty flicker across Lucien's face. The kid had been through hell already, and now they were asking him to ride with a stranger who hunted vampires for a living.
"I'll ride with you," Dean decided, turning to Trevor. "If that's alright."
Trevor shrugged. "It's your funeral if your brother drives that classic car into a ditch while watching your daddy instead of the road."
"Sam's a good driver," Dean said defensively, though he couldn't quite hide his wince at the thought of the Impala being damaged.
"Whatever helps you sleep at night," Trevor replied, heading back to his Land Rover. "We're burning daylight. Dracula may not be able to move freely during the day, but his servants can."
Dean turned to Sam. "You good with this?"
Sam nodded. "Go. Keep an eye on Lucien. I've got Dad."
"Call if anything changes," Dean instructed, squeezing Sam's shoulder before guiding Lucien toward Trevor's vehicle.
The interior of the Land Rover was a hunter's mobile arsenal. Custom compartments lined the sides, holding weapons of various types.
The back windows were reinforced with metal mesh, and symbols Dean didn't recognize were subtly etched into the frame.
"Shotgun," Dean called automatically, sliding into the passenger seat while Lucien climbed into the back.
Trevor started the engine, which rumbled to life with a deeper growl than its factory setting would allow. "Try not to touch anything that looks sharp or old," he advised, glancing at Lucien in the rearview mirror. "Some of my equipment bites back."
They pulled onto the highway, the Impala leading their small convoy. Dean kept his eyes fixed on the black car ahead, watching for any sign of trouble.
"Your father," Trevor said after several miles of silence. "That spear he was using. Where did he get it?"
Dean's posture stiffened. "None of your business."
"It is when it's a soul-forged weapon that nearly got us all killed," Trevor countered. "Those things are unpredictable at best, catastrophic at worst."
"You seem to know a lot about it," Dean deflected.
"I know enough to recognize one when I see it," Trevor replied. "My family's been hunting monsters since before most countries existed. You pick up a few things."
Dean glanced back at Lucien, who was studying Trevor with undisguised curiosity.
"So Dracula," Lucien said, changing the subject. "He's really real? Like, actually drinks blood, turns into a bat, can't enter without being invited, hates garlic - that whole thing?"
'Better know what kinds of abilities Dracula has, and hope that it isn't exactly like game Castlevania's - I really don't want to deal with a multiversal eldritch entity...'
Trevor barked a laugh. "Some of that's true. Some is Hollywood bullshit. The real Dracula is far worse than anything Bela Lugosi could portray."
"How so?" Dean asked despite himself.
"For starters, he's ancient," Trevor said, eyes fixed on the road. "Older than any vampire you've encountered. His power comes from being one of those directly turned by the original bloodlines."
"So what's your connection to him?" Dean pressed. "Why is a Belmont specifically hunting Dracula?"
Trevor's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. "Family business. Has been for centuries."
"That's not an answer," Dean pushed.
"It's the only one you're getting," Trevor replied coldly. "My family's history with Dracula is our burden to bear. Let's just say we have... blood ties... that make us uniquely qualified to hunt him."
Lucien leaned forward between the seats, studying Trevor's face.
'Well - either we're dealing with the friend of Leon Belmont, or Gabriel Belmont himself - personally, I hope the former. If its the latter - if he's Gabriel, then he's still loved by God - nothing holy is gonna affect the fucker. Even angels would have trouble with him.'
"How long have you guys been hunting him for exactly?" Lucien asked.
Trevor's eyes flickered to the rearview mirror, meeting Lucien's gaze briefly before returning to the road. "Seventeen centuries, give or take. And he's still out there. That should tell you everything you need to know about what we're facing."
The conversation lapsed into silence after that, each lost in their own thoughts as the miles rolled by. Dean occasionally glanced at the Impala ahead, reassuring himself that Sam and John were still safe.
Hours later, somewhere in Pennsylvania, Dean turned in his seat to face Lucien.
"You know, Lu, we really need to find something to break whatever curse is on you," he said, only half-joking. "Seriously, you're like a super boss magnet! Every time you hunt with us, some big bad shit hits the fan."
Lucien face-palmed, putting his face in his hands with a groan. Through his fingers, Dean could see his brother's expression of pure exasperation.
Trevor chuckled from the driver's seat. "Good luck with that."
Lucien parted his fingers, peering through them. "What's that supposed to mean?" His voice came out slightly muffled.
"You aren't the problem," Trevor explained, checking his mirrors before changing lanes. "It's the whole lot of them."
Dean frowned. "What are you talking about?"
"Hunters are cursed by nature," Trevor stated matter-of-factly, as if discussing the weather. "It's part of the job description."
Dean glanced toward Lucien, who looked back at him with equal confusion. Their eyes met in silent communication before Dean turned back to Trevor.
"Uh... I mean, I know hunters don't exactly have the best of times," Dean began cautiously, "but calling us 'cursed' seems a bit much, especially since curses are a real thing."
"That's exactly my point," Trevor countered, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel. "Monsters are real, they're made of dark fucking stuff, and they curse you at the bottom of their heart when you kill them. The more monsters you kill, the more cursed you are."
He glanced in the rearview mirror at Lucien. "That curse even follows you through bloodlines. It's a whole thing, with my own bloodline and Dracula."
Dean scoffed. "If hunters truly were that cursed, wouldn't we have to deal with the most annoying shit ever? Countless accidents?"
"It depends," Trevor replied, his tone suggesting he'd had this conversation before. "Hunters by nature have bad luck. It's how they got into this world of monsters in the first place."
He downshifted as they approached a slower vehicle. "When they kill a monster, and are cursed, their luck becomes even shittier. Only way to survive then is through more skill and being a paranoid fucker - which thankfully for us lot, all of us are."
The Land Rover accelerated smoothly as they passed an elderly couple in a sedan.
"But..." Trevor continued, a hint of something darker entering his voice. "Here's the interesting part. Once you kill enough, once you are cursed enough, it... builds up."
"If you kill enough, or kill enough of the strong ones, it gives you such a strong curse that a normal death, or just being mauled by your common vamp or monster, isn't really possible unless the idiot makes a colossal fucking mistake, like pure brain dead."
Dean's brow furrowed in confusion. "How does that even work?"
Lucien's eyes widened with sudden understanding.
'Wait, is that how it works in this world? Not Chuck plot-armor, but this?'
"It's because your luck is so bad," Lucien began in a tone of finally understanding, "it makes you survive less bad things, so that you reach the most bad thing possible, and suffer that," he said slowly, working through the concept.
Trevor pointed a finger at Lucien without taking his eyes off the road. "Bingo."
"So if you have enough of it, the bad luck becomes, in a way, good luck until you reach the big bad stuff," Trevor continued. "With enough of that curse, it will make things go faster for you. You won't get sick, you won't have a problem with money, always somehow finding a way to get it, and the like."
His voice dropped lower, like sharing a secret. "Speeding things up until you hunt and reach something truly fucking twisted that will make you suffer so much, it will make every bit of pain in your life compared to it be a candle compared to a bonfire."
A long moment of silence filled the car, broken only by the steady hum of tires on asphalt.
"Anyway," Trevor continued as if he hadn't just dropped an existential bomb on them, "it depends on how much shit and how strong of a shit you kill. The kid-" he nodded toward Lucien "-as I said, isn't the problem here. It's you lot."
He glanced at Dean. "Either you're like the Belmonts, a cursed family - which if you were, your family would be quite the long line of hunters, but I've never heard of Winchesters, so it can't be that."
"Then it must be because you, the older brothers, and daddy dearest have killed quite the lot of evil scum, and may be on the tail of something quite fucking evil, that the miasma from it curses you, simply from making it part of your fate to seek out that big ass evil."
Dean winced internally, Yellow-Eyes immediately coming to mind.
While Lucien himself thought about the Campbells, and the Men of Letters - the Winchester Legacy.
"Since you care for the kid and he is a big weakness of yours," Trevor continued, "when the chance is logically there - since the bad luck still follows logic, you can't just die from a heart attack if you're completely healthy, since it's a bad luck curse."
"Not a magical curse with a witch's intent behind it, stopping your heart or something, in which case it would be logical to have a heart attack, because the magic made the witch's will reality, cause magic can do that, attribute of it and all that - then bad things follow the kid."
He took a breath before concluding. "When you survive the bad shit, the bad luck is sated for a bit, till it recharges, and then when opportunity presents itself, it continues."
Dean stared at Trevor, processing this information. It made a twisted kind of sense, explaining the Winchester family's seemingly endless parade of misfortunes.
An intense pressure suddenly was felt by Trevor and Lucien.
Trevor straightened, as he felt it, checking the road signs. "Well, would you look at that. We've reached Virginia." he stated, looking completely unbothered.
Like he was used to it.
Lucien on the other hand could only sweatdrop - but still kept calm - as the intense feeling of suffocation enveloped him for a moment, till they passed it.
He took and let out a deep breath. 'So this... Is what an Original feels like...' he thought to himself.
For if one, like Lucien and Trevor had the senses - they'd feel it, how the entirety of Virginia was coiled by an evil unlike any other Lucien has ever directly felt.
Trevor pulled the Land Rover onto the shoulder, the Impala following suit behind them. He put the vehicle in park and unbuckled his seatbelt.
"I'm tired," Trevor suddenly announced. "Dean, you take over driving. I'm gonna sleep for a bit. Wake me up in three hours."
Dean, suprised for a moment, processed and nodded, exiting the passenger side as Trevor climbed out of the driver's seat.
They passed each other at the front of the vehicle, Dean noting Sam watching them from the Impala with a questioning expression. Dean gave him a thumbs-up to indicate everything was fine.
Trevor settled into the backseat next to Lucien, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning his head against the window.
"The curse though can't be unbreakable," Lucien commented as Dean started the engine. "The hunter curse is still just a curse, after all. It can be removed, like any other."
He remembered how Rowena said that - that any curse, is still a curse, and is breakable. Even the first and most powerful curse - the Mark of Cain - was, after all.
Trevor barked a laugh, reaching over to ruffle Lucien's hair with surprising roughness. Lucien scowled, immediately working to fix the damage to his hair as Trevor withdrew his hand.
"Yeah, but it would need an insane amount of power to break such a curse," Trevor said, his tone softening slightly. "But I suppose it is worth it though. It should be the goal of every hunter really."
His gaze drifted to the passing landscape. "For once the curse is broken, all their bad luck is gone, and only an insane amount of good luck would remain, to the point they'd instantly win the lottery. They'd live a good ass life, with a wife, a half dozen kids, a mansion, and the like. Well, if nothing worse came after them, that transcended even that amount of luck..."
Something wistful entered his expression as he stared out the window, a glimpse of vulnerability in the hardened hunter. Then he shook his head, the moment passing.
"Ask me things later, kid." he told Lucien. "I gotta sleep."
Within minutes, Trevor's breathing had evened out, his head lolling slightly against the glass as the Land Rover continued down the highway.
And so they continued driving, towards Mystic Falls, where new opportunities and hopefully what they sought laid...
--------------------------
(Author note: Hello everyone! I hope you all liked the chapter!
Do tell me how you found it.
So... How do you like this world's reason why hunters actually win a lot the time, even against quite the big bads?
Once they - through enough skill, and decent good luck - kill enough monsters, and have enough shitty luck, this is how they get through most monsters, besides the true big bads.
It's the only way I see it make sense, besides Chuck giving every hunter plot armor - and honestly, I don't want to do that this fic. Sure, Chuck could interfere, but it is no guarentee.
This way, you guys won't have the feeling that the Winchesters will always win.
Cause they won't. I'll tell you guys that much already.
Well, I hope to see you all later,
Bye!)