Burdens, Doublefold - Chapter 4
Sam looked across the picnic table at Brady. "Are you gonna answer that?"
Brady pulled out his buzzing cell phone and stared at it for a long moment, then put it on the wooden table. It vibrated steadily, moving slowly over the uneven surface as it buzzed.
"Guess not then?"
"I don't know that number," Brady said, watching an ant crawl out of the way of the moving cell phone. He held his hand out over the ant and brought one finger straight down, crushing the little bug.
Sam tilted his head to the side and looked at Brady's phone. "3235" He spun the phone around. "That's...Dean."
"Your brother?" Brady asked, flicking the squashed ant off his fingertip with his thumb.
Sam spun the phone around and stared at it as the display blinked, then showed 1 new voicemail message.
"How'd he get my number?" The demon frowned, flipping the phone open and bringing it to his ear.
"He's good at his job," Sam answered, swallowing. If Dean had decided to call Brady, it could only mean one of two things. Either he was starting to get worried about Sam not returning his calls, or...
"He knows you left school," Brady said, listening to the voicemail. He smirked, closed the phone and handed it to Sam. "Want to give it a listen? Your bro sounds pretty worried about you. Maybe you should give him a call back-let him know you're doing okay."
Sam laughed bitterly. "Yeah, sure. And what the hell am I supposed to tell him?"
"Tell him you're fine. Tell him you decided to take a break after all. Tell him you're with me."
"Right. That'll just piss him off."
"You think? Whatever. You know best. Just tell him something, before he decides he has to track you down."
"Too late for that," Sam muttered and pulled out his cell phone. Seven saved messages-all of them from Dean. The one from Thanksgiving had been the hardest one to hear. Dean had sounded like he'd been drinking-spending all that time on the road with Dad couldn't be good for his liver-but he'd also sounded so sad. Sam wanted to talk to Dean. He missed his brother, far more than he wanted to admit. The problem was that he was a shitty liar. He always had been, and if he called Dean back whenever the ache in his heart got too bad to ignore then Dean would know something was wrong. He already knew. The last time they'd spoken, when Dean had told him about the Colt, Sam could hear the suspicion and worry in every word. He didn't know what Dean thought was going on, but no matter what, it had to be better than-
"Sweet, merciless Lucifer will you PLEASE just call the guy back?" Brady groaned. "We're on a schedule here, you know."
Sam glared at Brady and looked at his phone again. He scrolled down to Dean's number and put his thumb on the call button, but he couldn't press down.
"Supergirl gets done with her shift in ten minutes. We should go introduce ourselves."
"Supergirl?" Sam asked, making a face.
"Well, she doesn't wear the costume, sadly, but she does fly. Sorta."
"She can fly?" The ten-year old in Sam-as cynical as he was, even back then-got excited. For just a second.
Brady stood up from the picnic table and shrugged. "Technically, no. She can solidify air though, meaning she can walk on it, so it looks like she's floating."
Sam stared at the demon. "Wait, I don't get it. How is that useful?"
"I'll throw you off a cliff tomorrow and you can find out. How's that sound?"
Sam flipped Brady the bird and put his phone back in his pocket. He'd call back, he just had to figure out what to say first. More importantly...how to say it.
“Nothing. Not a God-damned anything.” John threw the motel room key across one of the beds and dropped down on the edge of the mattress.
His shoulders were stooped with an invisible weight, spilling off like his own personal gravity and dragging everything, everyone, down with him. Dean often considered this Dad’s superpower: the ability to emote surliness in a palpable force. Came in handy when they needed to intimidate a reluctant informant or sentient monster, not so spiffy when it was just him and his son in a room alone together.
“It’s okay, Dad. Those sons of bitches know we’re on their heels; they’re being careful. Covering their tracks.”
John pulled his hands through his hair, scratching at his beard and hissing breath through his teeth. Nothing Dean could say would pacify him, and not just because Dean wasn’t good at sympathy-if anyone could get through to John Winchester, it was his eldest-but because Dean had nothing positive to add. Dean bore no good news either, and John could surely sense that.
The atmosphere in the room was thick, desperate. It stunk of professional-grade disinfectant and mildew. Dean wanted nothing more than fix this crap with his dad. Hell, he’d even put just a fucking band-aid on the situation if it meant cutting the tension the smallest bit.
So he did what he had to. He lied to his father.
“Saw Sammy in California.”
John looked up slowly. Something flickered in his eye; might’ve been hope. “How is he?”
“He’s doing good. I mean, not great, but better. He was swimming in mid-terms but seemed to be…yanno…” Dean had to keep the lies to the minimum because another one of his father’s superpowers was truth detection. Dean had yet to beat his father in poker, even once.
“Good, good.” John nodded and a trivial amount of gloom eased. But that was all right; Dean would take it.
“Hey. Why don’t you grab the first shower and I’ll get us a pizza. Been a long few days.”
John Winchester smiled, and it was saddest thing Dean had seen in nearly a lifetime. The ploy worked, though. John dropped his coat on a chair and lost himself in a hot shower for an hour. Dean procured pizza and beer. They watched television, cleaned weapons, and gradually faded into sleep after midnight, listening to the people in the room next door laughing and occasionally thumping the wall. On the bright side, at least it wasn’t a screaming infant.
__________
Saginaw. Colma. San Diego. Seattle. Dean tried again to sort through the jumbled mess of facts and fears bouncing around in his skull. He stared out at the road, watching Dad's truck signal an upcoming turn, and followed him onto yet another highway, still lost in thought.
The CDC report about the deadly toxin had been weird enough to grab Dean's attention all on its own. Three cities all with victims the same age, all dead within a few days of each other. It was exactly his kind of weird, but that wasn't the part that bothered him. It was everything else.
He started with the second reported case, in San Francisco, or more specifically, Colma-the closest of Stormy's omen hotspots to Stanford, where there'd been no sign of Sam. People had reported seeing the Northern lights above San Francisco, but Stormy insisted that the lights and the massive thunderstorm earlier the same day were connected and that Colma, just south of San Francisco, was the origin.
When Dean had gone to San Francisco General as a CDC agent, checking to see if there'd been any other cases, he'd gotten a little more info. The San Francisco toxin victim, Hans Müller, who'd worked in one of Colma's cemeteries as a groundskeeper, had been found dead in his apartment. They'd brought him in and examined the body, finding no clear cause of death but a whole string of bizarre abnormalities. The lab-work itself had been unusual, but the oddest part was that his whole chest was covered in tiny holes. The holes were concentrated on the skin above his heart and hadn't scabbed. The blood just hadn't been able to congeal, which made little sense.
Dean stopped by the cemetery to find out more, and nearly wished he hadn't. The other groundskeeper, Phil, had known Hans for a few years and noted he'd gotten really weird over the last few months.
"It's not like he was an outgoing guy to begin with, you know?" the elder groundskeeper said. "He was quiet, and didn't like people much, but all of a sudden he just...he changed. Kept talking about how he could see people now, see them for what they really were." The old man shook his head and a strand of his white hair fell over his eye. He’d pushed it back and added, "When I found him that night…last night I ever saw him..." He stopped talking and his chin quivered.
The air felt like it got ten degrees cooler as Dean waited for the man to continue.
"He said he'd seen the Devil."
"The Devil?"
Phil nodded and wiped a tear from his eye. "I don't think I've ever seen anyone so scared in my life. I walked him home that night. He didn't live far..." the man pointed vaguely downhill. "All the way back he kept saying things that didn't make any sense."
"What else did he say?" Dean asked.
"He said they'd answered his prayers, but now he was blind. It didn't make any sense. His eyes were fine."
Dean's phone jangled and yanked him out of his memories. It was his generic ring and he didn't have a clue as to the number’s source. His arms prickled with gooseflesh as he answered.
"Dean," said the man on the other end of the line. Dean almost didn’t recognize the speaker; the voice was thin and uncomfortable, trying to sound casual but failing miserably.
"Pastor Jim?" Fellow hunter, family friend, Pastor Jim Murphy was one of the few people John Winchester had ever trusted with his boys. Those folks were rare; Dean could count them all on one hand.
"Listen, tell your father it's-”
An ear-busting slam came from the phone and Dean flinched. He heard a woman speaking in the background. "That's not what I told you to say. You get one more chance, Jim."
The pastor spoke again, more quietly. "Let me speak to your father."
"Jim, what's wrong?" Dean demanded. He heard a crackling sound and then a different voice came over the phone, the mystery woman.
"Howdy, John."
"Who is this?" Dean flashed the Impala's high-beams once, twice, three times, signaling Dad to pull over. He saw the truck's brakes pump in response.
The woman huffed, annoyed. "You must be Dean. Lemme speak to your dad. It's time for the grown-ups to talk."
"Who are you?" Dean asked again. Ahead of him, Dad pulled the truck off the road and onto the grass. Dean followed, bringing the Impala to a lurching halt, and climbed out.
"Hand the phone to your father. Right now." In the background, Jim made a strained, choking sound.
John was jogging from the truck, brows lifted in unspoken confusion but Dean just shoved the phone at him. He didn’t have answers for his dad anyway.
"Hello?"
His stomach knotting, Dean struggled to hear the other side of the discussion, but there was wind and road noise and he could only make out a few words.
"...know...Colt...now...kill..."
Dean watched his dad's face carefully for clues. Clearly, this was bad. When Dad flipped the phone shut and struggled to level his breathing, Dean knew what had happened before one word was spoken.
"Son, I…Jim's dead."
Dean felt punched. "But who?”
"I don't know. She said her name was Meg, but the way she spoke-” John shook his head, dragged a hand over his beard, “-it's a demon, Dean. I'm sure of it."
"What does it want?"
Looking at the sky and blinking hard, John paused a moment before answering. "The Colt. I don't know how, but they know we have it."
"How could they know? We didn't tell anybody!" Dean said angrily. The only one he'd told was Sam.
That was it.
It was a cold day when Gordon walked back into the Roadhouse. He brought a blast of ice-wind in with him when he opened the door, and Jo stepped a little closer to the space heater by her feet. She smiled when Gordon caught her eyes, grabbed a glass from the shelf behind her and poured him a beer from the tap.
Gordon Walker was a hunter. A damned good one. He'd started coming to the Roadhouse when Jo was 15. She'd liked him right off the bat. He knew what he was doing, and he never tried to flirt with her, unlike some of the others-too stupid to know that her mom could sense a bad pickup line from ten miles away and had the ability to manifest right on cue. The best part about Gordon, though, was that he treated her with respect.
Even now, when she was twenty years old and an honest-to-God grown-up, most hunters didn't see Jo as an equal. They were nice to her and knew to be polite, especially when her momma was around, but they didn't see Jo as anything but Ellen and Bill's daughter.
Her father died on the job, so far back Jo had still been in pigtails. Her memories of him got foggier every year. She remembered the smell of leather, ashes, and beer-strong hugs, dark green eyes and a warm smile. More than anything, she wanted to keep and honor the few memories remaining of him. He was a hunter, and so was she.
Gordon understood that. He recognized a kindred spirit and had taken her on a hunt when she was sixteen. He'd been tracking a rawhead in nearby Myrtle, but needed help luring it out into the open. Jo'd still been young enough to attract its attention; rawheads only fed on children. She'd known the risks and even though she'd been more scared than she would have ever admitted, she would never back down.
The stakeout had dragged on with no sign of the beast and Gordon decided they should widen their sweep. It was possible the rawhead had seen them and took to ground. They’d split up, circling around one of the houses they hadn't checked yet. Jo had run right into trouble, but it wasn't the kind with an ever-bleeding head and jagged yellow-teeth. It had been much, much worse.
Her mom had yelled so loud, Jo still couldn't believe nobody had come out to see what the hell was going on. She'd accused Gordon of using Jo as bait and ordered him to get the "bloody, ever-loving hell away from my daughter and don't you ever darken my doorway again!"
So it had been a long time since Jo had seen Gordon. Just over five years. He'd been smart with his timing; her mom had left for a supply run and wouldn't be back for a good two or three hours.
"Haven't seen you in a while," she said as Gordon sat down at the bar right across from her. She nudged the beer towards him. "How've you been?"
"I've been busy." Gordon grinned at her, all white teeth and secrets. "What have you been up to?"
She shrugged. "Hunting."
"Is that a fact?" Gordon chuckled. "What changed Ellen’s mind?"
"Nothing. I'm an adult. She can't keep me here forever."
Gordon raised an eyebrow and smirked.
Jo let out a huff and crossed her arms over her chest. "Okay, we had a huge blow out. I left home for a while and she decided she'd rather have me come back." Jo tossed a towel over her shoulder and leaned her elbows on the bar. "What brings you here? Taking a mighty big risk."
"I know. I saw your ma leave in the truck. What've you heard about humans with psychic powers?"
Jo cocked her head but played it cool. "I know that they exist."
"What do you know about them being murdered?"
Her mouth twitched. "You mean the 'Tall Man' murders, right?"
"Tall Man?" Gordon shook his head and took a swallow of beer. "Never heard of him."
Jo pushed back a proud grin and reached underneath the counter to pop open the false bottom she'd built into one of the drawers. She slid the thick folder out slowly and placed it on the counter in front of Gordon. "That's what the press is calling him, based on bystander chatter. The cops can't seem to get a real bead on him, except that all his victims were born in ’83. We know they were also ‘gifted’ in one way or another. And witnesses? Weren’t hardly any, and the ones who’ll talk can't seem to remember squat. It’s like a mental block. I think we can both guess why."
"Because this Tall Man's not human," Gordon said, eyes going just a little colder.
"Touchdown."
"Anything else connecting the victims?"
"Well, Ash cracked into a couple of government sites. The bodies had these little-" Jo fluttered her fingertips over a bare arm "-little bleeds all over. I've been combing books and old cases and the only thing I can guess at is some kind of paranormal Ebola virus. Or a ghost sickness, maybe? This last one, though…" She shuffled through the paperwork, frowning. "Well, shit, Ash must not have printed it out. This last one in Johnson, Tennessee-"
"Jackson."
Jo narrowed her eyes. "What?"
Gordon opened his mouth again but caught himself, chuckling uncomfortably. "Okay, you got me. I have heard of the Tall Man."
"And you're hiding this from me because…?" Jo snapped.
"Hell, I don't know, Jo. I'm an antisocial loner with poor judgment; ask anyone who's met me."
"Funny, Gordon. Are you afraid I'm gonna steal your case?"
"What? No. Come on, calm down." He quirked his head in the direction of the pool table, where two men were in the middle of a game of Eight Ball and just might be within earshot. Jo started to object but Gordon lifted his hand. "I knew you'd want to come with me. And I can't have that."
"Why not?" she asked in a harsh whisper.
"Your mother would end me, that's why."
"I'm not a child that needs to be coddled, Gordon!"
"You are her child, Jo. I won't take you away from her."
Jo was still scowling when she collected the file from the bar, piling it in a big mess out of Gordon's reach. She even cleared away his beer. "Good-bye, Gordon. You can leave now."
"Jo-"
"And don't come back."
“Okay, okay. Hang on. At least maybe I can give you something to work with.” He pleaded with his eyes. “A good description?”
“Of…?” Jo stomped a boot; he knew how to push her buttons and that was miles away from fair.
“Him. The Tall Man.”
“Someone got a good look?” One day her curiosity would likely get her killed, but that day wasn’t today. Jo took a step closer. “I thought no one could remember what he looked like. Except that, yanno, he was tall.”
Gordon tapped his temple, leaning in conspiratorially. “He wasn’t always covering his tracks so well, not with the early deaths. Took me a while to put it together. Thank God for nosey neighbors. He’s tall, half a head taller than me, so…maybe 6’5”? Longish brown hair, all shoulders. Young in the face. Sometimes with another guy: lighter hair, well-dressed. My source said the taller one was stumbling, looked disoriented, and that’s what called attention to them.”
“Huh. So there’s two guys? Well that’s weird.”
“Not always two. Later reports only noted the taller one. Beyond that, it gets really foggy.”
“He’s getting cagier.”
Gordon nodded grimly and stood. “So. You still hate me, Jo?”
“No, Gordon, guess I don’t,” Jo sighed, giving him a reluctant smile. “But Momma still does so you’d best be scootin’. Sooner rather then later.”
"I got a bad feeling about this," Dean said again as he looked at the farmhouse off in the distance. This was the address Meg had sent them to-just outside of Tabernash, Colorado.
John laughed darkly. "You'd be crazy not to, but we don't have much choice. After what she did to Jim..."
Dad was right about that. Meg had threatened to kill every hunter the Winchesters had ever had contact with, all of them including Ellen and Jo. "I know, but this has to be a trap, right?"
"It is. We just gotta be smart about walking into it." The elder Winchester pulled out his Colt-not the Colt, which was hidden in his boot but his regular Colt MK IV-and started walking towards the farmhouse. "Remember what I told you. We gotta be careful about how we fight her too."
"Right, ‘cause she's possessing some poor girl who might still be alive." Dean let out a frustrated breath. "It's gonna be hard to fight her off without hurting her."
"We'll do our best not to hurt her. But if push comes to shove, we have to protect ourselves and we have to protect the Colt. It's the only weapon we've got against the yellow-eyed bastard."
__________
When they got to the door of the old farmhouse, Dean's gut feeling went from bad to 'Oh Hell no.'
They walked in slowly, eyes sharp for anything, anything at all.
"Howdy boys," said a woman, closing the door behind them. Wasn’t exactly a surprise.
Dean turned towards her voice. She was pretty and small with short blonde hair that made her look a helluva lot more innocent than she was. No. That's just the girl she's wearing.
"You must be Meg," said John.
"And you must be John Winchester."
Meg’s smile reminded Dean of a wolf. He wrapped his fingers tighter around his shotgun. He'd filled the shells with a mixture of salt and a powdered blend of frankincense and myrrh, an old trick Pastor Jim had taught them. It wouldn't kill a demon, but it would sting like a mother.
"Show me the gun," Meg demanded.
"Which gun do you wanna see, lady?" Dean held up his shotgun.
"Funny. John, tell your boy to go wait outside while we talk business."
"Dean won't be any trouble.” John cut a warning glance to his son.
Meg scoffed. "I'm sure he's a good little cub scout, but he waits outside." Her eyes flipped to a bottomless black. "Or...I paint the wall with his innards."
"Dad?" Dean asked warily.
"It'll be okay. Do as she says."
Meg smirked at Dean, and her black eyes followed him as he left.
__________
Dean stood with his back against the wall, and listened. He could make out muffled voices but not the words themselves. He walked over to the sacks of rock salt Dad had stashed beside a near tree, and cut a slit in one of the bags with his knife. He went back to the house and started pouring the salt in an even line around the perimeter. Meg would get the Colt from Dad; they just had to be sure she couldn't leave with it.
When he got close to one of the windows in the back, he crouched down low, hidden from view. He could hear Meg's voice clearly.
"Cut the crap, Winchester. Give me the Colt now."
It took all of Dean's will-power not to sneak a look through the window but he couldn't risk being seen, not before he was done with his task. He kept walking and only peeked back over his shoulder once-just in time to see a weak light inside start to flicker. He picked up the pace and hurried to finish the circle.
Dean added an extra line of salt by the threshold of the door and went back inside.
John and Meg turned and stared at him.
"I told you to wait outside, son," said Dad.
Dean shrugged. "I got bored."
"Well in that case, welcome to the party," Meg jeered, turning her back on them and walking further into the house.
Dean watched her go until she disappeared into the shadows, moving closer to John. "What happened?"
"I've still got the Colt. Did you do what I told you?" Dad asked, watching for Meg's return.
Dean nodded.
"Good. Now when she comes back-"
"You boys talking about me?" Meg was smiling as she walked back into the light. She was carrying something. Someone. She stopped a few feet away from John and Dean and let the man she was holding fall to the ground with a painful thump.
John took a step closer, misery reflected in his heavy stare. "Caleb?"
Dean tilted his head to get a better look at the man's face. It was Caleb. "What did you-?”
Caleb whimpered and his arm twitched weakly.
"He's nice and sleepy, but he's unharmed. For now."
"Unharmed?" Dean snapped. "You just dropped him on his head!"
Meg nudged Caleb with her boot and mused, "It doesn't really matter."
"Cut the crap, why did you bring Caleb here?" John snarled.
"Oh come on, John. Don't play dumb." Meg sighed heavily. "You said you'd give me the Colt-”
"I meant it."
“-but I have to test it, don't I?"
"Test?" John shook his head.
Smirking, Meg bent over and picked up Caleb's arm. She shoved back his sleeve and turned his forearm into the light, revealing an angry red burn in the shape of a circle with a small line in it, almost like a 'Q'. A brand. "I've got a friend of mine riding shotgun in your buddy here. Locked him in tight."
"Why the hell would I give you the Colt then?" John yelled. "As soon as I hand it to you, you’re gonna kill Caleb!"
"Nothing gets past you," Meg said, bemused. "Don't worry, John. I'll absolve you of all guilt." She grinned at him, flicked her eyes towards the ceiling and added, "He's all yours."
Dean felt his stomach go cold a second before the shadows in the ceiling came alive. They flooded down, heading for John, and flowed straight into him-through his eyes and his mouth. He screamed, his voice garbled by the smoke as he fell to his knees.
Meg cocked her head to the side. "How is it in there?"
"Feels...real self-righteous." The demon settled his shoulders inside of John Winchester and put his hand on the floor, pushing himself up to standing. He opened his eyes, his pale, yellow eyes, and grinned. At Dean.
"You son of a bitch," Dean whispered.
"Is that anyway to talk to your father?" asked the yellow-eyed demon. "I raised you better than that."
"Get out of my dad. Now." Dean growled, and aimed his shotgun at the demon's chest. It would hurt, but it wouldn't kill.
"Or what? You'll shoot me?" The demon chuckled. He bent down, reached into John's boot and pulled the Colt from its holster. "This is the only gun that'd do any real damage." He held the revolver to the light and looked at it with disgust. "You have no idea what a pain in my ass this thing's been." He leveled the Colt at Caleb's prone form and fired. The hunter's body lit up bright gold and red, and the demon inside of him screamed right along with Caleb before they both fell silent.
"We have a winner," said Meg.
Dean's lips twitched angrily, and it took every ounce of his willpower to not shoot both demons just on principle. Instead he forced his voice to stay steady. "Let him go, or I swear to God-”
John's yellow eyes flashed at Dean, sending him flying backwards into the wall. "What? What are you and God gonna do?" He spun the Colt around his finger. "The only weapon that can kill me is the one I'm holding."
Meg snorted behind him and Yellow Eyes spun to glare at her. She looked down at the floor for a second, maybe contrite, and then back up, all humor gone from her face.
Dean watched them desperately and tried to calculate how quickly Meg would have her hand on his throat if he tried to knock the Colt from John's grip. The odds were not in his favor. Shit, he couldn't even move his arms away from the wall. "Fine. You know what? You're right. I don't have a way to kill you. You have what you want; you could at least answer one question for me."
The demon chuckled. "And what would that be?"
"I want to know why. Why'd you kill Mom?" Dean said, swallowing past the lump in his throat. "Why'd you kill Jess?"
"You mean besides the simple joy of watching their pretty faces melt?" The thing inside John grinned. "Because they got in the way."
"In the way of what?"
"My plans for Sammy," said the demon, and he slid the Colt into John's side holster.
Meg rolled her eyes and let out a weary sigh.
Yellow-eyes spun to face her, yelling. "I don't care what you think. You already failed me! Your little pets didn't find this gun. You couldn't even get John to hand it over. No, Daddy had to come in and clean up your mess. Again. Now, you'll do as you're told, or I'll send you right back down to the Pit, is that understood?"
"Fine," Meg sniped. She spun on her heel and stalked towards the door. She let out an amused chuckle and made a fist, causing some kind of freakishly small tornado that blew the white, powdery line away from the threshold. "Salt. Cute," she said, and kept right on going.
Dean couldn't stop staring at his possessed father. "You stay away from Sam."
John shrugged and said, "Me? I've kept my distance from him." He put his palms on the wall, one hand to either side of Dean's head, and leaned in close. "I'm not the one culling the herd. I'm not the one stacking the odds in Sam's favor."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
Yellow Eyes grinned. "You think your brother's just an overgrown puppy? Wouldn't hurt a fly?" He laughed, deep and cruel. "Yeah...that's what I was starting to think too. Turns out we were both wrong."
"You mind just getting this all over with? I'm not gonna spend the next hour trying to translate the cryptic load of bullshit coming out of your mouth." Dean sneered defiantly.
"Funny. But that's your M.O., isn't it? Mask all that nasty pain. Mask the truth." The demon tilted his head, watching Dean closely.
"Oh yeah? What's that?"
"You fight and you fight for this family, but the truth is, they don't need you. Not like you need them. Sam…he's clearly John's favorite. Even when they fight, that's more concern than he's ever shown you."
Dean wet his lips and glared at the demon. "You're full of crap."
"Right." Yellow Eyes smirked. "None of what I said is true? It doesn't cut you up inside?" His smirk turned into a toothy grin. "How does that make you feel?"
Dean clenched his eyes shut in pain as something cut across his stomach, sharp and searing. He could feel blood spill out of the wound, drenching his shirt and pooling in his waistband.
"I asked you a question, Dean." The thing kept grinning. "How do you feel?"
The hurt inside Dean doubled as the force pushed deeper and deeper. "Dad,” he gritted out, "don't you let it kill me. Dad, please…" He started coughing as blood welled up inside his mouth.
The demon's grin finally faltered and John staggered away from the wall. He pleaded hoarsely, "Stop. Stop." And when he looked up at his son again, his eyes were brown, and human.
Dean slid down the wall, hands cupping his belly, barely standing. "Dad?" he rasped. "Is he-?”
John shook his head. "I can't hold him back for long." He reached into his holster and pulled out the Colt, shoving it at Dean. "Take the gun, and go."
"Dad, I'm not gonna just let-”
"Run! NOW, Dean," John yelled.
Dean watched his father fall to his knees, and ran.
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