Disclaimer: I don't own any characters from Supernatural, nor is this a challenge to copyright. Really. Kripke is the man, I'm just using his brilliance for a bit.
Desolation
Chapter 1
John rode down the center of the deserted highway, the wind burning his face, the bike rumbling smoothly under him. He had no idea where he was going, but he sure knew where he'd been.
He'd lived on the road for so long now, he had almost forgotten what it was like to have a home. Almost. But he could never forget what it felt like to lose it.
It was hot, the kind of hot that only really occurred in the desert. The bone dryness lent everything a feeling of sharp clarity. Of course, there was nothing here that anyone cared about, cactus and snakes and scorpions. In the desert, nature hated you, and wanted to kill you.
John Winchester wasn't easy to kill. His years of hunting monsters had done what a tour in the jungles couldn't; they made him hard inside. In 'Nam, there was a platoon around him, watching his back. He was doing his duty. He came home.
But when that thing took Mary, something broke inside him. All he cared about was finding what did it and protecting the boys.
The day Mary died, so did he.
The vibration of the bike and the unending heat combined to lull him into a sleepy fugue. The miles flowed before him, mile after unbroken mile of road and empty desert.
When he saw the dark shapes circling in the air a few miles ahead, he almost smiled. Hadn't done that for a long time, since his son finally killed that yellow eyed son of a bitch. And before that... well. It seemed like a hundred years ago, when he saw that Dean was going to be ok, that his deal had worked.
As he pulled closer, he saw that the buzzards were circling the body of an old man, dressed in buckskin pants and a plaid shirt, with iron grey hair and a wrinkled face. John slowed, then pulled off the road out of sheer curiosity. He knew that more often than not, that impulse got you killed. Again. But he wasn't sure that he cared anymore.
The old man was laying on his back, dried blood at the edges of his mouth and dark brown eyes wide open, as if staring at the sky. John leaned over him and closed the dead man's eyes.
"Thank you," a voice said behind him.
John was way too jaded and experienced to jump. He'd expected something like this. Violent and lonely deaths often left behind a spirit. They rarely thanked him, though. That was new. He stood up as he turned around, hand reaching under his Army jacket, and looked at the man standing before him, looking exactly like the body on the dusty ground.
"You're welcome," John said, pulling out his pistol and pointing it at the apparition. It was an ancient LeMat revolver, rechambered for cartridges and loaded with salt in the lone underslung shotgun barrel. "What can I do for you?" he asked, keeping the gun pointed at the ghost the whole time. "Before I salt and burn you, of course."
The spirit smiled at him tolerantly. It pissed John off.
"You don't need to do that," the ghost said. "I'll be moving along soon enough. But if you will do something for me, I will be eternally grateful."
"Yeah, don't really need anything from a revenant. I'm not making any more deals." His finger started to tighten on the trigger.
The spirit stopped smiling. "John Winchester. My son is in the next town on this road, and I need you to take him something. Maybe, if you do, your path will become clearer."
John sneered at him. "Right. You'll make all of my dreams come true in exchange for a little errand."
"You don't have dreams, John Winchester. It doesn't take a spirit to see that. It also doesn't take a spirit to see that you're lost. If you take that bag there on my belt to Jason Black Elk in the next town, maybe it'll help your spiritual journey..."
The pistol bucked in John's hand as a load of salt ripped through the ghost, scattering his essence to the four winds for a while. After salting the body and setting it on fire, John sat on his bike and reloaded the shotgun barrel, ignoring the medicine bag he had taken from the body before lighting it.
John was an expert at ignoring inconvenient things.