Just to inform you: french author, so, errors. And, like everyone else, typos too.
Chapter 2: Identity crisis
John's non-existent head, because Hello, ghost?, hurt. Despite not having any materiality, his head hurt. Just like, despite being nothing more than a soul, the torture had hurt.
Oddly, though, John didn't find himself minding the pain all that much.
It hurt, but he wasn't really noticing it. He had things to do, and his mind was only focused on this goal. If he had been a bit more lucid, maybe he could have said that it was as if another him, another part of his mind was trying to gain control back, but not succeeding. As if, strangely, he was acting on a knowledge he wasn't supposed to have, yet that was there, deep under the layers of his mind.
Wondering where that knowledge came from, and trying to access it hurt. So he only moved according to what his instincts told him to do. He'd figure out how he had known what to do latter on.
Because for now, the demon had dropped him in the middle of a graveyard, before disappearing somewhere to the East, possibly in search of a meatsuit. John Winchester, as a consequence, was no more than a lost soul in the middle of a graveyard where dozens of demons were crawling out of a Devil's Gate. And a soul without a body in the living world was nothing more than a ghost.
John couldn't help but think he was alarmingly comfortable with being bodyless, as if he had done it before.
Pain flashed in his mind, and he let go of the idea. He had more important things to do, and he knew a reaper wouldn't be long in coming for him, offering to lead him to his rightfull place of rest. The first time around, his deal with Azazel had ruled out the intervention of a reaper, but this time...
John had to act before the reaper came around. With some luck, the abundance of demons in the area would forestall Death's arrival... But why was he so certain Death himself would come for him? Why did he even know how exactly the whole reaper business wen...
Pain.
Let it go.
John refocused on his current objective: finding Dean and Sam, and possibly keeping them safe if he could. How he knew that his sons were here, in this graveyard, because they could only be around the Gate of Hell's opening, he didn't question. He had a feeling that questioning this certitude would only bring him more pain. He didn't have the time to deal with pain.
The soul of John Winchester forced itself to stand back up on its intangible feets, using the Gate's framing to lean on as it almost stumbled in the grass and dirt.
He looked up and around.
As he had already known, he was in a graveyard. The Devil's Gate was behind him, and as much as he wanted to close it, to prevent more demons from getting out, he couldn't do anything in his current, immaterial state. A demon pushed him out of the Gate's frame.
And John's eyes fell on a scene he did not like one bit.
He couldn't manage to think, really, at this point. The most random thought triggered more pain, so he simply stopped thinking anything beyond the bare minimum.
As a result, the wandering soul didn't exactly process what was happening, nor did he try to understand the exact situation. What he saw was enough, really. Ellen and Bobby were there. Sam was here. And more importantly, Dean was here too, with Azazel. Azazel was threatening his oldest son. Azazel was about to kill his oldest son.
But the oldest son is the strongest, you should know that, Michael.
The thought flashed with pain in his mind, and John only took the time to wonder if it had been a memory, or something else. He could tell he was the one to have "said" these words, he recognized his own "voice". He didn't know who was this Michael he had apparently been talking to, though.
It wasn't the time for that.
Dean was in danger.
And even if John had no idea how he knew what to do to tap into the energy from his own soul, he still knew how to do it. And, really, right now, it was all that mattered. It allowed him to act, perhaps to help.
Dean needed help.
In the blink of an eye, the soul of John Winchester, a true ghost for the moment, became visible. It cost him much energy to make himself somewhat tangible, but it was worth it. If saving one of his sons hadn't been worth it, what would be?
Azazel didn't notice him, too busy "taking care" of Dean. Ellen, on the other hand, might have gotten a glimpse of John Winchester's ghost, just before he disappeared. She'd have thought she had been mistaken...
...If the ghost hadn't reappeared right behind the yellow-eyed demon.
John grabbed the demon around the chest, not to let go. He'd hold on as long as necessary, be it for his sons and his friends to get away, or for Dean to take a shot at Azazel. If his son had gotten the Colt back...
Azazel felt the cold embrace of a ghost on his meatsuit's body, and turned his head slightly to get a look at the foolish ghost who was trying to restrain him. He was only half surprised to see John Winchester's soul clinging onto him, even if he did wonder how the ghost had gotten off his rack. If anything, with the Winchester tenacity, it made more sense than if it had been any other ghost.
What truly puzzled the demon, though, was that the ghost was actually succeeding in restraining him. Only ghosts with decades of experience in the living world could do that, and none to a demon as powerful as himself. John Winchester hadn't spent half a second upstairs since his death, and he could do that? How?!
Azazel didn't pay attention to the cocking of a gun in Dean Winchester's direction, not even when he knew it to be the Colt. A gun which could kill him.
He couldn't manage to get away from the ghost.
There was a short moment, between the sound of the Colt being fired, and the moment the bullet entered Azazel's skull, when something flickered in the ghost's eyes. For a split second, Azazel could have sworn that John Winchester's eyes had gone the same golden yellow as his own. A yellow that didn't exist in any other demon, and that Azazel himself couldn't explain. He had always been like that, always yellow-eyed, and he had no idea why. After his crossroad deal, he should have been just another soul for Hell to corrupt, but...
The words were whispered, and perhaps the demon felt something stir, deep in his core, in his rotten soul. It felt ancient, highly different from what he was, and yet, it felt like him.
The words were said by the ghost, but they didn't sound like John Winchester, not exactly. They sounded more ancient, and yet much like the broken soul who had said them.
"This is my family, brother."
Azazel took no time to wonder about the choice of words, because he had no time to think about the last word.
The demon's meatsuit fell to the ground, as the bullet from the Colt destroyed the demon inside. In a matter of seconds, Azazel, Regent of Hell, was gone.
A demon was only a corrupted soul, and souls were immortal, indestructible. When a demon died, their soul was purified and finally allowed in Heaven. John, as he had gotten used to during the last minutes, didn't take time to ponder how he knew that.
It was weird enough that, somewhere, deep inside his core, he felt relieved, not only that Azazel was gone, and thus unable to harm his family anymore, but also that the true Azazel, rid of the corruption from his demonic condition, was finally at rest.
John's ghost looked at Dean for a moment, at Sam, too, and he tried to give them a reassuring smile.
But the wandering soul flickered out of visibility, exhausted.
John would have stayed, and watched his sons, and perhaps he'd have tried to be visible again, to talk to them, if he had been able to. But the Devil's Gate was closed, the escaped demons had scampered away, and his reaper, or perhaps Death himself, would soon be there for him.
A small part of John's soul wanted to wait and accept the offer of rest.
Another, more important, more obnoxious part was screaming at the smaller part that he had to stay here, again, for as long as Dean and Sam would need protection. That he couldn't accept to rest in peace while his sons were in danger. That he had to do something.
That he didn't deserve peace in Heaven, with Mary, if it was at the price of leaving the kids alone.
But what could he do? Refusing the reaper's offer would mean becoming a true ghost, stuck on the earthly plane until the bitterness and the rage took him over, until he became a malevolent spirit like so many ghosts he had put to rest, until, perhaps, he ended up hurting the very sons he wanted to protect. Until someone, somehow, managed to put him to rest forcefully.
It wasn't a solution.
The louder, larger part of his soul that claimed he had to stay here suddenly went quiet, as if listening to another voice, another part, deeply hidden, but present, this part of him that John couldn't pinpoint without it hurting.
He did it unconsciously, but he did it nonetheless; the ghost's head turned slowly to the South, where something old, something familiar was calling to him.
If you need a way to stay here, in the material world, without going mad, why don't you go to claim it back, John? It's just there, you know it, and you need it. You want it back, John, because without it you are only a man, and you cannot protect your children. You want it back, John, because unlike Azazel, unlike Anna, you didn't part with it willingly to begin with. Go and take it back, John.
The reaper was coming, the ghost knew it. He didn't have much time. He had to...
You need to be Michael again.
A choice had to be made.
The ghost tapped into his own soul, and flickered out of the graveyard, away from his sons, to what was calling to him. He didn't know what it was, not really, but some part of him could just tell that it was what he needed to protect his children. He felt as if he had forgotten something important, something crucial, that was still present, behind a closed door of his memory, and that it concerned the pain, the urge to go South, and to find it, to claim it again, even though he had no idea what it was, truthfully. Its nature was sealed away with his missing memories.
But it was important.
John needed it to help Dean and Sam.
Travelling through two whole states, and perhaps freaking the hell out of a couple of people as he flickered in and out of existence from one place to another, the ghost quickly ended up at the very location where the pull came from.
John looked around.
He was in a forest, and right before his eyes was a massive tree, some of its roots disppearing in a limpid pond. The water almost seemed to glow with the reflection of the stars. And on the grass, sitting against the tree, was a thin man, looking at him.
Waiting for him.
"I thought you'd come here, Micheal."
The ghost took a step back, despite the urge to touch the tree he was experiencing. The being looked like a man, but he was much more than that, he could tell. Apparently he had been right when guessing that Death would come in person.
"My name is John. Why would you call me anything else?"
Death stared at the wandering soul for a moment, as if weighing the pros and the cons.
In the end, he simply spoke, and John didn't get to know what Death had been thinking about while looking at him like that.
"Obviously, John. But you aren't here to speak of your identity crisis, are you?"
John's eyes wandered back to the massive tree, and when the ghost regained consciousness of his actions, only one meter was between him and the tree. One meter, and Death's cane.
"Do you really want to do that, Michael?"
For a moment the ghost stared back at Death without blinking. Then his face twisted slightly, his eyes swirled to a golden yellow.
"Do I have a choice?"
Death stared at the eyes that only a fallen angel, turned human, and who had spent time in Hell, could have, for a moment, before he lowered his cane.
"This will make for an interesting story, to be sure. Your Father certainly didn't intend for it to take this turn, and yet here we are. The truth is, you are too much like him, Michael. And obviously, your own first son is also too much like you for God's plans not to be disrupted."