I Gotta See a Demon About a Seal

"Hey John."

"Victor. " I was under the hood of the Impala. I'd taught Sammy how to do maintenance on her, but unless it was something basic, I tended not to trust him with it, preferring to take care of it myself. He'd whined at first but he seemed to get that I enjoyed it and eventually let me be and now that I remembered everything, I understood my feelings. The Impala had never been Sammy's. I'd given her to Dean because I knew they'd take good care of each other. I was determined that Dean would be driving her again soon. I stood up, cleaning my hands on the rag I'd laid on the engine block for that purpose. He was leaning casually against the side of the car. Kid had turned out to be a damn good hunter. Quick learner, nerves of steel. Enough righteous indignation to keep himself going without the type of tragedy that usually drove people into the job.

"Sure you don't want any company when you go run your errands?"

Sometimes I swear it's like Victor could see right through me the same way that Dean could. I wanted to share Dean with him in some ways more than I wanted to share him with Sammy. Sammy loved Dean, no doubt about it, and I was pretty sure would have died to protect him. Probably would completely loose his shit if the full weight of Dean's loss was ever felt. But there were things about Dean that Sam had never really understood. Stories I couldn't share with him for fear that they would lead to arguments. He had a feeling Victor would understand, though. "No. I need you here."

"I know what you want. I know you're leaving me behind because you think you might not come back. You want me to watch out for Sam."

I nodded and turned back to tighten one last bolt before closing the hood, allowing the silence to stretch comfortably between us. "You and Bobby. I want you to go his place once you two finish this hunt, wait for me. If I'm not there in a week…"

"Damnit, John. The only person in the world that can even come close to keeping Sam in line is you."

I laughed. "That's a fuckin' scary thought, since I haven't been able to keep him in line since he was ten."

"That's not true. I know he gives you a lot of lip, and he sure knows how to push your buttons, but… he cares what you think of him. Kid's running scared, John, and you being gone will only make it worse. I just don't know what he'd do if you weren't around."

"I gotta do this, Victor. You don't have kids, if you did you'd understand. Make sure… make sure he takes the old girl to Bobby's for regular maintenance, will you?"

"Yeah. Watch your ass, John."

I was well aware of how stupid and dangerous this was even as I drew the circle and lit the candle. If I had any sense, I'd go back and collect my kid from the hotel back in Tulsa that I'd left him in with Victor and find another way. But some things were more important than being smart. Like getting my boy back anyway I could. This was just one more in a long line of stupid, dangerous things I'd done for my sons. Just ask anyone who's known me for more than a few hours. When we'd tried everything we could find that could strip false memories and reveal false perceptions, and then all the relatively harmless ways to restore lost memories, I'd finally turned to the one thing that Bobby and I could find that was purported to restore any lost memories, no matter the cause. Turned out to be Old Norse magic. Dark and dangerous. I didn't tell Sammy about it because there was a good chance that I'd end up a vegetable. I didn't want to have the inevitable argument. The boy had become agitated as a wet cat and even more ill-tempered in the year since we'd lost Dean.

If my relationship with Sam was like navigating a landmine before, it was a thousand times worse now. All the progress we'd made before Cold Oak had been undone – literally – and the kid picked arguments over the stupidest things and I knew risking everything on a possibility would lead to a big one. Nothing happened the first day after I got Bobby to help me with the spell and I thought it was a bust. At least I hadn't been reduced to a drooling, mindless idiot, so it was the good kind of bust even if it was irritating as hell. But the next day, in Bobby's office going over a hunt, it all hit me like a ton of bricks. I was still trying to sort out my memories, trying to weed out the false from the true. But Dean was real. I knew he was. I was still trying to figure out how to reverse Sammy's memory loss without risking him, but he seemed to know Dean was real too even without his memories.

The summoning spell wasn't long or impressive. There was no ball of smoke or flash of light. But in the end there was a slightly befuddled demonic bastard standing in front of me in the middle of the woods near where my oldest boy had died in my arms. Bastard blinked at me and smiled.

"John, John, John! Long time, no summon. You're lookin' mighty fit there, big guy. Little soft around the middle, but then you're not gettin' any younger, right? Wish I could say it was good to see you again, but I'm really kinda in the middle of things right now." I grit my teeth and somehow kept from launching myself at him and settled for throwing the holy water I was holding in his face instead. The bastard seemed to think it was hilarious. His host's skin didn't even steam. My common sense was trying to catch up with me, trying to warn me that that was a bad fucking sign. But it was a day late and a dollar short. I was already here, already all in. Standing not ten feet away from the thing that had taken 2/3 of my family. Azazel wiped a hand down his face with a sigh. "I see you still need a few anger management classes there Johnny boy."

"I want my boy back."

Azazel frowned at me. "Don't tell me little Sammy's gone missing again. It wasn't me this time… scout's honor." He actually held up two fingers, eyes wide and innocent. "You really do need to learn to keep better track of that boy. Maybe a binding spell? Or one of those chip doohickeys people put in their pets? Or a leash even?! I mean, we both know you're not exactly the best daddy on the market, but come on! You lose your damn keys less often."

I grit my teeth. I really didn't need this evil fuck reminding me of what a failure I am as a father. "I'm talkin' about Dean, you son of a bitch!"

He smiled again, wide and bright and it was all I could do to keep from trying to bash his face in. "Oh, you remembered! There's an unexpected development. Now I really am happy to see you again. I imagine thinking about that brave little boy of yours rotting in Hell for over a hundred years has got to be eatin' you alive."

Over a hundred years? "What?"

"Didn't anybody ever tell you?" He clucked his tongue in mock sympathy at the injustice of how poorly informed I apparently was. "A month here is ten years down south. That boy of yours was well on his way to becoming something you'd have to hunt one day real soon. Quick learner, that one. Woulda made great top management. It took a heck of a lot longer than I thought it would to break him. I even put Hell's chief torturer on the case full time and he's been breakin' souls for millennia… and that's in earth years. Can't imagine how long it would have taken if he hadn't already been so beautifully broken in the first place. Told you we could make him into somethin' real special."

"I want him back! I'll trade places with him… just… I want my boy back!" My voice was growing thick and hoarse. I didn't want to cry in front of this… thing. But the idea of Dean becoming one of them twisted my gut into knots.

"I'd do it if I could, really I would. After all, he served his purpose and he wasn't as much fun to play with anymore, not since he gave in. Don't get me wrong, I still got a chill up my spine watchin' him work and all, but you know, it just doesn't have the same allure as listenin' to him scream for you and Sammy to please help him while my best guy was carvin' him to shreds over and over and over again, day after day. Spent thirty years waitin' for Daddy to come ridin' to the rescue and the whole time you didn't even know who in the hell he was. And he knew you didn't. Knew you weren't even missin' him." He chuckled maliciously. "Those were good times. But it might be even more fun to watch him try to deal with all the naughty things he's been up to and know that you traded yourself to get him back after everything. To know from bones to balls that he didn't deserve it. And he'd know in intimate detail exactly what was happening to Daddy down there. Every single minute, it would torture him. I'd even give you a couple of months to watch him fall apart with the anticipation before the real fun started, not that any of you'll make it more than a year now so I wouldn't have that long to enjoy the show, but it's the principle of the thing, you know? That sort of thing has to be savored."

"Then do it!" Promising to be this twisted bastard's entertainment was a small price to pay to get my son out of Hell. I would have agreed to do a damn soft shoe routine in a pink tutu on my way to Hell if that's what he wanted.

He let out a heavy sigh. "Sorry, no can do Johnny boy. You know I've often wished that I could make a deal and not have to follow through on my end of the bargain… but alas that's not the way it works. So although we'd love to have you way down south, I got butkus on my end. Unless you wanna trade your soul for somethin' else? Like, oh I don't know, the end of hunger in Batswana?"

"Somethin' else?" I repeated, sounding stupid as my brain went rapid fire through everything he'd said so far. He kept speaking in past tense as if-

"Kid's not in Hell anymore. Hasn't been in quite some time. Only spent forty years with us. Thirty on the rack, ten working the rack, if you get my meaning. Seems like you're not the only one who's desperate to get him outta dodge. Too bad everyone was a day late and a dollar short."

"What the fuck does that mean?" For all their talking, demons rarely made much sense. If they weren't lying through their asses or just generally being a pain in yours, they were talking in riddles.

"You'll find out soon enough." Azazel pushed me away, sent me slamming into a tree and pinned me there. He walked right out of a trap and smiled. "You didn't think somethin' like that would work on somethin' like me did ya? Silly, silly boy. But I got a question for you." He leaned forward, palms flat against the tree on either side of my head, his lips next to my ear as he whispered. "How does it feel? To know that you were Dean's hero, the one person on earth that Dean ever really counted on completely to come through when he needed it… when the whole time you knew it was just a pile of horseshit? When you knew that in the end you would let him down? Did it torture you to see all that faith in his eyes? I bet it did, didn't it? Bet you've been seeing those trusting eyes every time you close your eyes since the moment you remembered and it kills you a little bit more inside every. damn. day."

"I will fucking kill you."

He laughed as he backed away. "It's been fun catching up like this Johnny boy, but I gotta go see a demon about a seal. Busy, busy, busy. I'll be seein' you around." He paused as if he'd just remembered something. "Oh, and make sure you enjoy every minute you can with our Sammy. It's almost my turn now." His eyes flashed, becoming brighter for a moment as he let me go and I slide to the ground.

"Wait!" He paused, looking back at me over his shoulder, mildly curious. "I just wanted you to bring my boy back. Then I was gonna kill you."

"Humans… I tell ya. You people have no honor!" He laughed. "That's somethin' I really gotta say I envy about you meatsuits. Your ability to go back on a deal. But you're plan was a non starter. You can't kill me, Johnny."

"Maybe not. But I was gonna damn well try. Contract's void when you kill the demon holdin' it, right? I'd get Dean back, then I'd kill you and we'd be free and clear. That was the plan anyway."

"And just how were you going to accomplish that?"

"Like this." I lifted my left hand to reveal that I'd pulled the Colt when he had his back turned, already cocked, and squeezed the trigger before he could react. The satisfaction of watching the demon die in his host was cold and not nearly enough. Because Dean was still gone. I don't know how long I sat there, my brain unable to get past that one fact, unable to concentrate on anything else. I'd been able to stave off the grief once I realized that I could trade places with Dean, that Azazel might hate me enough to go for it. Then I found the letter from Daniel Elkins in the stack of mail that I'd neglected for months. I'd had the weapon that could kill Azazel for a year and never knew it. I would get my son back and destroy the demon that had made our lives hell all at once. But now… I had to face the fact that my boy was gone. I was never going to see that smile again.

When I could finally think again, I still couldn't move. Still felt paralyzed. He'd said Dean spent thirty years on the rack and ten working it… so that was forty years. Four months. It had been over a little over year since I cremated Dean's body. So that means that he'd been out of Hell for almost nine months. But where was he? Was he in Heaven or in some other reality where the good guys went? Like Valhalla or some shit – and wouldn't Dean just fit in somewhere like that. Drinking ale and fighting just for the hell of it for all eternity in a fucking glorified bar. I huffed out a laugh that sounded more like a sob. Or was he somewhere on earth as a ghost? I mean, I'd put his body to a damn good salt and burn – I will not let my mind rest on that memory for too long – so he couldn't actually be alive could he? But if something had enough power to pull him out of Hell and beyond Azazel's reach, then wouldn't it have enough power to put his body back together? And Azazel hadn't offered to bring him back to life for my soul… But that just meant that Azazel couldn't resurrect him, not that he wasn't… not that he wasn't gone at all.

No matter how hard I tried to stop the memories, my mind kept going back to him laying in my arms at that crossroads. The way he looked up at me like he was relieved I was there and tried to speak, the way his hands fisted in my shirt as he died. He died in my arms. And I didn't even know who the fuck he was. A sob tore out of me as I cried in earnest for the first time since I'd remembered, no hope left to stave off the pain. Cried so hard that I didn't think I'd ever stop, that I'd just fuckin' die from it, a dried out husk out here in the middle of nowhere. I dragged in gasping, ragged breaths as reality set in. My son was dead. My Dean was gone and I'd been right fucking there and hadn't even said goodbye. Or told him how much I loved him. That he'd been the only thing that kept me going too many days to count.

"What the hell, John?" Bobby looked around his study in disbelief. I'd pretty much trashed it before collapsing into a heap in the corner, bottle of Jack held loosely in one hand. But I wasn't drunk though. Not yet.

"He's gone." I didn't recognize my own voice. It was thick with the tears that had dried up hours ago, chocked with the grief that felt like it was going to drive me out of my mind.

"Who's gone?"

"I tried to sell my soul to get him back. Couldn't even fuckin' do that." I rubbed my face angrily with one hand, vaguely aware that Sam was standing in the doorway watching me. Sammy… I needed to pull my shit together for him if for no other reason. I'd killed Azazel, made sure he'd never be able to come after Sammy again and I couldn't even be happy about it. In some ways the kid was lucky. He couldn't grieve what he didn't remember in the first place, which had obviously been Dean's aim. But Dean deserved to be remembered, to be grieved. To be missed.

"John… what the hell have you done?"

"Nothin'… told you. Azazel can't make a deal if he's got nothin' on his end to deal with."

"Azazel? What the fuck, John." Bobby's voice sounded like dry leaves blowing over barren ground and I couldn't figure out which was the stronger emotion in it – fear or irritation.

"I summoned him to get my boy back." I glared at him as I bit out the words, daring him to find fault, to judge me. Yeah it was stupid. But I would do a hell of a lot stupider for my boys and if Bobby didn't get that after all these years… well, he could just go right out and fuck himself.

"You summoned him? John, we don't know how powerful that son of a bitch is… he waltzed right in here through every goddamn ward and trap I got like it was nothin'. We don't know how to contain that son of a bitch."

"Yeah, well holy water, salt and the second key with his proper name don't work on him either."

Bobby drew in a sharp breath through his clenched teeth. Using a demon's true name in a special trap should work no matter how powerful the demon. The fact that it hadn't this time either meant that Azazel wasn't it's true name, or the thing had more juice than any demon in recorded history. "You damn ijit! He could have killed your dumb ass, you stupid son of a bitch."

"Yeah, well. I killed him."

That took all the wind out of the old bastard's sails and he blinked at me owlishly. "You what?"

"I shot him with the Colt. That sure fuckin' worked. Daniel was right. It'll kill anything. Sammy's free now. That's somethin'. Son of a bitch already took one of my boys, won't get a chance at another."

"Maybe we can use the gun on Lilith."

I glared at Bobby. Lilith? What the fuck did I care about Lilith? My boy was dead. "Dean's not in Hell, and the yellow eyed bastard had no idea where he is."

"What the hell could… how in the world could he get outta Hell?"

"Don't know. All I know is…" I stopped as a lump formed in my chest and I just wanted to cave in on myself and stop… just stop remembering, stop breathing, stop living with the loss of my first born curled up in my chest like a living thing. "He's gone. He went through so much. Then he went to Hell, and now he's god knows where. I can't… I can't do this, Bobby. I can't. I don't know how to live with Dean gone."

"I think I should call Jo and tell her to wait 'till tomorrow to bring Zeke over." It was the first thing that Sam had said as he watched from the doorway like he was too afraid to come in, or at least the first thing I heard. It also cut through the fog of my grief enough to shake loose an unwelcome memory and I involuntarily counted back from Zeke's birthday. Oh, god… that boy was conceived when Sam was possessed, which we obviously had forgotten about along with Dean. If Sam ever remembered that… Worse, if demonic possession changed the host's blood, what the hell did it do to… other bodily fluids? What the hell did that make my grandson? I felt the blood in my veins go cold. I shook my head, I couldn't think about that right now. I still had something else to tell.

"Dean broke the first seal, Bobby. He was the righteous man in hell."

Bobby's face lost coloring. "You sure?"

"He was… he was already so broken. And he… God, Bobby, he died thinking we'd never remember him. That no would ever remember him."

A/N: I hope everyone had a great Easter weekend! I know all of you are anxious to see Dean again. Patience, we'll get there. I know some of you were confused by the last chapter. It covered an entire year's worth of time so when Jo freaked out on Sam, she was still in her second trimester and hoped up on pregnancy hormones. By the time Sam met Adam, she'd had the baby and then John remembered several months later. It took John months of research to find answers after Sam talked to him about Jo, and then a few more to work through possible solutions. And Jo wasn't remembering so much as she was having sense memory… it's not memory exactly, it's actually an emotional response to certain stimuli – that can be either memory or, in Jo's case, a specific situation. So the poor girl is probably very confused about why she reacted the way she did.

I'm glad you enjoyed the last chapter, kelmar2004. Hope you enjoy this one at least as much!

Glad you're happy lace and silk!

Thanks, Haylia Jones! I love the dynamic that having Hendrickson around brings to the table.

You know, redgriffin7, I figured that if anyone was going to figure out that Sam was on something, it would be Victor. John's been too distracted trying to figure out who's been fucking with their memories/perceptions/etc. to notice, otherwise he probably would have found out about Ruby by now and found some way to get rid of her. And he's used to having a second set of eyes watch out for Sam and he's fallen into that pattern with Victor without even realizing it. Victor goes along with it because, like he said, he sees how stretched thin John is between trying to stop the apocalypse and digging for answers and he also feels he owes John.

I know, rog457. That last chapter had to be dull as dishwater with nothing new going on. LOL

.Dakotta., I can just see Sam staring at his father with his patiented bitch face while uttering that condom line. LOL. Sammy can be so sanctimonious sometimes. I think if Dean had to teach your friend about sex, he wouldn't be using a cucumber, especially if she's cute. He'd be much more… hands on.

Oh, Crash_n_Burn, fret not. There will be angst aplenty.

I answered at least one of your questions, greendaypumpkin. The rest will be answered in the next three or four chapters. And yeah. I am evil for keeping you hanging on that long. But if I answered everything at once, what would be the point of reading the rest of the story?

-Angie