A/N: Here comes John Winchester! Thanks to all of you who are keeping up with this! I appreciate it! Here's the next part, as promised.
Chapter 13
"The bastard took down Dean Winchester." The phone shook in John's hand as he listened to the agonized scream of his oldest son.
"Incase you care…We're still...in...Serenity, the Nature Park. I'm sorry dad, but I couldn't save him… not this time. The demon took him away from me. I tried. He needs your help...cause I can't help him…as…much as I want to…I…can't. G'bye, dad."
The sound of Dean's struggle to hold onto life was the last thing he heard before the call ended. His heart pounded in his chest and he ran a hand over his face. He placed the phone aside and a storm cloud of thoughts rushed through his mind. His boys had gotten in too deep this time and they couldn't get out. Dean had called twice now, asking for his help, but he hadn't answered the last time. He thought they could handle it, he'd raised them to be hunters and he thought they were strong enough to beat the thing. He couldn't have been more wrong.
He was twenty minutes away from Serenity if he drove at break-neck speed. He was close on the trail of the thing that had killed Mary, and hadn't planned on any interruptions. The last call from his oldest boy had made up his mind. Dean and Sam were the only family he had left; he couldn't lose them too. He shoved his truck into gear and tore out onto the freeway. He was going to Serenity.
"Hang in there, Dean. We'll get your brother back." John spoke to the son that did not hear him.
Twenty minutes. That's all, just twenty minutes. He prayed that Dean had that long, and he hoped he'd get there in time to save his youngest boy from the demon that had taken him. How dare it separate his sons? His sons were each other's strength, and weakness. Killing one would mean killing a part of the other. He loved his boys and he didn't want either of them to meet an untimely end. Not if he could help it.
There was a gasping shudder from Kacey and he slowly opened his eyes to look into the dark. He could feel dried blood crusting his entire body and recognized that the majority of his cuts were still bleeding. His heart strained to beat and pump blood through his body. He was cold, and afraid. He rolled his head to the side and in the night he could see the unmoving form of one of the men that had come to help him. He didn't know where the other went, but he could clearly see that the one still there was struggling to breathe.
He tried to move, but his injuries prevented him from doing so and he only groaned at the intense pain striking through him. How long had he been here? He didn't know, but he remembered when he was first tied up, that had to have been earlier that morning. Until then, he didn't really know where he was. He was somewhere, but where? Whatever that thing was, it'd taken him right out of his bed at night. It seriously creeped him out.
The sound of a cell phone ringing pulled Kacey from his thoughts. He looked wearily to the other man on the ground and saw the lighted plate of a phone. He'd heard the man make a call earlier to…his father? Yeah, that was right, it was to his father. The phone kept ringing. The other man didn't answer. He saw the name on the screen and his mouth opened slightly.
"Dad." He mouthed the word that he read and tried without success to gain the attention of the other.
It didn't work and the phone ceased its panicked screaming. The small device lay abandoned on the ground and said nothing further. Kacey sighed shakily and closed his eyes against the pain that fell upon him; he lost his battle with consciousness.
"Damn it Dean, pick up!" John shouted into the phone as it continued to ring.
There was no answer and with a very colourful curse, he ended the call and tossed the phone to the seat beside him. He stepped on the gas pedal and sped the final distance to Serenity. He belted out a long string of concerned cursing, but kept it silently in his mind and hit his hand against the steering wheel instead. He couldn't lose his boys! Neither of them!
If Dean had been poisoned, he could work around that. A demon's poison was fairly simple, like snake venom. With the proper antidote, it would be cured. However, without the antidote in time, Dean would most definitely die. John drove on.
The sign for Serenity was just out of his line of vision, but he knew he was close. He'd passed through the small town a few days ago. That was before the demon had been summoned, though. He hadn't been back since then, mostly because he hadn't known about it. Had he known, he would've taken the bastard out before it got a hold of his sons.
There it was. The sign that welcomed him to the town was just ahead; the beams from his headlights brushed gently across it and illuminated the letters in a soft glow. He was entering the south end; he had about ten minutes to drive before reaching the Nature Park. Normally that wouldn't have been bad, but with Dean's life in very real danger and Sammy being taken who knows where, time was something that he didn't have a lot of. He pressed the truck to go faster. He had to get to Dean.
He passed the shadowy presence of the South Serenity cemetery and a strange feeling crept over him. There was definitely something evil lurking there, he could sense it. Whatever it was, it was close, nearly upon him. He kept driving. His oldest son needed him as soon as possible.
Dean shifted as he heard a vehicle pull into the parking lot. Someone was coming. However, he couldn't stay awake long enough to find out who and he slowly slipped back under.
John turned into the lot of the North Serenity Nature Park and his blood ran cold. His son's Impala sat abandoned next to the forest. He was afraid, but he shouldn't have been. His son's car was a sure sign that the brothers had been there, and were possibly still in the region. He pulled into the space next to it and got out. His feet hit the paved ground with a silent thud and he immediately ran around to the back of his truck where he pulled out his weapon's case. He grabbed anything he could think of to fight a demon, and then pulled a few of the antidotes for poison from another compartment. He looked over the bottles carefully and then shoved all of them into his pockets. Hopefully one of the bottles would be the right one.
He shoved things back into place and took off at a run down the trail. He could smell blood in the air. It was a thick, metallic scent that pulled him toward it. Where there was blood, there was injured. He crashed through the trees, the beam of the flashlight searching in front of him and he stopped short when he saw two forms against the ground. The metallic smell was strong now, very strong and he saw immediately where it was coming from.
The other boy, the one whom John didn't know was a bloody mess that screamed the work of a demon. Either, that or a very, very sick minded person. He was voting for the demon. He checked on the stranger to be sure he was alive, finalized that he was and then moved directly to his unconscious son. He watched Dean's chest anxiously for the rise and fall of life and with a huge sense of relief saw it. Gently, he placed a hand on Dean's cheek and grimaced at the warmth radiating from the pale skin.
"Dean? Son, I'm here." John spoke rather intensely. The boy shifted under the father's touch and glassy eyes opened to gaze blankly up at him. John smiled when he saw his son's eyes, glassy or not, it meant that he was still alive.
"Dad?" Dean's voice was harshly breathless and a raspy whisper, yet John heard it and nodded.
"It's me." He finalized and went about checking Dean's condition.
His face blanked as he realized just how deep the extent of the poison had gone. He'd dealt with demon poisoning before, he himself had been struck by it a time or two. He also knew when it was too late to do anything for the victim. Luckily that wasn't the case with Dean. True enough the poison had nearly taken over his entire body, but there was still a chance for the man to survive. He'd do what he could, but a hospital would have to be pulled into the picture for the final stages.
John recognized this type of poisoning. It was rare, because the demon that caused it was very nearly extinct. For a time, he'd thought they were extinct. He'd never met up with one, but an old friend of his from long ago had, maybe it had been the same one. The poison had been quite far advanced when John had found him, about as far as Dean's and he'd had to use the antidote then. It had worked, but it hadn't been pretty, an ambulance had to be called in when the man had taken a particularly bad turn. His friend had lived, but hadn't been able to kill the demon. He'd only banished it back to its plain of existence. That's what John would have to do. It couldn't be killed with any modern measures that he knew of, but it could be banished. He knew the banishing spell and had the necessary components to properly pull it off, he just had to get close enough. To do that, he had to find it.
He went about uncapping a bottle of holy water mixed with herbs and lathered it on the cut that sliced across Dean's palm. The effect was almost immediate. The characteristics of the holy water counteracted the poison and the herbs created a means of fighting it off. Dean shifted on the ground and his vision cleared up slightly. He smiled.
"I didn't think you'd come." The man replied matter-of-factly.
"I came."
"Thank you." Dean stated. His voice was slightly stronger as the antidote began to take effect.
"That boy there, was he poisoned too?" John questioned motioning to the unconscious Kacey.
"Dunno. Don't think so, but you should douse him just incase." Dean said quietly.
"I will." John replied, but didn't move. He watched his boy's face slowly pale as the first of the poison began to back off.
It would be tough for a little while, but eventually the toxin would leave his oldest boy's body. Albeit, Dean wouldn't feel pleasant while it did so. Before the expulsion was over, Dean would have to go to the hospital, and John knew that. Removing the work of an evil one didn't come without consequences, the young man laying next to him would make a trip to hell and back before this was over, but at least he'd gotten to him in time.
John got reluctantly to his feet and kneeled next to the other boy. He brushed a bit of the watery antidote over the cuts on the man's arms and neck. He stood back and watched. Sure enough, the other man shuddered a bit as the poison started to flush from his body.
"I'm going to call and ambulance, okay, son? You're going to need a hospital, just like this young man here." John replied sternly. Yet he knew his son would fight him and he was right.
"Kacey, his name's Kacey… Call the ambulance for him, but I'm going with you…You got the antidote to me in time… right?" Dean questioned.
John was silent, but he nodded.
"Then I'll be fine. I'll go there after I know that Sammy is safe." Dean replied, and winced as he felt further effects of the poison wearing off.
"Dean, I'm not liking this stubbornness. You know what's going to happen to you in order to expel that junk from your system." John said sharply.
"Yes sir, I do, but like it or not, I'm going to help get my brother back." Dean replied. He wasn't usually one to stand up to his father. His attitude surprised him a little, but he was still sticking to his promise of making sure Sam was safe.
"Dean, you'll only be a hindrance to me. I want you to go with Kacey to the hospital. I can get your brother." John replied. It stung him that he was being so abrupt with his oldest boy, but he wanted to make sure Dean knew everything that he was thinking in order to understand.
The last time John had been poisoned by a demon, Dean had watched his father suffer through the expulsion process until he could no longer take it. He'd been barely eight and had called Missouri to report what was happening. The older psychic had ordered Dean to call an ambulance for John. She'd asked the boy where he was and said she'd be right there, seeing as she wasn't far away. Sure enough, Missouri had arrived a few moments before the ambulance and had taken a crying, frightened Sam into her arms and checked on John, ordering Dean to get a cold cloth for the fever burning inside the older man. The ambulance had pulled into the yard to take the oldest Winchester to the hospital. Missouri had strapped Dean and Sam into the car and followed the medical vehicle there to wait out the turmoil that she knew came with the expulsion.
"Dad, I'm going with you." Dean finalized. His voice was louder as his strength started to return.
"Dean." John started.
"Dad, I'm going."
"Fine, but I want you to stay out of the fight. You'll be in no shape to battle this thing."
Dean was silent and grabbed his cell phone. He hit the buttons to call 911 and get Kacey some help. John watched him through stormy eyes. Yet, behind the hard exterior John was putting forth, he was proud of his son. For everything.
