Chapter Nine

The sound of rustling outside the door startled Sam, and he sat upright in bed. The hunter hadn't been sleeping well anyway, the few times he had managed to nod off plagued by nightmares of Jess dying, pleading for him to save her. His senses, always on the alert, were even more so now, to the point where Dean had actually considered knocking him out just so he'd get a few hours' rest; and the hunter was far from surprised when his younger brother refused, wanting to be lucid in case someone or something decided to pay the Winchesters a visit.

Like right now.

Quietly, so as not to disturb whomever or whatever was outside, Sam slipped a hand beneath his pillow, pulling out his Taurus. He listened a moment, and upon deciding that he was (for the moment) safe enough to do so, slipped out of bed and reached for the door. Heart pounding, Sam carefully turned the knob. And then drew a breath of surprise.

For standing on the threshold, a look of frustration and fear on his face, was John Winchester.

"Dad?"

"Shit," John mumbled, cursing himself for being so careless. He almost always was when it came to his boys; they were his weakness. "I shouldn't have come," he grumbled, and turned as if to leave. Sam, beginning to calm from his shock, spoke up, feeling the anger swelling. There was no way his dad was leaving, not now. "What the hell, Dad? I could have shot you!"

"Hello to you too, son."

"Dad, what are you doing here?" By this time, Sam was beginning to calm down, and sensing this, John turned around, finally getting a good look at his son. To an untrained eye, Sam Winchester looked the same: shaggy mop of hair, lanky features, freakishly tall. But John recognized something in his boy's hazel eyes: the look of sadness, loss, and anger he had felt all those years earlier, after Mary had died. His Sammy had gone through the same horror he had witnessed almost twenty-three years earlier, a tragedy he had tried so hard to prevent.

But now there was another one to think of: the inevitable relapse of Dean's cancer should Yellow Eyes find out he had breached his part of the deal: and the demon most certainly would find out. Trying to steady his fraying nerves, John handed Sam the package. "I can't stay, Sam. I'm not even supposed to be here. If the demon finds out I'm here…"

"I know. Or at least, I can guess." At this, John visibly paled, and Sam realized just how vulnerable his father looked in the shadows. "I know you made a deal, Dad. Why else would Dean just recover from his cancer like that? Doctors wanted to use his case in medical journals." John smiled slightly at that. But it disappeared the moment he saw the grief in his son's face, one that had witnessed more grief than a person should see in a lifetime let alone before their twenty-fifth birthday. He sighed; there was no turning back.

"Well?" John realized that despite his decision to admit his deal, he still hadn't spoken. Clearing his throat, he finally shared the story of his deal; of how he'd been broken to see his son dying; of his contract being only one year instead of the customary ten; of how he was seriously breaching the contract just by talking to him. At this last one, Sam grew angry, eyes that were once filled with sorrow now bright with ire. "What happens if you break that contract, Dad? You just drop dead? Jesus."

"Yes…" Suspecting the uncertainty in his father's voice, Sam spoke again, voice dangerously calm, like John's own when he was incredibly angry. Like father, like son, John thought bitterly. "What else aren't you telling me? Is it… is it about Dean?"

"If I break the deal, it comes back."

"What, the cancer?" John nodded. "And at full stage four. It'll be like it was before I made the deal."

For a moment, Sam felt he couldn't breathe. Clutching the side of the door, the hunter leaned forward, as if he were about to vomit what little contents were in his stomach. No. Not again. His brother couldn't be dying again. And if that were true, then why the fuck was John willing to risk his son's life? How could he?

"I was hoping you wouldn't wake up," John continued, almost rambling. "Figured if I just dropped something off and left, I could get away with it." At this, John picked up the package his son had not noticed in the shock of seeing his father. "In this box is the only thing that will kill the demon. It's a special gun, made by Samuel Colt."

"The Samuel Colt?"

John nodded. "He made this weapon specifically to kill the stuff we hunt. Werewolves, vamps, whatever sonofabitch goes after us, this gun can take 'em down."

"Including demons," Sam nodded in understanding. The pieces were finally starting to fall together; John was passing the Colt to his boys in order to kill the Yellow Eyed demon. "But why are you giving it to us? Especially since it's a huge risk to even be here."

"That's another part of the bargain. I can't be the one to take the demon down, or the same thing happens. I drop dead, Dean gets his cancer back. I figured the risk of giving you the Colt was not as high as that of me killing the demon myself." John gestured the box forward, waiting for his son to take it; gingerly, as if it were a bomb, Sam accepted the package. "Now, as you might expect, you can't just walk into any shop and ask for the ammo for this gun. Samuel Colt only made thirteen bullets, and only five are left. So you better be damn sure where you're shooting." Sam nodded. "Good. I can't stay here, the demon's probably on my ass. With any luck, it has no clue about the Colt, or that I'm giving it to you." John patted his son on the shoulder and smiled faintly, eyes misting. If he were lucky, Dean might be spared the fate of his cancer returning; but he had a sick feeling in his gut that his one way ticket to hell might be punched ahead of schedule. "Take care, son. Watch out for your brother." Sam nodded, a lump forming in his throat. He had not missed his father's words, of how it was usually Dean caring for him and not the other way around. "Yeah," he said softly, "you too." John gave his son a satisfied nod, and headed back to his truck, trying to shake off the feeling that he had just seen his son for the last time.

XXX

"You were right. Winchester did try to see them."

The Yellow Eyed demon had expected as much, despite the terms the older one had been given. The demon gestured to his minion, a nurse still dressed in baby blue scrubs, as if bored to see him. "You act like you're surprised," Yellow Eyes remarked. "Do you have any idea why he was there? The man's far from stupid; he wouldn't risk getting caught breaching his contract without a damn good reason."

"No sir."

"Can you at least tell me where they are? Act useful for once."

"They're at the Rest More Inn off the Interstate," sputtered Blue Scrubs, and Yellow Eyes nodded, snapping his fingers. In seconds, the other demon had collapsed at his feet, neck snapped like a brittle twig. The lower ones on the pay grade were a dime a dozen anyway. "So Johnny thought he could sneak past me, huh?" The demon smiled malevolently, eyes flashing gold. Not that he was truly upset; the thought of Daddy Winchester burning in Hell and Dean's insides riddled with cancer was more than appealing. Plus, it would be much easier to build his army of Special Children without John Winchester in the way. He could do it all with the snap of a finger.

But it bothered him knowing that the hunter had tried to bend the rules in his contract. It was common knowledge that despite his hard ass methods of parenting, Winchester loved his sons, would do anything for them. It made no sense that he would risk his boy's life just for a random visit. He was up to something, and it was unsettling to not know exactly what. What he did know was that John Winchester had breached his contract; rules were rules. Smiling wickedly, Yellow Eyes snapped his fingers.

XXX

In the darkness outside his cheap motel, a Hellhound growled in the distance.

XXX

Sam had finally drifted into uneasy sleep when his cell rang on the nightstand beside him. Groggily he sat up, groping in the darkness for the vibrating device, and snapped it open. "Yeah?"

"Sammy?" It was John Winchester's voice, and he sounded terrified for the first time since his mother had died. "Dad? Is that you?"

"Your brother! Check your brother!"

"Dad, I don't understand…." Sam paused, finally hearing the high pitched howls in the background. "Oh my god, Dad, is that?"

"CHECK YOUR BROTHER! That's an order!" Nodding numbly, Sam leaped from his bed to where Dean should have been sleeping. Instead the hunter was sitting up in bed, coughing violently. The younger Winchester snapped on the lamp and was horrified to see that his brother was coughing up blood. For a moment, he had forgotten his father on the other end of the line, until his heard his stern voice yelling into the receiver. "Damn it, Sam, is Dean alright?!" With shaking hands, Sam picked up the phone, struggling to keep his voice calm. "No, Dad. He's…"

On the other end of the line, a door burst open, the whining and growling of the Hellhounds louder; they were in the room. His heart nearly stopped as he heard the soft thud of the phone dropping to the ground. "Dad?" Calling for his father, praying for some miracle that he knew wouldn't come. "DAD!"

XXX

John backed into the corner of his motel room, shotgun pointed directly at the Hellhound before him. He knew that the weapon would be useless, that there was no turning back, but the irrational fear overwhelming him was prohibiting any logic he had ever had. He had accepted his death. Though far from looking forward to being mauled by one of Hell's mutts, or spending eternity in Hell, the thought of Dean dying was unbearable. Swallowing the fear in his gut, John cocked the weapon, hoping to at least slow the vicious creature down, and not in the least surprised to find the canine brush off the shot as one would swat an annoying fly. In fact, it resulted only in making the Hellhound even more violent. John, bracing himself, finally tossed the gun aside.

"Fuck you," he spat, as the Hellhound dove in for the kill.