Four days later, John was at his storage locker in Rochester, New York, but his bag was empty. He'd zipped across the country to get here and load up on extra charms and weapons, but now that he was here he had no clue what to take. He didn't know what he was facing, he didn't know what they were planning, he didn't know anything. Except that Sam was in danger. John sighed and put a curse box back on its shelf; he needed help, and he needed it fast. Running through his contact list eliminated several potentials very quickly: Can't go to Ellen, probably not to anyone else from the Roadhouse either if Jefferson got possessed in connection to the place. The last time he'd seen Bobby Singer he threatened to shoot John with a shotgun if he ever showed up again – not that John was about to take him seriously on that, but not enough time had passed to hit up Bobby just yet. Martin was still in that mental hospital. That left Missouri, Pastor Jim, and Luther. Luther might be a better place to start – he had better supplies and was good at pulling information out of seemingly nowhere. Missouri and Jim would be more helpful if he had more to go on anyway. Plus, Luther was a lot closer to Rochester, last John had checked. He pulled out his cell phone, ignoring the missed calls from Dean, and dialed.
"John Winchester, as I live and breath!" Luther picked up on the first ring, Texas accent sharp as ever.
"Hey, Luther. Where you holed up these days?"
"I'm a little outside Perry, Maine. Cute little place, shack on a lake, abandoned. Got myself a fire and it's good as new!"
"Could…" John paused; asking for help was not his forte, "I'm hunting something, but I'm not sure what it is yet. You up for some shenanigans?"
Luther chuckled into the phone, "Last time you said that, we ended up getting chased by a rugaru halfway across Las Vegas in nothing but our boxer shorts. You wanna give me a little more intel, there, chief?"
"All I know is it's a demon," John took a breath to calm himself before saying the rest. "It's a demon, and it's after my boys."
"Oh, shit."
"Yeah. I need help, Luther." There, he said it.
"Alright, you know where I am, where are you?"
"Rochester, about a day away. I'll call you when I get close."
"Alright. Be careful, Winchester."
John had already hung up.
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"Luther!" Twenty-two hours later, John was pounding on the door of an isolated cabin in the middle of some woods in Maine. He looked around approvingly as he got out of his truck; although he tended to stick to more populated areas, right now it would be best to stay as far away from strangers as possible. It would mean less looking over their shoulders for demons.
"Hey, Luther, open up!" he knocked on the door again, just before a balding black man with a slight beer gut answered.
"Hey, Winchester."
"Luther." There was an awkward beat as the two men stood in the doorway.
"Well, come on in, we got work to do," Luther ushered John into the cabin, pointing him to one of the two chairs by the crackling fireplace. "So," he continued after John took his seat, "you got yourself a demon on your back, eh?"
"To put it in the simplest terms possible, yeah. Think you can figure out who it is?"
"Why don't you tell me everything, from the beginning, and we can take it from there," Luther leaned back in his chair.
"Well, a week ago I was in California hunting this vengeful spirit. I took a break to get some lunch at a diner and I saw Jefferson – he's a friend of mine - and we just talked about random crap for a while before he asked how Sam was… And when I looked up, he was possessed! So we got in a brawl – freaked out everyone there, that's for sure – and I started exorcising him and he says some stuff about how he's not the only one, and all our lives have been leading Sam somewhere? I don't know what he meant, but I do know that there's something coming after him and I need to protect my kid," John's head was in his hands when he finished, and his whole body was trembling.
"Okay, I need you to focus for a sec, John. Just focus so we can get down the demon's exact words, alright?" Luther rummaged around for a pad and paper, then sat back down. "Now, after you finished shooting the breeze, what exactly did Jefferson say?"
"He said, 'How's that kid of yours these days?' and I started answering about Dean, and then he interrupted me and said 'No, Johnny-boy. How's that other kid? How's Sammy?'" John paused and looked up, "I don't think I ever told him about Sammy at the Roadhouse. Jefferson's eyes went black just when he said the name. Luther, he's gonna go after him – "
"We can't do anything from way over on the East Coast, John. And even if we could, we couldn't do it without all the information. What else did the demon say?" Luther looked back down at his notepad.
"He said – " John's hair stood on end; he'd missed something important… "Luther, when did I tell you where Sam was?"
Luther raised his head, black eyes reflecting light from the fire. "Well, I guess you caught me, Winchester." At the same time, the fire leapt out of the fireplace and engulfed the entire cabin.
John darted for the door, but the demon slammed it shut telekinetically. Shit, he's up on the food chain! Too late, John realized he'd left all his gear in the truck outside - the only weapon the hunter had on him now was his Glock, but it was useless against a demon.
Said demon had sprung up from his chair and was coming at him with fists flying. "You know, Yellow-Eyes kept saying he'd be the one to kill you," he taunted as John ducked and weaved around the assault of punches, "but I guess being the boss-man doesn't mean you're always right!" Luther's fist connected hard with John's gut, and sent him flying into the wall. "He shoulda known Bixby would want to show off if he ran into you," Luther continued, "now we have to off you ahead of schedule." John had crumpled to the floor after hitting the wall, winded from the hit he took and unable to get enough oxygen from the smoke-filled room. With the way his vision was swimming, he was willing to bet he had a concussion too. Damn Winchester luck… "Oh, don't make it so easy, man!" Luther crowed triumphantly as he stepped closer, but that damn luck swung the other way a second later when one of the ceiling beams came crashing down in the blaze and landed right on top of Luther, pinning him to the ground. It seemed like the demon didn't have enough juice for superhuman strength, because instead of throwing it off, black smoke rushed out of Luther's mouth, billowed around the room for a moment, then broke through a window and rushed out into the night.
With fresh oxygen funneling in through the broken window, the blaze in the cabin took on a whole new level of fury, but John got just enough air in his lungs to get to his knees and get out. Choking on ash and smoke from the fire, he moved to check on the shell the demon left behind – but the beam had crushed Luther's chest and he was long past saving. Unable to move the beam and take the body out of the fire, John pulled Luther's knife out of his pocket and cut his forearm to mix his blood with Luther's, then finally dragged himself through the broken window into the sweet, fresh night air that was already filling with the sounds of sirens.
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"Hey Rick, we got a body," one of the firemen called as he walked from the smoking cabin remains.
"Think it's him?" The one called Rick answered. Both of them had eyes black as coal.
"Too badly burned to tell. We'll have to test DNA over at the lab. That's his truck out front though, for sure."
The two firemen looked towards the truck with coal black eyes. "Only one body?" Rick finally asked. The demons nodded to each other and started walking around the area, looking for places where they're prey might hide, but soon were forced to return to their façade as firemen before they could find John in the tall grasses by the lake.
From his position lying in the grass, John watched as the last of the flames were put out. Then the police loaded a body bag into the coroner's car, a tow truck came for John's abandoned pickup (Shit, all my stuff is in that truck!), and soon the place was quiet and lonely once more. An hour after the last car pulled away, John started making his way back towards the highway, not daring to walk on the road but staying hidden in the trees alongside. He left his phone at the burned-out cabin, with the battery thrown in the lake and the SIM card snapped in half and thrown in opposite directions – if demons were seriously tracking him, (and if John wanted them to believe he was dead) he couldn't risk a GPS tail, or for demons to possess any more of his contacts.
John finally reached the highway, and after another hour of walking he found a strip mall and stole a car from the parking lot. It was going to be a long trip to Blue Earth, Minnesota, but John was willing to bet it would be far and beyond worth it. After all, there couldn't be that many things that go bump in the night that went by the moniker Yellow-Eyes.
AN: OH MY GOD. I was browsing the Supernatural Wiki for some research and I saw Jefferson under the character list and apparently he's an old hunter friend of John's that the boys called in "Asylum". Holy crap, I had no idea, my OC isn't even an OC HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?!
Oh, and while I'm on the subject, there's a Luther also – but he's a younger, Caucasian vampire, so I don't think that counts. Still, WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?
Also, I know this chapter is really late. There was a day of story mapping, and then half a week of the flu where I was too sick to write, and since then I've been really busy and only able to write for an hour or two a day – I would have posted this in shorter chapters but I didn't want it to be too choppy since I'm writing a whole season's worth of material. Sorry to say, but updates to this story will probably be infrequent – but I'll try to keep them long.