Summary: Cas pulled his broken body over the grass-covered graves beneath them. The buried dead that he and Sam would soon be among. But Dean was alive and only a few feet away. Only a few feet and he could fix this. He would fix it. There was still time: time to send him back, time to make the other choice, time to choose a different road. TIMELINE AU
Chapter Warnings: How can so much plot happen when people are so busy chatting? They run and talk, that's how. The boys are experts at it. But first, they gotta warm up by… not running. Actually, they're kinda sitting around a lot…. How was there plot in this again?
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The Road So Far (This Time Around)
Season 2: Chapter 3
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"Tessa."
"That's one of my names," the reaper responded, crossing her arms lightly over her black top, staring at him with that ever-unimpressed gaze. He should have seen it earlier in Cas's blue eyes. "I'm curious how you know it, though."
"Oh, we've met," Dean responded with a near-predatory grin. "We go way back, you and me."
She laughed lightly – a sardonic chuckle more than anything else – and stared at him with no small amount of skepticism that looked far more right on her cold features than it had on Cas. "I think I'd remember someone like you."
"Trust me, you will." His grin grew in size and danger, and he could tell the reaper was already rethinking her approach. Which, yeah, she definitely should. He was not the man she'd come here to reap; he was something a hell of a lot older and smarter and more deadly than that kid. "For the record, digging in my brain to come up with that little Cas impersonation? Not cool, Tess."
"I wasn't trying to hurt you. And I didn't read your mind, Dean." She walked towards him and her voice was back to the calm, gentle demeanor she seemed to default to. The mother figure to a wounded animal voice. He remembered it with Cole, and it had worked a hell of a lot better on that kid then it would on him. "Just your soul, and it told me his form would be the most comforting to you, to ease you in the transition."
He snorted and shook his head at the excuse. Strike two; she had one shot left. "Yeah, well, it told you wrong. And I'm not easing into anything."
"I've noticed." One thin, manicured eyebrow rose with that touch of sass he was more familiar with when it came to this particular reaper. At least when she wasn't on the job trying to convince him (or anyone else) to roll over and die. Her pale green eyes slid just over his shoulder for a moment, then focused back on him, demeanor softening. The hand she put on his arm was gentle and sympathetic and oh, yeah, she was definitely heading straight for strike three. "Death is nothing to fear, Dean."
"Maybe not now," he answered easily, one shoulder raising in a half a shrug, "maybe not for me. But it's sure as hell something to fear when you've sold your soul to hell, like my dad is about to!"
That tripped her up, and Tessa paused. Her hand slid off his arm and she stared up at him like she was trying to guess whether or not he was lying. He got it. Really, he did. Demon deals were rare in this timeline. They wouldn't be picking up for another year or two, not until the Hell Gate opened and the apocalypse really got going. So Tessa had every right to think he was crazy.
Especially since he'd been spouting shit about being from the future that he'd just assumed Cas' knew about.
"Look, I know how it sounds," he conceded after another moment, his green eyes searching her much lighter ones as they stood a scant half foot apart. "But he's going to make that deal, and I have to stop him."
Her eyes shuttered for a moment and she finally took that half step back, putting an appropriate amount of space between them once more. "It's not your fight anymore, Dean."
"Bullshit." Tessa's eyes snapped back to his with raised eyebrows, but he plowed on ahead. "I know that's not true, because I've done this all before, alright, Tess? You may not believe me, but my dad is going to die and I'm not. So no, my fight isn't even getting started yet, sweetheart."
She didn't respond, just stared at him with that icy calm that had always infuriated the action-trained hunter. Movement caught his eye and Dean turned his head back to Sam, who was climbing to his feet. His eyes were red and puffy, but he had pulled composure across himself like a well-wrapped security blanket. It hurt Dean's heart to see him put that hard hunter's mask back on and pretend he hadn't just watched his brother die.
The kid gripped the Ouija box tight to his side and trudged past the reaper and brother he couldn't see, back to Dean's room. The ghost of a hunter turned back to Tessa, resolve firm and time up.
"You want to ease me into some Dr. Phil transition crap, then help me. You reapers care about the natural order, right? Well my dad's about to do something pretty damn unnatural. So help stop him, and I'm all yours."
Tessa, head turned to track the still living Winchester boy as he walked past, turned back to face her charge. She tilted her head to the side slightly, once more trying to parse his honesty. He was a hard one to read. "You'll come with me?"
Despite having already found resolve in the answer, Dean still found it hard to swallow. It had seemed easier when it was Cas he was talking to. The reality that they were talking about his actual death warred for control over the knowledge that he knew it wouldn't happen anyway. But if it did…. He tossed the thought away. If it did, then it did. He'd deal with that bridge when he got to it, like he always did.
"If I stay dead, then yeah, I'll go with you." He shrugged carelessly, but he could tell by the sharpness in her eyes and the fractional relaxing of her shoulders that she finally believed him. "Just don't get your hopes up. Death doesn't really stick around me."
The frown was almost cute on her round face, especially with the cynical look that said 'I've heard that before, bucko.' He pushed past her, following his brother back into the room where his body lay.
-o-o-o-
Tessa let Dean pass without trying to stop him. Her sea-green eyes stared sightlessly at the floor a dozen feet away, mind racing with the request. Help? That was her job, after all. Perhaps not stopping demon deals, though she detested them as surely as any reaper should. They broke the rules of nature. They forced death before it's time and roped souls into a fate they couldn't possibly have contemplate in full, having no experience of it, when they agreed to it.
It was a cheat, and Tessa despised cheats.
But reaping Dean Winchester was her current job. His soul was in her care, and it was her duty to carry him to Heaven, to be at rest in a paradise he had earned after years of hardship.
Her eyes slid across the tiled floor to a pair of black loafers, then up translucent slacks to the shadowy figure in a trench coat who had remained behind after the hunter took off. A faded echo of an angel that had been one step behind the ghost of her charge ever since she'd first come to collect him.
Piercing blue eyes regarded her fiercely, challenging her right to interfere even though Castiel could do nothing to stop her and they both knew it.
"He should be at rest," she tried to reason with the shadow of the guardian angel. Her voice was soft, her eyes understanding. To be honest, she wasn't even sure why she was explaining herself to him; she had no obligation to do so. "You need to let him go. You're the only thing keeping him tethered to his body."
The angel did not yield.
"You know he has to move on."
If anything, that blue gaze glowed brighter and his hands clenched into fists. "He has work to do."
With that, the shadow strode forward with purpose, past Tessa to follow his human charge once more. He left behind the reaper, who turned to watch him disappear into the hospital room with a worried frown, no answers, and many, many questions.
-o-o-o
The doctors had cleared out of Dean's room, and the one nurse who stayed behind to answer any questions Sam might have was politely dismissed by the young hunter. Dean entered just as Sam was settling on the ground, pulling out the Ouija board.
"Don't make fun of me for this," Sam muttered miserably as he set the board down between them. His hands were shaking and he quickly clenched them across the top of his thighs. Dean settled cross-legged in front of him, no good in the face of his brother's obvious pain. Sam closed his eyes for a moment before placing steady hands on the planchette. "God, just…just please still be here, Dean."
"I'm here, brother," the spirit answered steadily, injecting more confidence and comfort than he felt into the words, even if Sammy couldn't hear them. Dean settled his own hands atop the wooden indicator.
Sam took a deep breath, and Dean moved the planchette to the word 'Yes.' His kid brother let out a breath as shaky as it was shocked, staring at the thing that he definitely hadn't moved himself.
"Dean?"
"Gotta start asking more than just 'yes' questions, Sammy," the hunter chided lightly, but he gave the indicator a little wiggle where it sat already atop the affirmative. Sam breathed out a happy little noise.
"Are you….Are you okay?"
Dean moved the indicator to 'No' even as Sam muttered what a stupid question that had been, but before his brother could do more than frown down at the resulting answer, Dean was moving the planchette again. His brother read each letter aloud as Dean dragged both their hands across the board.
"D-A-D."
When the small plank of wood with the hallowed out circle stopped on the final 'D' and didn't move again, Sam blinked. "Dad?"
The planchette slid quickly across the board to settle on 'Yes' once more.
"What about Dad?" Sam was clearly confused, but he also didn't know how much Dean was able to see and hear while having an out of body experience. Perhaps he didn't know where their father was, or if he was alright. "Dad's fine. He's two floors down: broke his arm and collar bone in the crash but he's okay."
Dean let out a frustrated noise his brother couldn't hear, and slid the little wooden indicator across the board again.
"D-E-A-" Sam cut off his reading of the letters with a frown, despite the fact that his brother's ghost continued to move the planchette across the letters. "A deal? What deal?"
"Can't answer you if you don't read, Sam," Dean muttered. "Work with me here!"
"Y-E-D." Sam waited for more, but the plank stopped moving and he sat there, blinking. He repeated the letters, but they didn't spell any word he knew. Dealyed. Delayed? Dean wasn't usually dyslexic. Deal, yed? Okay, maybe an acronym. Y.E.D. He ran the letters through his head over and over again. When realization hit, he wanted to kick himself for taking so long. "The Yellow Eyed Demon."
The little slip of wood slid so quickly to the 'Yes' that Sam was sure it would go right off the board and skid across the floor. He sat up straighter, back tightening at the jolt of fear shooting down his spine.
"Yellow Eyes is coming here?"
The planchette wiggled atop the 'Yes' but then rifted to "M" and "E" before going back to the 'D', then the 'E', 'A', and Sam suddenly got it. The air in his lungs left with a punch to his gut.
"Dad is going to make a deal with Yellow Eyes to save you."
The plank hesitated for only a second, if that, before it slid over to the 'Yes'. Sam was on his feet faster than Dean could even track. The tall hunter stared down at the board with frantic eyes, chest heaving as fear and realization spiked his heartrate and filled his body with a buzzing tension.
"We have to stop him. Dean, he has the stuff to summon a demon!"
The planchette spun around the 'Yes', but Sam didn't see it. He was already out the door and heading for the stairs at a breakneck speed that had nurses and doctors yelling after him. Dean scrambled to his feet as well, jumping needlessly over the Ouija board to follow after.
He skidded to a halt just outside the door when he saw Tessa leaning against the wall, staring up at him. Sam was disappearing rapidly down the hall, and Dean glanced over the reaper's shoulder at him, before refocusing, reluctantly, on her.
"You gonna help, or what?" he asked, tone quite telling of the answer he thought he'd receive.
She pushed off the wall, uncrossing her arms but still regarding him with the same iciness that she carried like a well-worn sweater. "I don't like demons working my turf. So, if what you say is true, then yes, I'll help."
Surprise painted his face, but Dean didn't let it slow him down for long. "Great. Let's go."
He went to push past her once more, but she extended her arm in front of his chest. The spirit of the hunter turned to her, expression growing thin on patience, but it did not phase the reaper. "After we stop your father, your soul is the first one I'm reaping, Dean. Understand that."
Dean pressed past her arm and headed for the stairs after his brother.
-o-o-o-
Sam rounded the corner into his dad's room at a far more moderate pace than he would have preferred, but given how the hospital staff was yelling at his reckless speed, he had genuine concerns of them throwing him out and then who would stop his father from doing something so damn incredibly stupid.
The fear that had gripped him as he ran – more like barreled – down the two flights between floors had been all-encompassing. Because halfway down that first flight, taking the stairs three at a time, it had occurred to his overly-active brain, which never shut off no matter how much he wanted it to, that unless Dad has said something out loud with Dean's spirit in the room (doubtful), there was only one other way his brother could know about their father's intentions.
It didn't take a genius to put two and two together. This had happened last time, and they were about to lose their father if he couldn't change it. This is what Dean had been talking about only days ago. This was where John Winchester died, throwing himself in front of the Yellow Eyed Demon far more literally than Sam could ever have guessed. This is where they were going to lose their father.
Damn John Winchester, was all Sam could think. Their father who couldn't even give his sons time to come up with something on their own. Sam could save Dean. Sam would save Dean. And they didn't have to resort to selling anyone's soul to do it.
His grip on the doorframe was aching as he stared into his father's empty hospital room.
"No," Sam muttered, quickly crossing the threshold and looking around the space as if that might change its lack of occupant. He tried not to panic; Dad had said he was scheduled for more X-rays, and it was possible that's where he was.
His mind balked. If that was true, then where was the duffel bag full of supplies to summon a damn demon? He ripped open the one cabinet of the hospital's bed side table, the only place to hide a bag that size. Sam's stomach plummeted when there was nothing inside but a balled up hospital gown. His father's clothes were gone too, leaving just his cell phone and a magazine on the bed's attached table.
"Shit," he muttered, then repeated the noise louder, kicking the side of the bed swiftly. A nurse passing by outside hesitated at the door, causing Sam to freeze in apprehension. He couldn't afford to have hospital staff lecturing him or, heaven forbid, kicking him out. She paused long enough to send him a warning look before carrying on her way.
Sam breathed out shakily, heart pounding. "Dean, if you're here, I'll take the lower floors. Can you…. Can you make noise or something if you find him?"
The attached table on the bed rattled, the edges of the magazine flapped beneath the weight of John's abandoned cell phone, and Sam took that as a yes. Then he was out the door and headed for the stairs to the first floor, too anxious to wait for an elevator when his dad could be making a deal with the yellow eyed demon.
-o-o-o-
Dean turned to Tessa as they both hustled into the hallway, following Sam's lead. "I'll take the roof, you grab the ones in between."
The reaper pushed herself in front of him before he could make a break for it, holding out her arm for good measure. Her sea-green eyes stared at him, unimpressed but perhaps a tad amused. "I'll take the roof. Between the two of us, I'm the one equipped to handle a demon."
The hunter pulled a face. "Hey. I was getting pretty good with the magazine!"
She spared him another amused-not-impressed glance, taking a step backwards. Her form shifted once more, shedding the persona of Tessa in favor of that creepy ass death-wraith-ghost thing she actually was, then shot up through the ceiling. Dean was still grumbling about his capability as a hunter – even a ghost hunter (a badass ghost hunter, damnit) – as he started his search for his father on the current floor, though he was pretty damn sure the man had enough smarts not to summon a demon right under his sons' noses. He'd most likely go for the roof or the basement, if this place even had one.
Again, Dean wished he could remember how this went down the first time. He'd woken up, memory-less, with his dad coming into his room minutes later. And minutes after that, he'd been dead.
The hunter shook his head, forcing himself to focus as he started checking rooms, stairwells, even janitor closets. Meanwhile, he viciously bit back the desperate, screaming fear that his father wasn't going to be summoning a demon in some supply closet.
-o-o-o-
John stood, paused, hand outreached but mind heavy, in front of the poorly lit door. He'd stumbled on it more by accident then on purpose, just looking for a space far enough away from his sons that Sam wouldn't interfere, wouldn't get caught up in it.
He'd have gone to the other side of the city – hell, the other side of the state – if he could have. There was something primal within him that fought the very idea of summoning that yellow eyed bastard so close to his kids. But it wasn't an option.
They were the reason he was doing this, he had to remind himself. All it took was one thought of Dean, dying seven floors above him, and he hefted the duffle bag full of supplies over his good shoulder. With steeled resolve, he forced his way through the "Employees Only" marked door and into the secluded darkness within.
-o-o-o-
Sam was getting frantic. It had been more than fifteen minutes since he'd discovered his father's room empty. He'd cleared the parking garage first when a hurried search of the main floor of the hospital had yielded no underground levels. The connected parking structure made the next best sense for somewhere a hunter could quietly summon a demon out of the way of bystanders. But the three leveled building had yielded no results, and now the young man was back to square one, rushing across the covered bridge between buildings and the east stairwell back down to the main lobby of the hospital. He'd taken the west staircase going over, and he needed to cover every base.
Rounding the final landing that led back into the busy main floor of the hospital, Sam drew up short at an unmarked, brown door just to the side of the lobby entrance. It had a handle and deadbolt lock and no windows, unlike the push-bar and crisscrossed glass window of the lobby door, through which Sam could see the occasional visitor or nurse pass by in the room beyond.
The west stairwell hadn't had an unmarked maintenance door. That, or in his rush to get to the parking garage, he'd run right past it and hadn't looked back.
Cursing, Sam gave the knob a quick twist and a push. The handle rattled, but the door didn't budge otherwise and Sam didn't have time to find something to pick the lock with. He glanced quickly through the little window into the lobby, waiting for a clear moment, before he delivered a fierce kick to the rusty thing, and it gave with a crack.
Not waiting to see if anyone had heard, he took the stairs that lay beyond two at a time, until he came to a long hallway. It was painted that same egg white as every hospital ever and, with the accent of a flickering florescent light set into the ceiling and dirty linoleum floor, looked like the beginning of every horror movie monster moment.
Sam ignored all of that, and took off for the far end and the door marked "Employees Only".
-o-o-o-
"You still need to sweeten the pot, John."
Azazel grinned sinisterly at the hunter who stood across from him in the basement, eyeing the two demon orderlies he'd brought with him. John's good hand tightened into a fist at his side, and the demon knew he'd won.
"What do you want?"
The Prince of Hell tsk'ed, turning his body away in mock disappointment as he swung his arm to the side. "Now, it's not nearly as fun if you don't at least guess." He turned back to the human, a predatory gleam in his eyes as they flickered yellow. "A competent hunter like you? I'm sure you already know."
John's body was stiff as a board, marine training kicking in as he stared down no less than death itself. But the man was a father, and he wasn't here for himself. That's why humans were so easy to play, really. You just had to know what made them tick.
"Me."
"Bingo!" Azazel clasped his hands in front of his body and smiled at the hunter. "Your soul, to be specific. You know how these things work, John. You want a miracle? You gotta provide the juice."
The human clenched his teeth, but Azazel knew he'd already made up his mind. Things were finally playing out as they'd predicted. Leave it to John Winchester to get them back on track.
"You'll fix him up? All the way?"
The demon shrugged. "Not me personally, but I know a girl."
John's eyes narrowed, but the Prince of Hell stretched out his hand.
"Shake on it?"
A noise back the way they'd come – the sound of a door forcefully opening – stopped each of them. The two demons he'd brought with him for show glanced at one other, then him, but he shook his head and waved them away. They hesitated for only a moment before stepping back, melting into the shadows and out of sight.
John started forward with a worried look he couldn't school quickly enough. It told the demon exactly who he feared was on the other end of that noise. Not that Azazel had expected anyone other than the boys to interfere. He turned his outstretched palm to the side, halting the hunter before he could run into that hand, face reddening at the gall of the demon.
Azazel just gave him a warning look and disappeared into thin air.
-o-o-o-
Sam walked with quick steps past water heaters and old machinery, searching down each little corridor and niche formed by the large tanks and pipes. He rounded one of them and stopped, breath leaving his body at the sight he had been desperately hoping for, but really wasn't expecting.
John Winchester stood in the middle of a small room, space carved by the layout of the old metal cylinders and pipes and control panels. Sam swallowed heavily, taking a step forwards, only to pause at the look on his father's face.
It was worn. Tired and weary and downcast, in a way the youngest Winchester had never quite seen from his stony father.
"Dad?"
John met his eyes, but it was clearly a struggle to do so. There was shame and fear there, in all the righteous ways John Winchester conveyed those emotions. And Sam knew. He knew without his gaze dropping to the floor and the six candle flames flickering in the slight draft of the basement room. He knew without the symbol drawn in chalk on the cold cement or the bowl of still smoking ingredients sitting in the center of it.
He was too late. John Winchester had already made a deal with the devil – or damn near close enough.
"Dad…"
"It's going to be okay, son." His father offered a tight smile, and Sam knew it was a gesture of goodbye. He took a step forward, anger and desperation suddenly flaring in him like a supernova. But John stiffened, eyes shifting to something just behind him even as he called out in warning, "Sam!"
A hand landed on his shoulder, and the world darkened into oblivion before he could even fully turn around.
-o-o-o-
The youngest Winchester slumped to the floor underneath Azazel's hand, and John had the Colt drawn, cocked, and centered on the demon in the blink of even one of his impressive eyes. The Prince of Hell regarded the hunter with a moment of admiration (he could admit being impressed, even of a mere human), before his expression settled on something far more condescending.
"Come on, John, we both know you're not going to shoot me."
The gun didn't waiver, but John's gaze slid to his collapsed son. Azazel rolled his eyes even as he stepped over the boy.
"Don't get your tighty-whities in a twist there, Daddy. He's just taking a nap. Can't have him interfering in our little deal. Unless, of course," the demon paused for dramatic effect, purposefully dragging his eyes slowly over to the downed hunter, loving the way John Winchester shook with anger at him so much as looking at the kid, "you wanted to offer him as payment instead?"
It didn't matter if John knew he was being played, and honestly Azazel wasn't sure he did. The hunter was almost shaking in rage now, and it was quite likely he didn't have the bandwidth to disregard Azazel's words for the manipulative taunt they were. Another problem with humans. So emotional.
"Why don't I just shoot you, and summon another demon to do the job." John answered between clenched teeth, but they both knew it was posturing and not much more.
"Sure, you could do that." Azazel disappeared in the blink of an eye, reappearing just behind John's right shoulder. The hunter, for his credit, spun and retrained the gun on him quickly. Not quick enough to save his life, had Azazel wanted to kill him the old fashion way. But still quite quick. The demon reasoned he had a good chance at actually clipping him with that peashooter.
Not that that was going to happen.
The two demons he'd brought with him re-emerged from the shadows at a single hand gesture, coming back up to flank not him, but John Winchester, who eyed them wearily.
"You could probably get me with that little nuisance," Azazel gestured his chin at the Colt, "but I doubt even you would be able to get all three of us. And my boys have very specific orders to tear you limb from limb if anything happens to me."
The borrowed flesh of his minions split disgustingly into malicious grins, wide and dangerous, showing their pearly white teeth and all the things they'd do to him.
"Then you're dead, Dean's dead, and Sammy's all alone and… so vulnerable." Azazel smiled so sickly sweet it hurt even his teeth. He couldn't begin to imagine – gleefully – how it must hurt John. "Ripe for the taking, if you will."
"You son of a bitch." John's words were rock steady, rightfully pissed. The gun never wavered. Azazel still knew he'd won. He knew this hunter, and that was defeat in his voice, not bravado.
The demon held out his hand once more. "So, where were we?"
-o-o-o-
Tessa was concluding a thorough search of the roof when it happened. The few lights that peppered the upright structures – the stairwell building, and several along the edges of the roof – began flickering. She frowned as they did so at the same time, but out of sync with one another. Not a single short or momentary power shortage then.
The change had her tense before she felt it – the approaching presence of something sick and dark. The reaper spun on the roof, looking for the source of it, but nothing was there. Tessa glanced over her shoulder at the stairwell, but the door remained shut. A ventilation shaft rattled to her left and she spun to face it, just as black smoke began pouring out of it.
The reaper recognized it for what it truly was immediately, and she stumbled back in shock at the raw power of a Prince of Hell.
"No, stop." She shook her head, trying to abandon her human form for her incorporeal one before it could catch her, but the slimy black essence was already enveloping her. "You can't do this!"
The demon wrapped around her – smothering her, choking her – and filled her essence with his own.
-o-o-o-
He was three floors from the roof when the lights started flickering. Dean stopped in his search, pulling his head out from yet another room empty of anyone but an ailing patient, to stare up at the hallway ceiling as the florescent bulbs sputtered and struggled. It lasted less than thirty seconds, but it was enough to have dread pooling in the hunter's incorporeal stomach.
Only three things made lights flicker like that. Ghosts, Demons, and Reapers. And all three of them were in the hospital at that very second, Dean was sure of it.
"Tessa," he whispered, still staring at the burning bulb above him, and possibly the roof beyond. He took off at a run. She had gone for the roof and hadn't returned yet; she must have found Azazel. Reaper or not, she was going to need all the backup she could get.
Dean pushed straight through the stairwell door, having figured out about eighteen room searches ago that he could just stick his head straight through a wall so long as he didn't think about it (you do not want to know what happened the one time he did think about it). The little trick tripled his search rate, even if it sent shivers through his body every time.
The hunter was rounding the second landing up when soft, steady footsteps above halted his movement. He gripped the railing, staring up the stairwell as Tessa rounded the corner, sauntering down step by step like she had nowhere better to be than a vaguely downward direction.
"Tess?" Dean let out a breath of relief. She looked unharmed, though he didn't exactly appreciate the snail's pace as she proceeded down the steps towards him, head lowered and eyes fixed on the stairs. Her untouched appearance meant the roof was clear and the flickering lights were more likely his dad summoning a fucking demon than the reaper finding one. Dean's hand fisted around the railing and specks of ice started forming on the metal around his fist as his frustration and panic surged. "Did you find anything?"
"No, I didn't find anything," the reaper answered calmly as she came to stand on the step directly in front of him, that cold, somber expression ever in place.
Dean hung his head for a moment, breathing through the panic that instantly tried to solidify into defeat. They still had time. They'd find him. They had to. Dad was going to be fine.
"It found me."
The hunter lifted his head, brow already furled in confusion and a question on his lips, when he met Tessa's eyes. They were a sickly pale yellow.
Dean scrambled back with a cry, but Not-Tessa shot her arm out with deadly precision, wrapping freezing, painful fingers around his throat. The grip was enough to bruise flesh that didn't even exist, and certainly enough to keep him from the two-step fall he probably would have taken on his ass, even as a ghost.
He'd have preferred the fall.
"Today's your lucky day, kiddo," Not-Tessa said with a wicked grin Dean recognized only too well.
He didn't have time to yell – to question – to fight – before a hand slammed onto his forehead, fingers curling around his skull like talons. Everything went white and he woke up, shooting upright, in a hospital bed with no recollection of how he got there.
-o-o-o-
Sam came to confused. It was dark where he was, with little lights flickering just past the clarity of his vision, which was struggling back into focus slowly and with a lot of effort. The young hunter hauled himself up onto his hands and knees with a groan. Nothing hurt, but his head weighed twice as much as it should and he didn't know where he was or how he'd gotten there.
The clarity of both the room and his memory returned with time. Little candles lit the cold cement painted with white symbols – a summoning spell – next to an open gym bag, clearly rummaged through – Bobby's, once full of herbs.
Sam blinked at the setup once. That was Bobby's bag. He'd given it to Sam, along with the info that the stuff he'd requested sure as hell wasn't for protection.
The hunter straightened, head clearing out of necessity as he stared at the summoning ritual in pure terror. His father had been here, he'd been here and then… The hunter scrambled to his feet, brushing at his shoulder where he could still feel the weight of the hand that had somehow knocked him out.
Azazel.
He took off running, back the way he'd came. If his dad wasn't here anymore, but the demon had been… Oh god, they were too late.
Please. Please don't let it be too late.
Sam knew the second the elevator doors pinged open on the seventh floor. He pushed through the widening gap before there was even enough space for his large body. He knew the second he saw the crowd of people outside of his brother's room. The commotion was loud and frantic and the many faces were filled with stoic professionalism and confusion. He knew before all that, really, because it wasn't John's room his feet had automatically taken him to, but Dean's.
It still punched him straight through the gut to hear his brother's cries: anguished screams that meant he was awake and alive, as surely as their father no longer was. Sam pushed through nurses and bystanders and into the room to see his dad, unmoving on the floor, surrounded by men and women desperately trying to revive him. There was a mask over his face, hands drawing away from his chest, fingers pressed to his neck and more to his wrist. Two nurses and a doctor were holding Dean back on the bed as he fought to get to their father's side.
"Alright. Let's call it," one of the doctors muttered, wiping the back of his sleeve across his sweat-slicked face as he pulled away from the body on the ground. John wasn't moving, head lolled to the side as they pulled the oxygen mask away, half-lidded eyes staring, unseeing, past his youngest son.
"No," Sam whispered, staggering against the doorframe. There were arms around him, holding him upright, maybe keeping him from falling, maybe fighting him from getting to his dad's side like his brother was trying to do. He didn't know.
"Time of death: 10:41 am."
Dean's unearthly howl was what finally sent Sam to his knees.
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A/Ns: I'm a terrible no good dirty rotten author. But you all are beautiful.
John's Death: I probably should have warned about character death, but I also reeeeally didn't want to spoil it. While keeping John alive would have been very interesting story-wise (seeing how he would interact with Dean knowing he was from the future, how the timeline might have changed with his presence, meeting Cas and some of the other supernaturals, etc), I couldn't do it. Writing him is so damn hard for me, and I was truly worried it would be my – and the story's – undoing. So, off he goes. Some things just have to stay the same ;)