It was too bright. That was what John blamed it on, the heat and the fucking light everywhere. Just so bright, the sun high in the sky, painful and pitiless and loud, like pounding hammers in his head. It distracted him, threw him off his game. Caused him to lose his place, just for a while, but one slip was all the bastard needed.

He had been kneeling on the guy's chest, dusty and sweaty from the chase. He'd finally brought him down here, miles away from anywhere, tracking him down with a skill born of long practice. His plan had worked perfectly, at first. He'd found cover, a bank of bare rocks, of the kind that were scattered everywhere, here where the scrubland turned to desert. He'd jumped the guy, slamming his head into the rock before he had a chance to cry out. Getting him onto the ground, John had assumed that the hard part was over.

Sure, this was only the second time he'd exorcised anyone. Sure, he didn't have his journal here. But he was confident in the newly learnt ritual, in this new weapon against the things that killed his wife. He'd thought he could rely on his memory and his strength to keep the guy down until the thing was over. But he'd stumbled through the words he'd only committed to memory that week. He'd made a fatal error, had to stop as his mind went totally blank, refusing to provide the next words.

The guy shoved him off with superhuman strength, of course. Superhuman strength was pretty much the whole point of demonic possession. Black eyes glittered as John was pushed back, knocking all the breath out of his body as he hit the rocks. The damm things, piled up by who-knows-what geological forces, standing for centuries. They crashed down easy as knocking over a sandcastle at the impact, the full weight of John Winchester smacking down with more than human force. John blacked out for a few seconds as his head slammed into the ground.

When he came to, he had to stifle a groan. Everything hurt. By the feel of things, his legs were completely trapped, pinned down by the falling rubble. It hurt like hell, but as he cautiously explored his sensations, he could feel that nothing was broken. By the look of things, a slight depression in the ground had saved him from some seriously nasty injuries. He was lucky, John guessed. But the blood was flowing freely from a large gash in his thigh, and John knew that, really, he hadn't been very lucky at all.

Because now he was completely trapped, and the possessed man was struggling to his feet, spitting blood and laughing. Oh, crap. John struggled frantically to free himself, as the demon took its sweet time walking over. It had found a pretty average looking guy, with a face that would have been sweet if it wasn't twisted into an ugly leer. The thing made the body squat down, next to him in the dust, and cast an experienced eye at the wound on his leg.

"Lost a lot of blood, there."

"Fuck you." John hissed, teeth gritted as the rocks pressed down painfully.

It stood up, and grinned, easy and conversational now. "How long do you reckon it'll take? This amount of blood loss, day like this, no water? You've probably only got a few hours to live."

John cursed inwardly. The damn thing spoke like it had experience, and it probably did. He was feeling light-headed already. If only the sun would just stop pounding into his head, then he could think, think of a way out of this. He started the exorcism again, faint and under his breath, hoping the thing would be too distracted by it’s gloating to hear him. He only had to be lucky for a little while. But no, luck clearly was off somewhere else today, because the demon heard almost immediately, silencing him with a kick of dust to the face.

"Oh, Winchester. That stupid little thing didn't work a while ago, did it? You just don't have the brains for all that Latin, do you?"

John saw with horror that a knife had appeared in the guy's hands, as it settled down next to him again.

"You're going to die out here. You know why? Because you're a failure, John. You've failed at everything you've ever tried."

He was holding the knife up to his arm, and there was nothing John could do about it as the demon carved a big "F" into him, chuckling all the time. The cut wasn't deep, but the helplessness, the utter frustrating humiliation of not being able to fight back, made him want to scream, even more than the pain did.

The guy stood up again, still with that goddamn fucking smile on his face.

"I won't see you again, Winchester." He paused, one last shot left to fire before disappearing into the desert. "Might see your boys though." And then he was gone, walking away as if he couldn't hear John's yelling behind him, an incoherent stream of curses and threats, bravado showing thin in the harsh midday light.

He kept up the yelling until the guy was gone. No point, after that. It wasn't like anyone was going to hear him, no chance of a lucky rescue in these parts. He settled down instead to trying to work himself free, pushing and tugging at the rocks with all the strength he could manage.

He kept it up for a good couple of hours before he realized that, really, he wasn't getting anywhere. After that he just collapsed, the fight burned out of him by heat and dust and the lack of fluid in his veins.

John knew he shouldn't have gone after this thing alone. He'd left his boys behind, they'd been out getting supplies when the call had come in, and he hadn't wanted to waste a second. He'd thought he could save the guy, thought he could handle it alone, overconfident idiot that he was. His heart sank as he remembered the scrawled note he'd left them.

"Gone after the possession case. Out in the flatlands. Call Jim if I'm not back by tomorrow."

The standard message, a routine now, would be all they would have left of him. Because John was pretty sure, now, that he was in trouble. The pain from the rocks, from the cut on his arm, that was bearable. But the demon had been right, he'd lost a lot of blood. Felt kind of disconnected, like his head wasn't quite attached firmly to his body. Maybe if he could detach his head, he could roll away and get help? He gave an experimental shake, and stopped as that seemed to knock loose a wave of pain. Pity.

John was pretty sure that he was delusional, that thinking of detaching your own head wasn't normal. He couldn't be sure though, couldn't think. The sun glared at him, setting all his thoughts of track. Why couldn't it just stop? Just give him five minutes of peace, away from the light that even forced it's way through the redness of shut eyelids. If the sun stopped, he thought he might be able too see things. Maybe make help appear, could he do that? Through the greyness gathering in his mind, he summoned up an image of rescue. But the picture wouldn't solidify, melting away. It was just so hot.

He tuned his head to the ground, hiding from the sun. He'd left his boys all alone. That was the worst of it. Left them alone, unprotected, without even saying goodbye, Christ. Images swam in his mind. Dean, seven years old, firing a gun for the first time. Sam at ten, asking whether his Mom knew how to use a lockpick too. That night he'd come home to find them both huddled on the sofa, surrounded by a ring of salt, because they'd watched "The Shining" on TV.

The memories seemed to slip and slide into each other, mixing and blurring. An endless parade of scared faces, grim expressions on heads too young to bear them. He thought of Mary too, her softness. The demon was right. He'd failed. He'd given them a life that no one could have wanted for them, and now they where going to be alone, all alone.

He thought he could almost see them. He concentrated, maybe it would work if he could pin down their images in his mind? As he screwed his eyes shut tight, he could almost make them out. John briefly thought about how strange that was, that he could see them better with his eyes closed. Then he shook the thought of as unimportant. Because his boys were looking down at him, laying there trapped. That was good, right? But something in their faces was wrong. They looked cold, even in this heat, faces set in the familiar hard lines he himself had watched develop. John tried to speak, to apologise, to say anything to make it right. But they had turned away, fading into the glare. They were leaving him, and John felt like he was falling, like everything was disappearing along with his boys.

"Sam... Dean"

No reply. Of course, they weren't really there, where they? Or maybe they were, John couldn't remember any more.

"Sam! Dean!"
"I'm right here Dad."

John blinked, painfully. It sounded like... "Dean?"

"It's alright Dad. Ambulance'll get here soon. Here."

And maybe John was hallucinating, but he surely couldn't have imagined how good the water felt in his mouth, how even the tiny sips seemed to send life flooding back into him. He turned his head, and stared into his son's face, silhouetted against the sun, lower in the sky now.

"How?" He croaked.

Dean grinned. "You taught us to track pretty good, Dad."

********

Later, when barmaids or motel clerks asked him about the scar on his arm, John would say it stood for "mind your own fucking business." But often, when he wasn't thinking about it, he'd find himself gently tracing the lines of the wound. F for failure, yeah. F for fatalistic and fighting and a futile quest for revenge that had lasted far too long. But above all else, beyond any other meaning, John knew what F stood for. F for family, for the men he'd somehow managed to raise. It had to screw anyone up, the life he'd given them. But somehow, miraculously, they were OK. More than OK, strong and capable and a team. Able to look out for each other, no matter what happened to John. F stood for many things, but it also stood for father. John figured that was the only thing in his life he hadn't failed.