FIC: Weapon of Choice: Chapter 12
Sep. 20th, 2006 10:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xantissaTitle: Weapon of Choice
Fandom: Supernatural
Author: xantissa
Summary: A case turning out to be a set up. Sam taken away from him. An enemy he can’t identify. Father that struggles to understand. Dean, alone, fighting to save his brother from power no one can really understand.
Genre: Slash
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: 18+
Warnings: incest, slash, demon possession, violence.
Disclaimer: Supernatural and all it’s characters belong to WB. I do it just for fun, no profit being made from my writing.
Spoilers: Mild for Asylum, Nightmare tiny ones for probably most of the first season.
Thanks for beta to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lifesscar
Chapter 12
John forgot how it felt to actually wake up at a woman’s place. If he actually had sex, it was in an anonymous motel room and either she or him were gone by the morning light. But that didn’t happen often either. It always felt like a betrayal. He was a married man and he always would be. Still... he felt good. This felt good.
Physically, he was more relaxed. The few hours of sleep made him more rested than the last three weeks put together. Surprisingly, spending the night with Sarah also affected him psychically. He was more focused now, capable of looking at things with a little more distance. The stress, the fear and anxiety of the last few weeks was easing a little. That didn’t change the fact that he felt oddly out of place standing in the small bathroom filled with all those purely feminine things, holding a pink razor of all things and wondering if he really should use it for shaving.
“Oh, for God’s sake!” He heard behind him.
He turned and made sure his face didn’t betray the amusement he felt. Sarah wasn’t a morning person. Not by a long shot. She was wearing the hugely oversized tee-shirt that she had pulled on sometime during the night. The tee was almost reaching her knees. Her hair, loose now, was falling every which way.
“Don’t stare at it like it’s going to bite you! It’s a disposable razor for Christ’s sake! You are not going to turn into a girl just because you use something that’s pink.”
“You are not a morning person, are you?” John asked not really managing to hide the amusement. Sarah paused, threw some of the hair out of her eyes and blinked at him sleepily.
“I guess not.” She agreed, her voice rough and unintentionally sexy.
Her eyes slid off his face. Lower. Skimming over his naked chest. So far he had only managed to find his underwear and jeans. The shirt was still M.I.A.
He wondered what she saw now, in a harsh light of day. Did she think he was old? More than twenty years her senior, he was surprised she was attracted to him at all. He watched her face, watched as her pupils dilated and she licked her lips. She obviously saw him just like she had the night before.
“You sure you have to go?” She asked slowly. An invitation.
He had to clear his throat, a wave of heat slowly encompassing his body.
“Yeah... But I still got time for breakfast. How about pancakes?”
She blinked at him, obviously changing gears.
“You know how to make pancakes?”
He smiled, wide and wicked.
“Best you ever had.”
Her eyes snapped up to his and she grinned back, catching the subtext.
“You’re sure of yourself.”
“Years of experience.”
She laughed out loud this time.
“Bring it on, then.”
She turned to leave the bathroom but stopped in the doorway.
“John?” She called without turning.
“Yes?”
“After you feed me, you can tell me about your son. I’ll see what I can do to help.”
* * *
John kept staring at Sarah’s naked feet. She was sitting on the small sofa, legs curled under her and a large cup of tea held between her hands.
She never once looked up, didn’t turn her gaze away from the dark liquid.
“That’s all I know. Whatever is possessing Sam, I can’t exorcise until I know its name. And no one seems to know what’s going on.”
She put the cup away, her movements slow and precise. John knew something was up.
Finally, she looked up at him. Her amber eyes were dark, almost brown now. Her face was pale and drawn. She looked older somehow. Much, much, older.
“Your son is not possessed. If what you’re you describe is true, the weapon and his face, then what you are talking about is impossible.”
“I have been hunting supernatural things for over twenty years. I know what possession looks like.” He insisted.
“John.” She warned him gently. “I know you believe it. But what you are describing...” She swallowed. “I know that weapon. I know all of them. They weren’t created to possess people, but to help them fight evil.”
“What do you mean ‘all of them’? There are more? What exactly do you know Sarah?”
She licked her lips and something sad flickered through her face.
“Lifetimes ago... I was in love. I remember that. I also remember an echo of a terrible pain. He must have been killed or something drastic like that. I don’t remember details and I don’t want to remember.”
“The man I remind you of.” Murmured John and she nodded.
“He was a warrior too. I can’t remember because I know what the grief I had felt back then pushed me to do. I am too powerful to risk loosing control like that again.”
She fell silent and John waited, having a bad feeling about this conversation.
“I don’t know how. But I changed some weapons. Created them in a way… I gave them power. And will. Those pieces of metal became, what was later called, Soul Weapons. They aren’t good or evil in their nature. It’s just power. How it’s used depends on the one that is wielding it. On his soul.
The weapon worked as an amplifier of sorts. It makes the wielder faster, stronger, more resistant to pain and disease. It lends him its power. They might change the character a bit. Make the wielder a little harder, a tad more aggressive... just stronger I think. But it won’t, it can’t, do more. It can’t fundamentally change the wielder. It was designed to serve the soul. Nothing more. It’s not the mind that controls it. It’s the soul. Never anything more. The other thing is that the marks should only be visible during a fight with something supernatural. You told me the lines on his face are visible almost all the time. That shouldn’t be possible either.”
“So what are you telling me here? That this thing... is Sam? That, I will never believe. I know my son!” Stated John adamantly, a little angry. What she told him... He knew she was powerful but he couldn’t imagine her creating something that had a will of its own.
“Those Soul Weapons. What are they capable of?”
She smiled a strangely wistful smile.
“Ever the warrior. They can kill supernatural being. Not send back to hell. Kill. Destroy them completely. In a simplistic way, they are an echo of my power, a copy of me.”
“Can they be used to kill humans?”
She gave him a strange look.
“Of course. They are weapons. How the wielder decides to use it is only his decision. Basically the soul controls the weapon. Always. Not the mind. It’s not something that can change in time. One either can or can not wield it.”
“But the weapon controls my son. Not the other way around,” Insisted John.
“Then there’s something wrong with your son’s soul.”
The words echoed in the suddenly silent room like a scream.
“You trying to tell me my son doesn’t have a soul?” John’s voice dropped, low and dangerous. He might have lost contact with Sam, failed him, but he would protect him no matter what. He knew soulless people and Sammy wasn’t one of them.
“Relax, John. I’m not insinuating anything bad. Just that sometimes, when we love too hard, we can give our soul away. I have seen it happen a few times.”
John exhaled loudly trying to control his emotions. He never told her about Sam’s feelings for Dean or the... relationship they shared now. He knew he was too emotional. She wasn’t an enemy; she offered to help and he needed to listen to her. Really listen and hear what she had to say.
“Hypothetically speaking, if my son doesn’t... have a soul, what would happen once he touched the weapon?”
“First the weapon has to accept him. There are protective measures so no killing psychopath can use it. Once he is accepted... well. It’s only a speculation on my part because I haven’t actually seen it before but, I guess he would become the Weapon.”
“What?”
“Weapon, a force that would need somebody or something to control it. Since the weapons choose their owners than I guess the pendant you mentioned is the thing that’s controlling him now.”
“Not completely.” John murmured.
“What do you mean?”
John hesitated. It felt strange to talk about his family like that. To her.
“The owner of the pendant, the man that started this all, gave Sam an explicit order, a few times, to kill Dean. My older son.”
“He refused?” Asked Sarah.
“Not only. He killed the man’s goons and even went for him, but the pendant stopped him.”
Sarah took the tea, cold by now, and sipped.
“Is there something about your sons that you’re not telling me?”
“What makes you say that?” He asked for arguments sake because, hell, he was hiding something. A shameful secret he didn’t want to admit aloud. He was a father. How the hell was he supposed to talk about his son’s incestuous relationship? Especially when one of them was possessed and other desperate to save him no matter what?
“Because it seems to me that Sam is protecting Dean, pushing the limits of the spell, which must be incredibly painful for him. If he is the weapon, then it must be Dean he gave his soul to. But Dean is his brother. Why would he do this? Unless there’s something you’re not telling me.”
John gritted his teeth, defeated by her logic. And told her. Told her about the past, his choice to drive one son away to protect the other. Told her about Dean’s misguided reasons to start sleeping with Sam, and finally about the scene in his hotel room.
She looked at him for a very long moment. He couldn’t read her.
“I’m sorry it hurt you this much.” She said gently.
“You don’t find it sick? Repulsive?”
She smiled at him then. Gentle. A little patronizing.
“They are both adults. They are not hurting anyone. It’s different, not entirely healthy but it’s love. Of all the people, you should understand it. After all, you sacrificed your whole life for vengeance, for the love that you lost.”
Yeah. That shut him up real good. There wasn’t anything more he could say.
“So, if Dean manages to break the chain...”
“And survive.” Sarah cut in.
“And survive. Then he’ll automatically become the… Wielder?”
She shook her head.
“I don’t know. Usually the bond starts when the wielder touches the weapon for the first time. In this case... I just don’t know.”
“Great. So, Dean might be risking his life for nothing?” John growled, more scared than angry.
“No. I do think Dean is the one. But I don’t know how to create the necessary bond. Once it’s created both will be themselves again. Until then everything is out of balance.”
“So what? Dean frees Sam and he becomes a loose cannon?” That perspective wasn’t really much better.
“I can help with this. I think that, relying on pure instinct, they should start the bond if they have enough time. Until then.” She hesitated for a moment. “I can ask the weapon to sleep. It’s only a simplification but the powers would hibernate for a while, giving them time to bond. Normally the connection is between an object and a human. This time it’ll be between two people. And you know how hard human relations can be.”
“I’m sensing a but in there.”
“This ‘sleep’, hibernation state is also unnatural. Since the weapons cause some physical changes, the strength and speed, stopping it suddenly would make Sam ill. Feverish maybe, weaker in different ways.”
“Will it be dangerous for him?”
She shook her head.
“No, of course not. But it’s only a temporary resolution. Sam might get better or not but, in the end, the weapon awakens again. There’s nothing you can do about it.”
John pulled at his hair roughly, scratching his scalp and trying to think of some other way.
“Can’t you... I don’t know. Destroy it?”
This time it was her eyes that flashed with something hot and fierce.
“When I created them I was confused with grief and anger. When I first met one of my creations I realized they were conscious.” She took a deep breath. “They remember me, John. They know I gave them life. And they call me mother. I can’t hurt them. And I won’t let anybody else, either.” She was not kidding.
“It was only a suggestion.”
“It was a bad one.” She snapped.
John raised his hand in gesture of surrender.
“Message taken.” He assured.
“So, what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to call Dean. There’s a lot he needs to know.”
* * *
Dean felt tired, pleasantly exhausted. The day was warm and lazy. It was rare for Dean to just lie in bed, having nothing to do, just waiting.
It was boring.
Daytime television sucked big time. He was still sore from the night before and after the last time he lost the will to investigate Sam. He made do with the knowledge that Sam would come back to him.
Annoyed, he turned the TV off and turned on his side, pressing his cheek into the cool sheet.
He would at least catch up on his sleep.
* * *
The dream was warm and hazy, like they always were. It had no logic, no timeline but that, also, wasn’t a problem.
He dreamt of a bar, playing pool; which was funny, he realized, hustling even in his dreams.
Then he was somewhere soft and dark. He could feel soft, warm skin under his hands. Full breasts pressed tightly to his chest and silky thighs framing him. The wet heat of her held him in a powerful, exciting grip.
He grunted something like “God” and “Tight” and leaned down to kiss that faceless, dream woman.
She turned away, her lips cold and unresponsive.
“Dean.”
He knew that voice.
Dean jerked back, rolling away from the welcoming heat of the body but it was too late. He already saw her face. Saw the pale skin, the soft, pink lips. The small nose and eyes, impossibly wide and dark.
Jessica.
“Why do you keep doing this to me?!” He demanded angry and scared. Ashamed somehow. She was something that belonged to Sam. Not him.
“Look.” Her voice again, ringing in his head clear as a bell.
He felt her touch his forehead, her fingers cold and gentle. And it all started again.
“I love you, Dean. Tell Dad... tell Dad that I forgave him a long time ago. He was wrong, but I understand.”
Closing his eyes, cutting himself off from Dean, Sam reached into the chest and withdrew a strange, yet beautiful blade. It was curved, elegant, reminding Dean of a claw and looked positively deadly. For a few moments nothing happened and Dean started to think that it was all a huge fucking mistake, when suddenly Sam screamed. Lightning after lightning burst out of the deadly looking weapon, striking the floor, ceiling, walls with earsplitting noise, filling the room with the sharp scent of ozone. The strands of electricity crawled over Sam’s body, forcing him to his knees, still screaming in pain and terror.
Dean didn’t realize he was screaming with him and he watched as the lightning seemed to sink into his brother’s body. He listened with mounting terror and disbelief as his brother screamed with everything inside him. Dean watched his tendons stand out and the muscles of his arm ripple. He didn’t realize his cheeks were wet with tears, just like Sam’s were
She was standing there too; he could see her from the corner of his eye. Dressed in white, her hair a soft curtain that covered her naked shoulders.
The scene froze, stilled as if somebody pressed pause. The last of the lightning bolts were still arching in the still air, Sam’s face frozen, contorted in pain and fear, his mouth open in a soundless scream. In his hand, he still gripped the cursed blade.
Dean’s face was wet from tears, his throat sore from screaming and his ribs hurt like a bitch. The cold, hard floor dug into his knees, scrapped his palms bloody. But all he could see, all he could feel, was the terror on his brother face.
“What the Hell do you want?” He asked Jessica.
She turned towards him, her face soft and calm like she wasn’t there. Wasn’t really. He kept forgetting she wasn’t a person any more. She was a ghost, a shadow of her old self. She didn’t feel like she used to.
“Why are you doing this to me?” He asked brokenly, unable to look away, unable to stand the sight of his little brother in pain. Knowing what that scene led to. Knowing that it was the last time he saw his real brother.
God, he missed him so much.
She never answered him, didn’t even look at him. Just went, softly and silently to Sam’s side. She stood over him. Out of place. Out of time. For a moment she just stared at him, her face soft and sad, the echo of her feelings shining through. Finally, she turned to Dean.
“Listen.” Her lips didn’t move but her voice rang clear in his ears. “Look.”
She knelt beside Sam and her hand reached down, pale and small, closing over Sam’s long one. Her fingers curled over his and nearly touched the blade he was holding so tightly, the knife that started it all.
Dean jerked awake, his throat still painful and the echo of pain his ribs. He was confused, his eyes gritty and swollen and it took him a moment to realize where he was and what was happening.
Another nightmare.
His phone, ringing at him insistently.
He flopped down again, shamed and annoyed, baffled and scared at the same time. He hated remembering that moment, that fucking moment when all went to hell and he lost Sam. It felt like somebody was ripping his heart out. Every time.
He felt bad, uncomfortable with Jess appearing in his dreams. When he... fucked her.
Still, unable to understand just what she wanted from him, he rolled to the side and grabbed his phone. It was probably Dad. That was a priority now. The rest he would deal with later.
* * *
“You keep distance.” He blurted out. John used to think that he was way past the age where he blurted out anything. It seemed he was wrong.
She looked at him with those changing, mysterious amber eyes.
“What do you mean?”
“You seem open and friendly, but you give the impression that you’re untouchable. You always keep just that little bit out of touching rage.” He stopped playing with his cup, drank the rest of his coffee and put it down on the small, cluttered table near the sofa she was still sitting on. Her bare feet were curled under her, hidden under the long, gray skirt.
She didn’t answer him. Didn’t say a word. She just stared at him with those mysterious eyes.
“Were you hurt?” He asked gently, remembering, understanding only now the ways she reacted to him the night before. The reluctance. The way she was easy to start even if she knew he was touching touch her.
There was a honest surprise on her face.
“No. Of course not. I was born with my powers. I bring them from life to life. Anyone who even tried to hurt me, would be dead in an instant. There was never anything wrong with my survival instinct.”
John smiled, but it was a sad smile. There were different kinds of hurts. Different wounds. Some healed and scarred. Some festered and took years upon years to stop bleeding. Some never stopped. She either didn’t understand him or didn’t want to understand.
He moved forwards, his hand reaching to her face.
Even then, he was the way she tensed, the barely visible flinch. She wasn’t used to being touched. And that seemed sad, somehow.
She looked up at him, her eyes warmer now. Soft. She wasn’t crowded, didn’t feel threatened by him towering over her, standing while she was sitting, vulnerable. Smelling of tea and something else, something female.
His fingers skimmed her soft cheek, enjoying the feel of smooth skin without any make up and over the shell of her ear. Just a whisper of touch.
Her eyes darkened, the pupils dilated.
She moved, sitting up, looking him straight in the eye.
“Do you have to go?” She asked gently.
He only shook his head. All he needed to do now was wait on Dean to contact him.
“Then stay.” She sat mere inches from him, her face so close to his stomach he could almost feel the heat of her body through his shirt.
He stared down at her, his fingers fining their way into the long, soft hair.
“Sarah...” There were so many things he wanted, needed to tell her. That it was a bad idea, that it couldn’t, wouldn’t last. That she was too young and he was too old. That there were so many, too many secrets they kept.
But she smiled at him. Small and gentle. Soothing somehow and she rose from the sofa, her body touching his. Her hand slid over his arm towards his hair, the fingers tangling there. Her touch soft but sure. There was strength in her, power, will, something he respected.
“Shh...” She whispered on a soft exhale, her lips just barely touching his. Not a kiss. Just an invitation. A promise.
“Just feel John. Just feel. Nothing more. Nothing less.”
He closed his eyes, surrendering to her in a way he hasn’t in a long, long while...
* * *
Dean flexed his hand, digging his fingers into the smooth, naked chest below him.
He could feel the heat and the firmness of his brother’s body. Could smell his musky scent.
Short on breath, almost lightheaded from exhaustion and pleasure, Dean lowered his head. A drop of sweat rolled slowly from his forehead onto his nose and then fell on Sam’s dark, swollen lips.
Dean watched as Sam parted his lips, watched the pink, wet tongue dart out and lick the drop away.
Tempted, Dean lowered his head even more, until his lips touched Sam’s. Kissed him, trying to find at least a trace of his own taste in his brother’s mouth.
He could feel Sam’s insanely long arms come around him and pull him closer, forcing their bodies to meet, press together.
Dean hissed, spreading his legs a bit more to accommodate the new position. The slight burn in his thighs was an almost welcome distraction. The new position made his tender cock rub against Sam’s hard stomach. It was oversensitive, soft and swollen a little from the friction it received tonight. It hurt but it wasn’t enough.
This time it was a moan that left Dean’s throat as Sam shifted again, one hand cradling the back of his head the other scratching none too gently on Dean’s back as Sam forced their bodies even closer together.
“Jesus, Sam.” Dean husked, his voice as sore and tired as his body. But it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that he was sore and exhausted, it didn’t matter that their bodies were slick with sweat and come. Whatever Sam did, it was always too much, not enough. It made him feel on fire, burning on he edge of insanity. He was like an addict craving the next fix.
He twisted in Sam’s grip, one hand sliding under the pillow Sam’s head was lying on. Dean could see, from the corner of his eye the thin line of his leather bracelet and wondered if it was its fault. If all he felt was caused by the spell. He didn’t know what to think any more. Every time, every day Sam came to him, every night they spent together, Dean just wanted him more. Needed him more.
His breath hitched, as their lips met in a barely there kiss. They were both panting, the scent of sex heavy in the air. Dean moved, the rhythm slow and sexy as he rubbed their oversensitive bodies together finding unexpected pleasure in balancing on the edge between pleasure and pain.
His other hand found its way to the other side of Sam’s head, taking at least some of his weight, letting him shift astride his brother. He rose from the kiss to look at the oddly unfamiliar face. The sharp cheekbones and the high forehead was so painfully familiar to him but the flat, black eyes and the sharp lines of black over his cheeks were alien, painfully strange on his brother face. He stared into those black eyes trying to see his brother there. Trying to see Sammy there. He felt something heavy and sick twist in his chest again.
“Sam.” He whispered brokenly, wanting to scream “I love you” and “please, forgive me” and just, “please, still be there Sammy.”
His hand felt the slick coolness, the hard lines and sharp edges.
Dean leaned down once more, fusing their lips together, forcing his tongue in, wanting to taste his brother for the last time, wanting to reassure himself that there was a reason for this.
His hand tightened under the pillow.
“Sammy.” His lips moved so close to Sam’s they grazed each other. Like a kiss. Like a farewell.
It was the first time he called his brother ‘Sammy’ since it all started but the man beneath him didn’t get it. Didn’t understand the prayer the word really was until it was too late.
His lips still pressed tightly to his brother’s, Dean pulled the silver dagger from underneath the pillow and in one clean, sure motion pressed it under the thin, silver chain and cut.
The reaction was instantaneous.
Sam’s body froze under him for a second and then his eyes changed. Still black and flat, now they seemed even more alien, all emotion sucked right out of it. Sam’s face went slack and a sudden blast of pure force threw Dean off him.
He hit the opposite wall with enough force to knock his breath out of him. His chest hurt with a thousandth sharp, white-hot pins and he wondered, briefly, if he some of his ribs had broken.
Dean slowly slid to the ground, his legs giving out from under him. His bare ass hit the cold floor and it roused him enough from his stupor to look up at Sam. His brother, gloriously naked, stood beside the bed. His smooth, hairless, chiseled chest heaved. His cock was still half hard and jutting out from the patch of pubic hair. His face was slack, no emotion at all.
His hands were loose at his sides.
And Dean knew that he had somehow failed because the damn pendant was still around his neck and damn, but his brother was going to kill him. He just wished Sam didn’t ever remember it. For his sake.
Because when it came to the most important test, Dean failed.
His vision swimming, he stared at the glorious, dangerous and naked man slowly coming towards him. Sam’s body was strong, sculpted, dressed in shadows and sharp planes of flesh he was dark and dangerous like a weapon.
Like the knife that slowly appeared in his right hand. First a shadow, then a half translucent form and finally as hard, gleaming steel, the handle gripped tightly in his hand.
His face was pale and long, the black tear tracks cutting through it like wounds. His hair, damp and shaggy fell onto his face, obscuring his eyes. It was good though. Dean didn’t want to see the dead, black eyes. Not now. Not ever again.
He opened his mouth to scream as the same force that slammed him into a wall now picked him up, harshly. The air was squeezed from his lungs as he was picked up and lifted, stretched until something in him cried with pain.
Ever so slowly. So calmly. Sam approached him and lifted the hand that was holding the knife mid chest. He didn’t say a word. Didn’t hesitate. Just pulled the arm back.
Dean could only stare, in horror at the approaching arm. The blow wasn’t really fast nor unexpected. But Dean’s body was weak, beaten and held back by something he just couldn’t fight.
He stared at the shiny edge of the blade, at the jagged tear in space it was making as it fell silently towards him.
Something light and silver caught his attention. From a corner of his eye he saw a movement. In the split second, or the hour it took, he saw and understood. Felt the fucking irony of it.
Because when the knife was falling, the chain finally gave under the weight of the pendant, or maybe the spell let go because the silver finally fell to the floor.
The last thing Dean heard was the tiny, gentle clatter of the delicate chain hitting the dirty floor.
Then there was nothing but blackness.
TBC
Fandom: Supernatural
Author: xantissa
Summary: A case turning out to be a set up. Sam taken away from him. An enemy he can’t identify. Father that struggles to understand. Dean, alone, fighting to save his brother from power no one can really understand.
Genre: Slash
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: 18+
Warnings: incest, slash, demon possession, violence.
Disclaimer: Supernatural and all it’s characters belong to WB. I do it just for fun, no profit being made from my writing.
Spoilers: Mild for Asylum, Nightmare tiny ones for probably most of the first season.
Thanks for beta to
lifesscarChapter 12
John forgot how it felt to actually wake up at a woman’s place. If he actually had sex, it was in an anonymous motel room and either she or him were gone by the morning light. But that didn’t happen often either. It always felt like a betrayal. He was a married man and he always would be. Still... he felt good. This felt good.
Physically, he was more relaxed. The few hours of sleep made him more rested than the last three weeks put together. Surprisingly, spending the night with Sarah also affected him psychically. He was more focused now, capable of looking at things with a little more distance. The stress, the fear and anxiety of the last few weeks was easing a little. That didn’t change the fact that he felt oddly out of place standing in the small bathroom filled with all those purely feminine things, holding a pink razor of all things and wondering if he really should use it for shaving.
“Oh, for God’s sake!” He heard behind him.
He turned and made sure his face didn’t betray the amusement he felt. Sarah wasn’t a morning person. Not by a long shot. She was wearing the hugely oversized tee-shirt that she had pulled on sometime during the night. The tee was almost reaching her knees. Her hair, loose now, was falling every which way.
“Don’t stare at it like it’s going to bite you! It’s a disposable razor for Christ’s sake! You are not going to turn into a girl just because you use something that’s pink.”
“You are not a morning person, are you?” John asked not really managing to hide the amusement. Sarah paused, threw some of the hair out of her eyes and blinked at him sleepily.
“I guess not.” She agreed, her voice rough and unintentionally sexy.
Her eyes slid off his face. Lower. Skimming over his naked chest. So far he had only managed to find his underwear and jeans. The shirt was still M.I.A.
He wondered what she saw now, in a harsh light of day. Did she think he was old? More than twenty years her senior, he was surprised she was attracted to him at all. He watched her face, watched as her pupils dilated and she licked her lips. She obviously saw him just like she had the night before.
“You sure you have to go?” She asked slowly. An invitation.
He had to clear his throat, a wave of heat slowly encompassing his body.
“Yeah... But I still got time for breakfast. How about pancakes?”
She blinked at him, obviously changing gears.
“You know how to make pancakes?”
He smiled, wide and wicked.
“Best you ever had.”
Her eyes snapped up to his and she grinned back, catching the subtext.
“You’re sure of yourself.”
“Years of experience.”
She laughed out loud this time.
“Bring it on, then.”
She turned to leave the bathroom but stopped in the doorway.
“John?” She called without turning.
“Yes?”
“After you feed me, you can tell me about your son. I’ll see what I can do to help.”
* * *
John kept staring at Sarah’s naked feet. She was sitting on the small sofa, legs curled under her and a large cup of tea held between her hands.
She never once looked up, didn’t turn her gaze away from the dark liquid.
“That’s all I know. Whatever is possessing Sam, I can’t exorcise until I know its name. And no one seems to know what’s going on.”
She put the cup away, her movements slow and precise. John knew something was up.
Finally, she looked up at him. Her amber eyes were dark, almost brown now. Her face was pale and drawn. She looked older somehow. Much, much, older.
“Your son is not possessed. If what you’re you describe is true, the weapon and his face, then what you are talking about is impossible.”
“I have been hunting supernatural things for over twenty years. I know what possession looks like.” He insisted.
“John.” She warned him gently. “I know you believe it. But what you are describing...” She swallowed. “I know that weapon. I know all of them. They weren’t created to possess people, but to help them fight evil.”
“What do you mean ‘all of them’? There are more? What exactly do you know Sarah?”
She licked her lips and something sad flickered through her face.
“Lifetimes ago... I was in love. I remember that. I also remember an echo of a terrible pain. He must have been killed or something drastic like that. I don’t remember details and I don’t want to remember.”
“The man I remind you of.” Murmured John and she nodded.
“He was a warrior too. I can’t remember because I know what the grief I had felt back then pushed me to do. I am too powerful to risk loosing control like that again.”
She fell silent and John waited, having a bad feeling about this conversation.
“I don’t know how. But I changed some weapons. Created them in a way… I gave them power. And will. Those pieces of metal became, what was later called, Soul Weapons. They aren’t good or evil in their nature. It’s just power. How it’s used depends on the one that is wielding it. On his soul.
The weapon worked as an amplifier of sorts. It makes the wielder faster, stronger, more resistant to pain and disease. It lends him its power. They might change the character a bit. Make the wielder a little harder, a tad more aggressive... just stronger I think. But it won’t, it can’t, do more. It can’t fundamentally change the wielder. It was designed to serve the soul. Nothing more. It’s not the mind that controls it. It’s the soul. Never anything more. The other thing is that the marks should only be visible during a fight with something supernatural. You told me the lines on his face are visible almost all the time. That shouldn’t be possible either.”
“So what are you telling me here? That this thing... is Sam? That, I will never believe. I know my son!” Stated John adamantly, a little angry. What she told him... He knew she was powerful but he couldn’t imagine her creating something that had a will of its own.
“Those Soul Weapons. What are they capable of?”
She smiled a strangely wistful smile.
“Ever the warrior. They can kill supernatural being. Not send back to hell. Kill. Destroy them completely. In a simplistic way, they are an echo of my power, a copy of me.”
“Can they be used to kill humans?”
She gave him a strange look.
“Of course. They are weapons. How the wielder decides to use it is only his decision. Basically the soul controls the weapon. Always. Not the mind. It’s not something that can change in time. One either can or can not wield it.”
“But the weapon controls my son. Not the other way around,” Insisted John.
“Then there’s something wrong with your son’s soul.”
The words echoed in the suddenly silent room like a scream.
“You trying to tell me my son doesn’t have a soul?” John’s voice dropped, low and dangerous. He might have lost contact with Sam, failed him, but he would protect him no matter what. He knew soulless people and Sammy wasn’t one of them.
“Relax, John. I’m not insinuating anything bad. Just that sometimes, when we love too hard, we can give our soul away. I have seen it happen a few times.”
John exhaled loudly trying to control his emotions. He never told her about Sam’s feelings for Dean or the... relationship they shared now. He knew he was too emotional. She wasn’t an enemy; she offered to help and he needed to listen to her. Really listen and hear what she had to say.
“Hypothetically speaking, if my son doesn’t... have a soul, what would happen once he touched the weapon?”
“First the weapon has to accept him. There are protective measures so no killing psychopath can use it. Once he is accepted... well. It’s only a speculation on my part because I haven’t actually seen it before but, I guess he would become the Weapon.”
“What?”
“Weapon, a force that would need somebody or something to control it. Since the weapons choose their owners than I guess the pendant you mentioned is the thing that’s controlling him now.”
“Not completely.” John murmured.
“What do you mean?”
John hesitated. It felt strange to talk about his family like that. To her.
“The owner of the pendant, the man that started this all, gave Sam an explicit order, a few times, to kill Dean. My older son.”
“He refused?” Asked Sarah.
“Not only. He killed the man’s goons and even went for him, but the pendant stopped him.”
Sarah took the tea, cold by now, and sipped.
“Is there something about your sons that you’re not telling me?”
“What makes you say that?” He asked for arguments sake because, hell, he was hiding something. A shameful secret he didn’t want to admit aloud. He was a father. How the hell was he supposed to talk about his son’s incestuous relationship? Especially when one of them was possessed and other desperate to save him no matter what?
“Because it seems to me that Sam is protecting Dean, pushing the limits of the spell, which must be incredibly painful for him. If he is the weapon, then it must be Dean he gave his soul to. But Dean is his brother. Why would he do this? Unless there’s something you’re not telling me.”
John gritted his teeth, defeated by her logic. And told her. Told her about the past, his choice to drive one son away to protect the other. Told her about Dean’s misguided reasons to start sleeping with Sam, and finally about the scene in his hotel room.
She looked at him for a very long moment. He couldn’t read her.
“I’m sorry it hurt you this much.” She said gently.
“You don’t find it sick? Repulsive?”
She smiled at him then. Gentle. A little patronizing.
“They are both adults. They are not hurting anyone. It’s different, not entirely healthy but it’s love. Of all the people, you should understand it. After all, you sacrificed your whole life for vengeance, for the love that you lost.”
Yeah. That shut him up real good. There wasn’t anything more he could say.
“So, if Dean manages to break the chain...”
“And survive.” Sarah cut in.
“And survive. Then he’ll automatically become the… Wielder?”
She shook her head.
“I don’t know. Usually the bond starts when the wielder touches the weapon for the first time. In this case... I just don’t know.”
“Great. So, Dean might be risking his life for nothing?” John growled, more scared than angry.
“No. I do think Dean is the one. But I don’t know how to create the necessary bond. Once it’s created both will be themselves again. Until then everything is out of balance.”
“So what? Dean frees Sam and he becomes a loose cannon?” That perspective wasn’t really much better.
“I can help with this. I think that, relying on pure instinct, they should start the bond if they have enough time. Until then.” She hesitated for a moment. “I can ask the weapon to sleep. It’s only a simplification but the powers would hibernate for a while, giving them time to bond. Normally the connection is between an object and a human. This time it’ll be between two people. And you know how hard human relations can be.”
“I’m sensing a but in there.”
“This ‘sleep’, hibernation state is also unnatural. Since the weapons cause some physical changes, the strength and speed, stopping it suddenly would make Sam ill. Feverish maybe, weaker in different ways.”
“Will it be dangerous for him?”
She shook her head.
“No, of course not. But it’s only a temporary resolution. Sam might get better or not but, in the end, the weapon awakens again. There’s nothing you can do about it.”
John pulled at his hair roughly, scratching his scalp and trying to think of some other way.
“Can’t you... I don’t know. Destroy it?”
This time it was her eyes that flashed with something hot and fierce.
“When I created them I was confused with grief and anger. When I first met one of my creations I realized they were conscious.” She took a deep breath. “They remember me, John. They know I gave them life. And they call me mother. I can’t hurt them. And I won’t let anybody else, either.” She was not kidding.
“It was only a suggestion.”
“It was a bad one.” She snapped.
John raised his hand in gesture of surrender.
“Message taken.” He assured.
“So, what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to call Dean. There’s a lot he needs to know.”
* * *
Dean felt tired, pleasantly exhausted. The day was warm and lazy. It was rare for Dean to just lie in bed, having nothing to do, just waiting.
It was boring.
Daytime television sucked big time. He was still sore from the night before and after the last time he lost the will to investigate Sam. He made do with the knowledge that Sam would come back to him.
Annoyed, he turned the TV off and turned on his side, pressing his cheek into the cool sheet.
He would at least catch up on his sleep.
* * *
The dream was warm and hazy, like they always were. It had no logic, no timeline but that, also, wasn’t a problem.
He dreamt of a bar, playing pool; which was funny, he realized, hustling even in his dreams.
Then he was somewhere soft and dark. He could feel soft, warm skin under his hands. Full breasts pressed tightly to his chest and silky thighs framing him. The wet heat of her held him in a powerful, exciting grip.
He grunted something like “God” and “Tight” and leaned down to kiss that faceless, dream woman.
She turned away, her lips cold and unresponsive.
“Dean.”
He knew that voice.
Dean jerked back, rolling away from the welcoming heat of the body but it was too late. He already saw her face. Saw the pale skin, the soft, pink lips. The small nose and eyes, impossibly wide and dark.
Jessica.
“Why do you keep doing this to me?!” He demanded angry and scared. Ashamed somehow. She was something that belonged to Sam. Not him.
“Look.” Her voice again, ringing in his head clear as a bell.
He felt her touch his forehead, her fingers cold and gentle. And it all started again.
“I love you, Dean. Tell Dad... tell Dad that I forgave him a long time ago. He was wrong, but I understand.”
Closing his eyes, cutting himself off from Dean, Sam reached into the chest and withdrew a strange, yet beautiful blade. It was curved, elegant, reminding Dean of a claw and looked positively deadly. For a few moments nothing happened and Dean started to think that it was all a huge fucking mistake, when suddenly Sam screamed. Lightning after lightning burst out of the deadly looking weapon, striking the floor, ceiling, walls with earsplitting noise, filling the room with the sharp scent of ozone. The strands of electricity crawled over Sam’s body, forcing him to his knees, still screaming in pain and terror.
Dean didn’t realize he was screaming with him and he watched as the lightning seemed to sink into his brother’s body. He listened with mounting terror and disbelief as his brother screamed with everything inside him. Dean watched his tendons stand out and the muscles of his arm ripple. He didn’t realize his cheeks were wet with tears, just like Sam’s were
She was standing there too; he could see her from the corner of his eye. Dressed in white, her hair a soft curtain that covered her naked shoulders.
The scene froze, stilled as if somebody pressed pause. The last of the lightning bolts were still arching in the still air, Sam’s face frozen, contorted in pain and fear, his mouth open in a soundless scream. In his hand, he still gripped the cursed blade.
Dean’s face was wet from tears, his throat sore from screaming and his ribs hurt like a bitch. The cold, hard floor dug into his knees, scrapped his palms bloody. But all he could see, all he could feel, was the terror on his brother face.
“What the Hell do you want?” He asked Jessica.
She turned towards him, her face soft and calm like she wasn’t there. Wasn’t really. He kept forgetting she wasn’t a person any more. She was a ghost, a shadow of her old self. She didn’t feel like she used to.
“Why are you doing this to me?” He asked brokenly, unable to look away, unable to stand the sight of his little brother in pain. Knowing what that scene led to. Knowing that it was the last time he saw his real brother.
God, he missed him so much.
She never answered him, didn’t even look at him. Just went, softly and silently to Sam’s side. She stood over him. Out of place. Out of time. For a moment she just stared at him, her face soft and sad, the echo of her feelings shining through. Finally, she turned to Dean.
“Listen.” Her lips didn’t move but her voice rang clear in his ears. “Look.”
She knelt beside Sam and her hand reached down, pale and small, closing over Sam’s long one. Her fingers curled over his and nearly touched the blade he was holding so tightly, the knife that started it all.
Dean jerked awake, his throat still painful and the echo of pain his ribs. He was confused, his eyes gritty and swollen and it took him a moment to realize where he was and what was happening.
Another nightmare.
His phone, ringing at him insistently.
He flopped down again, shamed and annoyed, baffled and scared at the same time. He hated remembering that moment, that fucking moment when all went to hell and he lost Sam. It felt like somebody was ripping his heart out. Every time.
He felt bad, uncomfortable with Jess appearing in his dreams. When he... fucked her.
Still, unable to understand just what she wanted from him, he rolled to the side and grabbed his phone. It was probably Dad. That was a priority now. The rest he would deal with later.
* * *
“You keep distance.” He blurted out. John used to think that he was way past the age where he blurted out anything. It seemed he was wrong.
She looked at him with those changing, mysterious amber eyes.
“What do you mean?”
“You seem open and friendly, but you give the impression that you’re untouchable. You always keep just that little bit out of touching rage.” He stopped playing with his cup, drank the rest of his coffee and put it down on the small, cluttered table near the sofa she was still sitting on. Her bare feet were curled under her, hidden under the long, gray skirt.
She didn’t answer him. Didn’t say a word. She just stared at him with those mysterious eyes.
“Were you hurt?” He asked gently, remembering, understanding only now the ways she reacted to him the night before. The reluctance. The way she was easy to start even if she knew he was touching touch her.
There was a honest surprise on her face.
“No. Of course not. I was born with my powers. I bring them from life to life. Anyone who even tried to hurt me, would be dead in an instant. There was never anything wrong with my survival instinct.”
John smiled, but it was a sad smile. There were different kinds of hurts. Different wounds. Some healed and scarred. Some festered and took years upon years to stop bleeding. Some never stopped. She either didn’t understand him or didn’t want to understand.
He moved forwards, his hand reaching to her face.
Even then, he was the way she tensed, the barely visible flinch. She wasn’t used to being touched. And that seemed sad, somehow.
She looked up at him, her eyes warmer now. Soft. She wasn’t crowded, didn’t feel threatened by him towering over her, standing while she was sitting, vulnerable. Smelling of tea and something else, something female.
His fingers skimmed her soft cheek, enjoying the feel of smooth skin without any make up and over the shell of her ear. Just a whisper of touch.
Her eyes darkened, the pupils dilated.
She moved, sitting up, looking him straight in the eye.
“Do you have to go?” She asked gently.
He only shook his head. All he needed to do now was wait on Dean to contact him.
“Then stay.” She sat mere inches from him, her face so close to his stomach he could almost feel the heat of her body through his shirt.
He stared down at her, his fingers fining their way into the long, soft hair.
“Sarah...” There were so many things he wanted, needed to tell her. That it was a bad idea, that it couldn’t, wouldn’t last. That she was too young and he was too old. That there were so many, too many secrets they kept.
But she smiled at him. Small and gentle. Soothing somehow and she rose from the sofa, her body touching his. Her hand slid over his arm towards his hair, the fingers tangling there. Her touch soft but sure. There was strength in her, power, will, something he respected.
“Shh...” She whispered on a soft exhale, her lips just barely touching his. Not a kiss. Just an invitation. A promise.
“Just feel John. Just feel. Nothing more. Nothing less.”
He closed his eyes, surrendering to her in a way he hasn’t in a long, long while...
* * *
Dean flexed his hand, digging his fingers into the smooth, naked chest below him.
He could feel the heat and the firmness of his brother’s body. Could smell his musky scent.
Short on breath, almost lightheaded from exhaustion and pleasure, Dean lowered his head. A drop of sweat rolled slowly from his forehead onto his nose and then fell on Sam’s dark, swollen lips.
Dean watched as Sam parted his lips, watched the pink, wet tongue dart out and lick the drop away.
Tempted, Dean lowered his head even more, until his lips touched Sam’s. Kissed him, trying to find at least a trace of his own taste in his brother’s mouth.
He could feel Sam’s insanely long arms come around him and pull him closer, forcing their bodies to meet, press together.
Dean hissed, spreading his legs a bit more to accommodate the new position. The slight burn in his thighs was an almost welcome distraction. The new position made his tender cock rub against Sam’s hard stomach. It was oversensitive, soft and swollen a little from the friction it received tonight. It hurt but it wasn’t enough.
This time it was a moan that left Dean’s throat as Sam shifted again, one hand cradling the back of his head the other scratching none too gently on Dean’s back as Sam forced their bodies even closer together.
“Jesus, Sam.” Dean husked, his voice as sore and tired as his body. But it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that he was sore and exhausted, it didn’t matter that their bodies were slick with sweat and come. Whatever Sam did, it was always too much, not enough. It made him feel on fire, burning on he edge of insanity. He was like an addict craving the next fix.
He twisted in Sam’s grip, one hand sliding under the pillow Sam’s head was lying on. Dean could see, from the corner of his eye the thin line of his leather bracelet and wondered if it was its fault. If all he felt was caused by the spell. He didn’t know what to think any more. Every time, every day Sam came to him, every night they spent together, Dean just wanted him more. Needed him more.
His breath hitched, as their lips met in a barely there kiss. They were both panting, the scent of sex heavy in the air. Dean moved, the rhythm slow and sexy as he rubbed their oversensitive bodies together finding unexpected pleasure in balancing on the edge between pleasure and pain.
His other hand found its way to the other side of Sam’s head, taking at least some of his weight, letting him shift astride his brother. He rose from the kiss to look at the oddly unfamiliar face. The sharp cheekbones and the high forehead was so painfully familiar to him but the flat, black eyes and the sharp lines of black over his cheeks were alien, painfully strange on his brother face. He stared into those black eyes trying to see his brother there. Trying to see Sammy there. He felt something heavy and sick twist in his chest again.
“Sam.” He whispered brokenly, wanting to scream “I love you” and “please, forgive me” and just, “please, still be there Sammy.”
His hand felt the slick coolness, the hard lines and sharp edges.
Dean leaned down once more, fusing their lips together, forcing his tongue in, wanting to taste his brother for the last time, wanting to reassure himself that there was a reason for this.
His hand tightened under the pillow.
“Sammy.” His lips moved so close to Sam’s they grazed each other. Like a kiss. Like a farewell.
It was the first time he called his brother ‘Sammy’ since it all started but the man beneath him didn’t get it. Didn’t understand the prayer the word really was until it was too late.
His lips still pressed tightly to his brother’s, Dean pulled the silver dagger from underneath the pillow and in one clean, sure motion pressed it under the thin, silver chain and cut.
The reaction was instantaneous.
Sam’s body froze under him for a second and then his eyes changed. Still black and flat, now they seemed even more alien, all emotion sucked right out of it. Sam’s face went slack and a sudden blast of pure force threw Dean off him.
He hit the opposite wall with enough force to knock his breath out of him. His chest hurt with a thousandth sharp, white-hot pins and he wondered, briefly, if he some of his ribs had broken.
Dean slowly slid to the ground, his legs giving out from under him. His bare ass hit the cold floor and it roused him enough from his stupor to look up at Sam. His brother, gloriously naked, stood beside the bed. His smooth, hairless, chiseled chest heaved. His cock was still half hard and jutting out from the patch of pubic hair. His face was slack, no emotion at all.
His hands were loose at his sides.
And Dean knew that he had somehow failed because the damn pendant was still around his neck and damn, but his brother was going to kill him. He just wished Sam didn’t ever remember it. For his sake.
Because when it came to the most important test, Dean failed.
His vision swimming, he stared at the glorious, dangerous and naked man slowly coming towards him. Sam’s body was strong, sculpted, dressed in shadows and sharp planes of flesh he was dark and dangerous like a weapon.
Like the knife that slowly appeared in his right hand. First a shadow, then a half translucent form and finally as hard, gleaming steel, the handle gripped tightly in his hand.
His face was pale and long, the black tear tracks cutting through it like wounds. His hair, damp and shaggy fell onto his face, obscuring his eyes. It was good though. Dean didn’t want to see the dead, black eyes. Not now. Not ever again.
He opened his mouth to scream as the same force that slammed him into a wall now picked him up, harshly. The air was squeezed from his lungs as he was picked up and lifted, stretched until something in him cried with pain.
Ever so slowly. So calmly. Sam approached him and lifted the hand that was holding the knife mid chest. He didn’t say a word. Didn’t hesitate. Just pulled the arm back.
Dean could only stare, in horror at the approaching arm. The blow wasn’t really fast nor unexpected. But Dean’s body was weak, beaten and held back by something he just couldn’t fight.
He stared at the shiny edge of the blade, at the jagged tear in space it was making as it fell silently towards him.
Something light and silver caught his attention. From a corner of his eye he saw a movement. In the split second, or the hour it took, he saw and understood. Felt the fucking irony of it.
Because when the knife was falling, the chain finally gave under the weight of the pendant, or maybe the spell let go because the silver finally fell to the floor.
The last thing Dean heard was the tiny, gentle clatter of the delicate chain hitting the dirty floor.
Then there was nothing but blackness.
TBC
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Date: 2006-09-25 10:34 pm (UTC)This story takes place before Sam and Dean come back to Lawrence so Mary's spirit is still imprisoned in her house. She is just one of the many possibilities, the life choices John lets usually pass him by.