Pie Oneshot: The Lady of Your Darkest Heart
Title: The Lady of Your Darkest Heart
Rating: PG
Warnings: Um, unsolicited kissing? Brief mention of cancer. And the definition of insanity is lost on Winchesters. Must be a genetic thing.
Characters: John Winchester, a Demon, Revenge
Summary: This is his last chance to do something to save Sam, but Hell is not the only contender for Winchester blood, and John is a worshiper of someone that doesn't like to share her toys.
Also posted at AO3 here you can also find all my Pie Verse
John is at the crossroads. The night is dark with no stars left in the sky; they’ve all been swallowed by the inky black that’s bleeding down like demon smoke onto the miles and miles of barren fields. There is dirt underneath his nails and tucked into the creases of his palms. The truck is idling off on the side of the road, the headlights cutting a swath through the darkness. John ignores the goosebumps flushing his skin, he concentrates on the hard metal of the Colt resting snug against his side, the only comfort he has even though Daniel Elkins’ dried blood is still in the grooves of the handle.
There’s a slight shift in the air when the demon arrives. Most of the time they come silent, appearing out of the air with nothing to mark it, but John has had time on his hands to hunt quite a few of the bastards and got to know their patterns. All you have to do is be quiet inside and out and listen.
“My, my. John Winchester. This is a surprise.”
The demon is wearing a college kid. In the dim light with shadows on its face the hair falls just right and the shoulders draw back at just the right level of insolence. Something lurches in John’s chest but the demon takes a step forward and the face lights up and the features are all wrong.
The metal of the Colt is warm against him and he grips the handle through the hole in his pocket. John keeps still. Patience. Patience.
“I wanna speak to your boss,” John says.
The bastard smirks and slinks closer, but stops just out of reach, black eyes reflecting like lifeless pools of sky.
“I wanna make a deal,” John says. “But I’ll only deal with Azazel.”
John has learned a lot in the time he’s cut off all ties from Dean, ever since he got a hold of that one demon back in Arizona that spilled about special kids, about Sam, about the war. John thought he was going to go crazy when he went to Cold Oak with Jim Murphy and Caleb. It was a bloodbath up there, and they had to call in favors from half a dozen other hunters to help them clean up the psychics.
He’d killed the top psychic himself, a woman named Ava Wilson, who was one among many missing persons that John had investigated when other “special kids” were being murdered.
Sammy wasn’t among them, or the fresh graves in the old cemetery. That was the only reason John hadn’t lost his last grip on reality.
That demon had given him Yellow Eyes’ real name, but John didn’t have the right summoning spell yet. Bobby was looking for him, but time has run out. The more demons John tore apart the more of their stories began to coincide and validate each other. They weren’t clear on what happened to Sam in California, but they all had orders to track him down and take him to Azazel.
John takes comfort in the fact that Sam is still in the wind, but John’s not going to be here forever, not if the cancerous disease growing in his lungs has any say. He’s done all he can, but there is no time to sit still and wait out chemo or radiation. He has to get Sam in the clear now while he’s still able to.
“Someone’s been doing their homework,” the demon purred. “What makes you think he wants to talk with you?”
“Because I’m offering him my soul, but only to him.”
The demon’s eyes go wide.
“Well now, that’s an interesting change of events.”
“Yes, it is, but it’s so wholly overdone to be a bit boring, isn’t it?”
John and the demon startle as a new person walks through the headlights. It’s a woman with hair and a fancy evening dress the color of fresh blood. She moves like smoke, like she’s only half in this world, and fixes the demon with a powerful stare. Her perfect manicured hands rest on her hips.
“I think I’ll be taking this one. You can scamper back to Azazel and his cronies. Tell him we’ve decided to change the board game.”
The demon lets out a snarl. “This is no concern of yours. You’ll be getting what you want out of it, anyway.”
“Of course I will, but I like a bit more variety in my diet, and let’s just say that heaven and hell… You don’t provide the spice or flair a girl thrives on.”
She turns from the demon, dismissing it with an impatient flick of her hand.
“Hello, John.”
“This isn’t over,” the demon hisses and then it’s pouring out of the kid’s mouth. The kid drops like a stone, chest heaving, eyes disoriented. “What- where am I?”
“Come along, John,” the woman moves to his side and touchs his arm.
John blinks, and he is back in the motel room he left only hours before. He is laying on the bed and feeling so heavy in his chest. The woman sits down beside him and gives him a regal smile that screams warnings to John.
“It’s not often I give a personal audience with my worshipers,” she says. John can’t move at all as she reaches up to smooth back his hair.
“Who are you?” he asks.
“I’m not a demon, which is good for you, because that plan? Very inelegant. I’m a bit disappointed, but I understand how things go. You got scared and sloppy. It’s very human of you. But I can’t let you go through with that whole soul selling business.”
“Why not?” The more he struggles against the invisible weight the more it spreads over him. He shakes with the strain and has to give out. As soon as he stops fighting the weight shrinks until it’s just a presence hovering over his chest. He breathes and glares up at the woman.
“Well, as much as I would get out of it, I’ve had a better proposition from other interested parties. They’re easier to work with than the players currently declaring themselves,” she brushes invisible dirt from her gown. “I’ve known you for a long time, John. You’re among my top five favorite worshipers. I’m not about to lose someone like you without a fight, and this way I don’t have to. Your boys are wonderful and delicious in their own ways, but you bring this girl a whole different flavor.”
She bends down and presses her lips to his. John can’t turn away as his senses are assaulted. The rich taste of musky wine and the smell of lilacs pour over him like syrup. He can hear Mary’s laugh echo like a heartbeat in his ears and it drowns him, it pulls him under until he can’t tell where he is, who he is. He’s lost in the swirl of red haze and the feel of Mary’s skin, such a soft thing covering up something so strong, and the tickling wisps of her hair brushing his throat.
Then the woman pulls away and the world crashes back over him cold and gritty. John is laying on the bed, he had crossroad dirt under his nails and the handle of the Colt digging in to his hip. His stomach is full of sour bile and the only wine and lilacs are fading away, back to the cemetery at Lawrence and faded photographs left too long in dark spaces.
The woman traces the small scar on his forehead with the tip of her finger. She leans down again and puts her mouth next to his ear.
“My name is Revenge,” she says. “And you’re not done worshiping me.”
Then the woman and the weight is gone from him. John sits up and wipes his mouth with a shaky hand. He gets up when he can and moves around the room packing his things. He’s almost finished and walking out the door when he sees the bright red lipstick scrawled on the mirror by the bed.
Seek your answers from Missouri.
A large R is below it, written like the slash of a knife on smooth skin. The words then waver and disappear, but John can still see them in his head even as the taste of the kiss, the woman, and the memory of the crossroads flit away from his memory.
He throws his bags in the truck, checks his map, and heads towards Kansas.
Rating: PG
Warnings: Um, unsolicited kissing? Brief mention of cancer. And the definition of insanity is lost on Winchesters. Must be a genetic thing.
Characters: John Winchester, a Demon, Revenge
Summary: This is his last chance to do something to save Sam, but Hell is not the only contender for Winchester blood, and John is a worshiper of someone that doesn't like to share her toys.
Also posted at AO3 here you can also find all my Pie Verse
John is at the crossroads. The night is dark with no stars left in the sky; they’ve all been swallowed by the inky black that’s bleeding down like demon smoke onto the miles and miles of barren fields. There is dirt underneath his nails and tucked into the creases of his palms. The truck is idling off on the side of the road, the headlights cutting a swath through the darkness. John ignores the goosebumps flushing his skin, he concentrates on the hard metal of the Colt resting snug against his side, the only comfort he has even though Daniel Elkins’ dried blood is still in the grooves of the handle.
There’s a slight shift in the air when the demon arrives. Most of the time they come silent, appearing out of the air with nothing to mark it, but John has had time on his hands to hunt quite a few of the bastards and got to know their patterns. All you have to do is be quiet inside and out and listen.
“My, my. John Winchester. This is a surprise.”
The demon is wearing a college kid. In the dim light with shadows on its face the hair falls just right and the shoulders draw back at just the right level of insolence. Something lurches in John’s chest but the demon takes a step forward and the face lights up and the features are all wrong.
The metal of the Colt is warm against him and he grips the handle through the hole in his pocket. John keeps still. Patience. Patience.
“I wanna speak to your boss,” John says.
The bastard smirks and slinks closer, but stops just out of reach, black eyes reflecting like lifeless pools of sky.
“I wanna make a deal,” John says. “But I’ll only deal with Azazel.”
John has learned a lot in the time he’s cut off all ties from Dean, ever since he got a hold of that one demon back in Arizona that spilled about special kids, about Sam, about the war. John thought he was going to go crazy when he went to Cold Oak with Jim Murphy and Caleb. It was a bloodbath up there, and they had to call in favors from half a dozen other hunters to help them clean up the psychics.
He’d killed the top psychic himself, a woman named Ava Wilson, who was one among many missing persons that John had investigated when other “special kids” were being murdered.
Sammy wasn’t among them, or the fresh graves in the old cemetery. That was the only reason John hadn’t lost his last grip on reality.
That demon had given him Yellow Eyes’ real name, but John didn’t have the right summoning spell yet. Bobby was looking for him, but time has run out. The more demons John tore apart the more of their stories began to coincide and validate each other. They weren’t clear on what happened to Sam in California, but they all had orders to track him down and take him to Azazel.
John takes comfort in the fact that Sam is still in the wind, but John’s not going to be here forever, not if the cancerous disease growing in his lungs has any say. He’s done all he can, but there is no time to sit still and wait out chemo or radiation. He has to get Sam in the clear now while he’s still able to.
“Someone’s been doing their homework,” the demon purred. “What makes you think he wants to talk with you?”
“Because I’m offering him my soul, but only to him.”
The demon’s eyes go wide.
“Well now, that’s an interesting change of events.”
“Yes, it is, but it’s so wholly overdone to be a bit boring, isn’t it?”
John and the demon startle as a new person walks through the headlights. It’s a woman with hair and a fancy evening dress the color of fresh blood. She moves like smoke, like she’s only half in this world, and fixes the demon with a powerful stare. Her perfect manicured hands rest on her hips.
“I think I’ll be taking this one. You can scamper back to Azazel and his cronies. Tell him we’ve decided to change the board game.”
The demon lets out a snarl. “This is no concern of yours. You’ll be getting what you want out of it, anyway.”
“Of course I will, but I like a bit more variety in my diet, and let’s just say that heaven and hell… You don’t provide the spice or flair a girl thrives on.”
She turns from the demon, dismissing it with an impatient flick of her hand.
“Hello, John.”
“This isn’t over,” the demon hisses and then it’s pouring out of the kid’s mouth. The kid drops like a stone, chest heaving, eyes disoriented. “What- where am I?”
“Come along, John,” the woman moves to his side and touchs his arm.
John blinks, and he is back in the motel room he left only hours before. He is laying on the bed and feeling so heavy in his chest. The woman sits down beside him and gives him a regal smile that screams warnings to John.
“It’s not often I give a personal audience with my worshipers,” she says. John can’t move at all as she reaches up to smooth back his hair.
“Who are you?” he asks.
“I’m not a demon, which is good for you, because that plan? Very inelegant. I’m a bit disappointed, but I understand how things go. You got scared and sloppy. It’s very human of you. But I can’t let you go through with that whole soul selling business.”
“Why not?” The more he struggles against the invisible weight the more it spreads over him. He shakes with the strain and has to give out. As soon as he stops fighting the weight shrinks until it’s just a presence hovering over his chest. He breathes and glares up at the woman.
“Well, as much as I would get out of it, I’ve had a better proposition from other interested parties. They’re easier to work with than the players currently declaring themselves,” she brushes invisible dirt from her gown. “I’ve known you for a long time, John. You’re among my top five favorite worshipers. I’m not about to lose someone like you without a fight, and this way I don’t have to. Your boys are wonderful and delicious in their own ways, but you bring this girl a whole different flavor.”
She bends down and presses her lips to his. John can’t turn away as his senses are assaulted. The rich taste of musky wine and the smell of lilacs pour over him like syrup. He can hear Mary’s laugh echo like a heartbeat in his ears and it drowns him, it pulls him under until he can’t tell where he is, who he is. He’s lost in the swirl of red haze and the feel of Mary’s skin, such a soft thing covering up something so strong, and the tickling wisps of her hair brushing his throat.
Then the woman pulls away and the world crashes back over him cold and gritty. John is laying on the bed, he had crossroad dirt under his nails and the handle of the Colt digging in to his hip. His stomach is full of sour bile and the only wine and lilacs are fading away, back to the cemetery at Lawrence and faded photographs left too long in dark spaces.
The woman traces the small scar on his forehead with the tip of her finger. She leans down again and puts her mouth next to his ear.
“My name is Revenge,” she says. “And you’re not done worshiping me.”
Then the woman and the weight is gone from him. John sits up and wipes his mouth with a shaky hand. He gets up when he can and moves around the room packing his things. He’s almost finished and walking out the door when he sees the bright red lipstick scrawled on the mirror by the bed.
Seek your answers from Missouri.
A large R is below it, written like the slash of a knife on smooth skin. The words then waver and disappear, but John can still see them in his head even as the taste of the kiss, the woman, and the memory of the crossroads flit away from his memory.
He throws his bags in the truck, checks his map, and heads towards Kansas.