Re: FILLED: Ghost Medicine (3/4) [self-harm, utter weirdness, post-9x21]indiachickMay 9 2014, 10:53:30 UTC
“She was a friend,” Cain says, and scuffs some more dirt onto the patch of raw, newly-filled earth.
Dean looks at the variegated man-the graying hair and the dark eyebrows, the mixed mountain-man beard-and adds: we raised bees together. The thought takes on a bitter resonance and Dean wishes his brain would shut up.
He doesn’t know how long he slept and woke before his consciousness decided to stick to one state. Bit long, he guesses. It’s not summer anymore. This is the first he’s been out of the house.
Cain had carved the headstone himself-dark shale obelisk to mark the grave of the dead woman. Out here beneath the ring of cliffs the sand is the cold ice color of white quartz, and the stone sticks out like a sore thumb.
“She was a demon,” Dean says, closing his eyes against the cold, against Cain’s voice like thunder. His eyelids offer poor comfort against the bright sun, but he keeps them shut anyway. Pulls his jacket closer around his chin, and he knows it looks as if he’s trying to disappear. He doesn’t care. “When I found her, she was on fire, she was a -”
“I don’t know about your politics, and frankly, I don’t care. She’s just bones now,” Cain says, and leans to carve a sigil. “Something got to her before you or I did.”
“I was there-”
“For information, yes. On what to do about the Mark, now that you no longer want it. Ogilvy could have given you that information, had she not been compromised. I’m guessing Abaddon. She had foresight, however crass she was-she knew you’d go to Ogilvy for information some day.”
Dean looks down at the unmarked headstone.
“I thought I should wait for you,” Cain says. “Before I bury your undeserving dead.”
Dean breathes in, and the breath stutters in his chest, goes in like salt-water. There’s still the faint taste of ash at the back of his throat, scorched rings in his windpipe where he swallowed flames. Ten thousand burning bees and one burning woman and I pulled YOU out. But not just him, because all of her bees are still working in his veins, their stingers in him filling him with venom- sweet and sharp and sour. His flesh runs with their honey and poison. And also Ogilvy, her impressions, her perceptions, sharply hued in neon and tangerines. The last screaming minutes of her death-throe panic rises up and lodges in his throat, beating sharp hummingbird wings.
Is this the burden? Dean wants to ask. Is this the burden of carrying the Mark- that you remember everything that died from it?
“Do you want to know where your brother is?”
That gives Dean pause. “You know?”
“No. I just want to know if you want to know.”
Dean shrugs. Not if he’s okay. Not if he can’t find me.
Re: FILLED: Ghost Medicine (4/4) [self-harm, utter weirdness, post-9x21]indiachickMay 9 2014, 10:56:25 UTC
Cain fixes him with an unwavering gaze. Dean had this impression of Cain in his mind like a wall, of someone tall and fixed and unswaying like the stars, but without the Mark, he’s just a man, really. One man, set adrift and then on the roof of the cosmos, forever waiting.
“Getting rid of the Mark won’t get rid of the ghosts, Dean.”
Cain hauls the pickaxe and shovel over his shoulder and looks back at the interment once before he starts walking back, towards the gravel trail that leads to his precarious, funny glass house. It’s not the one with the hives, not the one where Crowley took him-when? Ages ago.
It’s got French windows and blocks of frosty glass through which sunlight swims like it’s making its way from two fathoms underwater. Whatever Cain’s been doing all these years, he’s been doing well enough to pay mortgage. Or, you know, the house is just magic.
Like Magnus, like his invisible house. The Magnus in Dean’s head is a virulent crimson thread that loops and loops and recites Tennyson. He’s louder than the others, clearer:
Below the thunders of the upper deep, far, far beneath in the abysmal sea, his ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep the Kraken sleepeth.
Looking at this sea? Kraken warnings seem well-placed.
Already the sky is turning, monochrome grey buried beneath the red-gold and lavender scales of impending sunset. The wind gets more insistent, screeching its throaty poetry of storm and thunder, teasing Dean’s hair, yanking at his clothes. Before long the sea will swallow the sun, will be made braver by the act.
Right-o, Dean tells the Magnus-ghost. He grasps the stalk of the single wildflower that grows amidst all the gorse and spike grass, pulls it out smoothly and drops it on Karen Ogilvy’s grave. Her voice, only ever truly heard over a phone conversation hushed with static, comes back to him in a whisper: Listen, Winchester, I’ll tell you how to get rid of it, but you’ll have to come yourself.
And Dean had gone. To get rid of the ghosts, he’d gone.
And now he has her in his head, and all her bees, and all their names tripping over each other. Now he dreams of their black-gold corona and their venom, and in his dreams his vision flashes black-white-black. Their rage leaves the after-taste of lavender.
Dean looks down at the Mark, rubs his palm over it and feels the raised skin, undeterred by everything he’s tried. Undeterred even by flame.
Roaring he shall rise, the Magnus-ghost says, and on the surface die.
You will never die, Ogilvy says, and the world could end and the universe could peel back and-
“Heard it already,” Dean mutters. He tightens his palm over the Mark, holds till his fingers stop trembling. “Damn poetry.”
Dean turns his back to the sea, to the storm brewing up there in the heavens and the dying things in the tidal pools trapped between the rocks. He doesn’t think of Sam, doesn’t think of time, and doesn’t think of the years that could roll on and all the warning labels he ignored. He’s not in a vicious cycle yet. He’d wanted the Mark, wanted the clarity it brought, wanted the way it turned the world black and white.
It’s the grey he’s no good at. It’s the grey he’s still not good at yet.
I saved you so you can keep your word. Getting rid of the Mark won’t get rid of the ghosts.
Dean pushes his hands in his pockets and walks back towards the house.
Re: FILLED: Ghost Medicine (4/4) [self-harm, utter weirdness, post-9x21]kallielMay 10 2014, 01:54:36 UTC
I ACCEPT THIS BLAME GLADLY AND FREELY AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN. WERE IT A GHOST I COULD NEVER FORGET (AND IT IS, ALBEIT A WELCOME AND FRIENDLY GHOST) I WOULD ROAM ETERNITY IN PEACE, WITH IT AT MY SIDE.
AKA, beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees~! I love what you did with my ridiculous prompt I did not envision anyone filling. XDD You're the best. And I love Cain here--I could hear all of his lines in Tim Omundson's voice, 100%. Him just asking about whether Dean would want to know where Sam is, even though he doesn't necessarily have an answer to such a query, was ace. And his reference to Karen as both "a friend" but also as a being that was, quite simply "compromised" is excellent.
Re: FILLED: Ghost Medicine (4/4) [self-harm, utter weirdness, post-9x21]indiachickMay 10 2014, 03:19:33 UTC
Oh god, I just wanted to write Cain XD. And dead bees, because awww, dead bees. And weird immortality things because I just find it scary. And half of it has nothing to do with your prompt, I fear, but I'm glad you like it :D
Re: FILLED: Ghost Medicine (4/4) [self-harm, utter weirdness, post-9x21]kallielMay 10 2014, 14:23:54 UTC
CAIN. \O/ DEAD BEES. \O/ And lolll please you know that if I tried to fill that prompt--my own damn prompt!--it would have been so much further off point. XD I thought it filled it beautifully!!
Dean looks at the variegated man-the graying hair and the dark eyebrows, the mixed mountain-man beard-and adds: we raised bees together. The thought takes on a bitter resonance and Dean wishes his brain would shut up.
He doesn’t know how long he slept and woke before his consciousness decided to stick to one state. Bit long, he guesses. It’s not summer anymore. This is the first he’s been out of the house.
Cain had carved the headstone himself-dark shale obelisk to mark the grave of the dead woman. Out here beneath the ring of cliffs the sand is the cold ice color of white quartz, and the stone sticks out like a sore thumb.
“She was a demon,” Dean says, closing his eyes against the cold, against Cain’s voice like thunder. His eyelids offer poor comfort against the bright sun, but he keeps them shut anyway. Pulls his jacket closer around his chin, and he knows it looks as if he’s trying to disappear. He doesn’t care. “When I found her, she was on fire, she was a -”
“I don’t know about your politics, and frankly, I don’t care. She’s just bones now,” Cain says, and leans to carve a sigil. “Something got to her before you or I did.”
“I was there-”
“For information, yes. On what to do about the Mark, now that you no longer want it. Ogilvy could have given you that information, had she not been compromised. I’m guessing Abaddon. She had foresight, however crass she was-she knew you’d go to Ogilvy for information some day.”
Dean looks down at the unmarked headstone.
“I thought I should wait for you,” Cain says. “Before I bury your undeserving dead.”
Dean breathes in, and the breath stutters in his chest, goes in like salt-water. There’s still the faint taste of ash at the back of his throat, scorched rings in his windpipe where he swallowed flames. Ten thousand burning bees and one burning woman and I pulled YOU out. But not just him, because all of her bees are still working in his veins, their stingers in him filling him with venom- sweet and sharp and sour. His flesh runs with their honey and poison. And also Ogilvy, her impressions, her perceptions, sharply hued in neon and tangerines. The last screaming minutes of her death-throe panic rises up and lodges in his throat, beating sharp hummingbird wings.
Is this the burden? Dean wants to ask. Is this the burden of carrying the Mark- that you remember everything that died from it?
“Do you want to know where your brother is?”
That gives Dean pause. “You know?”
“No. I just want to know if you want to know.”
Dean shrugs. Not if he’s okay. Not if he can’t find me.
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“Getting rid of the Mark won’t get rid of the ghosts, Dean.”
Cain hauls the pickaxe and shovel over his shoulder and looks back at the interment once before he starts walking back, towards the gravel trail that leads to his precarious, funny glass house. It’s not the one with the hives, not the one where Crowley took him-when? Ages ago.
It’s got French windows and blocks of frosty glass through which sunlight swims like it’s making its way from two fathoms underwater. Whatever Cain’s been doing all these years, he’s been doing well enough to pay mortgage. Or, you know, the house is just magic.
Like Magnus, like his invisible house. The Magnus in Dean’s head is a virulent crimson thread that loops and loops and recites Tennyson. He’s louder than the others, clearer:
Below the thunders of the upper deep, far, far beneath in the abysmal sea, his ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep the Kraken sleepeth.
Looking at this sea? Kraken warnings seem well-placed.
Already the sky is turning, monochrome grey buried beneath the red-gold and lavender scales of impending sunset. The wind gets more insistent, screeching its throaty poetry of storm and thunder, teasing Dean’s hair, yanking at his clothes. Before long the sea will swallow the sun, will be made braver by the act.
Right-o, Dean tells the Magnus-ghost. He grasps the stalk of the single wildflower that grows amidst all the gorse and spike grass, pulls it out smoothly and drops it on Karen Ogilvy’s grave. Her voice, only ever truly heard over a phone conversation hushed with static, comes back to him in a whisper: Listen, Winchester, I’ll tell you how to get rid of it, but you’ll have to come yourself.
And Dean had gone. To get rid of the ghosts, he’d gone.
And now he has her in his head, and all her bees, and all their names tripping over each other. Now he dreams of their black-gold corona and their venom, and in his dreams his vision flashes black-white-black. Their rage leaves the after-taste of lavender.
Dean looks down at the Mark, rubs his palm over it and feels the raised skin, undeterred by everything he’s tried. Undeterred even by flame.
Roaring he shall rise, the Magnus-ghost says, and on the surface die.
You will never die, Ogilvy says, and the world could end and the universe could peel back and-
“Heard it already,” Dean mutters. He tightens his palm over the Mark, holds till his fingers stop trembling. “Damn poetry.”
Dean turns his back to the sea, to the storm brewing up there in the heavens and the dying things in the tidal pools trapped between the rocks. He doesn’t think of Sam, doesn’t think of time, and doesn’t think of the years that could roll on and all the warning labels he ignored. He’s not in a vicious cycle yet. He’d wanted the Mark, wanted the clarity it brought, wanted the way it turned the world black and white.
It’s the grey he’s no good at. It’s the grey he’s still not good at yet.
I saved you so you can keep your word. Getting rid of the Mark won’t get rid of the ghosts.
Dean pushes his hands in his pockets and walks back towards the house.
-fin
KALLIEL, you only have yourself to blame XD
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AKA, beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees~! I love what you did with my ridiculous prompt I did not envision anyone filling. XDD You're the best. And I love Cain here--I could hear all of his lines in Tim Omundson's voice, 100%. Him just asking about whether Dean would want to know where Sam is, even though he doesn't necessarily have an answer to such a query, was ace. And his reference to Karen as both "a friend" but also as a being that was, quite simply "compromised" is excellent.
Thank you so much for this. <3333333
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