Supernatural fic: Back Doors 1/1 [PG-13] Sam - 6.09 coda
Title: Back Doors
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Wayne Whitakker, Sam
Spoilers: up to & incl. 6.09
Notes: Coda to 6.09
This takes place in the space between what we know and what we don't. It is not intended to be accurate, just to be one possible take.
Don't need to read it before but if you're curious and you haven't already, seems to reference events in the 6.05 coda, These Dreams.
11/28/10 09:21:44 AM
Back Doors
It was twilight, that time of day neither light nor dark, when the sun has not yet made her bed and the moon is still ordering herself for the evening's revels. Had a mortal walked through a particular glade at the foot of certain hills, skirting the trees so as to be able to find their footing out of the already impenetrable shadows beneath the boughs, they would hardly have noticed the soft murmuring as anything more than the songs of crickets announcing the temperature of the night. Only the unluckiest would have heard in the insect drone and the whisper of restless leaves a hint of voices. Only the cursed might have stopped and glimpsed an impossible twinkle of light beneath the mounds, but that night no man nor woman nor ill-fated child passed by to interrupt a gathering and offer sport for those who congregated, their bodies as insubstantial in this world (until summoned) as they were adamantine in the one next door.
To eyes not mortal, spirits of air and darkness drew close, as children might crowd around a singer. A bowl of cream was offered and a tale demanded.
“Odhran!” Even in lilting voices, the name sounded more like O-rawn than Wayne, but then such fair folk never gave their true names even among close friends. He so addressed quaffed of the rich liquid and shamelessly licked it from his lips like a cat would clean her whiskers.
“It wasn't the getting in that's worth the telling, though,” the speaker's tone implied far otherwise, coy and expectant of the listeners' demands, “the imaginations of ruined mortals is often declared to be so cunning... I found the predominance of red and black in their decorating to be a bit lacking in originality....”
A few in the crowd laughed, light piecing notes that had the power to drive a mortal insane. There was also some glowering, but those elements (or elementals) were simply fond of the same color scheme, as evidenced by caps and the thick dark caked under wickedly sharp nails.
There were some queries for details of how the speaker had penetrated his destination, though they knew he would not reveal his secrets - they were of a piece on that particular habit, yet they all stole cyphers from each other without hesitation. The most he would offer was the observation that his conversations with that Dee fella under an assumed name had proven useful when it came to finding chinks to slip through for entry into such a guarded place.
“Not what I expected, not in the least. I found what I was looking for tucked into a tiny corner, the bulk of the enclosure being taken up with the near constant thunder of two tempests, tearing at each other like falcons battling to the death! The sound alone should have driven any mortal soul into shattering apart, so at first I was disappointed, thinking maybe I could pick up one of the shards as a lucky pocket piece.”
The storyteller grinned knowingly in response to the amusement of his audience. The humor was as cold and empty as wind, but it was simply the nature of them to laugh at mortal suffering. They were no more remorseful than kittens learning to hunt.
“But as I poked around, I discovered this cranny... and tucked neatly into it, a spirit, closed up tight like a pearl in a clam, while sitting guard between it and the battling storms, wide aware and vulnerable, the Empty Boy's missing human soul.”
Birdsong or cicadas, the barking of hunting foxes, those were voices calling out questions.
“No, nothing at all like Gawaine, this one, the one who freed their Devil, and then jumped him back into his cage,” the storyteller's face reflected a mixture of curiosity and something else. If it was appreciation, his audience had never seen such an expression. That was worth the tale all by itself.
“The scent of this one was unlike anything I have ever smelled... it shouldn't be possible for a mortal to smell both corrupt and pure at the same time... it was... intoxicating!”
A sip of cream was a mere formality, a whetting to ease the flow of the tale. “He seemed to be playing solitaire, though the faces on the cards changed constantly.” It was a nice trick, the leprechaun appreciated it, even though it was simply a manipulation of inner perception and not true magic. Imposing shape and form on unreality in such a place was quite a feat for merely human kind. Normally in their Hell, the id ran wild, fracturing and destroying their senses of self until they became powerful broken animals that forgot everything that they were.
“Needless to say, when I showed myself and asked him what he was playing, he was quite surprised.”
~
Surprised was an understatement, though everything Sam had left struggled not to show it. Stripped of all but the pretense of a body, everything was laid bare, that was the nature of Hell, but Sam had a stronger sense of self than many older, supposedly wiser souls who found themselves below.
From his point of view, the card game wasn't quite as pretty. Lucifer had little time and attention for him, because Michael was unrelenting, but he'd spared a thought between clashes with his brother to try and make Sam comfy. The edges of the cards cut Sam's hands like razors.
The blood made it hard to shuffle but Sam refused to put down the deck. Some forms of torture are more subtle than others. He would not give in that much.
Over and over, he lay down the Jack of Hearts, or was it The Fool? Sometimes it landed rightside up, sometimes upside down. Other cards arranged themselves around it. For now, the Ace of Spades, or perhaps it was the Hanged Man, kept landing across it. Sam frowned in worry, every time it happened.
There was so much riding on those particular cards. So much, in fact everything, outside his ability to do anything.
The game he was playing wasn't even a real game, though sometimes someone sat on the other side of the table to make it feel like it was.
The last thing Sam expected was to see a short fella with eyes that sparkled in a way that was not human, standing there leaning on a knob-ended stick, peering at him curiously.
It startled him into slicing one of his hands deeper than usual.
The little man appeared not to notice.
“So here you are, lad,” the comment seemed rhetorical, not intended to imply Sam should have been anywhere else.
“Who are you?”
Sam asked, though he was nearly certain this was just another ploy of Lucifer's. In the confined, vaulted nothing around them, though, the tempests raged at each other, unceasingly. Sam was not a fool enough to think the Morning Star had tricks he knew nothing about.
“Oh, I'm not one of your master's schemes,” the little man answered Sam's thought with a smirk.
“He's not my master,” Sam growled, voice hoarse not from screaming, but from refusing to.
“Is that so?” his visitor inquired, head tilting. The smile was less a concession and more another hint of that earlier curiosity. “Perhaps not.” He tipped a non-existent hat. “Wayne Whittaker, at your service.”
It was difficult to be nonplussed in Hell. Harder still in the Cage.
Sam managed.
“You're kidding.”
“Perhaps a wee bit,” the little man replied, eyes twinkling. It was less charming and more sharp in present surroundings.
Sam's eyes narrowed. His hands dealt a card that landed face up. For a moment, it was the Joker, making Sam frown in confusion. Or rather, it was The Moon.
“I should have asked what are you.”
The little man laughed. “Something you don't believe in.” Then his head tilted, and the second part of his answer had a soft, coaxing note. “Someone... who could set you free...”
Sam's hand clenched and fresh blood oozed between his fingers. “Dean.... you jerk, you promised...”
The little man watched Sam with interest. This was entertaining beyond anything he'd seen in a millennium. “Your brother didn't send me,” he said, watching closely. “Unfortunately I didn't have a chance to offer him my services. You do know the rest of you is running around up there...”
Sam didn't answer and 'Wayne Whittaker's' eyes lit up in appreciation. “Oh you did know! How curious. How interesting. Tell me, Sam, did you also know that the rest of you doesn't want you back?”
The answer to that was a shrug. There was another curious thing.
“Tell me, sonny,” the little man said, leaning on his stick, “and tell me quickly, for I don't know how long I'll be able to stay, how would you like to be reunited with the rest of you, up topside? It doesn't really matter what the other you wants, he's incomplete. Doesn't know what he's missing, does he? He thinks it's nothing but pain and sorrow, guilt and indecision. He can't feel remorse for not being able to love his brother - your brother. He's like a doll that's been brought to life, he can't feel anything, except surface emotions, and animal sensations. Dangerous, letting him run around up there. He could hurt someone. Someone precious to you...”
There was no mistaking the guilt in Sam's eyes, and the worry, swelling up like wave. Like a wave, the swell subsided though. The little man watched it all.
“You might as well be a demon,” Sam replied, his hoarse voice soft, throbbing a little but contained. “You don't care what happens to my brother, and you don't care about me. If you're offering a deal, you're wasting your time.”
“Is that so?” the little man murmured speculatively.
“It's so. Now here's my deal: stay away from my brother.”
The little man laughed. He did not even ask, or what?
His eyes half closed and he leaned a little towards Sam, and sniffed.
“That's the most intense perfume I've smelled in all my days,” he murmured. “And that's more days that you can count without forgetting where you started, sonny.”
For a second time, in Hell, Sam was nonplussed.
“Okay, you get points for total weirdness,” Sam muttered.
The little man smirked. He glanced up for a moment, and then sharply back to Sam. “Last chance to come with me,” he offered. It really didn't make any sense for the young human to refuse. It was a once in an eternity offer!
“Last chance for you,” Sam answered, sensing the fractional lull in the tempestuous conflict that the little man was reacting to. “Leave my brother alone.”
“Can't do anything about it down here, though, can ya?” the little man smirked.
Something looked back at him and for a breath between heartbeats, 'Wayne Whittaker' was nonplussed.
“I won't be down here forever,” the soul of Sam Winchester murmured.
~
For a moment there, in the telling of the story, a silence seemed to stretch devoid of crickets or leaves in the night wind.
Then a banshee howled and laughter broke out among the crowd.
It was acclaimed a fantastic tale and the leprechaun received many a creamy toast to his bardic skills, which he enjoyed to the utmost and beyond.
He wasn't above having a private chuckle about it after the fact. The last joke was a lovely extra layer to the composition. The punchline one he'd never have to admit to, nor would it be believed.
It was fitting after all was said and done, though. One brother had been kicked out of the Faerie Kingdom, and won a round with the tiny Enforcer of Light.
The empty shell of the other brother had won against Odhran himself, but as for his amazingly-scented imprisoned soul? If it could make a leprechaun shiver for the tiniest of split seconds, perhaps that should not surprise.
~
02:14:14 PM
~
♠ season 6 codas
~
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Wayne Whitakker, Sam
Spoilers: up to & incl. 6.09
Notes: Coda to 6.09
This takes place in the space between what we know and what we don't. It is not intended to be accurate, just to be one possible take.
Don't need to read it before but if you're curious and you haven't already, seems to reference events in the 6.05 coda, These Dreams.
11/28/10 09:21:44 AM
Back Doors
It was twilight, that time of day neither light nor dark, when the sun has not yet made her bed and the moon is still ordering herself for the evening's revels. Had a mortal walked through a particular glade at the foot of certain hills, skirting the trees so as to be able to find their footing out of the already impenetrable shadows beneath the boughs, they would hardly have noticed the soft murmuring as anything more than the songs of crickets announcing the temperature of the night. Only the unluckiest would have heard in the insect drone and the whisper of restless leaves a hint of voices. Only the cursed might have stopped and glimpsed an impossible twinkle of light beneath the mounds, but that night no man nor woman nor ill-fated child passed by to interrupt a gathering and offer sport for those who congregated, their bodies as insubstantial in this world (until summoned) as they were adamantine in the one next door.
To eyes not mortal, spirits of air and darkness drew close, as children might crowd around a singer. A bowl of cream was offered and a tale demanded.
“Odhran!” Even in lilting voices, the name sounded more like O-rawn than Wayne, but then such fair folk never gave their true names even among close friends. He so addressed quaffed of the rich liquid and shamelessly licked it from his lips like a cat would clean her whiskers.
“It wasn't the getting in that's worth the telling, though,” the speaker's tone implied far otherwise, coy and expectant of the listeners' demands, “the imaginations of ruined mortals is often declared to be so cunning... I found the predominance of red and black in their decorating to be a bit lacking in originality....”
A few in the crowd laughed, light piecing notes that had the power to drive a mortal insane. There was also some glowering, but those elements (or elementals) were simply fond of the same color scheme, as evidenced by caps and the thick dark caked under wickedly sharp nails.
There were some queries for details of how the speaker had penetrated his destination, though they knew he would not reveal his secrets - they were of a piece on that particular habit, yet they all stole cyphers from each other without hesitation. The most he would offer was the observation that his conversations with that Dee fella under an assumed name had proven useful when it came to finding chinks to slip through for entry into such a guarded place.
“Not what I expected, not in the least. I found what I was looking for tucked into a tiny corner, the bulk of the enclosure being taken up with the near constant thunder of two tempests, tearing at each other like falcons battling to the death! The sound alone should have driven any mortal soul into shattering apart, so at first I was disappointed, thinking maybe I could pick up one of the shards as a lucky pocket piece.”
The storyteller grinned knowingly in response to the amusement of his audience. The humor was as cold and empty as wind, but it was simply the nature of them to laugh at mortal suffering. They were no more remorseful than kittens learning to hunt.
“But as I poked around, I discovered this cranny... and tucked neatly into it, a spirit, closed up tight like a pearl in a clam, while sitting guard between it and the battling storms, wide aware and vulnerable, the Empty Boy's missing human soul.”
Birdsong or cicadas, the barking of hunting foxes, those were voices calling out questions.
“No, nothing at all like Gawaine, this one, the one who freed their Devil, and then jumped him back into his cage,” the storyteller's face reflected a mixture of curiosity and something else. If it was appreciation, his audience had never seen such an expression. That was worth the tale all by itself.
“The scent of this one was unlike anything I have ever smelled... it shouldn't be possible for a mortal to smell both corrupt and pure at the same time... it was... intoxicating!”
A sip of cream was a mere formality, a whetting to ease the flow of the tale. “He seemed to be playing solitaire, though the faces on the cards changed constantly.” It was a nice trick, the leprechaun appreciated it, even though it was simply a manipulation of inner perception and not true magic. Imposing shape and form on unreality in such a place was quite a feat for merely human kind. Normally in their Hell, the id ran wild, fracturing and destroying their senses of self until they became powerful broken animals that forgot everything that they were.
“Needless to say, when I showed myself and asked him what he was playing, he was quite surprised.”
~
Surprised was an understatement, though everything Sam had left struggled not to show it. Stripped of all but the pretense of a body, everything was laid bare, that was the nature of Hell, but Sam had a stronger sense of self than many older, supposedly wiser souls who found themselves below.
From his point of view, the card game wasn't quite as pretty. Lucifer had little time and attention for him, because Michael was unrelenting, but he'd spared a thought between clashes with his brother to try and make Sam comfy. The edges of the cards cut Sam's hands like razors.
The blood made it hard to shuffle but Sam refused to put down the deck. Some forms of torture are more subtle than others. He would not give in that much.
Over and over, he lay down the Jack of Hearts, or was it The Fool? Sometimes it landed rightside up, sometimes upside down. Other cards arranged themselves around it. For now, the Ace of Spades, or perhaps it was the Hanged Man, kept landing across it. Sam frowned in worry, every time it happened.
There was so much riding on those particular cards. So much, in fact everything, outside his ability to do anything.
The game he was playing wasn't even a real game, though sometimes someone sat on the other side of the table to make it feel like it was.
The last thing Sam expected was to see a short fella with eyes that sparkled in a way that was not human, standing there leaning on a knob-ended stick, peering at him curiously.
It startled him into slicing one of his hands deeper than usual.
The little man appeared not to notice.
“So here you are, lad,” the comment seemed rhetorical, not intended to imply Sam should have been anywhere else.
“Who are you?”
Sam asked, though he was nearly certain this was just another ploy of Lucifer's. In the confined, vaulted nothing around them, though, the tempests raged at each other, unceasingly. Sam was not a fool enough to think the Morning Star had tricks he knew nothing about.
“Oh, I'm not one of your master's schemes,” the little man answered Sam's thought with a smirk.
“He's not my master,” Sam growled, voice hoarse not from screaming, but from refusing to.
“Is that so?” his visitor inquired, head tilting. The smile was less a concession and more another hint of that earlier curiosity. “Perhaps not.” He tipped a non-existent hat. “Wayne Whittaker, at your service.”
It was difficult to be nonplussed in Hell. Harder still in the Cage.
Sam managed.
“You're kidding.”
“Perhaps a wee bit,” the little man replied, eyes twinkling. It was less charming and more sharp in present surroundings.
Sam's eyes narrowed. His hands dealt a card that landed face up. For a moment, it was the Joker, making Sam frown in confusion. Or rather, it was The Moon.
“I should have asked what are you.”
The little man laughed. “Something you don't believe in.” Then his head tilted, and the second part of his answer had a soft, coaxing note. “Someone... who could set you free...”
Sam's hand clenched and fresh blood oozed between his fingers. “Dean.... you jerk, you promised...”
The little man watched Sam with interest. This was entertaining beyond anything he'd seen in a millennium. “Your brother didn't send me,” he said, watching closely. “Unfortunately I didn't have a chance to offer him my services. You do know the rest of you is running around up there...”
Sam didn't answer and 'Wayne Whittaker's' eyes lit up in appreciation. “Oh you did know! How curious. How interesting. Tell me, Sam, did you also know that the rest of you doesn't want you back?”
The answer to that was a shrug. There was another curious thing.
“Tell me, sonny,” the little man said, leaning on his stick, “and tell me quickly, for I don't know how long I'll be able to stay, how would you like to be reunited with the rest of you, up topside? It doesn't really matter what the other you wants, he's incomplete. Doesn't know what he's missing, does he? He thinks it's nothing but pain and sorrow, guilt and indecision. He can't feel remorse for not being able to love his brother - your brother. He's like a doll that's been brought to life, he can't feel anything, except surface emotions, and animal sensations. Dangerous, letting him run around up there. He could hurt someone. Someone precious to you...”
There was no mistaking the guilt in Sam's eyes, and the worry, swelling up like wave. Like a wave, the swell subsided though. The little man watched it all.
“You might as well be a demon,” Sam replied, his hoarse voice soft, throbbing a little but contained. “You don't care what happens to my brother, and you don't care about me. If you're offering a deal, you're wasting your time.”
“Is that so?” the little man murmured speculatively.
“It's so. Now here's my deal: stay away from my brother.”
The little man laughed. He did not even ask, or what?
His eyes half closed and he leaned a little towards Sam, and sniffed.
“That's the most intense perfume I've smelled in all my days,” he murmured. “And that's more days that you can count without forgetting where you started, sonny.”
For a second time, in Hell, Sam was nonplussed.
“Okay, you get points for total weirdness,” Sam muttered.
The little man smirked. He glanced up for a moment, and then sharply back to Sam. “Last chance to come with me,” he offered. It really didn't make any sense for the young human to refuse. It was a once in an eternity offer!
“Last chance for you,” Sam answered, sensing the fractional lull in the tempestuous conflict that the little man was reacting to. “Leave my brother alone.”
“Can't do anything about it down here, though, can ya?” the little man smirked.
Something looked back at him and for a breath between heartbeats, 'Wayne Whittaker' was nonplussed.
“I won't be down here forever,” the soul of Sam Winchester murmured.
~
For a moment there, in the telling of the story, a silence seemed to stretch devoid of crickets or leaves in the night wind.
Then a banshee howled and laughter broke out among the crowd.
It was acclaimed a fantastic tale and the leprechaun received many a creamy toast to his bardic skills, which he enjoyed to the utmost and beyond.
He wasn't above having a private chuckle about it after the fact. The last joke was a lovely extra layer to the composition. The punchline one he'd never have to admit to, nor would it be believed.
It was fitting after all was said and done, though. One brother had been kicked out of the Faerie Kingdom, and won a round with the tiny Enforcer of Light.
The empty shell of the other brother had won against Odhran himself, but as for his amazingly-scented imprisoned soul? If it could make a leprechaun shiver for the tiniest of split seconds, perhaps that should not surprise.
~
02:14:14 PM
~
♠ season 6 codas
~