The Hail Mary 1/6 [PG-13] Sam, Dean, Bobby, Cas - 6.22 coda
Title: The Hail Mary / I. The Man Who Knew Too Much
Author:
datenshiblue
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Dean, Sam, Castiel, Bobby, guests
Spoilers: up to & incl. 6.22
Summary: Coda to "The Man Who Knew Too Much". Long coda to TMWKTM. ^_^;;
Acknowledgments: Eric Kripke, all the cast, crew & writers of Supernatural, and
jupiterjones for beta-ing. All errors are mine.
Notes:
♠ THIS IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.
♣ This is a multi-part story. NOT a WIP, it's complete. Because I have the impression that people like to read shorter things, I'm posting this in six sections, one per day.
♦ Word counts for the sections are posted next to their titles below, for scale.
♥ This story had some demands it made of me, cheeky bastard. It wanted to be an episode. It wanted to have breaks for commercials. It wanted to be a serial and have chapter titles. IT WANTED THE CHAPTER TITLES TO ALL USE THE LETTER H! I don't exactly know why, but I wasn't in a position to argue. ^_^;;;
Without further ado...
The Hail Mary
05/23/11 10:22:25 PM
The Hail Mary
THEN...
Sam saw the Impala flipped over and resting on her back, headlights pointed blindly at the ground. The engine was still running with what might have been a death rattle.
My.. our ... car! home!
The driver's side door was open... no crushed or broken bodies inside.
They had to be alive. Had to be in that building.
Then flames were everywhere, searing flesh that wouldn't dissolve, eating into bone that had no merciful vaporization point. Blinded, Sam stumbled.
They're not real! Pull yourself together, idiot. This is absolutely the dumbest thing you've ever done in a lifetime of stupidity, but if you're determined to do it, don't fall apart now!
Acid, cold, derisive words in his own voice, cutting through the remembered agony like a knife made of ice.
Don't worry, I'm not taking over. You already won that one, gods know how. But save the steel in your spine for when we're inside. I can handle this....
Sam's back stiffened, his feet steadied, his grasp on the pearl grips of the Taurus Model 99 went from clutching to tight, but relaxed.
I'll take... try to take... the... Still his thoughts, but another voice. Stripped. Broken, yet always able to break again, and again.
The soul fire was gathered up inside, the act of it searing that part of Sam even more cruelly, but he could see. Could move.
Good. Thanks, Saint Joan, the cool voice wasn't derisive, just chillingly no-nonsense. Now, do it. Go!
As silently as a cat, Sam slipped past demon guards left by Crowley and into the building.
He made it almost to the dissection room, slipping down the lower floor hallway to the double doors of the round room's main entrance. Those doors were swung wide open now, the corridor in total shadow. The tiles of the room amplified voices wonderfully, though it also distorted them. Or maybe it was something else that distorted them. Power and the lust for it.
When it came, the sudden build of vibration that penetrated spine and skull as easily as cement and cinder-block was the only warning Sam had to flatten against the shuddering walls and turn his head as light flared to nova intensity for a moment and then dimmed back.
"You can't imagine what it's like. They're all inside me. Millions upon millions of souls..."
It was Castiel's voice... but the timbre of it triggered something from that part of Sam that crouched deep inside, waiting for the next round of agony. Memory engraved by the slicing of angelic voices, raw and unfiltered, into his naked soul.
The next voice from inside the room was deeper, accented. The King of Hell. "Sounds sexy. ...exit, stage Crowley."
A hot waft of sulfur seemed to pass Sam as he crouched against the corridor wall.
Sam crept closer, right to the edge of the open doorway, clinging to shadow but searching, urgently, for the presence of a couple of mere humans.
"Now what's the matter, Raphael? Somebody clip your wings?"
Another slight shudder ripped along Sam's back at Castiel's soft, calm tone. A calm that burned cold. If he didn't know... if Lucifer weren't locked in the Cage...
"Castiel, please! You let the demon go...but not your own brother?" Low timbre, feminine voice, angelic subharmonics. Sam recognized it from that one previous meeting outside the broken motel room window. The last archangel.
He peered around the edge of the doorway... saw beige canvas covering a back with familiar shape, immobile as a mountain, steady as a star. Sam' eyes raked the room beyond, searching.
Raphael's answer came quickly. "The demon I have plans for. You, on the other hand..."
Sam's eyes widened a second before the crisp finger snap and horrible, meaty explosion, echoing another nerve and soul deep memory - his own fingers snapping.
The ripple of power that could snuff out an angel as easily as a fly...
For a moment inside Sam everything went dark.
"So you see, I saved you."
"Yes you did, Cas. Thank you." Soft, careful... Maybe a handful of people had ever heard such a tone from Dean Winchester. It cracked Sam's void open with a sharp stab of simultaneous relief and terror.
Dean, at least, was alive.
But for how long?
"You doubted me, fought against me, but I was right all along."
Soft, calm certainty that ran along Sam's nerves causing all too familiar shudders. It always had to be you, Sam.
"Okay Cas, you were. We're sorry. Let's just defuse you, okay?" How could Dean sound so... gentle?
Sam counted forced, slow breaths.
"What do you mean?" For a moment, it was almost a question the old Castiel might have asked.
The soft persuasion in Dean's voice was stretched thin, but Sam almost believed that it might reach the being that stood between them, once guardian, ally, partner, friend. That Cas might find resonance in that so-called more profound bond. "You're full of nuke - it's not safe, so before the eclipse ends, let's get them souls back where they belong."
"Oh no, they belong with me."
You're mine, Sam. We were, quite literally, made for each other.
Flames. Blood. Numbing cold. Searing pain.
This is going to go south so fast and there will be nothing but red smears in place of everything human left in that room or out of it. The cool logical thought came out of nowhere, devoid of fear, devoid of sentiment. If you really plan to save your brother, you can't just hide out here sniveling in the hallway, hero. Look. On the ground. Angel sword.
Sword...?
"No, Cas, it's scrambling your brain."
It's still Castiel... I can't...
"I'm not finished yet. Raphael had many followers, and I must... punish them all severely."
Another hard shudder ran though Sam, as the words punish them echoed in a pure angelic voice that most humans couldn't have listened to without brains exploding. In the Cage, there had been no surcease, no escape from horrible, beautiful voices.
But Dean didn't give up.
Never gave up.
"Listen to me, listen, I know there's a lot of bad water under the bridge, but we were family once. I'd've died for you, I almost did a few times, so if that means anything to you, please... I've lost Lisa, I've lost Ben, now I've lost Sam. Don't make me lose you too. You don't need this kind of juice any more, Cas. Get rid of it, before it kills us all."
Broken bits of Sam crumbled and wept without tears for the real anguish suppressed under Dean's calm tones. Slowly he started sliding down the corridor wall, a prelude to collapsing.
So this is all it takes? You should have given up and let me have the meat suit. We'd be miles away by now and have a better chance of seeing another sunrise... this is all you've got? At least your brother's making a effort to go out on his feet... Are you a hunter?
Get. The freaking. Sword.
"You're just saying that because I won. Because you're afraid. You're not my family, Dean. I have no family."
It shouldn't have been possible for Castiel's tone, his words, to chill Sam any deeper.
There might only be one chance.
When Sam moved, he didn't stumble. Maybe Castiel knew he was there all along. Maybe he knew the angel sword couldn't harm him.
Sam still lunged in one fluid move and drove it home with all the strength he could muster. If nothing else, maybe he could buy Dean and Bobby an escape.
It was like trying to stab a planet.
The sword stuck hard like Excalibur in the stone. The vibration of a billion souls ran along Sam's arms. He stumbled backwards.
Watched Cas reach around and pull out the weapon.
"I'm glad you made it, Sam. But the angel blade won't work, because I'm not an angel anymore. I'm your new God. A better one. So you will bow down, and profess your love unto me, your Lord. Or I shall destroy you."
The shock of it rang around the room from human to human to human (and only then did Sam see Bobby also - for now - alive).
In the next breath, it might have happened. Forty years or a hundred in Hell, one of the first lessons two brothers named Winchester had learned was about pride and what it was worth when facing power.
The stench of sulfur was sudden and choking, the change of venue gut-wrenching as the three humans were whisked away.
The new 'God' was suddenly alone in an empty room.
NOW...
~
(continued in II. Hound to the Hunters)
♠ season 6 codas
Author:
datenshiblue
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Dean, Sam, Castiel, Bobby, guests
Spoilers: up to & incl. 6.22
Summary: Coda to "The Man Who Knew Too Much". Long coda to TMWKTM. ^_^;;
Acknowledgments: Eric Kripke, all the cast, crew & writers of Supernatural, and
jupiterjones for beta-ing. All errors are mine.
Notes:
♠ THIS IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.
♣ This is a multi-part story. NOT a WIP, it's complete. Because I have the impression that people like to read shorter things, I'm posting this in six sections, one per day.
♦ Word counts for the sections are posted next to their titles below, for scale.
♥ This story had some demands it made of me, cheeky bastard. It wanted to be an episode. It wanted to have breaks for commercials. It wanted to be a serial and have chapter titles. IT WANTED THE CHAPTER TITLES TO ALL USE THE LETTER H! I don't exactly know why, but I wasn't in a position to argue. ^_^;;;
Without further ado...
The Hail Mary
- THEN...
- The Man Who Knew Too Much (1431)
- Hound to the Hunters (3409)
- The Harrowing of Heaven (1573)
- Hypnos and Hubris (2343)
- Homeostasis (2076)
- The Hereafter (1308)
05/23/11 10:22:25 PM
The Hail Mary
THEN...
Sam saw the Impala flipped over and resting on her back, headlights pointed blindly at the ground. The engine was still running with what might have been a death rattle.
My.. our ... car! home!
The driver's side door was open... no crushed or broken bodies inside.
They had to be alive. Had to be in that building.
Then flames were everywhere, searing flesh that wouldn't dissolve, eating into bone that had no merciful vaporization point. Blinded, Sam stumbled.
They're not real! Pull yourself together, idiot. This is absolutely the dumbest thing you've ever done in a lifetime of stupidity, but if you're determined to do it, don't fall apart now!
Acid, cold, derisive words in his own voice, cutting through the remembered agony like a knife made of ice.
Don't worry, I'm not taking over. You already won that one, gods know how. But save the steel in your spine for when we're inside. I can handle this....
Sam's back stiffened, his feet steadied, his grasp on the pearl grips of the Taurus Model 99 went from clutching to tight, but relaxed.
I'll take... try to take... the... Still his thoughts, but another voice. Stripped. Broken, yet always able to break again, and again.
The soul fire was gathered up inside, the act of it searing that part of Sam even more cruelly, but he could see. Could move.
Good. Thanks, Saint Joan, the cool voice wasn't derisive, just chillingly no-nonsense. Now, do it. Go!
As silently as a cat, Sam slipped past demon guards left by Crowley and into the building.
He made it almost to the dissection room, slipping down the lower floor hallway to the double doors of the round room's main entrance. Those doors were swung wide open now, the corridor in total shadow. The tiles of the room amplified voices wonderfully, though it also distorted them. Or maybe it was something else that distorted them. Power and the lust for it.
When it came, the sudden build of vibration that penetrated spine and skull as easily as cement and cinder-block was the only warning Sam had to flatten against the shuddering walls and turn his head as light flared to nova intensity for a moment and then dimmed back.
"You can't imagine what it's like. They're all inside me. Millions upon millions of souls..."
It was Castiel's voice... but the timbre of it triggered something from that part of Sam that crouched deep inside, waiting for the next round of agony. Memory engraved by the slicing of angelic voices, raw and unfiltered, into his naked soul.
The next voice from inside the room was deeper, accented. The King of Hell. "Sounds sexy. ...exit, stage Crowley."
A hot waft of sulfur seemed to pass Sam as he crouched against the corridor wall.
Sam crept closer, right to the edge of the open doorway, clinging to shadow but searching, urgently, for the presence of a couple of mere humans.
"Now what's the matter, Raphael? Somebody clip your wings?"
Another slight shudder ripped along Sam's back at Castiel's soft, calm tone. A calm that burned cold. If he didn't know... if Lucifer weren't locked in the Cage...
"Castiel, please! You let the demon go...but not your own brother?" Low timbre, feminine voice, angelic subharmonics. Sam recognized it from that one previous meeting outside the broken motel room window. The last archangel.
He peered around the edge of the doorway... saw beige canvas covering a back with familiar shape, immobile as a mountain, steady as a star. Sam' eyes raked the room beyond, searching.
Raphael's answer came quickly. "The demon I have plans for. You, on the other hand..."
Sam's eyes widened a second before the crisp finger snap and horrible, meaty explosion, echoing another nerve and soul deep memory - his own fingers snapping.
The ripple of power that could snuff out an angel as easily as a fly...
For a moment inside Sam everything went dark.
"So you see, I saved you."
"Yes you did, Cas. Thank you." Soft, careful... Maybe a handful of people had ever heard such a tone from Dean Winchester. It cracked Sam's void open with a sharp stab of simultaneous relief and terror.
Dean, at least, was alive.
But for how long?
"You doubted me, fought against me, but I was right all along."
Soft, calm certainty that ran along Sam's nerves causing all too familiar shudders. It always had to be you, Sam.
"Okay Cas, you were. We're sorry. Let's just defuse you, okay?" How could Dean sound so... gentle?
Sam counted forced, slow breaths.
"What do you mean?" For a moment, it was almost a question the old Castiel might have asked.
The soft persuasion in Dean's voice was stretched thin, but Sam almost believed that it might reach the being that stood between them, once guardian, ally, partner, friend. That Cas might find resonance in that so-called more profound bond. "You're full of nuke - it's not safe, so before the eclipse ends, let's get them souls back where they belong."
"Oh no, they belong with me."
You're mine, Sam. We were, quite literally, made for each other.
Flames. Blood. Numbing cold. Searing pain.
This is going to go south so fast and there will be nothing but red smears in place of everything human left in that room or out of it. The cool logical thought came out of nowhere, devoid of fear, devoid of sentiment. If you really plan to save your brother, you can't just hide out here sniveling in the hallway, hero. Look. On the ground. Angel sword.
Sword...?
"No, Cas, it's scrambling your brain."
It's still Castiel... I can't...
"I'm not finished yet. Raphael had many followers, and I must... punish them all severely."
Another hard shudder ran though Sam, as the words punish them echoed in a pure angelic voice that most humans couldn't have listened to without brains exploding. In the Cage, there had been no surcease, no escape from horrible, beautiful voices.
But Dean didn't give up.
Never gave up.
"Listen to me, listen, I know there's a lot of bad water under the bridge, but we were family once. I'd've died for you, I almost did a few times, so if that means anything to you, please... I've lost Lisa, I've lost Ben, now I've lost Sam. Don't make me lose you too. You don't need this kind of juice any more, Cas. Get rid of it, before it kills us all."
Broken bits of Sam crumbled and wept without tears for the real anguish suppressed under Dean's calm tones. Slowly he started sliding down the corridor wall, a prelude to collapsing.
So this is all it takes? You should have given up and let me have the meat suit. We'd be miles away by now and have a better chance of seeing another sunrise... this is all you've got? At least your brother's making a effort to go out on his feet... Are you a hunter?
Get. The freaking. Sword.
"You're just saying that because I won. Because you're afraid. You're not my family, Dean. I have no family."
It shouldn't have been possible for Castiel's tone, his words, to chill Sam any deeper.
There might only be one chance.
When Sam moved, he didn't stumble. Maybe Castiel knew he was there all along. Maybe he knew the angel sword couldn't harm him.
Sam still lunged in one fluid move and drove it home with all the strength he could muster. If nothing else, maybe he could buy Dean and Bobby an escape.
It was like trying to stab a planet.
The sword stuck hard like Excalibur in the stone. The vibration of a billion souls ran along Sam's arms. He stumbled backwards.
Watched Cas reach around and pull out the weapon.
"I'm glad you made it, Sam. But the angel blade won't work, because I'm not an angel anymore. I'm your new God. A better one. So you will bow down, and profess your love unto me, your Lord. Or I shall destroy you."
The shock of it rang around the room from human to human to human (and only then did Sam see Bobby also - for now - alive).
In the next breath, it might have happened. Forty years or a hundred in Hell, one of the first lessons two brothers named Winchester had learned was about pride and what it was worth when facing power.
The stench of sulfur was sudden and choking, the change of venue gut-wrenching as the three humans were whisked away.
The new 'God' was suddenly alone in an empty room.
NOW...
~
(continued in II. Hound to the Hunters)
♠ season 6 codas