09x24 - Evolution - Part Three: Phantasmagoria
Episode number: 09x24 of Season 9 Fan Fiction (S9FF)
Title: Evolution
Subtitle: Phantasmagoria
Author: dracox-serdriel
Word Count: 1,946
Rating: R
Warnings: violence, language, memories from Hell
Sam left the Bunker without Dean and Castiel. He knew they didn't understand, and they both sounded unduly occupied as he passed their room. He drove about five miles out to an empty field with good tree cover. ll he needed was an open space to cast his spell.
Cas was right. A cambion could hide from pretty much everything. Sam could locate Jesse's human half with a basic burning map, but a cambion could move with a single thought, so Sam couldn't rely on catching up with him. So he resorted to a summoning spell. Actually, it was more like a supernatural phone call, since he couldn't summon half of Jesse.
He lit the match and threw it down.
"Jesse," Sam said into the flame. "It's Sam Winchester. I'm alone. I'm not sure if you can hear me, but if you can... I'd like to talk."
Silence. If the spell worked, the Jesse's voice should move through the flame, but there was nothing.
Gabriel thought he was getting closer, but every extinguished nest and every slaughtered demon hideout made him feel further away. He found himself on a coastal shore in Maine with dozens of demons, all of them obliterated.
"Hello, brother," a familiar voice said.
Gabriel turned to see Lucifer standing above the bodies, a wry smile on his face.
Sam's head dropped in defeat. There was nothing, not even a flicker. The fire had stopped moving, like it was frozen in time.
"Sam?" Jesse said.
Sam turned around, surprised. Jesse looked so normal, like the kid they'd helped out a few months ago.
"Jesse," Sam said. "I'm - "
"It wasn't your fault," Jesse cut him off. "You and Dean. I already know that."
"I'm sorry," Sam said. "I just wanted to talk to you."
"No," Jesse replied. "You and your brother have lost enough."
"I've been where you are, Jesse. I've had to make the choices that you're making, and... I wanted someone to talk to, but everyone around me either wouldn't talk about it or was just trying to manipulate me to making the choice they wanted. Jesse, I've been through this. You can ask me anything."
"I know that," Jesse said. "But you're wrong. We're not alike. You were born human, Sam Winchester. No matter what anyone ever did to you, no matter how much they did to you, you were born human. I wasn't. I was born cambion, and nothing anyone can do will ever change that."
"It's not like that," Sam began.
"But it is," Jesse replied. "It is like that."
"What are you planning to do?" Sam asked.
"Cut off the head and the body will flounder," Jesse said. "Eliminating Therion and Lucifer will cause a power vacuum. They'll be forced to fall back. Then they'll be consumed by in fighting for decades."
"Cas says that fight will scorch the whole of the earth," Sam said.
"He's wrong," Jesse replied. "This won't be a fight. I know what you want to say, Sam. I could feel it when you called me. I'm sorry, but I don't have time to convince you that I understand what you mean, that I know what I am doing. I need to go."
"Wait, Jesse, take this," Sam said, holding out the mental orb. "It's kind of like a recording, but more. Castiel called it a mental imprint. It, well, uh - "
Jesse took it and interrupted, "Thank you, Sam Winchester."
Then he vanished.
Lucifer had longed for a fight with someone worthwhile, but he assumed the only one stupid enough not to flee from his presence would be Castiel. He thrust a blade at Gabriel, who parried and stepped to the side, forcing his hilt up and taking Lucifer's with it.
The elder archangel regained control quickly, bringing his blade back down to Gabriel's neck. His brother seemed oddly calm, as if his life wasn't about to end. Again.
"I'm only here for Jesse," Gabriel said. "Not for you."
"Sorry, Jesse's not here. And if he was, he wouldn't be going anywhere with you. He's one of my children, Gabriel. He doesn't belong to you."
"He's a human being, and he doesn't belong to anyone," Gabriel replied.
"That's where you're wrong," Lucifer replied. "Human beings have families. And he's part of mine."
Lucifer jabbed forward, but Gabriel merely knocked the blade aside and dropped the hilt of his own weapon into the elder archangel's stomach. The way he fought was so effortless, like the way Raphael used to fight.
"I'm not here for you," Gabriel said. "Where is Jesse?"
Catching his breath, Lucifer spoke up, "Such bravado from you, little brother. Can I assume this is just some trick? Your real form is somewhere behind me, like it always is?"
"No trick," Gabriel replied quietly. "This is me. I'm looking for Jesse Turner."
"If that's true, you could just kill me," Lucifer pointed out. "Come on, little brother. You tried to before."
"I defended humanity from you before," Gabriel said. "I don't need to kill you to save Jesse."
Again, Lucifer moved forward, slashing down and slicing through part of Gabriel's arm. The younger archangel followed the movement, landing a shallow slash across Lucifer's chest and throwing him to the ground. Gabriel held the point at his brother's neck.
"You can't do it, can you?" Lucifer taunted.
"Oh, I can," Gabriel said, raising his blade. "Except I'm only here for the kid. But make no mistake, brother. I might've once been a trickster and kept on the sidelines too long, but I'm in this for Jesse Turner, which means if you attack him, I will kill you. Maybe I should kill you for what you did to him, but I won't. I don't need to. I'm not afraid of you anymore, Lucifer."
Gabriel disappeared, leaving his brother injured on the ground.
Jesse had observed the two archangels. He froze when he saw that Gabriel was still alive. He assumed that his guardian had been killed.
Why didn't he dispatch Lucifer? It was clear that the once-powerful archangel couldn't compare to his younger brother. Certainly killing Satan would be beneficial to all of humanity, not just Jesse. Yet Gabriel let Lucifer go with little more than a scratch.
I don't need to. I'm not afraid of you anymore, Lucifer. That's what Gabriel had said. He was unafraid.
Jesse could've snuffed Lucifer's candle with hardly any effort, but something held him back. The orb Sam Winchester gave him glowed hot in his pocket. Then he felt it: another presence. Dark, powerful. Someone else was watching the archangels fight, and he was close.
His name is Paimon. He is one of Lucifer's servants. I should eliminate them both while I have the chance.
The thoughts were loud in his head, but the orb called him, drew him away. Now that he saw Lucifer's vessel, he could find him again anywhere.
He vanished.
After the yellow-eyed demon murdered my mother, my family became hunters. I didn't have a choice. Then the yellow-eyed demon killed Jess, and all I wanted was to set it right. To get justice. To fix everything. But I couldn't. The more I tried, the further I got from who I was, who I always wanted to be. I wanted to save my brother. I failed. I wanted to revenge my mother, my father, my girlfriend. I thought I could do all that and save the world.
Images of Jessica Moore, Mary Winchester, and John Winchester filled Jesse's mind. The taste of blood, the sensation of fire, the sounds of screaming voices, but all from an infant's memory. Flashes of little things. Days with Dean caring for him. Moments when Jessica. Time spent with books and paper and writing.
Then hunting eclipsed everything. Rage and blood and tears. Broken bones, chattering teeth, the teeming entrapment of possession. Every moment of Sam Winchester's time on the road buckled up into a few seconds. It was painfully beautiful in its own way, the story of a madman with the soul of a musician. Blood started to fill up the world. Blood from black smoke. Blood with incredible power.
I thought I could save everyone. Mostly I thought I could save me. So I drank demon blood. I knew it was wrong. I knew it. Even my bones could feel it, but it made me strong. It made it so I could fight back, and I was all alone. Dean was dead and in Hell, and all I could do was survive and kill every black-eyed bastard I met. I drank demon blood so I could take out Lilith. And then Dean came back.
Angels appeared all around, and Dean's newly-raised body unclouded Sam's blood-soaked existence, like a breeze blowing out smog. But the blood and the black smoke were still there, like they were burned into his flesh, and they made him powerful and dangerous. He could save the world.
But I thought it was me. I thought I had to be the one to do it, that I was the only one who could. So I kept on, and I took down Lilith, but it was for a price.
Lucifer rose up in a blinding light. The four horsemen, the world on fire from the Apocalypse. This was the price of Sam Winchester's well-meant revenge. He meant to save the world, and in so doing, he nearly destroyed it. Then Jesse felt it as Sam accepted Lucifer, as he fought the archangel, as he jumped into the pit -
I made the wrong choice. Eventually I came around to the right one, but by then, so many people had died. So many people. And what it took to fix those errors...
Sam spared Jesse the memories of the pit, but Jesse could feel the fear, the agony, the psychic pain from the cage.
This is all I wanted.
Sam's imagination was simplistic and linear. He would become a lawyer, settle down with Jessica, and have children. He would protect them from any threat, supernatural or otherwise. He would age, watch his children grow up, and move on. Grandchildren. Great grandchildren, even. All the while, Dean would visit and tell wonderful stories about "hunting trips" he and their father went on. And Dean would have a family, too. The Winchesters would have their names on mailboxes for centuries across the state of Kansas. Nothing was idyllic. Bills and squabbles and the occasional stubbed toe. Sam hadn't wanted a perfect life; he wanted a normal life.
And one day, I keep holding out the hope that'll be me. I'll find someone who'll love me. Someone to have children with. We'll grow old together with visits from Dean and Castiel. Maybe we'll even have a mailbox. A real address.
Jesse could feel the resilience of Sam Winchester's hope. It was an overwhelming experience, like confronting one's own mortality, and it shattered Jesse's perception of himself. To stand in hope while living in the darkness of the Apocalypse was courageous, but to hold on to hope, to cling to it, when one had lived a life with as much damnation as Sam Winchester, was unfathomable. Literally unimaginable. The scars on his soul, the blood from the black smoke, the supernatural elements of the world wrapping him in a prison of bone and stone forever. But he still hoped that he could be free, still tried to save people's lives.
If he were anyone or anything else, Sam Winchester's message would have driven them to the edge of his sanity, but as for Jesse Turner, it lifted the curtain and threw off the shadows.
<<< Previous Part:
Part Two: Too Long Ago
Next Part: >>>
Part Four: Clock
Primary Post: 09x24 Evolution
Primary Post: Season 9 Fan Fiction (S9FF)
Title: Evolution
Subtitle: Phantasmagoria
Author: dracox-serdriel
Word Count: 1,946
Rating: R
Warnings: violence, language, memories from Hell
Sam left the Bunker without Dean and Castiel. He knew they didn't understand, and they both sounded unduly occupied as he passed their room. He drove about five miles out to an empty field with good tree cover. ll he needed was an open space to cast his spell.
Cas was right. A cambion could hide from pretty much everything. Sam could locate Jesse's human half with a basic burning map, but a cambion could move with a single thought, so Sam couldn't rely on catching up with him. So he resorted to a summoning spell. Actually, it was more like a supernatural phone call, since he couldn't summon half of Jesse.
He lit the match and threw it down.
"Jesse," Sam said into the flame. "It's Sam Winchester. I'm alone. I'm not sure if you can hear me, but if you can... I'd like to talk."
Silence. If the spell worked, the Jesse's voice should move through the flame, but there was nothing.
Gabriel thought he was getting closer, but every extinguished nest and every slaughtered demon hideout made him feel further away. He found himself on a coastal shore in Maine with dozens of demons, all of them obliterated.
"Hello, brother," a familiar voice said.
Gabriel turned to see Lucifer standing above the bodies, a wry smile on his face.
Sam's head dropped in defeat. There was nothing, not even a flicker. The fire had stopped moving, like it was frozen in time.
"Sam?" Jesse said.
Sam turned around, surprised. Jesse looked so normal, like the kid they'd helped out a few months ago.
"Jesse," Sam said. "I'm - "
"It wasn't your fault," Jesse cut him off. "You and Dean. I already know that."
"I'm sorry," Sam said. "I just wanted to talk to you."
"No," Jesse replied. "You and your brother have lost enough."
"I've been where you are, Jesse. I've had to make the choices that you're making, and... I wanted someone to talk to, but everyone around me either wouldn't talk about it or was just trying to manipulate me to making the choice they wanted. Jesse, I've been through this. You can ask me anything."
"I know that," Jesse said. "But you're wrong. We're not alike. You were born human, Sam Winchester. No matter what anyone ever did to you, no matter how much they did to you, you were born human. I wasn't. I was born cambion, and nothing anyone can do will ever change that."
"It's not like that," Sam began.
"But it is," Jesse replied. "It is like that."
"What are you planning to do?" Sam asked.
"Cut off the head and the body will flounder," Jesse said. "Eliminating Therion and Lucifer will cause a power vacuum. They'll be forced to fall back. Then they'll be consumed by in fighting for decades."
"Cas says that fight will scorch the whole of the earth," Sam said.
"He's wrong," Jesse replied. "This won't be a fight. I know what you want to say, Sam. I could feel it when you called me. I'm sorry, but I don't have time to convince you that I understand what you mean, that I know what I am doing. I need to go."
"Wait, Jesse, take this," Sam said, holding out the mental orb. "It's kind of like a recording, but more. Castiel called it a mental imprint. It, well, uh - "
Jesse took it and interrupted, "Thank you, Sam Winchester."
Then he vanished.
Lucifer had longed for a fight with someone worthwhile, but he assumed the only one stupid enough not to flee from his presence would be Castiel. He thrust a blade at Gabriel, who parried and stepped to the side, forcing his hilt up and taking Lucifer's with it.
The elder archangel regained control quickly, bringing his blade back down to Gabriel's neck. His brother seemed oddly calm, as if his life wasn't about to end. Again.
"I'm only here for Jesse," Gabriel said. "Not for you."
"Sorry, Jesse's not here. And if he was, he wouldn't be going anywhere with you. He's one of my children, Gabriel. He doesn't belong to you."
"He's a human being, and he doesn't belong to anyone," Gabriel replied.
"That's where you're wrong," Lucifer replied. "Human beings have families. And he's part of mine."
Lucifer jabbed forward, but Gabriel merely knocked the blade aside and dropped the hilt of his own weapon into the elder archangel's stomach. The way he fought was so effortless, like the way Raphael used to fight.
"I'm not here for you," Gabriel said. "Where is Jesse?"
Catching his breath, Lucifer spoke up, "Such bravado from you, little brother. Can I assume this is just some trick? Your real form is somewhere behind me, like it always is?"
"No trick," Gabriel replied quietly. "This is me. I'm looking for Jesse Turner."
"If that's true, you could just kill me," Lucifer pointed out. "Come on, little brother. You tried to before."
"I defended humanity from you before," Gabriel said. "I don't need to kill you to save Jesse."
Again, Lucifer moved forward, slashing down and slicing through part of Gabriel's arm. The younger archangel followed the movement, landing a shallow slash across Lucifer's chest and throwing him to the ground. Gabriel held the point at his brother's neck.
"You can't do it, can you?" Lucifer taunted.
"Oh, I can," Gabriel said, raising his blade. "Except I'm only here for the kid. But make no mistake, brother. I might've once been a trickster and kept on the sidelines too long, but I'm in this for Jesse Turner, which means if you attack him, I will kill you. Maybe I should kill you for what you did to him, but I won't. I don't need to. I'm not afraid of you anymore, Lucifer."
Gabriel disappeared, leaving his brother injured on the ground.
Jesse had observed the two archangels. He froze when he saw that Gabriel was still alive. He assumed that his guardian had been killed.
Why didn't he dispatch Lucifer? It was clear that the once-powerful archangel couldn't compare to his younger brother. Certainly killing Satan would be beneficial to all of humanity, not just Jesse. Yet Gabriel let Lucifer go with little more than a scratch.
I don't need to. I'm not afraid of you anymore, Lucifer. That's what Gabriel had said. He was unafraid.
Jesse could've snuffed Lucifer's candle with hardly any effort, but something held him back. The orb Sam Winchester gave him glowed hot in his pocket. Then he felt it: another presence. Dark, powerful. Someone else was watching the archangels fight, and he was close.
His name is Paimon. He is one of Lucifer's servants. I should eliminate them both while I have the chance.
The thoughts were loud in his head, but the orb called him, drew him away. Now that he saw Lucifer's vessel, he could find him again anywhere.
He vanished.
After the yellow-eyed demon murdered my mother, my family became hunters. I didn't have a choice. Then the yellow-eyed demon killed Jess, and all I wanted was to set it right. To get justice. To fix everything. But I couldn't. The more I tried, the further I got from who I was, who I always wanted to be. I wanted to save my brother. I failed. I wanted to revenge my mother, my father, my girlfriend. I thought I could do all that and save the world.
Images of Jessica Moore, Mary Winchester, and John Winchester filled Jesse's mind. The taste of blood, the sensation of fire, the sounds of screaming voices, but all from an infant's memory. Flashes of little things. Days with Dean caring for him. Moments when Jessica. Time spent with books and paper and writing.
Then hunting eclipsed everything. Rage and blood and tears. Broken bones, chattering teeth, the teeming entrapment of possession. Every moment of Sam Winchester's time on the road buckled up into a few seconds. It was painfully beautiful in its own way, the story of a madman with the soul of a musician. Blood started to fill up the world. Blood from black smoke. Blood with incredible power.
I thought I could save everyone. Mostly I thought I could save me. So I drank demon blood. I knew it was wrong. I knew it. Even my bones could feel it, but it made me strong. It made it so I could fight back, and I was all alone. Dean was dead and in Hell, and all I could do was survive and kill every black-eyed bastard I met. I drank demon blood so I could take out Lilith. And then Dean came back.
Angels appeared all around, and Dean's newly-raised body unclouded Sam's blood-soaked existence, like a breeze blowing out smog. But the blood and the black smoke were still there, like they were burned into his flesh, and they made him powerful and dangerous. He could save the world.
But I thought it was me. I thought I had to be the one to do it, that I was the only one who could. So I kept on, and I took down Lilith, but it was for a price.
Lucifer rose up in a blinding light. The four horsemen, the world on fire from the Apocalypse. This was the price of Sam Winchester's well-meant revenge. He meant to save the world, and in so doing, he nearly destroyed it. Then Jesse felt it as Sam accepted Lucifer, as he fought the archangel, as he jumped into the pit -
I made the wrong choice. Eventually I came around to the right one, but by then, so many people had died. So many people. And what it took to fix those errors...
Sam spared Jesse the memories of the pit, but Jesse could feel the fear, the agony, the psychic pain from the cage.
This is all I wanted.
Sam's imagination was simplistic and linear. He would become a lawyer, settle down with Jessica, and have children. He would protect them from any threat, supernatural or otherwise. He would age, watch his children grow up, and move on. Grandchildren. Great grandchildren, even. All the while, Dean would visit and tell wonderful stories about "hunting trips" he and their father went on. And Dean would have a family, too. The Winchesters would have their names on mailboxes for centuries across the state of Kansas. Nothing was idyllic. Bills and squabbles and the occasional stubbed toe. Sam hadn't wanted a perfect life; he wanted a normal life.
And one day, I keep holding out the hope that'll be me. I'll find someone who'll love me. Someone to have children with. We'll grow old together with visits from Dean and Castiel. Maybe we'll even have a mailbox. A real address.
Jesse could feel the resilience of Sam Winchester's hope. It was an overwhelming experience, like confronting one's own mortality, and it shattered Jesse's perception of himself. To stand in hope while living in the darkness of the Apocalypse was courageous, but to hold on to hope, to cling to it, when one had lived a life with as much damnation as Sam Winchester, was unfathomable. Literally unimaginable. The scars on his soul, the blood from the black smoke, the supernatural elements of the world wrapping him in a prison of bone and stone forever. But he still hoped that he could be free, still tried to save people's lives.
If he were anyone or anything else, Sam Winchester's message would have driven them to the edge of his sanity, but as for Jesse Turner, it lifted the curtain and threw off the shadows.
<<< Previous Part:
Part Two: Too Long Ago
Next Part: >>>
Part Four: Clock
Primary Post: 09x24 Evolution
Primary Post: Season 9 Fan Fiction (S9FF)