Shadow of the Wind - One-Shot
Title: Shadow of the Wind
Author: dracox_serdriel
Word count: 22,000
Genre: Fantasy, Supernatural, Horror, Romance
Pairing: Dean/Castiel (Destiel)
Spoilers: Through episode 08x23 "Sacrifice"
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: graphic descriptions of violence, horror, major character death, explicit sexual content
Status: Complete. Feedback appreciated.
Disclaimer: I claim no ownership to the characters, universe, and mythology of Supernatural.
Summary
With their newly acquired knowledge of the Tablet Trials, the Winchesters travel back in time with a newly human Castiel to a critical point in their history to prevent the Apocalypse from ever happening, making deals with angels and demons alike to lay the groundwork for their plans. Will they change fate or lose themselves in the past?
Coda to the entire series, with modified versions of events from Seasons 3, 5, and 8.
Read Shadow of the Wind on AO3
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Read Shadow of the Wind on FF (adapted to Rated M/R)
Shadow of the Wind
Chapter One: The First One's Always Free
Chapter Two: If Words had Names
Chapter Three: Beneath the Skin
Chapter Four: Night Again
Chapter Five: Door to Dreams
Chapter Six: Death and Pain and Sin
Chapter Seven: Two for Sympathy
Chapter Eight: A Half Truth
Chapter Nine: Garden of Good and Evil
Chapter Ten: Nightmares must Begin
Title: Shadow of the Wind
Subtitle: The First One's Always Free
Author: dracox-serdriel
There was a fire burning on earth.
Angels gathered as it burned. It was the first time in millennia that flame attracted seraphs to the plane of the world. They came in companies of threes and fives, witnessing the smoke as it rose into the sky.
New Harmony, Indiana. May 2008.
Lilith enjoyed power play as much as the next demon, but she had lost touch with the human element during her stint in Hell. People were more difficult to manipulate than she remembered, especially her most recent project, the Winchester brothers. Not only did she have to pretend to be one of her own lackeys, but they even forced her to cut her vacation short.
Oh, but after today, it would all be worth it.
At the moment, Dean Winchester was held down telekinetically over a table, and Sam was pinned to a wall, the fruits of her labor ready for the reaping.
She grabbed Sam's chin and pressed her lips to his. Their meat suits literally sizzled.
"Your lips are soft," she said.
"Right, so you have me! Let my brother go."
"Silly goose. You wanna bargain, you have to have something that I want. You don't."
Dean sneered. "So, is this your big plan, huh? Drag me to hell. Kill Sam. And then what? Become queen bitch?"
"I don't have to answer to puppy chow," she replied. Then she said, "Sic 'em, boy."
The Hellhound attacked. Lilith laughed as Dean screamed.
"No! Stop!" Sam yelled. "STOP IT!"
Dean's blood poured out of his chest. His breath bubbled out in slow, painful bursts. Lilith drank in the pain, the horror, the frantic desperation.
Then she conjured her energy, and with the palm of her hand, blasted out a radiating power that filled the room with a blinding light, finishing off the Winchester clan and ending their so-called destiny.
The smile slid off her face when she realized Sam remained alive without so much as a scratch on him.
"Back," she commanded.
She flicked her wrist, throwing him back, but he didn't budge. He sneered as he slowly closed in on her, the grim determination on his face more sinister than anything she'd ever before witnessed from the human race.
"I said, back!" she ordered, knowing it wouldn't work.
"I don't think so."
Sam, still strong, still resisting her, took hold of the demon-killing knife.
Lilith knew when to cut her loses. It was time for her to smoke out and leave this miserable body behind.
As soon as Lilith vanished, Sam went to Dean's side and collapsed. His heart raced as his hands slipped in his brother's blood, and every thought in his head deserted him, leaving him with nothing to distract himself from the misery in from of him. In that moment, there was nothing but despair and shock.
Tears, sweat, and whatever else Sam had left in him flowed freely.
"Gotta say, kid, those tears, they're really something," someone said.
Sam recognized the voice, but he couldn't place it. He stood up and clutched the knife harder when he realized he wasn't in the same house.
"Who are you?" Sam yelled. "Huh? Whoever you are, you picked the wrong day!"
The speaker whistled before continuing. "Actually, I picked the exact right day. Oh, poor Dean-o. Just had this place cleaned up, now his blood is everywhere."
"Show yourself!"
The Trickster appeared, lollipop in hand and a smile on his face.
"Sammy!" he exclaimed. "Good to see you again."
"You! You arranged all this?"
"Well, I can't take all the credit."
He waved his hand, and Dean's body vanished.
Sam crossed the room with a few quick strides and put the knife to The Trickster's neck.
"Bring him back!" Sam yelled. "Right now."
"Boy, howdy, that's not the way to kill me, now is it? In any case, that's not your brother."
"Give me his body back!"
Someone large and strong yanked Sam away and up into the air. He couldn't get a good look, but it seemed like The Trickster conjured up an eight-foot tall bodyguard.
"Much better," The Trickster said. "Before you get your panties in a twist and work 'round the clock to hunt me down for six months. Again. This trick is not on you. Well, not entirely on you. Me and Lilith, we go back a ways, and I owe her a very big kick up her ass."
"A trick where you let my brother get ripped apart by hellhounds?"
"Oh, right, forgot to mention, that bitty wasn't your brother."
He snapped his fingers and a dozen Deans filled the room, standing like soldiers across the back wall.
He continued, "My own make and model: Dean turns self-sacrifice into an art form."
"Sammy, let's get the hell outta here!" all twelve Deans said simultaneously.
The Trickster snapped his fingers, and they disappeared.
"I don't believe you," Sam said.
"You are one sorry SOB, aren't you?" The Trickster asked. "Suck it up because this trick requires one thing on your part."
"I'm gonna kill you, you get that?"
"Maybe later, sugar-lips, but not now."
Sam relaxed so that his captor's grip relaxed a little, allowing the younger Winchester to jab up hard and break free. He went straight for The Trickster, who waved his arm and put up an invisible wall.
"I knew this was gonna happen," he replied, almost bored. "You Winchesters, you just can't play nice, now can you?"
He snapped his fingers.
Everything went white, then black, then white again.
Sam blinked a few times.
He was inside a janitor's closet. The Trickster must've sent him somewhere. Furious, he yanked the door open and stormed out.
He stopped abruptly. He was standing in the hallway of a hospital, and he was wearing a long, white coat.
"Doctor," a woman said as she passed him.
"Doctor," he replied without thinking.
He checked his new getup, but none of his pockets contained keys or a cell phone, so he went the nearest desk. The words SEATTLE MERCY HOSPITAL blazed over the wall.
"Sammy!" Dean shouted.
Sam turned to see Dean, also in a white coat.
"Dean?"
"Who the hell else would I be?" Dean asked. "And where the hell have you been?"
"Me?" Sam asked in disbelief. "What about you? How did you get here?"
"No idea," he replied. "Last thing I remember, we were in that house with Ruby. I went with the mom and kid into the basement to make sure they were secure. When I came back up, I stepped out of the basement and into a freaking janitor's closet. Wearing this." Dean waved at his lab coat for good measure. "And people keep calling me 'doctor.'"
"Why didn't you call me?" Sam asked.
"I tried. I used the phones, but they kept going to voice mail. I tried getting out of here. Every time I step outside - ground floor, parking garage, helipad on the roof - I get genied back to the damn closet."
"Doctor," another woman said as she passed.
"Doctor," Dean replied with a flirty smile.
Sam wanted to punch him in the face.
"So, after that, you don't remember anything?" Sam asked.
"I remember things fine," Dean said. "I've been here for half an hour. You think someone yanked our asses outta there? Ruby?"
"Tell me something only you would know."
"Huh?"
"Dean, I just saw you ripped apart by a hellhound," Sam replied. "And for all I know, this whole thing is just Lilith's idea of softening me up! So tell me something only you would know."
"You serious?"
"I might not have the demon knife on me, but this place is filled with sharp instruments."
"Okay, calm down, let me think," Dean replied. After a moment he said, "Rhonda Hurley."
"What about her?"
"I dated her when I was nineteen," Dean said. "One night, you asked me why my underwear was pink, and I told you they weren't and you should mind your business."
"And?"
Dean rolled his eyes. "You remember, we were in that crappy rental apartment for like a month, and we ended up having to share just the one room."
"Yeah, after the pipes burst and damaged the other bedroom and living room, if you can call them that," Sam recollected.
"Made it so you couldn't salt a damn thing," the elder Winchester continued. "Anyway, you came back from the library early, and she was freaked out when you nearly walked in on us. Long story short, I was too busy helping her out the back room's window and getting my pants on, and I kinda forgot to take them off. I had to wear them until you fell asleep."
"Anyone could know that," Sam said. "I'm sure it happened more than once."
"No! Hell, no!" Dean replied. "Look, they were pink panties. They were both pink and satiny. That did not happen again, ever. She made me try them on."
"Why?"
"Because she thought the idea of me in her underwear was hot!"
"I knew it!" a dark-haired woman shouted as she stormed up to Dean. She slapped him across the face and screeched, "You pig! Who is this whore that got you to wear her panties?"
Dean started, "Listen, I don't - "
Slap! Again, right across the face.
"Go to hell!" the woman bellowed as she marched away.
"You satisfied yet?" Dean asked Sam. "I'm getting slapped in the face for shit I did ten years ago!"
"All right," Sam said. "I knew all that, by the way. About the panties."
"What?"
"Rhonda told me a few days later," Sam said. "After she found out you were making out with some other girl."
"Awesome," Dean replied. "So can we figure out what the hell is going on?"
Sam nodded, but he had his doubts. He desperately wanted this to be reality: his brother alive and well. But they were standing in a hospital full of people who all apparently thought they were doctors, so how close to reality could he be?
Meanwhile, back at the house... Lilith felt it: something powerful stopped her from smoking out just as the Winchesters disappeared. Or, as it stood now, Winchester. Singular.
She smiled. Maybe Sam Winchester could survive a blast or two, but only someone like Alastair had the power to pull something like this off. And if Alastair was coming to call, it could only mean that Sam Winchester's number was finally coming up.
She tried to smoke out again. She couldn't.
"You cannot leave," a man said.
Lilith didn't recognize the meat suit or the possessor. When she first laid eyes on him, something new stirred inside her. It took her a few moments to realize what it was: terror.
"You're not playing very nice," Lilith said, miming the voice of a pouting child.
Pain. Sharp, burning pain.
More pain, this time blistering and permeating.
Her essence cracked. She screamed.
"Goodbye, bitch!"
Dean Winchester had stabbed her in the back with the demon-killing knife. She was far too old to be finished by that old pig poker, but the agony it caused sapped her powers.
And that man coming toward her wasn't a man at all.
A long time ago, she had heard a fairy tale, a kind of bedtime story for demons to keep them in line. She'd never believed it before, but this man's body radiated more than power. He produced a triangular blade.
Lilith threw Dean and his knife across the room. She tried to toss the mystery man with an invisible force, but he didn't flinch. She kept the terror away by focusing, thinking, remembering.
If this was the monster from her fairy tale, then she could stop him. Alastair had taught her well.
Lilith chanted, "Omnipotentis Dei potestatem invoco. Omnipotentis Dei potestatem invoco. Aborro te ut. Angelum omnium obsequendum..."
He kept coming, slowly, and her strength waned. Dean was almost free from her telekinetic power.
She spoke quickly, "Domine expuet! Domine expuet!"
Something vacated the mystery man, and he stumbled into a wall. Normally she would've pounced on such easy prey, but Lilith balked. It didn't make sense; she hadn't finished her spell yet.
The man turned and snarled at her before he adjusted his trench coat. Whatever he had been before, he was human now.
Lilith raised her palm to cast her whiteout blast, but she didn't have the juice. The Winchester broke free. Panic, real panic, pulled her under. The monster was gone, why weren't her powers restored?
Dean and the other man attacked, and again she had the demon blade buried to its hilt in her back. She had no trouble tossing his pathetic human body across the room.
But the victory was short-lived. The odd, triangular blade went straight through her neck. Whatever it was, it was far more formidable than the demon knife: long, silver, and petrifying.
She didn't have time to understand why Dean was alive or who this other man was. The supremacy of the blade scattered Lilith, and she was gone forever.
Dean pulled the knife out of Lilith and wiped it clean. Castiel did likewise with the angel blade.
"Cas, you okay?"
Castiel nodded.
"You don't look okay," Dean continued. "I didn't even know there was a spell to - "
A howl interrupted him.
"Hellhounds," they said simultaneously.
Cas produced two pairs of goggles and deftly tossed one to Dean before both donned the new eye gear.
"What the hell?" Dean asked. "Cas, we talked about this. These aren't glasses. They're for swimming."
"They affix to the face more efficiently than glasses."
"Can't argue with that," Dean replied. "One pooch over here."
"I see two more over there," Cas said.
"Let's hope it's just three. Hey, Cas?"
"Yeah?"
"You ready for this?"
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Chapter Two: If Words Had Names