More Ficlets
Title: mirror
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters: Sam, (Kevin)
Rating: G
Word Count: 713
Notes: Set during 9.11. You can read it here or at AO3.
Summary: Sam pokes around Kevin's room.
Sam enters the room, wincing with the creak of the door. Gadreel’s memory informs Sam that the space should be tidy, or near enough. The bed should be made. There should be a tower of books on the bedside table, precarious only because of the number of them. Kevin’s dirty laundry should sit in a box by the door.
Now, there is no box. Nor a stack of books, instead an untidy pile.
Months have seen the room accumulate clutter. Papers tacked to the wall with neat cuneiform on them, pages printed from websites and scholarly articles taped onto those, and the floor has books upon books upon books, all dog-eared and written in. There are more spiral-bound notebooks than Sam will have time to sift through soon. All the dirty laundry has been stuffed under the bed, the only space left, and Sam picks his way over to the unmade bed, stepping on books a couple times despite his best intentions.
He collapses onto the bed. For a moment, he sits there in the slight indentation Kevin left. Sam’s breathing is the only sound now, and maybe the mess is Dean’s. Maybe Dean came in here after burning the body, and-who cares? Kevin is gone. It was Dean that traded Sam’s life for Kevin’s.
Sam grabs Kevin’s pillow and buries his face into it, a scream caught in his throat that won’t come out, and maybe the pillowcase smells like Kevin, like salt-sweat and skin, and the scream scrapes his throat almost raw in its desperation to escape, so he pulls his face from the fabric to suck in air. Kevin’s scent will fade to dust, soon.
Chest heaving, Sam drags his gaze over the clutter again.
Almost obscured by yet another pile of discarded books, two orange pill bottles are still capped. Sam reaches out, and pulls them both off the bedside table. Something hot curls in his gut. He twists off the first cap, to find the bottle half full of green pills. The second, a third full of blue.
So Dean was supplying Kevin with drugs. Still.
Sam clenches his jaw as the pills rattle in their bottles, because these are what Sam has left to shake, and he blows out a long long breath.Looking at Kevin had always been like looking into the worst sort of mirror.
It’s no different now, and it’s too late to confront Dean about supplying a minor with drugs.
Maybe-maybe if Sam had been here, he could have-have helped, somehow. With the translating, with Dean, with Cas, with Kevin, with everything. Sam traces the threading on the musty quilt with the pad of his finger. Did Kevin curl beneath it, hunched in on himself, like the layers of fabric could protect him?
Not that it did any damn good. Not that Sam did, either. (Which, shit. Sam dragged control of his body from the brilliant bright star of Lucifer. Saving Kevin from Gadreel should have been easy. So so easy. And instead-)
The last time Sam spoke with Kevin, it was under that Satanic billboard, with the world spinning spinning with the Trials. Part of his cleansing. All the time after Kevin came to the bunker belongs to Gadreel. Any time that Sam might have had with Kevin before-before, Gadreel stole that, too.
The door opens before Sam throws the pill bottles into the mess on the floor. Castiel stands in the doorway, illuminated by the dull lamps of the hall, his expression set like marble. If he notices the bottles Sam's hand, he doesn't mention it. “I believe I have found records that may be useful in our search, Sam,” a pause, where he shifts, shoulders stiff, “If you feel ready.”
Sam sucks in a breath-no, no, he’s not ready, wasn’t ready to fail somebody else, to say goodbye to yet another person he should have protected. A chill at his nape raises gooseflesh across his returned skin. He shifts, but it caresses him again, an icy finger at his neck, makes him shiver. “Yeah. Yeah. Let’s-I need to find Gadreel.”
Castiel leads Sam to the library, and the chill is gone.
Title: Ebb and Flow
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters: Hannah, Anna
Rating: G
Word Count: 676
Notes: Canon-divergent. Set after 9.23. You can read it here or at AO3.
Summary: Anna, Hannah, and Free Will visit the beach.
It isn’t Heaven. The white-frothed waves crash against the cool sand. Sunrise has the sand glittering and the creatures waking. This vessel itches against her Grace, but no longer attempting to burst at the seams as it had when she had first fallen.
Hannah fills the human lungs with briny air and stretches her newly-returned wings-the invisible winds stirring equally invisible feathers.
Beside her, Anna’s voice is low, soft like a wave-smoothed piece of green glass. “I thought you would stay in Heaven, now that you’ve thrown Metatron off his throne.” Everyone in Heaven knew Anael’s story, that she fell and later died for forsaking Michael. Somehow, Hannah doubts Anna has any love left for authority.
What it must be like, to have a body crafted for you instead of sliding into an already occupied skin. The hair of Hannah’s vessel stirs with the fierce wind and, somewhere, a gull shrieks. “Erin was kind enough to permit me within once more.” Hannah tilts her head as the morning light hits the water, making it appear blue-grey in color. “Heaven isn’t any more orderly than Earth.”
Anna laughs, grating and throaty, always seeming so comfortable in her skin. “Free will has a tendency to make a mess.”
Strong words from an angel that played dead through the Civil War, Naomi’s Reign, and the Fall. Hannah nods at the truth of Anna’s words, regardless. “Will you be returning, now that the Gates are opened?” Hannah asks, blue eyes fixed on the rising sun.
“No,” says Anna, “Heaven is no longer my home, and I value my freedom.”
“Then why show yourself to me?” asks Hannah, turning to examine her sister, and Anna’s bright hair tumbles over her shoulders with her shrug.
“You weren’t in my garrison, but I’ve got to say, I wished you were. Even before I ripped out my Grace.” Anna toes at a clump of dried seaweed. “Maybe it was selfish, but when you looked like you needed some extra guidance, I thought I’d offer what I could. A few months later, and here we still are.” Anna’s twin sets of wings stretch golden in the sun, glimmering against the beauty of her body.
Hannah returns her gaze to the rolling ocean, the heartbeat of her vessel speeding up as though she has exerted Erin’s body physically. Such strange creatures, humans. Beautiful, fleeting ones, but strange. And stranger still to walk among them as she has. Within the last five years, more has changed in Heaven than any other point since Lucifer fell.
She fills and empties her borrowed lungs as the beach comes to life with light and the call of birds. “And should I choose not to keep your secret?”
“Then that’s your choice.”
A nearby crab scuttles beneath a rock. Even a crab has choices to make, it seems. It could choose any rock on this beach, and yet it chooses the reddish one not far from Hannah. Anna’s hand settles warm on Hannah’s shoulder, her Grace shining bright against Hannah’s own, despite everything Anna has done. Despite what Hannah has done. “I am needed in Heaven,” says Hannah, her vessel’s lips forming words she cannot feel.
No more dead angels. As Castiel had a choice with Metatron, Hannah now has one with Anael. Freedom is something Anna desires. A cage would kill her. “So you’re going back?” Anna asks, her frail human hand tightening on Hannah’s shoulder.
Humanity has made her so very tactile.
“Yes. I… Yes.” Hannah straightens, flares out her wings. “Will you protect my vessel in my absence? Please?”
“Since you asked so nicely. But you’ll have to make it up to me, later,” and there is laughter in Anna’s voice.
Hannah nods. “Thank you.” She turns back to her sister, and then places her hand on Anna’s cheek-and then, still warmed by Anna’s Grace-Hannah flies back to Heaven.
Below, the waves crash against the beach, and Anna gently catches Erin before she falls into the sand, like a puppet whose strings have been severed.
This entry was originally posted at http://mako-lies.dreamwidth.org/125784.html.
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters: Sam, (Kevin)
Rating: G
Word Count: 713
Notes: Set during 9.11. You can read it here or at AO3.
Summary: Sam pokes around Kevin's room.
Sam enters the room, wincing with the creak of the door. Gadreel’s memory informs Sam that the space should be tidy, or near enough. The bed should be made. There should be a tower of books on the bedside table, precarious only because of the number of them. Kevin’s dirty laundry should sit in a box by the door.
Now, there is no box. Nor a stack of books, instead an untidy pile.
Months have seen the room accumulate clutter. Papers tacked to the wall with neat cuneiform on them, pages printed from websites and scholarly articles taped onto those, and the floor has books upon books upon books, all dog-eared and written in. There are more spiral-bound notebooks than Sam will have time to sift through soon. All the dirty laundry has been stuffed under the bed, the only space left, and Sam picks his way over to the unmade bed, stepping on books a couple times despite his best intentions.
He collapses onto the bed. For a moment, he sits there in the slight indentation Kevin left. Sam’s breathing is the only sound now, and maybe the mess is Dean’s. Maybe Dean came in here after burning the body, and-who cares? Kevin is gone. It was Dean that traded Sam’s life for Kevin’s.
Sam grabs Kevin’s pillow and buries his face into it, a scream caught in his throat that won’t come out, and maybe the pillowcase smells like Kevin, like salt-sweat and skin, and the scream scrapes his throat almost raw in its desperation to escape, so he pulls his face from the fabric to suck in air. Kevin’s scent will fade to dust, soon.
Chest heaving, Sam drags his gaze over the clutter again.
Almost obscured by yet another pile of discarded books, two orange pill bottles are still capped. Sam reaches out, and pulls them both off the bedside table. Something hot curls in his gut. He twists off the first cap, to find the bottle half full of green pills. The second, a third full of blue.
So Dean was supplying Kevin with drugs. Still.
Sam clenches his jaw as the pills rattle in their bottles, because these are what Sam has left to shake, and he blows out a long long breath.Looking at Kevin had always been like looking into the worst sort of mirror.
It’s no different now, and it’s too late to confront Dean about supplying a minor with drugs.
Maybe-maybe if Sam had been here, he could have-have helped, somehow. With the translating, with Dean, with Cas, with Kevin, with everything. Sam traces the threading on the musty quilt with the pad of his finger. Did Kevin curl beneath it, hunched in on himself, like the layers of fabric could protect him?
Not that it did any damn good. Not that Sam did, either. (Which, shit. Sam dragged control of his body from the brilliant bright star of Lucifer. Saving Kevin from Gadreel should have been easy. So so easy. And instead-)
The last time Sam spoke with Kevin, it was under that Satanic billboard, with the world spinning spinning with the Trials. Part of his cleansing. All the time after Kevin came to the bunker belongs to Gadreel. Any time that Sam might have had with Kevin before-before, Gadreel stole that, too.
The door opens before Sam throws the pill bottles into the mess on the floor. Castiel stands in the doorway, illuminated by the dull lamps of the hall, his expression set like marble. If he notices the bottles Sam's hand, he doesn't mention it. “I believe I have found records that may be useful in our search, Sam,” a pause, where he shifts, shoulders stiff, “If you feel ready.”
Sam sucks in a breath-no, no, he’s not ready, wasn’t ready to fail somebody else, to say goodbye to yet another person he should have protected. A chill at his nape raises gooseflesh across his returned skin. He shifts, but it caresses him again, an icy finger at his neck, makes him shiver. “Yeah. Yeah. Let’s-I need to find Gadreel.”
Castiel leads Sam to the library, and the chill is gone.
Title: Ebb and Flow
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters: Hannah, Anna
Rating: G
Word Count: 676
Notes: Canon-divergent. Set after 9.23. You can read it here or at AO3.
Summary: Anna, Hannah, and Free Will visit the beach.
It isn’t Heaven. The white-frothed waves crash against the cool sand. Sunrise has the sand glittering and the creatures waking. This vessel itches against her Grace, but no longer attempting to burst at the seams as it had when she had first fallen.
Hannah fills the human lungs with briny air and stretches her newly-returned wings-the invisible winds stirring equally invisible feathers.
Beside her, Anna’s voice is low, soft like a wave-smoothed piece of green glass. “I thought you would stay in Heaven, now that you’ve thrown Metatron off his throne.” Everyone in Heaven knew Anael’s story, that she fell and later died for forsaking Michael. Somehow, Hannah doubts Anna has any love left for authority.
What it must be like, to have a body crafted for you instead of sliding into an already occupied skin. The hair of Hannah’s vessel stirs with the fierce wind and, somewhere, a gull shrieks. “Erin was kind enough to permit me within once more.” Hannah tilts her head as the morning light hits the water, making it appear blue-grey in color. “Heaven isn’t any more orderly than Earth.”
Anna laughs, grating and throaty, always seeming so comfortable in her skin. “Free will has a tendency to make a mess.”
Strong words from an angel that played dead through the Civil War, Naomi’s Reign, and the Fall. Hannah nods at the truth of Anna’s words, regardless. “Will you be returning, now that the Gates are opened?” Hannah asks, blue eyes fixed on the rising sun.
“No,” says Anna, “Heaven is no longer my home, and I value my freedom.”
“Then why show yourself to me?” asks Hannah, turning to examine her sister, and Anna’s bright hair tumbles over her shoulders with her shrug.
“You weren’t in my garrison, but I’ve got to say, I wished you were. Even before I ripped out my Grace.” Anna toes at a clump of dried seaweed. “Maybe it was selfish, but when you looked like you needed some extra guidance, I thought I’d offer what I could. A few months later, and here we still are.” Anna’s twin sets of wings stretch golden in the sun, glimmering against the beauty of her body.
Hannah returns her gaze to the rolling ocean, the heartbeat of her vessel speeding up as though she has exerted Erin’s body physically. Such strange creatures, humans. Beautiful, fleeting ones, but strange. And stranger still to walk among them as she has. Within the last five years, more has changed in Heaven than any other point since Lucifer fell.
She fills and empties her borrowed lungs as the beach comes to life with light and the call of birds. “And should I choose not to keep your secret?”
“Then that’s your choice.”
A nearby crab scuttles beneath a rock. Even a crab has choices to make, it seems. It could choose any rock on this beach, and yet it chooses the reddish one not far from Hannah. Anna’s hand settles warm on Hannah’s shoulder, her Grace shining bright against Hannah’s own, despite everything Anna has done. Despite what Hannah has done. “I am needed in Heaven,” says Hannah, her vessel’s lips forming words she cannot feel.
No more dead angels. As Castiel had a choice with Metatron, Hannah now has one with Anael. Freedom is something Anna desires. A cage would kill her. “So you’re going back?” Anna asks, her frail human hand tightening on Hannah’s shoulder.
Humanity has made her so very tactile.
“Yes. I… Yes.” Hannah straightens, flares out her wings. “Will you protect my vessel in my absence? Please?”
“Since you asked so nicely. But you’ll have to make it up to me, later,” and there is laughter in Anna’s voice.
Hannah nods. “Thank you.” She turns back to her sister, and then places her hand on Anna’s cheek-and then, still warmed by Anna’s Grace-Hannah flies back to Heaven.
Below, the waves crash against the beach, and Anna gently catches Erin before she falls into the sand, like a puppet whose strings have been severed.
This entry was originally posted at http://mako-lies.dreamwidth.org/125784.html.