Dashed Hopes and Good Intentions
Title: Dashed Hopes and Good Intentions
Author: monicawoe
Prompt: Sam Winchester goes into a bar and meets Syd Barrett (Legion)
Fandoms: Supernatural, Legion
Characters: Sam Winchester, Syd Barrett, Ptonomy Wallace
Word count: ~1,600
Rating/Contents: R; mentions of show-typical violence and demonic possession, PTSD, spoilers/spec for Legion season 2
Syd knows the End is coming, and if they're going to stop it, they need all the help they can get. Sam Winchester seems to be an expert on the Apocalypse, so they try to recruit him.
written for the intoabar challenge at dreamwidth
on AO3
Ptonomy stepped out of the interrogation room, and gave Syd a strange look. Above them, the green bulb flicked back to red as the door’s locking system re-engaged.
“No luck?” she asked. There’d been a few-very few-cases where Ptonomy hadn’t been able to read a person’s memories. Plus, the files they had on the man in that room were exceptionally bizarre, even for them. Maybe he could keep people out of his head, too.
“Luck?” Ptonomy swallowed. “I saw plenty. Kinda wish I hadn’t.” He shook his head. “That guy’s had a lot of bad, weird shit go down.”
“How weird?”
“He’s been animated.”
“As in re-animated? Brought back to life?”
“As in Scooby-Doo.” Ptonomy made a face as he said the words, like he hated saying them.
Syd stared at him and started to ask, “What?” but he walked away before she could get the word out. With just a hair more trepidation than before, she looked up at the security camera and signaled control to unlock.
The bulb went green, the door hissed open and she walked through, ignoring the vertigo as the physics-defying room turned her upside down-right side up from the perspective of their current ‘guest,' Sam Winchester.
Sitting down, he didn’t look half as intimidating as his file made him out to be. He was tall and lanky; his long legs looked cramped beneath the metal table, and his shoulder-length shaggy hair softened the sharp edges of his jaw. He looked like he’d be far more at home in a library than killing. But Syd knew, better than anybody, how little appearances had to do with the truth of things. World-breakers were buried behind puppy-dog eyes and awkward smiles.
He watched her silently, unblinking, as she sat down across from him, placed the manila file folder on the tabletop, and clasped her gloved fingers. "Hi, Sam. I'm Syd."
For a long, weighty moment, Sam said nothing. He just kept watching her, in a way not dissimilar to how people looked when they were communicating telepathically. But he wasn’t speaking into her mind, at least not in any way she could tell. Then he cracked a cold half-smile and said, “You’re the third person today. How many more until I get a coffee break?”
Syd smiled back. “That all depends on you.”
Sam’s mouth thinned, impatience and a touch of anger sparking in his eyes. “I answered every question your friends asked me. I’ve been cooperative, and, like I told them, I have better places to be.”
“Like where?”
“No more questions, until you answer some of mine: Why am I here?”
“Because we need your help.”
“With what?”
“The end of the world.”
He scoffed, bitterly.
“You seem to be...an expert on the subject,” Syd said, undeterred.
“Yeah, you could say that.” He broke eye contact with her on the last word, looking down at his hands. His long fingers twitched slightly, and he pushed his thumb into the meat of his other hand, rubbing it against a faded scar there.
“Says in your file you saved the world. More than once.” She flipped through the pages and paused on a sheet of photos-the first a security camera still from a diner parking lot showing Sam with his chin covered in blood. The other photos were all of corpses: men and women in blood-spattered suits. She turned the file around, pushing the folder towards Sam. “Also says you killed a lot of people.”
He reached for the folder slowly, almost like he was being careful not to spook her, and pulled it closer. His eyes scanned the photos and he looked up at her, considering, then blinked once, deliberately, before answering, ”They were possessed by demons.”
“Demons? Like from Hell?” Syd cocked an eyebrow.
Sam nodded.
“So you killed the demons, but not the people?”
“The people were probably already dead.”
“Probably?”
“Demons like to kill their hosts.”
“And you like to kill demons.”
Sam’s jaw twitched. “I used to.”
“Not anymore?” Syd leaned back in her seat. She was getting under his skin, that much was obvious. “All the demons gone now?”
“No, I just don’t kill them that way anymore.”
“What way?”
Sam let out a huff of air, like a warning shot. “Cut the crap. You know how. Your friend already looked in my brain, dug through my memories.” His voice wavered a little on the last word. Ptonomy had a way of finding the stuff people wanted to bury the most. “What do you want from me?”
Syd pulled at the fingers of her right glove and slipped it off. “Nearly everyone here has some kind of ability.” She cracked her knuckles and spread her fingers wide. “When I touch someone, I become them, and they become me. For a little while.” She looked up at him. “Does that make me a demon?”
“Hell makes you a demon.” He looked at her hand warily. “What you’re describing sounds more like body swapping or shapeshifting.”
She locked eyes with him, he was nervous and hiding it, or trying to. “You’ve been possessed. More than once.”
“Yeah, I have.”
“What’s it like?”
“Well it depends,” he said, voice low with simmering anger. “The demon who possessed me hurt people I care about. The angel that possessed me put me to sleep so I wouldn’t know he was there. Lucifer killed my friends, used my fists to beat my brother to a pulp and made me watch.”
“Lucifer? You’ve had the Devil himself inside you?” Syd let out a slow breath, tugged her glove back on. “And I thought we had it bad.” She pulled the file folder back towards her and closed it. “Here’s the deal, Sam. The end is coming. I’ve seen it, I’ve lived it, apparently, and it was bad enough that I somehow sent a message back in time to warn us, so we can stop it from happening.”
“And?” he asked, his expression gone stony.
“And we were hoping you could tell us how you kept the world from falling apart the last few times.”
“I’m the last person that should be giving you advice.”
“Why do you say that?”
Sam broke eye contact. “Because the first time it was mostly my fault in the first place. I thought I was doing the right thing, for the right reasons. And I could say that I was manipulated, that I was played and I fell for it, but that doesn’t change what I did. I set Lucifer free, he started the Apocalypse. Thousands died.”
Syd swallowed, pushing uncomfortable thoughts out of her mind. Super-powered, well-meaning and misguided could be a damn dangerous combination.
“Also doesn’t change the fact that we’re still here.” She leaned closer. “You’re still here.”
“Yeah.” Sam gave her a sad smile. “I am. But a lot of others aren’t. Now tell me how to help you, before I change my mind.”
She smiled back, trying to force her own sorrow not to show. “You said that an angel possessed you and put you to sleep-that you didn’t know.”
Sam nodded.
“Can that happen when you’re awake? Can you be influenced by somebody without ever knowing they’re in your head?”
“Definitely. There’s a whole lot of beings that can do that, not to mention spells, cursed objects.”
“How do you stop it?”
“First we have to figure out what it is.” His expression had softened, along with his voice. “Whose head are you worried about?”
“The man I love. He’s...he’s hiding things, and he thinks he’s doing the right thing, but if he’s wrong-“ Syd blinked, swallowing down the sudden lump in her throat. “He can do things, terrible things that no one else can.” He’s the magic man, Syd thought to herself, a flash of white skittering through her mind.
“You have a theory on who’s in his head?”
“Ever heard of the Shadow King?”
Sam nodded. “Powerful psychic, had himself a cult at one point, from what I remember reading. You think he’s messing with-“
“David,” Syd said, “Maybe. But my future self seems to think we need the Shadow King’s help to stop the end.”
“The Shadow King is gonna help you save the world?” Sam’s eyebrows crept up. “The lore-the texts I read said he’s practically a demigod of nightmares and fear.”
Syd nodded. “They’re not wrong. And if it’s all true-if we need him to stop the end, then that means that whatever we’re fighting is just as strong and we have no idea who it is. Or-” She forced herself to continue despite how much she hated even giving voice to the rest of the thought. “-Or worse, we know exactly who it is.”
Sam watched her for a beat. “David.”
She met his eyes, and pushed on, her voice cracking. “If there’s nobody messing with his thoughts then it’s just him. And if he’s the one we have to stop.” She shook her head. “I can’t. We can’t stop him.”
“Then you need to get through to him.” Sam’s gaze was fixed at a point on the table, but his eyes were unfocused, he was remembering something. “If he loves you, he’ll hear you. No matter how far gone he is.”
“He’ll hear me.” Syd nodded. “But will he listen?”
Sam’s eyes snapped back up and he said, shaken but determined, “Let’s find out.”
Author: monicawoe
Prompt: Sam Winchester goes into a bar and meets Syd Barrett (Legion)
Fandoms: Supernatural, Legion
Characters: Sam Winchester, Syd Barrett, Ptonomy Wallace
Word count: ~1,600
Rating/Contents: R; mentions of show-typical violence and demonic possession, PTSD, spoilers/spec for Legion season 2
Syd knows the End is coming, and if they're going to stop it, they need all the help they can get. Sam Winchester seems to be an expert on the Apocalypse, so they try to recruit him.
written for the intoabar challenge at dreamwidth
on AO3
Ptonomy stepped out of the interrogation room, and gave Syd a strange look. Above them, the green bulb flicked back to red as the door’s locking system re-engaged.
“No luck?” she asked. There’d been a few-very few-cases where Ptonomy hadn’t been able to read a person’s memories. Plus, the files they had on the man in that room were exceptionally bizarre, even for them. Maybe he could keep people out of his head, too.
“Luck?” Ptonomy swallowed. “I saw plenty. Kinda wish I hadn’t.” He shook his head. “That guy’s had a lot of bad, weird shit go down.”
“How weird?”
“He’s been animated.”
“As in re-animated? Brought back to life?”
“As in Scooby-Doo.” Ptonomy made a face as he said the words, like he hated saying them.
Syd stared at him and started to ask, “What?” but he walked away before she could get the word out. With just a hair more trepidation than before, she looked up at the security camera and signaled control to unlock.
The bulb went green, the door hissed open and she walked through, ignoring the vertigo as the physics-defying room turned her upside down-right side up from the perspective of their current ‘guest,' Sam Winchester.
Sitting down, he didn’t look half as intimidating as his file made him out to be. He was tall and lanky; his long legs looked cramped beneath the metal table, and his shoulder-length shaggy hair softened the sharp edges of his jaw. He looked like he’d be far more at home in a library than killing. But Syd knew, better than anybody, how little appearances had to do with the truth of things. World-breakers were buried behind puppy-dog eyes and awkward smiles.
He watched her silently, unblinking, as she sat down across from him, placed the manila file folder on the tabletop, and clasped her gloved fingers. "Hi, Sam. I'm Syd."
For a long, weighty moment, Sam said nothing. He just kept watching her, in a way not dissimilar to how people looked when they were communicating telepathically. But he wasn’t speaking into her mind, at least not in any way she could tell. Then he cracked a cold half-smile and said, “You’re the third person today. How many more until I get a coffee break?”
Syd smiled back. “That all depends on you.”
Sam’s mouth thinned, impatience and a touch of anger sparking in his eyes. “I answered every question your friends asked me. I’ve been cooperative, and, like I told them, I have better places to be.”
“Like where?”
“No more questions, until you answer some of mine: Why am I here?”
“Because we need your help.”
“With what?”
“The end of the world.”
He scoffed, bitterly.
“You seem to be...an expert on the subject,” Syd said, undeterred.
“Yeah, you could say that.” He broke eye contact with her on the last word, looking down at his hands. His long fingers twitched slightly, and he pushed his thumb into the meat of his other hand, rubbing it against a faded scar there.
“Says in your file you saved the world. More than once.” She flipped through the pages and paused on a sheet of photos-the first a security camera still from a diner parking lot showing Sam with his chin covered in blood. The other photos were all of corpses: men and women in blood-spattered suits. She turned the file around, pushing the folder towards Sam. “Also says you killed a lot of people.”
He reached for the folder slowly, almost like he was being careful not to spook her, and pulled it closer. His eyes scanned the photos and he looked up at her, considering, then blinked once, deliberately, before answering, ”They were possessed by demons.”
“Demons? Like from Hell?” Syd cocked an eyebrow.
Sam nodded.
“So you killed the demons, but not the people?”
“The people were probably already dead.”
“Probably?”
“Demons like to kill their hosts.”
“And you like to kill demons.”
Sam’s jaw twitched. “I used to.”
“Not anymore?” Syd leaned back in her seat. She was getting under his skin, that much was obvious. “All the demons gone now?”
“No, I just don’t kill them that way anymore.”
“What way?”
Sam let out a huff of air, like a warning shot. “Cut the crap. You know how. Your friend already looked in my brain, dug through my memories.” His voice wavered a little on the last word. Ptonomy had a way of finding the stuff people wanted to bury the most. “What do you want from me?”
Syd pulled at the fingers of her right glove and slipped it off. “Nearly everyone here has some kind of ability.” She cracked her knuckles and spread her fingers wide. “When I touch someone, I become them, and they become me. For a little while.” She looked up at him. “Does that make me a demon?”
“Hell makes you a demon.” He looked at her hand warily. “What you’re describing sounds more like body swapping or shapeshifting.”
She locked eyes with him, he was nervous and hiding it, or trying to. “You’ve been possessed. More than once.”
“Yeah, I have.”
“What’s it like?”
“Well it depends,” he said, voice low with simmering anger. “The demon who possessed me hurt people I care about. The angel that possessed me put me to sleep so I wouldn’t know he was there. Lucifer killed my friends, used my fists to beat my brother to a pulp and made me watch.”
“Lucifer? You’ve had the Devil himself inside you?” Syd let out a slow breath, tugged her glove back on. “And I thought we had it bad.” She pulled the file folder back towards her and closed it. “Here’s the deal, Sam. The end is coming. I’ve seen it, I’ve lived it, apparently, and it was bad enough that I somehow sent a message back in time to warn us, so we can stop it from happening.”
“And?” he asked, his expression gone stony.
“And we were hoping you could tell us how you kept the world from falling apart the last few times.”
“I’m the last person that should be giving you advice.”
“Why do you say that?”
Sam broke eye contact. “Because the first time it was mostly my fault in the first place. I thought I was doing the right thing, for the right reasons. And I could say that I was manipulated, that I was played and I fell for it, but that doesn’t change what I did. I set Lucifer free, he started the Apocalypse. Thousands died.”
Syd swallowed, pushing uncomfortable thoughts out of her mind. Super-powered, well-meaning and misguided could be a damn dangerous combination.
“Also doesn’t change the fact that we’re still here.” She leaned closer. “You’re still here.”
“Yeah.” Sam gave her a sad smile. “I am. But a lot of others aren’t. Now tell me how to help you, before I change my mind.”
She smiled back, trying to force her own sorrow not to show. “You said that an angel possessed you and put you to sleep-that you didn’t know.”
Sam nodded.
“Can that happen when you’re awake? Can you be influenced by somebody without ever knowing they’re in your head?”
“Definitely. There’s a whole lot of beings that can do that, not to mention spells, cursed objects.”
“How do you stop it?”
“First we have to figure out what it is.” His expression had softened, along with his voice. “Whose head are you worried about?”
“The man I love. He’s...he’s hiding things, and he thinks he’s doing the right thing, but if he’s wrong-“ Syd blinked, swallowing down the sudden lump in her throat. “He can do things, terrible things that no one else can.” He’s the magic man, Syd thought to herself, a flash of white skittering through her mind.
“You have a theory on who’s in his head?”
“Ever heard of the Shadow King?”
Sam nodded. “Powerful psychic, had himself a cult at one point, from what I remember reading. You think he’s messing with-“
“David,” Syd said, “Maybe. But my future self seems to think we need the Shadow King’s help to stop the end.”
“The Shadow King is gonna help you save the world?” Sam’s eyebrows crept up. “The lore-the texts I read said he’s practically a demigod of nightmares and fear.”
Syd nodded. “They’re not wrong. And if it’s all true-if we need him to stop the end, then that means that whatever we’re fighting is just as strong and we have no idea who it is. Or-” She forced herself to continue despite how much she hated even giving voice to the rest of the thought. “-Or worse, we know exactly who it is.”
Sam watched her for a beat. “David.”
She met his eyes, and pushed on, her voice cracking. “If there’s nobody messing with his thoughts then it’s just him. And if he’s the one we have to stop.” She shook her head. “I can’t. We can’t stop him.”
“Then you need to get through to him.” Sam’s gaze was fixed at a point on the table, but his eyes were unfocused, he was remembering something. “If he loves you, he’ll hear you. No matter how far gone he is.”
“He’ll hear me.” Syd nodded. “But will he listen?”
Sam’s eyes snapped back up and he said, shaken but determined, “Let’s find out.”