DA/SPN Fanfic: Snake Demon (3/?)
Title: Snake Demon
Author: poestheblackcat
Rating: PG-13
Crossover: Dark Angel/Supernatural
Characters/Pairings: Max/Alec-ish, Sam, Dean
Warning/Spoilers: Both Seasons of DA, up to Season 3 finale of SPN and parts of Season 4, may be AU in future chapters
Summary: Third in "Ghosts of the Past" stories. Minoan runes appear all over Alec's body. What do they mean and how are they connected to the Winchesters? And why is Alec Dean's clone?
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters belong to their respective owners.
AN: This chap’s all Sammy’n’Dean. Enjoy. Oh yeah-a couple of kind of vague Season 4 references, but not all that spoiler-ish. Whatever. You’ll see.
Snake Demon
Chapter 3
The shrill sound of AC/DC in the still room woke Sam. Dean’s phone.
Groaning, he turned his head to look for the offending hunk of plastic. It was on the table between the two beds. He squinted at the unmoving lump that was his brother on the other bed. “Dean. Phone.”
“Yugeddit,” was the only response he got.
Sam heaved a dramatic sigh and reached for the phone, muttering obscenities at his brother under his breath while he flipped it open. “Yeah.” His voice was gravelly. He cleared his throat.
“Dean?” The voice sounded a bit familiar, but it was hard to tell over the static.
“No. It’s Sam. Who is this?” He glanced at Dean, who was finally pulling himself into a sitting position and rubbing at his eyes sleepily while yawning big enough to audibly crack his jaw. Lazy jerk.
“This is Logan. From Seattle?” the tinny voice prompted.
Sam blinked. “Oh right, Logan. Hey man, what’s up?” He threw off the covers and stood. Watching Dean yawn made him want to yawn too, so he did, aiming the mouthpiece of the phone away from his mouth so Logan wouldn’t be able to hear.
Apparently he still did though, since the younger man stammered, “I-uh, you sound, uh-Did I wake you? I’m sorry.”
Sam pinched the bridge of his nose. “Kinda. We got in late last night.” He glanced at the radio-clock on the nightstand. “Coupla hours ago, actually.” He ran a hand over his face in a gesture that unconsciously mimicked his father. “It’s fine, though. Why’d you call?”
“Do you know anyone who can read Ancient Minoan runes?”
Sam didn’t know if he’d heard him correctly. “Ancient Minoan runes,” he repeated. “Why would you want to know about Ancient Minoan? I mean, if you don’t mind me asking.”
Dean raised his eyebrows and mouthed at Sam. “Ancient Minoan?” Sam nodded and shrugged. Dean ran a hand though his tousled bedhead hair as he shook his head. Okay, weird.
Logan cleared his throat before answering. “There’s this 5,000 year-old cult built around selective breeding and worshipping snakes, from what I can find out, and basically, they want to take over the world by killing everyone else. About thirty or so years back, one of them, a guy named Sandeman, decided they were wrong and built Manticore in secret to make Transgenics. Now, the cult’s main ambition is to wipe out all of the Transgenics, and Max is supposed to be our savior.”
“Savior? What do you mean? Like Jesus Christ, Savior?” Sam interrupted. Dean’s eyebrows shot way up on forehead as he tried to follow his brother’s side of the conversation.
“I’m not exactly sure yet,” Logan replied. “Last year, she started developing these tattoos on her skin that turned out to be Ancient Minoan runes. I spent a lot of time and effort to translate them and I was only able to make out something about ‘The Coming,’ ‘The Chosen One;’ just words here and there, and some short phrases. Then Alec woke up this morning with runes all over his body, and I was wondering if you guys could give me a hand with the deciphering.”
Sam frowned. “You mean they just showed up? Out of nowhere, just like that?”
“Yeah. Apparently, the writing’s encoded into their DNA. So do you know anyone who could help me out?” Logan sounded hopeful. The guy must have had a hell of a hard time with decoding the writing last time to sound that desperate.
Sam balanced the phone between his shoulder and cheek and booted up his ancient laptop. “Yeah, actually, we do. This guy, he’s helped us out a few times with translating some Minoan spells and rituals. He’s really good at what he does. But the thing is, he doesn’t have a computer or a phone, so whatever you need translated you gotta actually take to him in person. And he’s a bit paranoid, too, so he doesn’t talk to strangers. I guess the best thing for you to do is to send us pictures of these runes and we’ll go see him.”
Dean’s face would have sent Sam into convulsions of laughter if he’d been looking. Ancient Mionoan, Jesus Christ, and a paranoid translator? Okay, that last part made some sense. The guy was an old contact of their dad’s. But the rest? Just like he always says. Demons he gets; people are just plain crazy.
“Okay, I’ll do that. Thanks for doing this.” There was a pause, and the buzzing sound of static filled Sam’s ear. “Is it too much out of your way, because I’d feel bad about making you guys travel really far for this.”
Sam shook his head as he peered absently at the scratched computer screen. “No. It’s fine. We’ve traveled further for complete strangers.” He let out a sharp laugh. “We’re in the state anyway and we just finished a job, so we’ve got nowhere else to go and no other jobs planned. Might as well do a favor for a friend, right? And hey, do you think you could send all the stuff you’ve got on the cult with the runes? We’ve dealt with cults before and we might see something you might not have noticed. Going after one of those, especially one as old as that, without all the information you can get can be really dangerous.”
“Sure, I’ll send all the files I’ve got on them with the pictures. Thanks, man,” Logan said, and seemed to end the conversation there, but in a moment he was back on with another question. “Oh, and one more thing. There’s one mark Alec’s got that you might recognize. According to him, it looks like Dean’s pendant. Does that mean anything to you?”
“Dean’s amulet? A head with horns? That’s-” Sam frowned. This was an interesting revelation. “Could you send a picture of that, too? I wanna see for myself.”
“Yeah, sure. And thanks again, Sam. Dean, too.”
“Yeah, no problem. Bye.” Sam hung up and turned to his brother to explain everything.
Dean was sitting on the edge of his bed expectantly. “Well? You gonna stand there or you gonna tell me what the hell is goin’ on?”
Sam sighed and ran a hand through his hair. This was gonna be a long-and very confusing-conversation. “Coffee first.”
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“So you’re tellin’ me there’s some crazy-ass 5,000-year-old breeding cult after those kids now? Not just the military?” Dean clarified later in the car. “Damn, that sucks. And the guy who made ‘em decided he wasn’t into prayin’ to snakes anymore and wanted out?” He made a face. “Demon-worshippin’ to playin’ God. Now that’s just messed up,” he declared, and reached over to lower the volume of the Metallica song pouring from the Impala’s speakers.
Sam nodded. “Yeah, seems like. Logan’s a good researcher. He’s got some pretty great stuff on this Sandeman guy, but it’s not a whole lot.” He shuffled through a few of the papers from the stack in the folder lying open in his lap. “Like this. There’s a Dr. Carl Sandeman with an impressive number of degrees and doctorates in various branches of science and linguistics who used to work for the government. It says here he disappeared in the mid-2000s and there’s been hardly a trace of him in the last decade-and-a-half, especially since the Pulse. Sounds like our guy, huh?”
“Yeah.” Dean glanced over at his brother. “Ya know, I think the million dollar question is: why the freakin’ hell are Mini-Me and Superbitch breaking out in Minoan runes? Minoan, for cryin’ out loud. What’s wrong with good ol’ plain English? And why is my amulet tattooed on the kid’s wrist? I mean, what the hell? It’s just a protection charm, right? This is more than just coincidence.”
Sam pursed his lips. “I asked Bobby what the amulet meant when we were kids, and that’s what he said. There are hundreds of bull-man deities from all over the world, in lots of different cultures; there’s the shedu or lamassu from the Sumerians and Mesopotamians, the minotaur in Greek mythology, Moloch and Ba’al from the Middle East, the Egyptians had Apis, and then there’s the Ushi-oni from Japan, and the-”
“Okay, okay. I get the picture, geek-boy,” Dean interrupted. He smirked. Sammy was no slouch at researching himself. “So, uh, what about this lamey-ass?”
Sam huffed in exaggerated annoyance at his brother’s feigned idiocy and lack of patience. “Lamassu, Dean. In a lot of cultures, the bull or bull-man was sacred, but as later religions came in, the meaning got turned around to mean hedonism and devil worship, hence the horns on popular depictions on demons and devils,” he lectured. “There’s a lot of things the original meaning of the bull-man could be, like protection, life-force, power, fertility and virility-”
Here Dean snorted and muttered, “Damn right.”
Sam ignored his brother’s input and continued, “It could also stand for resurrection,” he said, with a pointed look in Dean’s direction.
That got the elder Winchester’s attention. “Really? Huh. You think Bobby-nah.” Dean rejected the thought and shook his head.
“I don’t think Bobby was expecting anything even remotely like-what happened with you,” Sam said uneasily, still not comfortable with talking about his brother’s death and restoration after 14 years. “He meant for me to give it to Dad for Christmas, remember? Just as a simple protection charm.” He shrugged the tension out of his shoulders.
Dean just kept his eyes on the road. “Yeah,” he muttered. He wasn’t really all that comfortable with the subject either, which suited them both just fine. So he changed the subject. “What about those creepy-ass runes, huh? Of all the weird languages we’ve come across, Minoan’s always given me the chills.” He gave a mock shudder. “All those little pointy, squiggly, dotty…angle shapes,” he said, waving his right hand in a fluttery motion, as if trying to illustrate his point. “Creepy.”
Sam had to smile at that. “What about Arabic? That’s kind of squiggly, too.”
Dean shrugged. “I dunno. It looks cooler, I guess. But Minoan’s…creepy.” He made a face.
“Okay. Whatever, Dean.” Sam rolled his eyes and laughed. His brother was such a dork, but he loved him for it. “Well, we’ll find out what they mean, apocalypse or not, when we get to Frank’s place.”
Dean just made a “hm” sound. A minute later, he started singing along to the muted song. “So we cross that line/ Into the crypt-Hey Sammy, this song. It’s awesome.” He turned up the music. “Suffer unto my apocalypse!”
Sam shook his head, amused. “ ‘My Apocalypse’? Dude, I’m still amazed you managed to get this album on cassettes in 2008. Everything was digital even then, dude.”
Dean shot him an affectionate glance. “Shut up, Sammy. It’s Metallica. Sing. Come on, ya know you love it. Deadly vision/ Prophesy revealed,” He set a loud example for his brother and reached across to hit him lightly on the chest. “Death magnetic/ Pulling closer still.”
Sam grinned and joined in. “Feel thy name annihilation,” he sang-badly.
They’d finished the song and half of the other side of the tape when they rolled into Franklin Crick’s front yard.
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AN: Lyrics from “My Apocalypse” from Metallica’s 2008 album “Death Magnetic.” Don’t know how the melody goes because I’ve never heard it, but the words fit Supernatural perfectly.
Chapter 4