Fic: "Storyteller" (spn_apocasmut, Sam/Dean, Adult)
Hail to thee, O Triple-Shot Mocha Latte, for you enabled me to finish this story. Amen.
Title: Storyteller
Rating: Adult
Pairing: Sam/Dean (sort of), female narrator
Word Count: 1900
Spoilers/Warnings: Through the end of S2; dark as a coal mine at midnight.
Written for: spn_apocasmut; prompt #10: Resting around a small fire under the stars, the small group of strangers recall what they were doing the night before everything changed. It derailed a tad from there, I'm afraid, but it's relatively close.
She likes making up their stories. The people she meets. These days. You know.
It used to be different, she thinks. Glossy magazines and paparazzi and TV expose news anchored by men with plastic hair. Unless she's imagining that part. There were computers and search engines. Anything you wanted to know about anyone, even the guy who served you your gin and tonic, you could find out online.
She was watching one of those shows that night. And then everything changed, just like snap, that.
Changed. Talk about an understatement. She snorts, always surprised when something strikes her as amusing. Snorts, more like a crow's caw, because she doesn't laugh anymore. Can't, really. Her throat's too raw for that, three mouthfuls of water a day, measured out drop by drop by drop, just enough to keep going.
Until tonight.
No telling who looked down and smiled at her to bring her here. Probably no one; she stopped believing in that a long, long time ago. Left her prayer beads by the side of the road in a plastic sack with her great-grandmother's pearl earrings and other things she'd thought it'd break her in two to lose. It didn't. She kept going and hardly even missed them. Kept going, and now she's reached tonight.
There's a fire. In a circle of rocks that look mismatched at first, different colors and sizes, kind of a mess. But then she sees how, when she squints her eyes, that they're a kind of pattern woven in and out.
Mobius strip, she thinks, DNA. Though she's forgotten what those words mean, and they flitter right back out of her head.
Because the fire, in the circle of rocks, was set on purpose. Neat. Contained. She hasn't seen. Not in how-long-she's-forgotten. Not like she had a fireplace in her apartment with yellow wallpaper and a fish named Ernie. She's seen the sky boiling dried-blood-red for as long as it's taken to empty one gallon jug of water, kill a man with an anchor tattoo for another, and nearly drain it. She's seen houses that are just ash and she's seen men screaming and dancing when they're wreathed in flame, roasting them alive.
She's kind of proud that she never ate that meat. There are some things. She doesn't.
The matches all went somewhere when the moon ran with blood. No telling where. But fire's evil now, bad, bad, bad, and whatever she eats is cold from cans she bangs open or picks the weevils out of.
Which makes it crazier, because there's forked sticks over the fire with another stick laid atop them, and there's something spitted on there, roasting, dripping fat into the flames, and it didn't have a name once, probably, and she's suddenly so. Damn. Hungry. It hurts.
FOOD.
She creeps toward the riddle, sneaky, sneaky, little cat feet, the way she's learned. Shadow to shadow.
Maybe it's safe. She sees other people sitting there. Four. No, six. She missed the two that she can tell right away started the fire. Strange. Separate from the others, together. One, she'll call him Longshanks because he has them, with his back against a big, big stone. Legs splayed open, heels dug into sand once white, now dark gray and red and blue. One, smaller, empty-eyed, long bloody line down his forehead, sitting between Longshanks' shanks.
She caws, quiet, to herself, no sound, like she's learned, not that she can get her vocals chords to work now that she's all dried out for want of that food.
And curiosity, because that killed the cat. These two have a story. She can tell.
Before she can make it up and tell it to herself, though, Longshanks lifts his head, nose twitching like he's scenting the air. He nudges empty-blood, who shrugs. Longshanks pets empty-blood's arm, speaking softly in his ear, then calls out to her. "If you're hungry, come on. We've got enough."
No point in running when she's already been seen. Sometimes animals who used to be people love to chase. Better to face them, show them you're not scared. Helps if you have a weapon. There's a rock nearby, discarded; she picks it up and feels better right away.
Creep, creep, creep, closer and closer, watching them all the way. They watch her, too, so that's okay.
The fire's warm. She hadn't realized she was so cold. The sun can't be seen behind the boiling blood in the sky, but, boiling. It's been hot for a long time. And now her fingertips are blue. She didn't feel it happening.
"You're safe here," Longshanks says. He has a nice voice. It's a little flat and kind of toneless, but the timbre almost reassures her. How weird is that? But if she let herself believe him, she'd be convinced she was safe. Even weirder. "Come on. Eat something. Otherwise it'll just go to waste."
Confused, she frowns at the other four around the fire. Oh. She gets it now. They're dead. Should have seen that right away. The tiny woman's neck is broken, the tall dark man is full of holes, the small guy's got a big hole where his heart used to be, and there are rope burns around the other woman's throat.
"Don't mind the erstwhile Horsemen," Longshanks says, dry as the rivers are these days. "They're a pain in the ass. Always turning up where they're not wanted. You know?"
She hears the words, but they're kind of meaningless, so instead she checks out Longshanks and Empty-Bloody, who she thinks she might call Mr. Blank instead because it seems otherwise disrespectful to the guy who had his heart scooped out, to make sure they're alive. They're breathing, chests rising-falling, so she guesses they must still be. Maybe.
They're not eating, either. So that means the meat over the fire is HERS.
"Careful you don't burn yourself," Longshanks warns when she reaches for it. She caws, because that's funny, and then, when he floats a chunk of meat off the stick, crispy with fat, red in the middle, black on the outside, she wants to let it hover in the air in front of her while she takes great big hungry bites and leaves her hands free for applauding.
She gingerly takes the meat between her fingers and starts to gnaw on it that way instead.
"Sit down," Longshanks invites, resettling himself, pulling Mr. Blank tighter to his chest. She guesses they're lovers, maybe. That's nice. It's good for people to have other people. She might have, once. If she did, and it wasn't a dream, his name was… damn. Can't remember.
Doesn't matter; she's too busy eating, anyway. Juices sliding rich and fatty down her throat. Good, good, good, SO good.
She sits, because he asked her nicely. And it's good here. Fire, food, and she thinks she has a swallow of water left to wash it down. She doesn't think they'll try to kill her, which is kind of scary, but.
And now, while she eats and they talk to each other so quietly she can't hear, she can tell herself their story. Doesn't have to be true. Doesn't have to be anything but what she wants.
She decides they're lovers. Mm-hmm, the way Longshanks' lips brush Mr. Blank's cheek when he talks, they have to be. Mr. Blank. No. She thinks she'll call him Fire instead. There are burn scars on his arms, but if she looks closely she can see he was burned out of himself a long, long time ago. Nothing left but a shell that Longshanks holds close so the rest of him can't get away.
No soul. Huh. Okay. So he's kind of dead, too. Five out of six; bad odds.
But they aren't hurting her. So.
Closing her eyes, she imagines the way they would have used to be. Fast in everything they did, hard, no gentleness, long bare legs, rocking together naked. Stolen moments in rented rooms. Nothing sacred. Dirty, dirty talk, racing the clock, biting each other to keep tastes of their blood with them, swallowing it down with spunk and tongued-up sweat. Fire burning, Longshanks on top of him, licking his throat. Shaking limbs, desperate cries. Forbidden and all the better for it.
They must have loved each other a lot if they're still together here-and-now. Enough to last through the end of the world and afterwards.
She'd thought she'd forgotten how to be aroused. It's disturbing to squirm now, when she's eating with four dead people watching her. So she changes her tune with one last wistful lingering on the way their lips must have looked stretched thin around each other's cocks, and idles away a few fantasies about how they tried to save people, which they must have done because they've built a fire and roasted meat and invited her in, and that means they're trying to save her, too.
Which makes no sense, but whatever. She licks every drop of grease off her fingers and thinks she might throw up, but it'd be worth it.
Longshanks turns Fire's face and kisses him. Not gentle, like she'd guessed, and she's fiercely proud to see that she did get that right. His tongue pushes into Fire's mouth; Fire closes his eyes and lets Longshanks have his way. Fire kind of likes it, as much as he can. Maybe. He's grabbing Longshanks' ratty shirt, but not pushing him away, and now he's kissing Longshanks back, more like he's draining out the last drops of what they used to be.
She applauds them, because it's awfully nice to see someone enjoying life.
That gets Longshanks' attention. He licks Fire's lips before wrapping his arms around Fire's chest and rocking him. "What's your name?" he asks, and it takes a minute before she realizes he's asking her.
Trouble is, she's forgotten.
He introduces himself, and Fire, but the sounds don't make sense to her so she lets them slide back out the other ear. He looks sad, for a second, then hard and cold and she's afraid again, but then he laughs and it's not cruel. So.
"Did you know you're the last human left alive?" Longshanks asks.
She giggles, able to now that she's moistened up, marveling at the sound. Me? That's crazy.
Accountant, she thinks. I used to be an accountant. I didn't count on this.
"Thank you for your company," Longshanks says gravely. That's funny. "I hoped you'd come."
She smiles at him, cracking open the dry skin at the corners of her mouth, and nods. It was great to be here.
"Good luck," he wishes her. That's nice.
Then it's quiet, and she tells herself stories about superheroes while she rocks on her heels and enjoys the sight of them. Huh. Longshanks has taken up Fire's wrist. There's a dark blur on his arm.
Wristwatch. It's a strange memory.
Doesn't matter, because she's fascinated by the men, not the trinket. Together, they're counting down to something, lips moving silently to the beat of a sickly heart. Seconds running together.
She counts with them, because it's fun, and what's life when it's all work and no play, anyway?
Three. Two. It's going well.
But she blinks, and she misses "one". Oh, well.
Title: Storyteller
Rating: Adult
Pairing: Sam/Dean (sort of), female narrator
Word Count: 1900
Spoilers/Warnings: Through the end of S2; dark as a coal mine at midnight.
Written for: spn_apocasmut; prompt #10: Resting around a small fire under the stars, the small group of strangers recall what they were doing the night before everything changed. It derailed a tad from there, I'm afraid, but it's relatively close.
She likes making up their stories. The people she meets. These days. You know.
It used to be different, she thinks. Glossy magazines and paparazzi and TV expose news anchored by men with plastic hair. Unless she's imagining that part. There were computers and search engines. Anything you wanted to know about anyone, even the guy who served you your gin and tonic, you could find out online.
She was watching one of those shows that night. And then everything changed, just like snap, that.
Changed. Talk about an understatement. She snorts, always surprised when something strikes her as amusing. Snorts, more like a crow's caw, because she doesn't laugh anymore. Can't, really. Her throat's too raw for that, three mouthfuls of water a day, measured out drop by drop by drop, just enough to keep going.
Until tonight.
No telling who looked down and smiled at her to bring her here. Probably no one; she stopped believing in that a long, long time ago. Left her prayer beads by the side of the road in a plastic sack with her great-grandmother's pearl earrings and other things she'd thought it'd break her in two to lose. It didn't. She kept going and hardly even missed them. Kept going, and now she's reached tonight.
There's a fire. In a circle of rocks that look mismatched at first, different colors and sizes, kind of a mess. But then she sees how, when she squints her eyes, that they're a kind of pattern woven in and out.
Mobius strip, she thinks, DNA. Though she's forgotten what those words mean, and they flitter right back out of her head.
Because the fire, in the circle of rocks, was set on purpose. Neat. Contained. She hasn't seen. Not in how-long-she's-forgotten. Not like she had a fireplace in her apartment with yellow wallpaper and a fish named Ernie. She's seen the sky boiling dried-blood-red for as long as it's taken to empty one gallon jug of water, kill a man with an anchor tattoo for another, and nearly drain it. She's seen houses that are just ash and she's seen men screaming and dancing when they're wreathed in flame, roasting them alive.
She's kind of proud that she never ate that meat. There are some things. She doesn't.
The matches all went somewhere when the moon ran with blood. No telling where. But fire's evil now, bad, bad, bad, and whatever she eats is cold from cans she bangs open or picks the weevils out of.
Which makes it crazier, because there's forked sticks over the fire with another stick laid atop them, and there's something spitted on there, roasting, dripping fat into the flames, and it didn't have a name once, probably, and she's suddenly so. Damn. Hungry. It hurts.
FOOD.
She creeps toward the riddle, sneaky, sneaky, little cat feet, the way she's learned. Shadow to shadow.
Maybe it's safe. She sees other people sitting there. Four. No, six. She missed the two that she can tell right away started the fire. Strange. Separate from the others, together. One, she'll call him Longshanks because he has them, with his back against a big, big stone. Legs splayed open, heels dug into sand once white, now dark gray and red and blue. One, smaller, empty-eyed, long bloody line down his forehead, sitting between Longshanks' shanks.
She caws, quiet, to herself, no sound, like she's learned, not that she can get her vocals chords to work now that she's all dried out for want of that food.
And curiosity, because that killed the cat. These two have a story. She can tell.
Before she can make it up and tell it to herself, though, Longshanks lifts his head, nose twitching like he's scenting the air. He nudges empty-blood, who shrugs. Longshanks pets empty-blood's arm, speaking softly in his ear, then calls out to her. "If you're hungry, come on. We've got enough."
No point in running when she's already been seen. Sometimes animals who used to be people love to chase. Better to face them, show them you're not scared. Helps if you have a weapon. There's a rock nearby, discarded; she picks it up and feels better right away.
Creep, creep, creep, closer and closer, watching them all the way. They watch her, too, so that's okay.
The fire's warm. She hadn't realized she was so cold. The sun can't be seen behind the boiling blood in the sky, but, boiling. It's been hot for a long time. And now her fingertips are blue. She didn't feel it happening.
"You're safe here," Longshanks says. He has a nice voice. It's a little flat and kind of toneless, but the timbre almost reassures her. How weird is that? But if she let herself believe him, she'd be convinced she was safe. Even weirder. "Come on. Eat something. Otherwise it'll just go to waste."
Confused, she frowns at the other four around the fire. Oh. She gets it now. They're dead. Should have seen that right away. The tiny woman's neck is broken, the tall dark man is full of holes, the small guy's got a big hole where his heart used to be, and there are rope burns around the other woman's throat.
"Don't mind the erstwhile Horsemen," Longshanks says, dry as the rivers are these days. "They're a pain in the ass. Always turning up where they're not wanted. You know?"
She hears the words, but they're kind of meaningless, so instead she checks out Longshanks and Empty-Bloody, who she thinks she might call Mr. Blank instead because it seems otherwise disrespectful to the guy who had his heart scooped out, to make sure they're alive. They're breathing, chests rising-falling, so she guesses they must still be. Maybe.
They're not eating, either. So that means the meat over the fire is HERS.
"Careful you don't burn yourself," Longshanks warns when she reaches for it. She caws, because that's funny, and then, when he floats a chunk of meat off the stick, crispy with fat, red in the middle, black on the outside, she wants to let it hover in the air in front of her while she takes great big hungry bites and leaves her hands free for applauding.
She gingerly takes the meat between her fingers and starts to gnaw on it that way instead.
"Sit down," Longshanks invites, resettling himself, pulling Mr. Blank tighter to his chest. She guesses they're lovers, maybe. That's nice. It's good for people to have other people. She might have, once. If she did, and it wasn't a dream, his name was… damn. Can't remember.
Doesn't matter; she's too busy eating, anyway. Juices sliding rich and fatty down her throat. Good, good, good, SO good.
She sits, because he asked her nicely. And it's good here. Fire, food, and she thinks she has a swallow of water left to wash it down. She doesn't think they'll try to kill her, which is kind of scary, but.
And now, while she eats and they talk to each other so quietly she can't hear, she can tell herself their story. Doesn't have to be true. Doesn't have to be anything but what she wants.
She decides they're lovers. Mm-hmm, the way Longshanks' lips brush Mr. Blank's cheek when he talks, they have to be. Mr. Blank. No. She thinks she'll call him Fire instead. There are burn scars on his arms, but if she looks closely she can see he was burned out of himself a long, long time ago. Nothing left but a shell that Longshanks holds close so the rest of him can't get away.
No soul. Huh. Okay. So he's kind of dead, too. Five out of six; bad odds.
But they aren't hurting her. So.
Closing her eyes, she imagines the way they would have used to be. Fast in everything they did, hard, no gentleness, long bare legs, rocking together naked. Stolen moments in rented rooms. Nothing sacred. Dirty, dirty talk, racing the clock, biting each other to keep tastes of their blood with them, swallowing it down with spunk and tongued-up sweat. Fire burning, Longshanks on top of him, licking his throat. Shaking limbs, desperate cries. Forbidden and all the better for it.
They must have loved each other a lot if they're still together here-and-now. Enough to last through the end of the world and afterwards.
She'd thought she'd forgotten how to be aroused. It's disturbing to squirm now, when she's eating with four dead people watching her. So she changes her tune with one last wistful lingering on the way their lips must have looked stretched thin around each other's cocks, and idles away a few fantasies about how they tried to save people, which they must have done because they've built a fire and roasted meat and invited her in, and that means they're trying to save her, too.
Which makes no sense, but whatever. She licks every drop of grease off her fingers and thinks she might throw up, but it'd be worth it.
Longshanks turns Fire's face and kisses him. Not gentle, like she'd guessed, and she's fiercely proud to see that she did get that right. His tongue pushes into Fire's mouth; Fire closes his eyes and lets Longshanks have his way. Fire kind of likes it, as much as he can. Maybe. He's grabbing Longshanks' ratty shirt, but not pushing him away, and now he's kissing Longshanks back, more like he's draining out the last drops of what they used to be.
She applauds them, because it's awfully nice to see someone enjoying life.
That gets Longshanks' attention. He licks Fire's lips before wrapping his arms around Fire's chest and rocking him. "What's your name?" he asks, and it takes a minute before she realizes he's asking her.
Trouble is, she's forgotten.
He introduces himself, and Fire, but the sounds don't make sense to her so she lets them slide back out the other ear. He looks sad, for a second, then hard and cold and she's afraid again, but then he laughs and it's not cruel. So.
"Did you know you're the last human left alive?" Longshanks asks.
She giggles, able to now that she's moistened up, marveling at the sound. Me? That's crazy.
Accountant, she thinks. I used to be an accountant. I didn't count on this.
"Thank you for your company," Longshanks says gravely. That's funny. "I hoped you'd come."
She smiles at him, cracking open the dry skin at the corners of her mouth, and nods. It was great to be here.
"Good luck," he wishes her. That's nice.
Then it's quiet, and she tells herself stories about superheroes while she rocks on her heels and enjoys the sight of them. Huh. Longshanks has taken up Fire's wrist. There's a dark blur on his arm.
Wristwatch. It's a strange memory.
Doesn't matter, because she's fascinated by the men, not the trinket. Together, they're counting down to something, lips moving silently to the beat of a sickly heart. Seconds running together.
She counts with them, because it's fun, and what's life when it's all work and no play, anyway?
Three. Two. It's going well.
But she blinks, and she misses "one". Oh, well.