fic: supernatural//these crimes of illusion (chapter 1.3)
After all the requests and demands for an update, here it is. :) Just to note: this author goes by the idea that Dean was 5 when Mary died, as that is what it says in the pilot's script. Special thanks to koyote19 for taking time from her hectic schedule and beta'ing this for me. She's an amazing beta and author, and if you haven't, go read her fic. Her story was the inspiration for this one. I've been incredably stuck with this fic for the last few days, so feed the muse, please, and help me write more!
Chapter 1.1
Chapter 1.2
This chapter is rated R for language and scenes of torture.
These Crimes of Illusion
Chapter 1.3
Before her death -- murder -- Mary Winchester taught her son how to swim.
Lawrence had a public pool on the other side of the city, a twenty minute drive on good days, and Mary took the trip when the heat of summer became too much and sweat made her shirt stick to her back. She’d gather up Dean, pack a bag of snacks and water and a few towels decorated with Disney characters, and put it all in the car.
She wasn’t able to do anything more than splash with her son in the kiddy area until he turned four and insisted on going in the “big people pool.” They’d stay in the shallow end, Dean balanced on the stairs, and practice things like kicks and paddles, his chubby feet splashing in and out of the water. Mary would tickle those small feet with pearls as toes, laughing with him as he wiggled in the water like a fish.
Weeks went by until Mary pulled Dean from the steps and set him free in the water, grinning from ear to ear as he moved between outstretched hands; parent to parent, when John came with on his days off. Blond hair bobbed above the water when he really took to the water and dove under it, small bubbles coming to the surface before he reached his father.
Swimming felt as natural to him as breathing, and when that summer drew to a close with the turning of leaves and the pool was finally closed, Dean would practice his kicks on the edge of the couch, feet flying into the air.
There was a feeling of buoyancy that came with swimming in the water, and at each motel his father dragged him to in the years that followed, Dean would find the pool and spend hours in it, just swimming and floating and wondering if his mother would have taken him to swim lessons if she’d lived. He’d push dead leaves out of his path with pruney hands, dive under the water, and watch the world through the rippling surface.
The world looks like that now, as Dean, now grown up and no longer searching out those pools, cracks open his eyes and wonders how the hell he can see, let alone breathe. His right side is cold, pressed against the tile flooring; he’s curled up on his side, knees drawn close to his chest, right arm -- swollen, bruised, and probably broken from when Estrella whipped it with a chain -- stuck out, shoulder twisted painfully.
Water drips on his forehead. Panic runs through him; had he shifted while unconscious and ended up under the water? Dean lifts his left arm -- the right isn’t responding when he tries to call it up -- and moves to brush what he believes is more sour water from his forehead.
“Stop moving.”
While it sounds like the command his brain’s been screaming at him since Estrella sliced at his skin with razor sharp nails, the voice isn’t his.
A hand pushes his back down to his side. More water drips onto his forehead, then the brushing of cloth against his blazing skin. The fever’s raging now, spread across his entire body, though that could be the infection he knows has to be growing in those deeper cuts.
Or maybe not.
Dean cracks his eyes open wider, and they become large when they see Estrella sitting next to him, cloth in her hand. She dips it into a bowl of water and brushes it over his skin. Down his cheeks, across his throat. She’s even kind enough to squeeze some into his mouth.
What the hell is going on?
“Punishment is not without its rewards,” Estrella answers. Her voice has taken on a sweet, sugary tone, softer and kinder. “I felt, perhaps, that a lack of Glamour may be a bit harsh, but you reacted spectacularly.”
And fuck, he gets it. Pride and dignity, two things he lost during her last trick, and now, God damnit, he’s being rewarded for his whimpers.
But the cool water feels so good, and he reflexively leans into the cloth each time she brushes it across his skin, noticing -- but not caring -- that his shirt is gone and his jeans are shredded, and she can clean his wounds without moving any clothing. And she does, which makes a small part of Dean’s mind -- the part still focused on escape and survival -- wonder why. Estrella’s a woman with twisted motivations who plans each and every detail; her sudden turn of heart is uncharacteristic, kind when she’s sadistic.
Dean squares his jaw, though steeling a reserve already lost doesn’t accomplish much. All it does is anger Estrella just enough to sweep the cloth a bit harder than usual, tearing across deeper cuts on his sides with icy perfection. The temperature in the room drops quickly, the water beading on his skin turning from cool comfort to chilly discomfort. Estrella doesn’t stop, though, just loads the cloth up with more water and holds it on his stomach. His breath comes out in visible puffs. On his stomach, the cloth blossoms with frost, then freezes solid into a block of ice.
“Hey...” he breathes, frowning.
Estrella’s expression blossoms into a wicked smile; she presses the cloth turned ice onto his skin. “Haven’t you heard of the thin line between pleasure and pain?”
If the cool cloth was comforting, this had the opposite effect. The icy chill spread through his stomach, wrapping around his sides before it began to burn. That frostbite, freezer burn type that heats and cools at the same time. It cascades over him in waves, cold and hot, the fever losing out in a battle between heat and ice.
And damn, did it hurt.
He swam inside his own head, reeling back against the wall, pressed where floor met ceiling. There’s a shift in his perception, the white room blinking in and out of existence until there’s nothing but perpetual blackness swimming in front of him. For a moment, Dean fears he’s passed out and this is the afterlife, or what comes immediately before it, but Estrella sways in front of him, now standing.
The cloth and the bowl are gone, but the coldness isn’t.
Estrella’s as transparent as a ghost, and that’s something Dean can deal with. Rock protrudes into his back, scratching against it as he pushes himself into a seated position, head pounding with each beat of his heart. He blinks, breathes deeply through his nose, and opens his eyes. It isn’t Estrella who’s swaying, it’s his vision, and he works to steady himself.
“What the hell?” A hoarse, scratchy whisper.
“Darkness brings comfort, don’t you think?” she asks. “It’s a blanket you can wrap around you when you’re feeling alone.” Estrella circles him. “Abandoned. Has your father come for you yet? Do you still believe he will?”
“Fuck you,” Dean manages.
“You think a lot,” she continues. “I read all your thoughts. Sometimes I find you let on more there,” -- she taps her head -- “than out here. It really is unfair, you know.”
If there’s a response that doesn’t involve calling her crazy, or any variation thereof, Dean doesn’t know it. He resorts to thinking it, which, in lieu of her recent reveal, isn’t any better than saying it.
Unprotected thoughts are dangerous. Planning anything takes conscious effort, a series of interconnected ideas that require meditation, if only for a few seconds. With Estrella sensing everything passing through his mind, Dean resorts to blanking everything out; burying emotions since childhood has trained him well, and he relishes in the absence of thought. A blank slate. Fixing his eyes on the wall across from him, Dean falls into a half-slumber.
She caught the crazy thought, though, before he closed down, and hauls him to his feet, holding him even with her eyes. He observes she’s a few inches taller than him, thin and wiry, built like fae through the generations. His feet dangle above the dirty ground, scratching at it when he swings them just right with chapped toes.
He lets his thoughts empty from him, leaving behind nothing more than an empty jar. She searches and searches for some kind of response, and finds nothing.
“Not fair!” she screeches. The hand wrapped around his throat tightens, the chains melt away, and she tosses him across the room, a rag-doll thrown away when something new comes along.
Dean slams against the wall, all arms and legs and a crack of skull against rock. A mind without thoughts is easier to maintain when your entire body’s on fire, when pain radiates with each movement of your eyes or pump of blood through tired veins. The darkness that marks even his waking hours lulls him towards sleep; no marked difference between being awake and asleep gives little incentive toward one or the other, and he’s already so tired.
So very tired.
It’s hard to not think. To keep himself from dwelling on his dire situation, thinking over exits and survival and why the hell his father hasn’t shown up yet to get him out of there. Thoughts come pouring out from where he hid them, the dam loosened by the swirling in his head. He has to get out of there --
“Not alive, you won’t,” Estrella interrupts his train of thought.
She’s in front of him again, a movement he saw clearly -- thank God he saw something clearly -- hands resting on his shoulders, pulling him up, slamming him against the wall. He doesn’t get why she’s doing this now, when he can’t even find the strength to lift his own head. It hangs, chin touching his chest, and rocks back and forth as his back hits the wall over and over again.
Shit, if she cracks his spine...
Her eyes close, a smile crossing her stretched features. She’s enjoying this, basking in the pain overwhelming Dean so completely, he can’t remember anything else. Was there life beyond this, away from Estrella and her version of a slow death?
With each slam, she erases a memory. Childhood. His mother. His first hunt with his father, chasing after a poltergeist in Iowa. At one time, his head rolls back and hits the wall in time with his rushing pulse, cracking against the rock again. He winces visibly, and Estrella shrieks with laughter. She changes tactics, and tosses him again, this time, his chest hitting the wall he’d been up against before.
She continues this, wall to wall, Dean a ping-pong ball in her quest for satisfaction and entertainment. He bounces around until he doesn’t feel anything anymore, just a dull chill when his body hits the wall or ground. Estrella’s hands don’t even affect him. Gone are sensations of hot and cold, of pain or pleasure. There simply exists Estrella’s laughter and the blanket of darkness veiling the world he can no longer see.
One more wall, and she drops him. Dean falls in a heap, eyes pinched closed, limbs loose and lying where they landed. Estrella breathes hard while Dean’s breath is coming out in short gasps, a distinct wheezing that echoes in the room.
Estrella stalks towards him. “There is only one thing to do with a broken toy,” she says, shaking her head.
“Fix it?” Dean manages. His childhood was a steady stream of broken toys fixed with tape or thread when it could be spared; most came out looking as much like battered soldiers as him and his brother.
She’s sad as she shakes her head. “No, no, not here. Humans can’t stay here.”
“I ate your food.”
“Food I retrieved from out in the world,” she replies. “You’re so much fun, too. But the Queen handed down her judgment. You’re too dangerous.”
“Dangerous?” Dean scoffs. His chide turns to a harsh cough, his chest shuddering under the pressure.
Estrella streaks forward in Glamour, and Dean relinquishes action to instinct. Thought’s left behind in the dust; he moves without thinking, without premeditation, because he knows if she reaches him, he’s dead.
--
Dean’s arms may be uncooperative, but his leg’s aren’t. Covered in Glamour, he can see Estrella perfectly, her black hair, her lacy dress, pale skin that’s never seen the sun. Her face is twisted in conflict -- her voice betrayed her words; she’s become attached to Dean and doesn’t agree that he needs to be killed, not now, after his eyes are gone.
She’s on him, and his legs lash out from those primordial instincts handed down since the dawn of time; he kicks out, one foot hitting her shin, the other, tripping her. Estrella loses her balance and flails before bracing herself with her hands inches from the wall, her breath visible and bouncing off the stone. She whirls with that dancer’s grace so instinctive to her, hands like claws reaching for him. Dean backs up, legs slipping on the floor as they push him farther from Estrella’s grasp.
“I doubted her,” Estrella’s saying, watching him with surprise. “I doubted her words. Forgive me, my Queen. He is dangerous.”
She starts towards him. “After all I have done to you. Most men would be dead by now. Dead or unable to move.”
Dean’s back hits the wall -- he winces, his back a mass of bruises and cuts -- and his legs push harder to let him slide up it. He’s standing, now, bracing himself with his left hand on the wall, right arm, broken and bruised, stretched across aching ribs.
“Yeah, well,” -- he shuffles, one foot sliding across the floor, then the other, rocks he doesn’t feel biting into them -- “we’ve already established I’m not ordinary.”
Even in his weakened state, he moves faster than most could, springing from one wall to the other for support when Estrella comes toward him. Her anger keeps her from maintaining human form; Glamour shimmers around her with each movement, giving the illusion of several of her at once, each one step behind the other.
She twirls, a giant arching circle, to come up next to him, but Dean’s watched her for days, knows how she likes to move. He’s onto the next wall in the shrunken cave, hands groping blindly for support. Putting so much pressure on his legs to keep him moving shows him how weak they really are. They buckle and shake, loose noodles instead of strong, steady limbs, threatening to give out at any second.
He moves forward, hand on the wall, until he runs out of wall and falls forward, pitching to the right. His knees knock against stairs cut into the rock, and hell, he’s found the way out.
Estrella grabs him from behind, nails digging into the fragile skin of his back, and finally, after days and days, he cries out. Just a little, but it’s enough to give Estrella pause.
“Oh,” she gasps, fingers still on him.
It gives Dean enough time to push back from the stairs into her. Sharp nails dig mercilessly into his back, and he’s screaming as he falls back onto Estrella. He flips, pinning her down, and grins that cocky, wide grin he hasn’t sported for awhile.
“Hey. Look who’s on top now,” he comments. Wheezes and coughs, sending blood sputtering into her face.
She wipes it away with pale fingers and brings it to her lips, licking them clean with a pale tongue.
“Oh, you are one sick, twisted bitch, aren’t you?” Dean can’t compete with her in strength, but he can with leverage. From here, he slams her head into the ground a few times -- he knows it won’t do much good, her being a magical being and all, but the reversal’s enough to confuse her long enough for Dean to -- running purely on adrenaline now -- dash toward the stairs and up them.
His feet flounder for a moment until he pretends he’s dashing up the stairs of a haunted mansion in the middle of the night, or running from monsters he believes were behind him when little and impressionable. He doesn’t move at half the speed as then, but it’s fast enough. Estrella won’t be dazed for too long -- he can hear the shift of her lace dress behind him -- but he doesn’t care. He’s going to go down swinging or not at all.
The room above -- as large as a church, with ceilings just as high -- is filled with Glamour. His eyes take a moment to adjust before he’s walking toward an assortment of weapons hanging on the wall; he passes others like him, other humans captured, and feels his stomach flip when he realizes this is a torture chamber, and he’s been stuck in one of the lower rooms.
Groans and cries fill in behind him, a chorus of torment and pain. There are no fae here, just men and a few women, bound and gagged or unconscious, the ones who are awake crying out to him for help. It hurts to walk past them, to leave their cries unanswered, damnit. His only solace comes in maybe, just maybe, if he can kill Estrella, some will be spared.
The cynical part of him knows there’s little chance of that.
But he’s plucked a sword off the wall and Estrella’s shrieking behind him like a wild banshee foretelling his death. He turns, weapon held out in front of him, and she’s so bright with Glamour, sliding the silver sword through her isn’t hard at all. It’s dragging it up and slicing up her body that takes the most effort, and sweat drenches his body when she’s down on the ground, he’s down on the ground, the sword stretched between them.
Dean waits a moment, stares into Estrella’s dead eyes, and slowly gets to his feet.
--
Out in the real world, he can’t see a fucking thing.
Slipping through Glamour-covered hallways proved easy enough; Dean figured wherever he was had been Estrella’s domain, and her death caused her friends to flee. He marked the entrance -- between two trees in a small grove -- in the hope of returning when his world wasn’t so red and black to rescue the others, but doubts many will live.
Doubts perhaps he may, if his current condition is any indication.
Not due to injury -- those, he could deal with. The human body is a marvelous machine capable of almost any feat you throw at it. Skin can re-grow, muscles mend, bruises fade. But those required care, a place to rest, someone to help clean wounds and stretch bandages over scarred skin, and as Dean wanders in the dark -- literally -- he begins to wonder if he’ll be able to find another human being.
The Glamour faded a few feet from the trees, thrusting him into complete and total darkness. A state of being that fails to frighten him, not after so many years of hunting what lurks there, armed with knives and guns and a keen sense of right and wrong. What does escape him is how he’ll contact his father -- hell, anyone at this point would be nice.
Leaves crunch under his feet, then the rough roll of rocks and pebbles against worn down grass that gives way to dirt. He stumbles over the edge of a curb, and a horn blares next to him, fading in the distance as the car continues on its way.
Civilization.
Dean sticks to the curb, kicking a foot against it every ten seconds counted off in his head to make sure he’s walking in somewhat a straight line and not out into traffic. Ticks off another ten seconds, breathes deeply through his nose, out his mouth, makes another kick. Both arms are wrapped around his chest, now, protecting bruised ribs and jostled organs. His fingers dig into his sides, clenching feverish skin as if that alone will hold him together.
Count, breathe, kick.
The walk feels like several agonizing miles uphill in the middle of summer with the sun licking his back with wave after wave of heat that gives him sunburn. He hasn’t had any in a few years -- t-shirts and daytime sleeping to hunt at night have taken away any chance of lounging in the sun -- but he remembers getting sunburned when he was younger, shoulders and nose peeling even after his father slathered on the chamomile.
One foot in front of the other is all he can manage until the sounds of cars get louder, engines humming in idle. Perhaps prayers to God haven’t been wasted on a man intent on ignoring him, because he knows those sounds; it’s a gas station, full of cars and people and lights, though he can’t see any of it.
The idling engines are a foghorn in the dark, leading him forward with a spark of hope. Shuffling through the parking lot, he wonders if people are staring, or if they haven’t noticed him at all. Humans are like that, he’s noticed, ignoring what they don’t want to see. Most of the time, it’s monsters they’re denying, and he wonders if he’s a monster now, a freak on the outskirts of society because of what he can and cannot see.
A bell rings to his right. The station’s main building must be in that direction, the pumps ahead of him. A phone has to be somewhere, probably on one end or the other of the blacktop. His toes skim from the smooth cement of the curb to the rough, pot-marked blacktop of the station, and he starts to the left. Reaches his hands out in front of him, even with his waist to keep himself from attracting too much attention -- his father has to care for him, not any stranger and defiantly not a hospital.
Another prayer to the man above; let the booth be on this side of the parking lot, because his legs are about to give out and breathing is getting harder with each moment. Fumbles around, hands out, ears working overtime to pick up even the smallest of clues.
It comes as a busy signal beeping out of a receiver.
Dean almost cries from joy. He stumbles forward, catching himself on the side of the booth, and slips inside. Lets his hand rub over the keypad, counting three across and three down, and dials his father’s cell phone collect.
One ring.
Dean’s stomach catches in his throat, and he keeps the receiver pressed to his ear as he searches for clean air and retches. After his third heave, he hears something through the receiver that isn’t a ring, and swipes his hand over his mouth.
“Dad?”
“Dean? Where the hell are you?”
There’s something in the way his dad speaks that causes Dean to think his absence hasn’t been noticed.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Dean shoots back. “I’ve been gone for days.”
“Dean, you left the hotel room twenty minutes ago.”
It all comes crashing down on Dean. The taunts about his father, the ease of his escape. Time has little meaning in the world of the fae, and he’s learned that lesson the hard way.
“Hell,” is all Dean can get out. His legs give way under him, and he slips down the wall of the booth with the screech of skin against plastic. The phone cord isn’t long enough, and it drops from his hand to hang in the air. He wheezes and tries to breath but finds it hard. Too hard.
His father’s voice is frantic on the phone. “Dean, Dean! Where are you?”
“I don’t know,” he replies weakly, speaking to the air in general. “Fuck, I can’t see a thing. She fucking blinded me.”
“Who?” the tiny voice asks.
“That fae bitch.” Dean leans his head against the plastic and closes his eyes. “Damn, I’m wiped.”
“Tell me where you are,” his father demands, voice growing smaller and smaller as Dean feels his eyes close. “I’ll come get you.”
There’s a comfort that comes with sleep, a deep ache so good, you can ignore the pain. Bones and muscles settle a bit, align themselves properly, and relax. Dean feels that wash over him; his spine straightens a bit despite his folded posture and sends jolts of new pain up and down his back. But it feels good, almost right, and he allows the feeling to wash over his limbs, down his legs, across his chest, through his arms.
He can’t hear his father shouting his name, or the roar of a car peeling out of the gas station’s parking lot. Just the pounding of his own blood running through his veins signifying he’s still alive, still kicking, and that’s enough for now.
To Chapter 1.4 >>
Chapter 1.1
Chapter 1.2
This chapter is rated R for language and scenes of torture.
These Crimes of Illusion
Chapter 1.3
Before her death -- murder -- Mary Winchester taught her son how to swim.
Lawrence had a public pool on the other side of the city, a twenty minute drive on good days, and Mary took the trip when the heat of summer became too much and sweat made her shirt stick to her back. She’d gather up Dean, pack a bag of snacks and water and a few towels decorated with Disney characters, and put it all in the car.
She wasn’t able to do anything more than splash with her son in the kiddy area until he turned four and insisted on going in the “big people pool.” They’d stay in the shallow end, Dean balanced on the stairs, and practice things like kicks and paddles, his chubby feet splashing in and out of the water. Mary would tickle those small feet with pearls as toes, laughing with him as he wiggled in the water like a fish.
Weeks went by until Mary pulled Dean from the steps and set him free in the water, grinning from ear to ear as he moved between outstretched hands; parent to parent, when John came with on his days off. Blond hair bobbed above the water when he really took to the water and dove under it, small bubbles coming to the surface before he reached his father.
Swimming felt as natural to him as breathing, and when that summer drew to a close with the turning of leaves and the pool was finally closed, Dean would practice his kicks on the edge of the couch, feet flying into the air.
There was a feeling of buoyancy that came with swimming in the water, and at each motel his father dragged him to in the years that followed, Dean would find the pool and spend hours in it, just swimming and floating and wondering if his mother would have taken him to swim lessons if she’d lived. He’d push dead leaves out of his path with pruney hands, dive under the water, and watch the world through the rippling surface.
The world looks like that now, as Dean, now grown up and no longer searching out those pools, cracks open his eyes and wonders how the hell he can see, let alone breathe. His right side is cold, pressed against the tile flooring; he’s curled up on his side, knees drawn close to his chest, right arm -- swollen, bruised, and probably broken from when Estrella whipped it with a chain -- stuck out, shoulder twisted painfully.
Water drips on his forehead. Panic runs through him; had he shifted while unconscious and ended up under the water? Dean lifts his left arm -- the right isn’t responding when he tries to call it up -- and moves to brush what he believes is more sour water from his forehead.
“Stop moving.”
While it sounds like the command his brain’s been screaming at him since Estrella sliced at his skin with razor sharp nails, the voice isn’t his.
A hand pushes his back down to his side. More water drips onto his forehead, then the brushing of cloth against his blazing skin. The fever’s raging now, spread across his entire body, though that could be the infection he knows has to be growing in those deeper cuts.
Or maybe not.
Dean cracks his eyes open wider, and they become large when they see Estrella sitting next to him, cloth in her hand. She dips it into a bowl of water and brushes it over his skin. Down his cheeks, across his throat. She’s even kind enough to squeeze some into his mouth.
What the hell is going on?
“Punishment is not without its rewards,” Estrella answers. Her voice has taken on a sweet, sugary tone, softer and kinder. “I felt, perhaps, that a lack of Glamour may be a bit harsh, but you reacted spectacularly.”
And fuck, he gets it. Pride and dignity, two things he lost during her last trick, and now, God damnit, he’s being rewarded for his whimpers.
But the cool water feels so good, and he reflexively leans into the cloth each time she brushes it across his skin, noticing -- but not caring -- that his shirt is gone and his jeans are shredded, and she can clean his wounds without moving any clothing. And she does, which makes a small part of Dean’s mind -- the part still focused on escape and survival -- wonder why. Estrella’s a woman with twisted motivations who plans each and every detail; her sudden turn of heart is uncharacteristic, kind when she’s sadistic.
Dean squares his jaw, though steeling a reserve already lost doesn’t accomplish much. All it does is anger Estrella just enough to sweep the cloth a bit harder than usual, tearing across deeper cuts on his sides with icy perfection. The temperature in the room drops quickly, the water beading on his skin turning from cool comfort to chilly discomfort. Estrella doesn’t stop, though, just loads the cloth up with more water and holds it on his stomach. His breath comes out in visible puffs. On his stomach, the cloth blossoms with frost, then freezes solid into a block of ice.
“Hey...” he breathes, frowning.
Estrella’s expression blossoms into a wicked smile; she presses the cloth turned ice onto his skin. “Haven’t you heard of the thin line between pleasure and pain?”
If the cool cloth was comforting, this had the opposite effect. The icy chill spread through his stomach, wrapping around his sides before it began to burn. That frostbite, freezer burn type that heats and cools at the same time. It cascades over him in waves, cold and hot, the fever losing out in a battle between heat and ice.
And damn, did it hurt.
He swam inside his own head, reeling back against the wall, pressed where floor met ceiling. There’s a shift in his perception, the white room blinking in and out of existence until there’s nothing but perpetual blackness swimming in front of him. For a moment, Dean fears he’s passed out and this is the afterlife, or what comes immediately before it, but Estrella sways in front of him, now standing.
The cloth and the bowl are gone, but the coldness isn’t.
Estrella’s as transparent as a ghost, and that’s something Dean can deal with. Rock protrudes into his back, scratching against it as he pushes himself into a seated position, head pounding with each beat of his heart. He blinks, breathes deeply through his nose, and opens his eyes. It isn’t Estrella who’s swaying, it’s his vision, and he works to steady himself.
“What the hell?” A hoarse, scratchy whisper.
“Darkness brings comfort, don’t you think?” she asks. “It’s a blanket you can wrap around you when you’re feeling alone.” Estrella circles him. “Abandoned. Has your father come for you yet? Do you still believe he will?”
“Fuck you,” Dean manages.
“You think a lot,” she continues. “I read all your thoughts. Sometimes I find you let on more there,” -- she taps her head -- “than out here. It really is unfair, you know.”
If there’s a response that doesn’t involve calling her crazy, or any variation thereof, Dean doesn’t know it. He resorts to thinking it, which, in lieu of her recent reveal, isn’t any better than saying it.
Unprotected thoughts are dangerous. Planning anything takes conscious effort, a series of interconnected ideas that require meditation, if only for a few seconds. With Estrella sensing everything passing through his mind, Dean resorts to blanking everything out; burying emotions since childhood has trained him well, and he relishes in the absence of thought. A blank slate. Fixing his eyes on the wall across from him, Dean falls into a half-slumber.
She caught the crazy thought, though, before he closed down, and hauls him to his feet, holding him even with her eyes. He observes she’s a few inches taller than him, thin and wiry, built like fae through the generations. His feet dangle above the dirty ground, scratching at it when he swings them just right with chapped toes.
He lets his thoughts empty from him, leaving behind nothing more than an empty jar. She searches and searches for some kind of response, and finds nothing.
“Not fair!” she screeches. The hand wrapped around his throat tightens, the chains melt away, and she tosses him across the room, a rag-doll thrown away when something new comes along.
Dean slams against the wall, all arms and legs and a crack of skull against rock. A mind without thoughts is easier to maintain when your entire body’s on fire, when pain radiates with each movement of your eyes or pump of blood through tired veins. The darkness that marks even his waking hours lulls him towards sleep; no marked difference between being awake and asleep gives little incentive toward one or the other, and he’s already so tired.
So very tired.
It’s hard to not think. To keep himself from dwelling on his dire situation, thinking over exits and survival and why the hell his father hasn’t shown up yet to get him out of there. Thoughts come pouring out from where he hid them, the dam loosened by the swirling in his head. He has to get out of there --
“Not alive, you won’t,” Estrella interrupts his train of thought.
She’s in front of him again, a movement he saw clearly -- thank God he saw something clearly -- hands resting on his shoulders, pulling him up, slamming him against the wall. He doesn’t get why she’s doing this now, when he can’t even find the strength to lift his own head. It hangs, chin touching his chest, and rocks back and forth as his back hits the wall over and over again.
Shit, if she cracks his spine...
Her eyes close, a smile crossing her stretched features. She’s enjoying this, basking in the pain overwhelming Dean so completely, he can’t remember anything else. Was there life beyond this, away from Estrella and her version of a slow death?
With each slam, she erases a memory. Childhood. His mother. His first hunt with his father, chasing after a poltergeist in Iowa. At one time, his head rolls back and hits the wall in time with his rushing pulse, cracking against the rock again. He winces visibly, and Estrella shrieks with laughter. She changes tactics, and tosses him again, this time, his chest hitting the wall he’d been up against before.
She continues this, wall to wall, Dean a ping-pong ball in her quest for satisfaction and entertainment. He bounces around until he doesn’t feel anything anymore, just a dull chill when his body hits the wall or ground. Estrella’s hands don’t even affect him. Gone are sensations of hot and cold, of pain or pleasure. There simply exists Estrella’s laughter and the blanket of darkness veiling the world he can no longer see.
One more wall, and she drops him. Dean falls in a heap, eyes pinched closed, limbs loose and lying where they landed. Estrella breathes hard while Dean’s breath is coming out in short gasps, a distinct wheezing that echoes in the room.
Estrella stalks towards him. “There is only one thing to do with a broken toy,” she says, shaking her head.
“Fix it?” Dean manages. His childhood was a steady stream of broken toys fixed with tape or thread when it could be spared; most came out looking as much like battered soldiers as him and his brother.
She’s sad as she shakes her head. “No, no, not here. Humans can’t stay here.”
“I ate your food.”
“Food I retrieved from out in the world,” she replies. “You’re so much fun, too. But the Queen handed down her judgment. You’re too dangerous.”
“Dangerous?” Dean scoffs. His chide turns to a harsh cough, his chest shuddering under the pressure.
Estrella streaks forward in Glamour, and Dean relinquishes action to instinct. Thought’s left behind in the dust; he moves without thinking, without premeditation, because he knows if she reaches him, he’s dead.
--
Dean’s arms may be uncooperative, but his leg’s aren’t. Covered in Glamour, he can see Estrella perfectly, her black hair, her lacy dress, pale skin that’s never seen the sun. Her face is twisted in conflict -- her voice betrayed her words; she’s become attached to Dean and doesn’t agree that he needs to be killed, not now, after his eyes are gone.
She’s on him, and his legs lash out from those primordial instincts handed down since the dawn of time; he kicks out, one foot hitting her shin, the other, tripping her. Estrella loses her balance and flails before bracing herself with her hands inches from the wall, her breath visible and bouncing off the stone. She whirls with that dancer’s grace so instinctive to her, hands like claws reaching for him. Dean backs up, legs slipping on the floor as they push him farther from Estrella’s grasp.
“I doubted her,” Estrella’s saying, watching him with surprise. “I doubted her words. Forgive me, my Queen. He is dangerous.”
She starts towards him. “After all I have done to you. Most men would be dead by now. Dead or unable to move.”
Dean’s back hits the wall -- he winces, his back a mass of bruises and cuts -- and his legs push harder to let him slide up it. He’s standing, now, bracing himself with his left hand on the wall, right arm, broken and bruised, stretched across aching ribs.
“Yeah, well,” -- he shuffles, one foot sliding across the floor, then the other, rocks he doesn’t feel biting into them -- “we’ve already established I’m not ordinary.”
Even in his weakened state, he moves faster than most could, springing from one wall to the other for support when Estrella comes toward him. Her anger keeps her from maintaining human form; Glamour shimmers around her with each movement, giving the illusion of several of her at once, each one step behind the other.
She twirls, a giant arching circle, to come up next to him, but Dean’s watched her for days, knows how she likes to move. He’s onto the next wall in the shrunken cave, hands groping blindly for support. Putting so much pressure on his legs to keep him moving shows him how weak they really are. They buckle and shake, loose noodles instead of strong, steady limbs, threatening to give out at any second.
He moves forward, hand on the wall, until he runs out of wall and falls forward, pitching to the right. His knees knock against stairs cut into the rock, and hell, he’s found the way out.
Estrella grabs him from behind, nails digging into the fragile skin of his back, and finally, after days and days, he cries out. Just a little, but it’s enough to give Estrella pause.
“Oh,” she gasps, fingers still on him.
It gives Dean enough time to push back from the stairs into her. Sharp nails dig mercilessly into his back, and he’s screaming as he falls back onto Estrella. He flips, pinning her down, and grins that cocky, wide grin he hasn’t sported for awhile.
“Hey. Look who’s on top now,” he comments. Wheezes and coughs, sending blood sputtering into her face.
She wipes it away with pale fingers and brings it to her lips, licking them clean with a pale tongue.
“Oh, you are one sick, twisted bitch, aren’t you?” Dean can’t compete with her in strength, but he can with leverage. From here, he slams her head into the ground a few times -- he knows it won’t do much good, her being a magical being and all, but the reversal’s enough to confuse her long enough for Dean to -- running purely on adrenaline now -- dash toward the stairs and up them.
His feet flounder for a moment until he pretends he’s dashing up the stairs of a haunted mansion in the middle of the night, or running from monsters he believes were behind him when little and impressionable. He doesn’t move at half the speed as then, but it’s fast enough. Estrella won’t be dazed for too long -- he can hear the shift of her lace dress behind him -- but he doesn’t care. He’s going to go down swinging or not at all.
The room above -- as large as a church, with ceilings just as high -- is filled with Glamour. His eyes take a moment to adjust before he’s walking toward an assortment of weapons hanging on the wall; he passes others like him, other humans captured, and feels his stomach flip when he realizes this is a torture chamber, and he’s been stuck in one of the lower rooms.
Groans and cries fill in behind him, a chorus of torment and pain. There are no fae here, just men and a few women, bound and gagged or unconscious, the ones who are awake crying out to him for help. It hurts to walk past them, to leave their cries unanswered, damnit. His only solace comes in maybe, just maybe, if he can kill Estrella, some will be spared.
The cynical part of him knows there’s little chance of that.
But he’s plucked a sword off the wall and Estrella’s shrieking behind him like a wild banshee foretelling his death. He turns, weapon held out in front of him, and she’s so bright with Glamour, sliding the silver sword through her isn’t hard at all. It’s dragging it up and slicing up her body that takes the most effort, and sweat drenches his body when she’s down on the ground, he’s down on the ground, the sword stretched between them.
Dean waits a moment, stares into Estrella’s dead eyes, and slowly gets to his feet.
--
Out in the real world, he can’t see a fucking thing.
Slipping through Glamour-covered hallways proved easy enough; Dean figured wherever he was had been Estrella’s domain, and her death caused her friends to flee. He marked the entrance -- between two trees in a small grove -- in the hope of returning when his world wasn’t so red and black to rescue the others, but doubts many will live.
Doubts perhaps he may, if his current condition is any indication.
Not due to injury -- those, he could deal with. The human body is a marvelous machine capable of almost any feat you throw at it. Skin can re-grow, muscles mend, bruises fade. But those required care, a place to rest, someone to help clean wounds and stretch bandages over scarred skin, and as Dean wanders in the dark -- literally -- he begins to wonder if he’ll be able to find another human being.
The Glamour faded a few feet from the trees, thrusting him into complete and total darkness. A state of being that fails to frighten him, not after so many years of hunting what lurks there, armed with knives and guns and a keen sense of right and wrong. What does escape him is how he’ll contact his father -- hell, anyone at this point would be nice.
Leaves crunch under his feet, then the rough roll of rocks and pebbles against worn down grass that gives way to dirt. He stumbles over the edge of a curb, and a horn blares next to him, fading in the distance as the car continues on its way.
Civilization.
Dean sticks to the curb, kicking a foot against it every ten seconds counted off in his head to make sure he’s walking in somewhat a straight line and not out into traffic. Ticks off another ten seconds, breathes deeply through his nose, out his mouth, makes another kick. Both arms are wrapped around his chest, now, protecting bruised ribs and jostled organs. His fingers dig into his sides, clenching feverish skin as if that alone will hold him together.
Count, breathe, kick.
The walk feels like several agonizing miles uphill in the middle of summer with the sun licking his back with wave after wave of heat that gives him sunburn. He hasn’t had any in a few years -- t-shirts and daytime sleeping to hunt at night have taken away any chance of lounging in the sun -- but he remembers getting sunburned when he was younger, shoulders and nose peeling even after his father slathered on the chamomile.
One foot in front of the other is all he can manage until the sounds of cars get louder, engines humming in idle. Perhaps prayers to God haven’t been wasted on a man intent on ignoring him, because he knows those sounds; it’s a gas station, full of cars and people and lights, though he can’t see any of it.
The idling engines are a foghorn in the dark, leading him forward with a spark of hope. Shuffling through the parking lot, he wonders if people are staring, or if they haven’t noticed him at all. Humans are like that, he’s noticed, ignoring what they don’t want to see. Most of the time, it’s monsters they’re denying, and he wonders if he’s a monster now, a freak on the outskirts of society because of what he can and cannot see.
A bell rings to his right. The station’s main building must be in that direction, the pumps ahead of him. A phone has to be somewhere, probably on one end or the other of the blacktop. His toes skim from the smooth cement of the curb to the rough, pot-marked blacktop of the station, and he starts to the left. Reaches his hands out in front of him, even with his waist to keep himself from attracting too much attention -- his father has to care for him, not any stranger and defiantly not a hospital.
Another prayer to the man above; let the booth be on this side of the parking lot, because his legs are about to give out and breathing is getting harder with each moment. Fumbles around, hands out, ears working overtime to pick up even the smallest of clues.
It comes as a busy signal beeping out of a receiver.
Dean almost cries from joy. He stumbles forward, catching himself on the side of the booth, and slips inside. Lets his hand rub over the keypad, counting three across and three down, and dials his father’s cell phone collect.
One ring.
Dean’s stomach catches in his throat, and he keeps the receiver pressed to his ear as he searches for clean air and retches. After his third heave, he hears something through the receiver that isn’t a ring, and swipes his hand over his mouth.
“Dad?”
“Dean? Where the hell are you?”
There’s something in the way his dad speaks that causes Dean to think his absence hasn’t been noticed.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Dean shoots back. “I’ve been gone for days.”
“Dean, you left the hotel room twenty minutes ago.”
It all comes crashing down on Dean. The taunts about his father, the ease of his escape. Time has little meaning in the world of the fae, and he’s learned that lesson the hard way.
“Hell,” is all Dean can get out. His legs give way under him, and he slips down the wall of the booth with the screech of skin against plastic. The phone cord isn’t long enough, and it drops from his hand to hang in the air. He wheezes and tries to breath but finds it hard. Too hard.
His father’s voice is frantic on the phone. “Dean, Dean! Where are you?”
“I don’t know,” he replies weakly, speaking to the air in general. “Fuck, I can’t see a thing. She fucking blinded me.”
“Who?” the tiny voice asks.
“That fae bitch.” Dean leans his head against the plastic and closes his eyes. “Damn, I’m wiped.”
“Tell me where you are,” his father demands, voice growing smaller and smaller as Dean feels his eyes close. “I’ll come get you.”
There’s a comfort that comes with sleep, a deep ache so good, you can ignore the pain. Bones and muscles settle a bit, align themselves properly, and relax. Dean feels that wash over him; his spine straightens a bit despite his folded posture and sends jolts of new pain up and down his back. But it feels good, almost right, and he allows the feeling to wash over his limbs, down his legs, across his chest, through his arms.
He can’t hear his father shouting his name, or the roar of a car peeling out of the gas station’s parking lot. Just the pounding of his own blood running through his veins signifying he’s still alive, still kicking, and that’s enough for now.
To Chapter 1.4 >>