SPN/DA Fic: Waiting for the Sound of Thunder - part 3
Title: Waiting for the Sound of Thunder: part 1 - part 2 - part 3 - ?
accompaniment(s) to: With a Bang & The Aftershocks and Not a Whimper... and the The Ripple Effects and Minor Tremors and and and Incandesce
Author: Mink
Rating: SPN/DA Crossover - PG - Gen - AU in the year 2020
Spoilers: General (for all aired episodes)
Disclaimers: SPN & DA characters are owned by their various creators.
Summary: Alec POV. After a harrowing hunt, Dean and Alec try to unwind in a roadside bar...
Alec had no idea how they traveled.
He just kept waking up to a brand new ceiling every couple of days. Churches. Motels. He wasn’t completely certain this time but the pitch black smelled and felt like a cave. Maybe a particularly nasty basement. And whatever Castiel had recruited Alec for didn’t seem to require him to do much. Every time Alec roused from his dreamless sleep he could do nothing more than lay still and wait. Slowly counting the seconds, he measured the entire span of another day and night alone in the damp dark. Well, not completely alone. There were always Castiel’s servant thingies sitting around doing the waiting game with him. They felt like swaths of silk, occasionally wrapping around his limbs or caressing his face with their fretful whispers. The way they eventually calmed and settled on his stomach made Alec think of his cat.
“Are you there?” Alec wasn’t sure if he was asking the flitting shadows or his father. “It’s been twelve days.”
The inky dark ate up his voice, without even an echo to show for it. It was weird how boredom was his very worst enemy. He’d rather be tortured so he’d have something else to think about.
“TWLEVLE DAYS!” he shouted hoarsely. “6 + 6. 3 x 4.”
Alec decided to play a game. It was one he used back in the barracks at Manticore. Sleep had always been hard and sometimes the long quiet hours before dawn made him want to eat a bullet. He closed his eyes and began murmuring the phonetic alphabet. It was simple and it was stupid but it occupied his mind when nothing else would. Alec smiled faintly as the military code flooded pleasantly through his head…
Alpha
Bravo
Charlie
Delta
Echo
Foxtrot
Golf
Hotel
India
Juliet
Kilo
Mike
November
Lima
Oscar
Papa
Quebec
Romeo
Sierra
Tango
Uniform
Victor
Whiskey
X-Ray
Yankee
Zulu
It started by reciting and then the real awesomely lame fun began by spelling.
Alpha. Lima. Echo. Charlie.
Sierra. Alpha. Mike.
Delta. Echo. Alpha. November.
Kilo. India. Lima. Lima. Echo. Romeo.
Alec felt his chest hitch with a soft laugh. The good thing about life was that he could always make himself laugh. Truth be told, he considered it one of the finest gifts granted to him in his devil DNA. Considering what word to do next, his thoughts drifted to the two shadows nestled on his stomach. They really should have names.
Alpha. Golf. Oscar. November. Yankee.
Echo. Charlie. Sierra. Tango. Alpha. Sierra. Yankee.
The Agony and the Ecstasy. Why not. Already tired with the game, he tried to hold onto it, make it last before he started counting seconds again. Castiel. He could do that one. And there were always the states. And countries. Foreign leaders and the periodical table of elements. Not to mention quadratic equations and their opposite by the power of 7. But first Castiel. Alec’s programmed memory told him that it was an angel’s name. He laughed again and it turned into a dry cough he couldn’t stop.
Charlie. Alpha… Charlie. Alpha...
Alec paused, his eyes blinking open to the black as he searched for the next letter in the sequence. It was an S. Then a T. He swallowed hard, his heart thudding and his fingers working in the dirt under his hands.
“Charlie…. Charlie,” Alec whispered. “Shit.”
Now he lost the A.
Alec attempted to calm his panic by thinking of a TV show he’d once seen about the terrors of stress. The lack of real sleep and food. And the whole being kept paralyzed and hidden in the dark stuff he was currently enjoying. All this agonizing shit could for very good reasons cause him to not instantly recall some basic phonetics. The Agony and the Ecstasy suddenly stirred, the slight weight to their forms flattening and smoothing over Alec’s body like chilled water. When they flowed over his face he began to gasp, loosing the fragile hold on his composure. The things were forcing themselves down his throat, they were inside his lungs, squeezing and … and…
It sluggishly stopped.
“Alec?”
Alec should’ve been startled by Castiel’s voice in the silence but he wasn’t. But he’d just been playing a game. He tried to remember what it was. Something about names. “You never call,” he said. “Where you been?”
“Doing God’s work.”
“Awesome.”
A cold hand slid over Alec’s forehead and then cupped his jaw. Looked like it was time to do the I Dream of Jeannie blink and go hide somewhere else. He wanted to jerk away from the gentle touch, but all he could do was try to make the guy’s head explode with sheer will alone. It didn’t work but the visual was comforting.
“I’m sorry,” Castiel said. “The next place will have windows and lights.”
The compassion in his voice made Alec want to throw up. “That’s great,” he rasped. “Could I get an ocean view while you’re at it?”
“Sleep now. Tomorrow is a big day.”
Alec didn’t like the sound of that one. “W-Wait. You said I could talk to Sam.” The name felt strange on his tongue, like the syllables of another language. “I keep asking you and you keep saying-”
“Soon.”
“Yeah, you keep saying that,” Alec growled. “I wanna talk to him. I wanna talk to him right the fuck now.” He quieted at the sudden beautiful light that softly lit the dark. It was the blue glow of a cell phone. It barely illuminated Castiel kneeling beside him, but Alec’s eyes could see him just fine.
“Speak,” Castiel pressed the phone to Alec’s ear. “You have one minute.”
Alec’s heart pounded with each ring. What if Sam was sleeping? What if he left the phone in the car? What if-
Hello?
“Sam?“ Alec said. “Is that you?”
It’s me.
“Sam, this freak named Castiel said that you gave permission to take me to use me to-”
Slow down. Where are you?
“I-I don’t know.”
It’s okay. Everything is all right. Castiel is a friend.
It sounded like his father. But the even tone that always calmed him now filled Alec with a cold dread. It didn't feel right. “But… but why is this happening? What’s going on?”
We’re not sure yet. But we’re working on it, okay?
“I don’t know what this is about but I don’t want to do it. I just want to come home. If… if you don’t want me back there then just tell your friend to drop me off on the highway. Hell, he could drop me off on the moon for all I care!”
Alec felt his fear turn him numb as he listened to the deep sigh on the other end of the line.
Just listen to Castiel. He’ll watch over you. You got me?
“Sam… please,” Alec heard the break in his voice and hated it. “Did… Did I do something wrong? What did I do? Sam? Are you there?”
I’ve got to go now. It’s not safe.
“Sam? Wait! Sam!”
The dark came back as Castiel clicked the phone shut.
“That wasn’t a minute.” Alec was glad the light was gone. The hot tears running down his face weren’t anything he wanted Castiel to observe.
“Do you feel better now?” the man asked. “Perhaps we can call him again next week.”
“Sure,” Alec said. “Whatever you say.”
“Before we go,” Castiel said. “Do you mind if I ask you a question?”
“Knock yourself out.”
“Who is Cindy?”
Alec’s shaking hands flexed into fists. A wash of anger made him nauseas as the question sparked something in his brain before immediately fizzling out into blank confusion. “What?” his memory tugged at something he was supposed to know. But like the game he’d been playing the data was simply not there. “Cindy who?”
“What about Bobby? Max? Joshua?”
The questions were making breathing difficult. He didn’t know who the hell these people were and he wasn’t in the mood for fucking around. But Castiel wasn’t done.
“Alec, does the name Dean sound familiar?”
His head was throbbing right behind his eyes. Alec usually dreaded Castiel’s return because he was always sent right back to sleep. Now he couldn’t wait for the blissful respite of unconsciousness. Castiel’s servants had become agitated again, their spidery touch lulling him back into the peace of slumber.
“The name. Dean. Do you know it?”
“I heard you,” Alec said. “And I’ve never heard of him. Are these people demons we’re gonna kill?”
“Yes.”
Fine.
As soon as these hits were completed maybe all this bullshit would be over. But right now? All Alec wanted to do was sink back down into the dark. Just before he did he heard one last thing straining towards him as he drifted. It was different and so faraway. Desperate. It was real not like the static monotone he'd heard before. Alec struggled to open his eyes because he knew it was his father this time. Barely a whisper, the words breathed into his ear like a waft of smoke from an extinguished candle.
Count to three...
“Sam?”
He let out a long sigh, sudden ease turning his muscles from aching to shaking.
Count to three, Alec...
But before he could start counting, everything around him exploded soundlessly in blinding white light, the ground falling away under his writhing body as the man named Castiel sliced hole in space with a sweep of a broad white wing. It was blistering hot and jagged, sucking air and everything else into its searing vacuum as it shook the earth. Alec cried out as his body was ripped both left and right, churned and reformed as he was slowly forced out towards the other side. Sam’s voice faded away along with the smell of the musty cave.
Alec tried to hold on to that voice and all he could think was... Sam? He was dully aware of his cheek now resting on itchy shag carpet. It seemed they'd arrived at their next rest stop. Wherever that may be.
"Sam," he rolled over onto his back, gasping for air. "Please."
Alec wished he knew who he was begging to.
Because he'd never known a Sam in all his life.
tbc
accompaniment(s) to: With a Bang & The Aftershocks and Not a Whimper... and the The Ripple Effects and Minor Tremors and and and Incandesce
Author: Mink
Rating: SPN/DA Crossover - PG - Gen - AU in the year 2020
Spoilers: General (for all aired episodes)
Disclaimers: SPN & DA characters are owned by their various creators.
Summary: Alec POV. After a harrowing hunt, Dean and Alec try to unwind in a roadside bar...
Alec had no idea how they traveled.
He just kept waking up to a brand new ceiling every couple of days. Churches. Motels. He wasn’t completely certain this time but the pitch black smelled and felt like a cave. Maybe a particularly nasty basement. And whatever Castiel had recruited Alec for didn’t seem to require him to do much. Every time Alec roused from his dreamless sleep he could do nothing more than lay still and wait. Slowly counting the seconds, he measured the entire span of another day and night alone in the damp dark. Well, not completely alone. There were always Castiel’s servant thingies sitting around doing the waiting game with him. They felt like swaths of silk, occasionally wrapping around his limbs or caressing his face with their fretful whispers. The way they eventually calmed and settled on his stomach made Alec think of his cat.
“Are you there?” Alec wasn’t sure if he was asking the flitting shadows or his father. “It’s been twelve days.”
The inky dark ate up his voice, without even an echo to show for it. It was weird how boredom was his very worst enemy. He’d rather be tortured so he’d have something else to think about.
“TWLEVLE DAYS!” he shouted hoarsely. “6 + 6. 3 x 4.”
Alec decided to play a game. It was one he used back in the barracks at Manticore. Sleep had always been hard and sometimes the long quiet hours before dawn made him want to eat a bullet. He closed his eyes and began murmuring the phonetic alphabet. It was simple and it was stupid but it occupied his mind when nothing else would. Alec smiled faintly as the military code flooded pleasantly through his head…
Alpha
Bravo
Charlie
Delta
Echo
Foxtrot
Golf
Hotel
India
Juliet
Kilo
Mike
November
Lima
Oscar
Papa
Quebec
Romeo
Sierra
Tango
Uniform
Victor
Whiskey
X-Ray
Yankee
Zulu
It started by reciting and then the real awesomely lame fun began by spelling.
Alpha. Lima. Echo. Charlie.
Sierra. Alpha. Mike.
Delta. Echo. Alpha. November.
Kilo. India. Lima. Lima. Echo. Romeo.
Alec felt his chest hitch with a soft laugh. The good thing about life was that he could always make himself laugh. Truth be told, he considered it one of the finest gifts granted to him in his devil DNA. Considering what word to do next, his thoughts drifted to the two shadows nestled on his stomach. They really should have names.
Alpha. Golf. Oscar. November. Yankee.
Echo. Charlie. Sierra. Tango. Alpha. Sierra. Yankee.
The Agony and the Ecstasy. Why not. Already tired with the game, he tried to hold onto it, make it last before he started counting seconds again. Castiel. He could do that one. And there were always the states. And countries. Foreign leaders and the periodical table of elements. Not to mention quadratic equations and their opposite by the power of 7. But first Castiel. Alec’s programmed memory told him that it was an angel’s name. He laughed again and it turned into a dry cough he couldn’t stop.
Charlie. Alpha… Charlie. Alpha...
Alec paused, his eyes blinking open to the black as he searched for the next letter in the sequence. It was an S. Then a T. He swallowed hard, his heart thudding and his fingers working in the dirt under his hands.
“Charlie…. Charlie,” Alec whispered. “Shit.”
Now he lost the A.
Alec attempted to calm his panic by thinking of a TV show he’d once seen about the terrors of stress. The lack of real sleep and food. And the whole being kept paralyzed and hidden in the dark stuff he was currently enjoying. All this agonizing shit could for very good reasons cause him to not instantly recall some basic phonetics. The Agony and the Ecstasy suddenly stirred, the slight weight to their forms flattening and smoothing over Alec’s body like chilled water. When they flowed over his face he began to gasp, loosing the fragile hold on his composure. The things were forcing themselves down his throat, they were inside his lungs, squeezing and … and…
It sluggishly stopped.
“Alec?”
Alec should’ve been startled by Castiel’s voice in the silence but he wasn’t. But he’d just been playing a game. He tried to remember what it was. Something about names. “You never call,” he said. “Where you been?”
“Doing God’s work.”
“Awesome.”
A cold hand slid over Alec’s forehead and then cupped his jaw. Looked like it was time to do the I Dream of Jeannie blink and go hide somewhere else. He wanted to jerk away from the gentle touch, but all he could do was try to make the guy’s head explode with sheer will alone. It didn’t work but the visual was comforting.
“I’m sorry,” Castiel said. “The next place will have windows and lights.”
The compassion in his voice made Alec want to throw up. “That’s great,” he rasped. “Could I get an ocean view while you’re at it?”
“Sleep now. Tomorrow is a big day.”
Alec didn’t like the sound of that one. “W-Wait. You said I could talk to Sam.” The name felt strange on his tongue, like the syllables of another language. “I keep asking you and you keep saying-”
“Soon.”
“Yeah, you keep saying that,” Alec growled. “I wanna talk to him. I wanna talk to him right the fuck now.” He quieted at the sudden beautiful light that softly lit the dark. It was the blue glow of a cell phone. It barely illuminated Castiel kneeling beside him, but Alec’s eyes could see him just fine.
“Speak,” Castiel pressed the phone to Alec’s ear. “You have one minute.”
Alec’s heart pounded with each ring. What if Sam was sleeping? What if he left the phone in the car? What if-
Hello?
“Sam?“ Alec said. “Is that you?”
It’s me.
“Sam, this freak named Castiel said that you gave permission to take me to use me to-”
Slow down. Where are you?
“I-I don’t know.”
It’s okay. Everything is all right. Castiel is a friend.
It sounded like his father. But the even tone that always calmed him now filled Alec with a cold dread. It didn't feel right. “But… but why is this happening? What’s going on?”
We’re not sure yet. But we’re working on it, okay?
“I don’t know what this is about but I don’t want to do it. I just want to come home. If… if you don’t want me back there then just tell your friend to drop me off on the highway. Hell, he could drop me off on the moon for all I care!”
Alec felt his fear turn him numb as he listened to the deep sigh on the other end of the line.
Just listen to Castiel. He’ll watch over you. You got me?
“Sam… please,” Alec heard the break in his voice and hated it. “Did… Did I do something wrong? What did I do? Sam? Are you there?”
I’ve got to go now. It’s not safe.
“Sam? Wait! Sam!”
The dark came back as Castiel clicked the phone shut.
“That wasn’t a minute.” Alec was glad the light was gone. The hot tears running down his face weren’t anything he wanted Castiel to observe.
“Do you feel better now?” the man asked. “Perhaps we can call him again next week.”
“Sure,” Alec said. “Whatever you say.”
“Before we go,” Castiel said. “Do you mind if I ask you a question?”
“Knock yourself out.”
“Who is Cindy?”
Alec’s shaking hands flexed into fists. A wash of anger made him nauseas as the question sparked something in his brain before immediately fizzling out into blank confusion. “What?” his memory tugged at something he was supposed to know. But like the game he’d been playing the data was simply not there. “Cindy who?”
“What about Bobby? Max? Joshua?”
The questions were making breathing difficult. He didn’t know who the hell these people were and he wasn’t in the mood for fucking around. But Castiel wasn’t done.
“Alec, does the name Dean sound familiar?”
His head was throbbing right behind his eyes. Alec usually dreaded Castiel’s return because he was always sent right back to sleep. Now he couldn’t wait for the blissful respite of unconsciousness. Castiel’s servants had become agitated again, their spidery touch lulling him back into the peace of slumber.
“The name. Dean. Do you know it?”
“I heard you,” Alec said. “And I’ve never heard of him. Are these people demons we’re gonna kill?”
“Yes.”
Fine.
As soon as these hits were completed maybe all this bullshit would be over. But right now? All Alec wanted to do was sink back down into the dark. Just before he did he heard one last thing straining towards him as he drifted. It was different and so faraway. Desperate. It was real not like the static monotone he'd heard before. Alec struggled to open his eyes because he knew it was his father this time. Barely a whisper, the words breathed into his ear like a waft of smoke from an extinguished candle.
Count to three...
“Sam?”
He let out a long sigh, sudden ease turning his muscles from aching to shaking.
Count to three, Alec...
But before he could start counting, everything around him exploded soundlessly in blinding white light, the ground falling away under his writhing body as the man named Castiel sliced hole in space with a sweep of a broad white wing. It was blistering hot and jagged, sucking air and everything else into its searing vacuum as it shook the earth. Alec cried out as his body was ripped both left and right, churned and reformed as he was slowly forced out towards the other side. Sam’s voice faded away along with the smell of the musty cave.
Alec tried to hold on to that voice and all he could think was... Sam? He was dully aware of his cheek now resting on itchy shag carpet. It seemed they'd arrived at their next rest stop. Wherever that may be.
"Sam," he rolled over onto his back, gasping for air. "Please."
Alec wished he knew who he was begging to.
Because he'd never known a Sam in all his life.
tbc