Saint Jude Would Say, for de-nugis
Title: Saint Jude Would Say
Recipient: de_nugis
Rating: G
Word Count: 1516
Warnings: none
Summary: It will cleanse him, he thinks, as it burns his mouth and throat and stomach. It will boil within him, burn that which does not belong, and replenish him.
The bell tinkles as Sam pushes the door open - whimsical, even after it had settled into familiarity. The clerk greets him by name, has done for - a while, now. His dog follows him in, pushes his muzzle into the Marina's hand when offered and sniffs at the newest order of flowers. The dog seems more comfortable in this store than anywhere else, Sam thinks, and the Marina likes him. Her daughter would probably adopt the dog, given the chance.
The store has a sweet fragrance to it, a subtle scent that clings to Sam's memory of it every time he leaves. Its rough hewn wooden furniture - the counter, the shelves, give it a rustic ambience, and contrast with the blurt of colors from the changing scenery of flowers.
'What will it be this time?' Marina nods towards the beaded door that leads to the back, but Sam shakes his head.
'Columbine and verbena seeds. If you have any?'
Her grin twists the scar running down her face and makes her eyes twinkle. 'How's your garden coming along?' she asks as she turns away, pulls on a couple of drawers.
'I know you said that the heat might be an issue for some flowers, but I sorted that out and I think it's coming along,' Sam says, tapping ringed fingers on the counter. Marina has runes tattooed on her shoulder, and they ripple as she searches for his order. They make small talk and Sam's dog snuffles against him, content.
'Will that be all?' She asks as she pushes the seed packets towards him.
Sam frowns, considers. 'Do you have any Centaur's blood?'
···
His haven is glass, a moonlit cathedral somewhere to the eastern planes of Hades. It grew, twisting and spindling, as he learned from Rowena in the aisle of what would become the nave, fields of flowers at either side like wildfire in the darkness.
Sweet-scented Japanese Honeysuckle vines cling to glass columns, grown sturdy and pillar-strong with the aid of a strengthening solution Sam brewed between the growing tulips, yellow to his left and pink to his right and in a black cluster in one aisle. His polecat is curling up a tree fused partially with the glass façade, and his dog digs with him in the empty soil beside the petunias. The dog’s been too enthusiastic, and Sam sends him off to run around the cathedral while Sam fills the trough slightly and buries verbena seeds.
Sam murmurs irroro and a gentle trickle of water spills from his palms, over his fingers. The trickle hastens as he passes his hands over the buried seeds, and then slows to nothing. Future waterings will be done non-manually, via a light scheduled rainfall casted by a spell set into the ground of this place, its glass walls and spiring ceiling. He designed it himself.
···
‘I thought you had left for good this time,’ Dean says. They’re alone in the bunker, two brothers and two glasses and a half-full decanter.
Sam shook his head. ‘This doesn’t have to be all or nothing.’
Dean drains his glass. ‘And you’re a witch now?’ He asks, eyebrow raised.
Something in Sam’s chest clenches. ‘Is that a problem?’
Dean looks him straight in the eye. ‘It’s yours, isn’t it? You didn’t give anything for your…’ he waves a vague hand. ‘Powers?’
‘It’s mine,’ Sam confirms.
‘Good.’ Dean eyes him. ‘You look like a damn hippie,’ Dean says, and Sam grins.
Later, Sam explodes a rugaru with a short incantation - violent, but effective - and Dean whoops like he’s got his hands on a grenade launcher, and Sam figures he’s definitely okay with it.
···
Four white candles burn at the four cardinal points. Enochian spirals along the circumference towards the centre, where he sits, legs crossed like a child. Lily of the valley clusters around the circle. Phlegethon fire roils in a bowl.
He smears holy oil on his forehead, eyelids, nose, lips. Down his sternum. It feels slick and tingles oddly - the divine has that effect on him. His polecat watches from a distance, and his dog has laid down to watch him, black eyes reflecting the dancing flames.
Sam drinks a cup of holy water and begins the incantations, his own Frankenstein spell of Latin and Aramaic, Enochian and Greek. He spirals through the first verse, calling for libertas and pudicitiam. Relinque.
This spell calls for timed repetitions, the verses dropping lines as he approaches a crescendo. The polecat wriggles up glass fixtures. He can feel his own energy rippling over his skin, magic sparking and reacting, preparing for the crescendo.
He finishes, and he drinks down the Phlegethon fire.
It will cleanse him, he thinks, as it burns his mouth and throat and stomach. It will boil within him, burn that which does not belong, and replenish him. It hurts, terribly, but he can feel his own magic searing after it, soothing and cooling.
The feeling of the fire recedes, and Sam coughs. He’d slumped over while the fire was burning through him, and his dog has come over to inspect him.
‘There’s nothing left of him here,’ he whispers to the dog. It licks his hand. He’s exhausted and exhilarated and about to crash.
He resisted, at first, when Rowena mentioned his own innate magic. He’d resented everything about himself that was unnatural, other, for so long that accepting that he had magic was like pushing together like-pole magnets - everything within him rebelled against the thought. He couldn’t be a witch.
All of Lucifer’s grace is gone, all of Gadreel’s that Castiel could not have extracted without killing him, the oily remnants of Crowley and Meg. All gone. Sam’s has never felt more settled, more free.
···
'Somehow, this isn't quite what I imagined doing with my life.'
Behind him, Rowena laughs. 'It's a mighty calling, Samuel,' she replies, her mouth curving into a small smile.
'Nothing says mighty like a torchbearer.' He hoists the twin torches up higher, lets their yellow flame bathe the path. Left, now. The new architecture of Hell has less to do with physical location and previous presence than intention. The fact that Rowena has been to their destination before is irrelevant. Her rule calls to the ancient, draws Hell into a fractalized landscape, dark and ever-shifting. It suits hell's nature, and Rowena's power; it also makes it rather hard to navigate.
His polecat skitters ahead, chasing at shadows and the madness hinted at beneath, and circles back, always within the light.
They enter a darkened room. A flame bursts in the fireplace; windows looking out on nothing gleam with moonlight. They paint sigils with ease, draping layers of magic and blood and paint in concentric circles. A crumple of petals from Sam's garden. The queen from a glass chess set. Black sand, and a calliope hummingbird cupped in Rowena’s hand.
'I died here,' she says, mouth twisted, eyes dark. it's not an admission, but a revindication. She falters. 'He-' She glances at him; he nods. There used to be a loneliness to his terror. Their shared singularity binds them like blood magic.
'There's power in death,' Sam says quietly.
Rowena nods, strokes the hummingbird. Resumes the ritual.
...
They play chess, sometimes. There's a table at the chancel, bare but for a chessboard. Sam's study is - elsewhere, accessed by a door in the apse, and few books remain in his church.
They talk of magic as they set up the board, of new spells and power through the opening. Rowena's aggressive in her playing as she is in life, in her ruling. Her bishops and knights span the field within a few moves, her pawns lethargic. Sam's own litter the centerboard, halting Rowena's rapid expansion. His king is castled, safe, and his queen weaves across the board throughout the middle game and plateauing the score in the face of Rowena's ruthless culling. Surprisingly, her strategies remind him somewhat of Dean's.
'Tell me, Samuel,' she purrs, deliberating over her next move, likely a slide towards his remaining bishop by her knight. A breeze sifts through her hair, rustles the flowers. The hummingbird flits lazily from flower to flower.
He looks beyond her, at the seeping dawn and how it stains the ivory flowers of his night garden with golden sunlight. 'It's like an avalanche. The more I do, the more I can do.' And it feels right, like he's settling into his bones, finally grounded in his body - with his power, he can finally trust that it's no one's but his own.
She raises an eyebrow, her smile small and all knowing.
Sam gently raises the checkerboard, lets it hover for a few seconds and sets down gently.
Rowena nods, approving, and Sam thinks she knows that they're his, only his - always were.
On some days, Sam wins. On others, Rowena.
They are Queen and Bishop of their own making, with freedom and power over the board - and ultimately unessential.
And all the players in their eternal game are dead.
Recipient: de_nugis
Rating: G
Word Count: 1516
Warnings: none
Summary: It will cleanse him, he thinks, as it burns his mouth and throat and stomach. It will boil within him, burn that which does not belong, and replenish him.
The bell tinkles as Sam pushes the door open - whimsical, even after it had settled into familiarity. The clerk greets him by name, has done for - a while, now. His dog follows him in, pushes his muzzle into the Marina's hand when offered and sniffs at the newest order of flowers. The dog seems more comfortable in this store than anywhere else, Sam thinks, and the Marina likes him. Her daughter would probably adopt the dog, given the chance.
The store has a sweet fragrance to it, a subtle scent that clings to Sam's memory of it every time he leaves. Its rough hewn wooden furniture - the counter, the shelves, give it a rustic ambience, and contrast with the blurt of colors from the changing scenery of flowers.
'What will it be this time?' Marina nods towards the beaded door that leads to the back, but Sam shakes his head.
'Columbine and verbena seeds. If you have any?'
Her grin twists the scar running down her face and makes her eyes twinkle. 'How's your garden coming along?' she asks as she turns away, pulls on a couple of drawers.
'I know you said that the heat might be an issue for some flowers, but I sorted that out and I think it's coming along,' Sam says, tapping ringed fingers on the counter. Marina has runes tattooed on her shoulder, and they ripple as she searches for his order. They make small talk and Sam's dog snuffles against him, content.
'Will that be all?' She asks as she pushes the seed packets towards him.
Sam frowns, considers. 'Do you have any Centaur's blood?'
···
His haven is glass, a moonlit cathedral somewhere to the eastern planes of Hades. It grew, twisting and spindling, as he learned from Rowena in the aisle of what would become the nave, fields of flowers at either side like wildfire in the darkness.
Sweet-scented Japanese Honeysuckle vines cling to glass columns, grown sturdy and pillar-strong with the aid of a strengthening solution Sam brewed between the growing tulips, yellow to his left and pink to his right and in a black cluster in one aisle. His polecat is curling up a tree fused partially with the glass façade, and his dog digs with him in the empty soil beside the petunias. The dog’s been too enthusiastic, and Sam sends him off to run around the cathedral while Sam fills the trough slightly and buries verbena seeds.
Sam murmurs irroro and a gentle trickle of water spills from his palms, over his fingers. The trickle hastens as he passes his hands over the buried seeds, and then slows to nothing. Future waterings will be done non-manually, via a light scheduled rainfall casted by a spell set into the ground of this place, its glass walls and spiring ceiling. He designed it himself.
···
‘I thought you had left for good this time,’ Dean says. They’re alone in the bunker, two brothers and two glasses and a half-full decanter.
Sam shook his head. ‘This doesn’t have to be all or nothing.’
Dean drains his glass. ‘And you’re a witch now?’ He asks, eyebrow raised.
Something in Sam’s chest clenches. ‘Is that a problem?’
Dean looks him straight in the eye. ‘It’s yours, isn’t it? You didn’t give anything for your…’ he waves a vague hand. ‘Powers?’
‘It’s mine,’ Sam confirms.
‘Good.’ Dean eyes him. ‘You look like a damn hippie,’ Dean says, and Sam grins.
Later, Sam explodes a rugaru with a short incantation - violent, but effective - and Dean whoops like he’s got his hands on a grenade launcher, and Sam figures he’s definitely okay with it.
···
Four white candles burn at the four cardinal points. Enochian spirals along the circumference towards the centre, where he sits, legs crossed like a child. Lily of the valley clusters around the circle. Phlegethon fire roils in a bowl.
He smears holy oil on his forehead, eyelids, nose, lips. Down his sternum. It feels slick and tingles oddly - the divine has that effect on him. His polecat watches from a distance, and his dog has laid down to watch him, black eyes reflecting the dancing flames.
Sam drinks a cup of holy water and begins the incantations, his own Frankenstein spell of Latin and Aramaic, Enochian and Greek. He spirals through the first verse, calling for libertas and pudicitiam. Relinque.
This spell calls for timed repetitions, the verses dropping lines as he approaches a crescendo. The polecat wriggles up glass fixtures. He can feel his own energy rippling over his skin, magic sparking and reacting, preparing for the crescendo.
He finishes, and he drinks down the Phlegethon fire.
It will cleanse him, he thinks, as it burns his mouth and throat and stomach. It will boil within him, burn that which does not belong, and replenish him. It hurts, terribly, but he can feel his own magic searing after it, soothing and cooling.
The feeling of the fire recedes, and Sam coughs. He’d slumped over while the fire was burning through him, and his dog has come over to inspect him.
‘There’s nothing left of him here,’ he whispers to the dog. It licks his hand. He’s exhausted and exhilarated and about to crash.
He resisted, at first, when Rowena mentioned his own innate magic. He’d resented everything about himself that was unnatural, other, for so long that accepting that he had magic was like pushing together like-pole magnets - everything within him rebelled against the thought. He couldn’t be a witch.
All of Lucifer’s grace is gone, all of Gadreel’s that Castiel could not have extracted without killing him, the oily remnants of Crowley and Meg. All gone. Sam’s has never felt more settled, more free.
···
'Somehow, this isn't quite what I imagined doing with my life.'
Behind him, Rowena laughs. 'It's a mighty calling, Samuel,' she replies, her mouth curving into a small smile.
'Nothing says mighty like a torchbearer.' He hoists the twin torches up higher, lets their yellow flame bathe the path. Left, now. The new architecture of Hell has less to do with physical location and previous presence than intention. The fact that Rowena has been to their destination before is irrelevant. Her rule calls to the ancient, draws Hell into a fractalized landscape, dark and ever-shifting. It suits hell's nature, and Rowena's power; it also makes it rather hard to navigate.
His polecat skitters ahead, chasing at shadows and the madness hinted at beneath, and circles back, always within the light.
They enter a darkened room. A flame bursts in the fireplace; windows looking out on nothing gleam with moonlight. They paint sigils with ease, draping layers of magic and blood and paint in concentric circles. A crumple of petals from Sam's garden. The queen from a glass chess set. Black sand, and a calliope hummingbird cupped in Rowena’s hand.
'I died here,' she says, mouth twisted, eyes dark. it's not an admission, but a revindication. She falters. 'He-' She glances at him; he nods. There used to be a loneliness to his terror. Their shared singularity binds them like blood magic.
'There's power in death,' Sam says quietly.
Rowena nods, strokes the hummingbird. Resumes the ritual.
...
They play chess, sometimes. There's a table at the chancel, bare but for a chessboard. Sam's study is - elsewhere, accessed by a door in the apse, and few books remain in his church.
They talk of magic as they set up the board, of new spells and power through the opening. Rowena's aggressive in her playing as she is in life, in her ruling. Her bishops and knights span the field within a few moves, her pawns lethargic. Sam's own litter the centerboard, halting Rowena's rapid expansion. His king is castled, safe, and his queen weaves across the board throughout the middle game and plateauing the score in the face of Rowena's ruthless culling. Surprisingly, her strategies remind him somewhat of Dean's.
'Tell me, Samuel,' she purrs, deliberating over her next move, likely a slide towards his remaining bishop by her knight. A breeze sifts through her hair, rustles the flowers. The hummingbird flits lazily from flower to flower.
He looks beyond her, at the seeping dawn and how it stains the ivory flowers of his night garden with golden sunlight. 'It's like an avalanche. The more I do, the more I can do.' And it feels right, like he's settling into his bones, finally grounded in his body - with his power, he can finally trust that it's no one's but his own.
She raises an eyebrow, her smile small and all knowing.
Sam gently raises the checkerboard, lets it hover for a few seconds and sets down gently.
Rowena nods, approving, and Sam thinks she knows that they're his, only his - always were.
On some days, Sam wins. On others, Rowena.
They are Queen and Bishop of their own making, with freedom and power over the board - and ultimately unessential.
And all the players in their eternal game are dead.