Finders keepers (the shield and the sword) [PG13]
>>Finders keepers (the shield and the sword)
TITLE: Finders keepers (the shield and the sword)
AUTHOR:
ultraviolet9a
SPOILER: Mild season 2.
GENRE: Het, I reckon. With a future, alternate tint to it. And a crossover nature with Firefly (River is transcribed in the spn verse).
CHARACTERS: Sam Winchester/River Tam
SUMMARY: “Sammysam,” she says, “it won’t end.” “What won’t?” he replies, though he’s not sure he wants to hear the answer. “Soldiers falling.”
RATING: PG-13
FEEDBACK: Dude…duh.
DISCLAIMER: I try and I try and I try and I try, and still don’t own them, nope. Disclaimer yadda yadda yadda.
River is tiny compared to Sam, but when he is inside of her he seems to get lost. River is everywhere, arms, legs, her teeth on his shoulders, delicate body moving and rippling to his own, dark hair lashing around as if whipped by an invisible wind.
She makes small mewling sounds and sometimes screams and sometimes she starts crying and sometimes she looks at him with serene lucid eyes and says something like Sammysam, you think they scream a lot where they are? And that last bit freaks him out the most. He can cope with her tears, can hold her tight and rock her till she forgets what her minds is playing over and over again, and she falls asleep. When she does, River becomes tiny again. Sam thinks he can cup her waist with only one hand, and she fits in his arms almost like a child. The first times he didn’t dare move, thought that if he turned in his sleep he might break her.
It’s when she starts talking to him like that, bits and pieces of fragmented glass, that Sam doesn’t know what to do. He’ll just speak her name, and she’ll put her finger on his lips and hush him and break a smile, a chuckle that sounds beautiful and clear like water. Almost normal.
Except she’s not. Neither of them is.
River is the strongest one he has ever met. When he first saw her she had been surrounded by demons wearing human flesh, and glass broke around her and metal bended and cement cracked as the demons were flung away like swatting annoying flies.
She is strong.
She is broken.
River has got no visions, but her mind can read other minds, and can make the world move so, so easily like leafing through a book.
It always leaves her exhausted, drained, small rivulets of blood trickling down her nose, her head aching and her screaming to make the pain stop, Sam, make it stop, oh God make me stone.
But that is after. When she is wielding her power, she wields it like a samurai his sword.
Sam lets his fingers comb through her hair as she curls up to him. River lets her lips trail over his neck, kisses him on the dimple of his chin, his cheeks. Then she moves, and cradles his face in her hands and looks at him with lucid eyes and Sam braces himself for her words.
“Sammysam,” she says, “it won’t end.”
He pushes her head back against his chest and she lies there, humming another of her weird songs.
“What won’t?” he replies, though he’s not sure he wants to hear the answer.
“Soldiers falling.”
Sam doesn’t reply. The war’s been waged for years, escalating, spreading, and civilization has shifted and succumbed to that pressure.
He feels her shaking in his arms. Expects the feeling of tears against his skin, and true enough, they fall, salty and warm.
“Simon,” she sobs. “Simon. I can’t feel them. Can’t feel them.”
He wants to hush her, tell her that they’ll never stop looking, not for Simon, not for Dean.
It’s that hunt that brought him and River together to begin with. And Sam doesn’t know how to stop it. Doesn’t want to stop it. The hunt is all that’s left.
He dreams of Dean a lot. Sometimes of the past, but sometimes dreams that make no sense unless they’re the future, so he knows that Dean’s still alive. Hopes he’s still alive. And he won’t stop waging the war. And won’t stop looking.
And he’s got River. She’s his lover and she’s his sister and she’s his liability and she’s his weapon. He hones his own skills as much as he can, but River is with her powers the way Dean is with a gun. So River is Sam’s weapon. He aims her at the right target and keeps her safe and by his side.
“The yellow eyes broke me,” she had singsonged way back. And Sam guesses that the yellow eyed bastard knew she was strong, too strong.
Can’t destroy a work of art. Just weaken it.
Finders keepers, Sam’s thinking. He found River, or River found him, and they’ll wage the war and keep on looking for their brothers.
River’s a weapon and in the field he treats her like one.
Sam’s her shield, and in the war she treats him like one.
Equilibrium, Sam’s thinking.
Day will break soon. They’ll be on the move again, for demons and brothers.
“Finders keepers,” River mutters. Then her breath eases and her legs twitch and she relaxes in his arms.
Sam waits till the first rays of light break in. Then hides his face in her hair and prays for his brother.
-The End.
SIDENOTE: Got a whole bloody arc with River in it (transcribed in the spn verse), and the Winchester family, and it will make total sense, except it’s too long a piece and I’m not that disciplined right now. So I thought I’d start with irrelevant sketches and different premises of same characters.