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brighteyedjillTitle: The Secret’s in the Telling, Part III (B)
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: Nathan/Peter (Heroes), Dean/Sam (Supernatural), and some cross-pollination.
Warnings: Graphic slash, fictional relatives in lust (consensual incest), violence (really), harsh language
Universe: SPN – vaguely Season 3 (sometime between 3x5 Bedtime Stories and 3x10 Dream a Little Dream of Me). Heroes – vaguely post Season 2 (general spoilers)
Author’s note: Thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
redandglenda for the beta and jaunechat for listening to me gripe. I don’t own Heroes or Supernatural.
Part I
Part II (A)
Part II (B)
Part III (A)
Thanks to the stop for Impala repairs, Dean and Peter had arrived Youngstown too late to visit the county archive. They’d made an early night of it, checking into the Sunny Valley motel. Dean hadn’t been planning anything (and certainly hadn’t been watching Peter as they’d driven, hadn’t been thinking about how sleek and tight Peter felt, how sweet he tasted). But once they were in the room, all Peter had to do was flash that crooked grin, and Dean resigned himself to not getting much sleep.
Bright and early the next morning, after a stop for coffee (and pancakes, hash browns, and sausage, all smothered with syrup), they were able to weasel their way into the county archive. Dean fed the secretary a line about looking for his long-lost brother, and she let them into the room with the sealed records.
“Jesse and Josh Mueller,” Dean said triumphantly, holding up the folder. “Removed from the home of their father, James Patterson, four years ago. Abuse and neglect, blah blah blah.” Dean jotted down the last known address from the report, and they were off.
Turned out James Patterson lived in a crappy part of town in a crappy little house with weathered, peeling paint and a rusty pick-up truck parked in the driveway. Dean drove around the block once, then parked the Impala a few houses down. “This look like the home of an abusive alcoholic bastard to you?” Dean asked.
“I guess so,” Peter said.
“Well, is he inside?” Dean asked. Peter looked at him blankly. “Can’t you do your mind-reading thing?”
“Oh,” Peter said. “I guess, yeah. I could try that.” He got a look of concentration on his face, as if he was listening very hard. “He’s in there. I mean, I’m pretty sure he’s in there. Watching soap operas.” Peter shuddered.
“Great,” said Dean. “Then we wait.” And that’s how the afternoon passed. And the early evening. Dean sent Peter out to get them some dinner, and a few hours later he left to get coffee, but aside from that, it was the typical mind-numbing stakeout.
Around nine, Peter started to get twitchy. “What if the demon’s already inside?” Peter asked.
“Then he wouldn’t still be alive. Or the only thoughts you could read would be ‘oh God help me I’m gonna die.’ Trust me, she hasn’t been here.”
“When she does show up, what’s your plan?”
“To make sure you don’t get shot again.”
“Ha ha. I just wish there was something more we could do.”
“Is this your first stakeout?”
“No,” Peter grumbled.
“Then shut up. We’re watching for demons.”
Peter was only able to sit quietly for six minutes before he pestered Dean again. “You and Sam do this a lot?”
“Sometimes.”
“How do you pass the time?”
“We’ve got ways.”
“I’ll bet.” Peter gave a long-suffering sigh.
Sam squirmed in the passenger seat of the Impala, trying to find a more comfortable position. “Werewolf won’t come out for another hour at least. We’ve got time,” Sam said. His eyes had sort of a hopeful glint in them.
Dean shook his head in mock-disappointment. “That’s not enough time for what I want to do.”
“An hour’s not enough time?” Sam asked.
“Nope. I was really in the mood to lay you down and suck your brains out through your cock,” Dean said matter-of-factly. “Then finger you until you begged to get fucked. Just a thought I had.” Dean returned to tapping his fingers against the steering wheel along with the radio.
Sam stared at him, open-mouthed. “You play dirty,” he said at last.
Dean grinned. “Only way to play.”
Dean took another sip of his coffee—it was only lukewarm by now, but it was still caffeinated. Peter took advantage of Dean’s momentary distraction to slip a hand down his leg, to the inside of his thigh. Dean managed not to dump his coffee, but it was a near thing.
“I heard some of that,” Peter said softly. “Be careful, or you’ll give a guy ideas.”
Dean sucked in breath through his teeth as Peter’s hand splayed over the crotch of Dean’s jeans. “What ideas are those?”
“Bad ones,” Peter purred. “We’re supposed to be working.” He returned to staring out the window at the house, but his hand stayed where it was, rubbing in gentle little circles against the denim.
“Yeah. Can’t get distracted,” Dean said, but he spread his legs just the tiniest bit further. He saw Peter smile out of the corner of his eye, and bit his lip as Peter began applying more pressure, pressing his palm firmly against jeans that were rapidly becoming too tight. “Must… Stay alert.”
“No falling asleep on the job,” Peter agreed. Deftly, he popped the button on Dean’s jeans with one hand. With the right hand, he picked up his styrofoam coffee cup and took a casual sip, while his left hand moved on to unzipping Dean’s jeans one notch at a time.
“Demon could get here any minute,” said Dean. He dug his fingers into the edge of his seat as Peter ran his knuckles up the length of his cock, skin separated only by the thin fabric of Dean’s boxers.
“I’m watching for her,” Peter said smugly, and sure enough he hadn’t once looked away from the house. “Are you?”
“Yeah-h,” Dean said, but his answer trailed into an embarrassing moan as Peter slipped his hand inside Dean’s boxers to squeeze him lightly.
“Good,” Peter said. He began to move his hand, jacking Dean slowly and leisurely and never once looking at what he was doing. Dean worked to keep from letting his hips rise up to meet Peter’s strokes. “You know, in the dark like this, it’s a wonder we can see anything.”
Dean schooled his voice into normalcy. “Don’t need much light just to sit around and drink coffee.” Determined to give as good as he was getting, Dean reached over, only to find Peter already rubbing himself through his jeans. “You are a bad influence,” Dean chuckled.
Peter responded by tightening his hand around Dean’s cock, and that was pretty effective at shutting him up. Still, Dean valiantly worked at getting Peter’s pants partially off, not stopping until his hand was wrapped around Peter’s erection, skin to skin. As Dean squeezed, he noticed Peter’s strokes becoming more erratic. He smiled, feeling smug. And he had an idea to level the playing field.
“You know, you’re not the first to have sex in this car,” Dean said. “Not by a long shot.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Nope. This baby’s good for getting anyone’s pants off, believe me.” He swiped one fingernail along the underside of Peter’s cock, and Peter shuddered. “You still watching for demons?”
Peter’s eyes snapped open, going immediately to the house. “Yeah. Yes I am.”
“Good. Keep watching.” Dean realized this was going to be a battle of wills to see who would get distracted first.
“You’ve done this before?” Peter asked. “Jacked off in the car?”
“Oh yeah,” Dean said immediately. Even when he was a teenager, he’d go out to the Impala for a little private time while Sammy was in the motel room doing his homework.
“Girls love cars,” Peter said with a little sigh. “Bet you’ve had some girl on her knees sucking you off out there against the hood.”
“That too,” Dean said easily. The details of the event were lost in a hundred similar encounters, but Dean remembered the feel of the bumper digging into the back of his knees, the smooth, warm metal of the hood under his fingers.
“Ever fucked in the backseat?” Peter asked. He sounded breathless, and Dean wondered if he was close.
“Yeah.”
“Ever… You and Sam?”
Dean’s thought process ground to a halt. Yeah, he knew Peter knew about that. Yeah, it seemed stupid to be shy about this when Peter’s hand was all over his dick. Still… He never talked about Sammy, not the way he’d talk about hooking up with some nobody cocktail waitress. This wasn’t about that, though… Wasn’t macho talk. He didn’t have anything to prove to Peter.
Peter ran his thumb gently over the head of Dean’s dick, maybe sensing his reluctance. “I got Nathan a Bentley, about three months back,” he said. “First night we had it, we drove out into the middle of nowhere Montana, under the stars, and he fucked me in the backseat.”
Dean swallowed hard. “Sam’s too damn tall,” he said, and he slid his hand up Peter’s cock. “But if I’m feeling generous…” He slid his index finger up over the tip, where Peter was leaking pre-come, and the slid the finger down behind Peter’s balls, pressing gently against his hole. “I’ll suck him. Let him lay there on his back and lick him, tease him…”
Peter’s hand tightened around Dean’s cock; Dean had almost forgotten it was there. His hips jerked on their own, and he started to stroke Peter faster, determined not to be the first to finish.
“I’ll eat him until he’s absolutely begging me, then I’ll take him all the way down, deep, let him fuck my throat ‘till he comes.”
Peter bucked, his hand closing over Dean’s to milk himself through the orgasm, splattering come on his shirt and on both their hands. As soon as he had his breath back, Peter lunged for Dean, wrapping his mouth around the head of Dean’s cock and stroking with his other hand. It was only the work of a few seconds before Dean was shooting into Peter’s mouth with a satisfied groan.
Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, Peter sat back up, returning his eyes immediately to Patterson’s house as he buttoned up his pants.
Dean let himself bask in the afterglow for a few more seconds before putting his clothes to rights. He felt sated, relaxed and, strangely, not that freaked out about letting Peter jerk him off to a description of sex with Sam.
“More coffee,” Peter said, breaking through Dean’s happy haze. “If I’d known the stakeout was going to be this exhausting, I’d have brought some Red Bull.”
“I’ll go,” said Dean. A walk would wake him up. “Just… seriously, keep an eye out, okay?”
“I will.”
Dean walked the three blocks to the convenience store and got two coffees, a bag of pork rinds, Pringles, and a Playboy, just in case they got to wrap up early tonight. He was halfway back before he realized he was humming to himself. He forced himself to shut up; no use letting Peter feel too pleased with himself. When he made it to Patterson’s block, he got an on-edge feeling that something might be wrong. Halfway up the block, he saw a dark shape lying across the sidewalk next to the Impala. He dropped the coffee and the bag from the store and ran.
Peter lay unconscious a few feet from the car. Dean looked around wildly, expecting the demon to jump out at any moment, but there was no movement anywhere. The whole block was quiet except for the normal sounds of city traffic in the distance. “Peter!” Dean crouched next to him and tried to shake him awake. Nothing.
“Damn it, Peter.” He leaned closer to listen for breathing and felt Peter’s warm breath against his cheek. Still alive, at least.
Then Peter’s eyes snapped open, and he sat up with a start, almost headbutting Dean.
“Jesus, dude!” Dean said. “Can’t I leave you alone for five minutes?”
“Dean!” Peter grabbed Dean’s shoulders. His eyes were wide and wild. “We have to get out of here. We have to go.”
“What are you talking about? Why the hell are you lying on the sidewalk?”
Peter stumbled to his feet, and Dean followed, holding him tightly by the arm in case he decided to collapse again. “Vision. I had a vision. I just—I got out of the car because I thought I heard… And then this vision came, just knocked me out.” He pressed a hand to his head, as if in pain. “We have to get going.”
“Going where?”
“Sam and Nathan… There’s going to be an accident.”
Dean only had to look at Peter to see there was no question in his mind; what he’d seen in that vision was going to come true, sure as Sammy’s visions. “Get in the car,” Dean said.
--
Sam felt a little like he and Nathan were playing chicken with their silence. A million questions clamored for attention in Sam's head: what was the deal with Nathan's aversion to technology, why had he let Sam call those people, and just who was Nathan, anyway? Of course, as soon as he opened that door, he was sure Nathan would respond with questions of his own, and Sam wasn't sure he was prepared to fully explain the whole most-wanted thing. As the road rolled away under them, Sam's curiosity finally won out over his reticence. “Who were those people?”
“Friends.”
Sam hadn't really expected a straight answer, but that was hardly informative. “And how did they know where to find Dean?”
“Molly’s a very gifted little girl.”
“Gifted...” Sam wondered if there might be another younger generation of psychics out there that the yellow-eyed demon had been preparing. That was not a happy thought. But the yellow-eyed demon was gone, and anyway, this Molly girl wasn’t the first weird thing connected with Nathan. “Why wouldn’t you let me use a telephone until now? What did they mean by 'wireless?'”
“It’s a person. Sort of." Nathan didn't seem too sure. "She can monitor electronic communications.”
“A person who can intercept e-mails and phone calls." Sam stared at him. "You know you’re sounding like a crazy mountain man unabomber guy right now.”
“You want to get out?” Nathan asked. “I can pull over.”
“What exactly do you and Peter do?”
“Why is your brother wanted for murder?”
Sam had been preparing for this since Parkman brought it up. “It was a mistake.” True, and as good an explanation as any.
“But has he killed anyone?”
Sam couldn't help getting a little defensive. Dean may have done lots of things that weren't acceptable in polite society, but he'd done them all for good reasons, and Sam wouldn't hear him criticized for it. “Has your brother?”
“That’s different.”
Sam paused, processing that. "So Peter has killed people."
"And so had Dean."
"What of it? Are you trying to say you're perfectly innocent?"
"No. I'm not making excuses for myself. You've never believed I was some knight in shining armor, anyway. But you told me I could count on Dean to keep my brother safe."
"That's the truth. And considering the kind of trouble you and your brother attract, you should be glad Dean's armed and dangerous."
"Great. We're all bad-asses. Thanks for that revelatory insight. I just was hoping for a little more reassurance."
"I thought you said Peter could take care of himself."
"He can."
"And from what we saw yesterday, I'd say Dean has him in hand just fine."
"Or vice versa."
Sam fumed. Arguing with a lawyer was maddening. “Why do you always want the last word?”
“Why do you?”
"Fuck this. Let me out of the car. I'm finding Dean, and I don't need your help to do it." He reached for the door handle, and Nathan quickly hit the child locks.
"Sam, if you get us killed when we're two hours from finding Peter--."
"You don’t have all the damn answers, Nathan!” Sam snapped. “If you could stop--."
Sam was interrupted by a tremendous crash, screeching tires, breaking glass, and a jarring impact that sent Sam slamming forward into the dashboard. Then he knew no more.
--
Dean had the gas pedal to the floor, pushing the Impala as hard as she would go down dark county highways.
Hunched in the passenger seat, Peter gripped a ballpoint pen and had a paper napkin salvaged from the Impala floor pressed against the dashboard. He ignored the scenery rushing by and tried to concentrate on Nathan and let the pen move as it would.
“What the hell are you doing?” Dean snapped, jerking Peter back to full awareness. “This isn’t the time for Pictionary, Peter.”
“I’m sketching.” Peter looked up from the napkin to the road and back again. “This is the place. Turn here,” he said. Dean gave him a funny look. “Turn!”
Dean swerved the Impala onto a side road: blacktop that stretched in a straight line out past the reach of the headlights. But there, maybe a hundred yards away, two yellow headlights illuminated part of the ditch at the side of the road. As they got closer, Peter recognized the Bentley, its front end smashed against a tree.
“Jesus,” said Dean. He jerked the car onto the shoulder and slammed on the breaks, just barely throwing it into park before jumping out of the car.
“Sam. Sammy!” Dean ran to the car and dropped to his knees by the passenger side.
Peter followed more slowly, training his eyes on the empty driver’s seat. He looked for Nathan—opened his mind and searched—but he found nothing. He didn’t feel the absolute emptiness of looking for someone who wasn’t there to be found. It was more like static: a low buzz of interference that showed him nothing.
“Damn it.” Peter glanced over to see Dean pulling a tall man from the wreckage of the Bentley. That must be Sam.
“Sammy?” Dean had succeeded in dragging his brother out onto the grass, and how he was cupping Sam’s pale face in his hands, trying to wake him. Peter knelt beside Dean on the grass, and reached past him to run and hand over Sam’s head.
Dean barely bit back a snarl at the intrusion, but Peter ignored him. His finger sank into a soft spot on Sam’s skull, just above the hairline, and his hand came away bloody. “He hit his head,” Peter whispered.
Dean wiped blood off Sam’s face. “It’s not that bad. He’s just unconscious. He’ll wake up in a second.” Please, Sammy. Please wake up.
“Is he…?” Peter reached for Sam’s neck to check his pulse, but Dean slapped his hand away.
“He’s fine. Just give him a minute. Sammy?” Don’t leave me, Sam. I can’t do this without you.
Peter stood and backed away. His brother was missing, and Dean’s brother was bleeding into his brain. He couldn’t let this happen. Dean looked about ready to break.
“Not everything is under your control, Peter. Don’t do this.”
“Why not, Nathan? I can fly, bend space and time. I can heal from any wound. What can’t I do?”
“You are not God. You can’t save everyone.”
“But I can try.” He jumped to the window.
“Peter--.” “If you keep pushing yourself like this, you’re going to burn out. You have to leave something for yourself.” Unspoken, Peter heard, You have to leave something for me.
Peter stepped back into the room. “Okay. Okay, Nathan. I’ll stay.”
“Sammy. Please wake up.”
Peter tore his eyes away from the scene and ran to the car. The crash had warped the frame, so it took Peter three tries to pry open the trunk. Inside, the supplies were a complete jumble, but under a coil of rope Peter spotted what he was looking for: a small black hard case. With a whispered prayer, Peter opened it. All the syringes inside were intact, each filled with a bright red, thick liquid.
“Sam. Wake up. Please, man.”
Peter gently lifted one syringe from the case and hurried back, kneeling on the ground across from Dean. Sam stretched between them, long and limp.
“He’s not waking up,” Dean croaked.
“Here. This’ll help.” Peter took Sam’s left arm and ran a thumb over the inside of his elbow until he found a likely vein. He slid the needle in and emptied the syringe.
“What the hell was that?” Dean asked, suddenly suspicious, his eyes wild in the bright glow of the headlights.
“It’ll help him,” Peter said softly. “It’s a present from a friend.”
“You a doctor now?”
“A nurse, actually.”
Sam groaned, and two sets of eyes snapped to his face.
“Sammy?” Dean smoothed Sam’s unruly hair out of eyes that were fluttering open.
“Hey,” Sam muttered. “Nathan?”
“No, it’s Dean, moron.” Dean managed to sound affronted and relieved in equal measure.
“Hey Dean.” Sam struggled to sit up, but Dean held him down with a hand on his shoulder.
“Take it easy, Sammy. You’ve got a wicked concussion or something.” Thought I’d lost you. Again.
“He’ll be fine,” Peter said softly. “He can probably get up.”
“Okay, come on.” Dean helped Sam to his feet, letting his brother lean on him. “What was that stuff?” He spoke past Sam’s shoulder, pitching his question quietly to Peter.
Peter shook his head. “Doesn’t matter.” He wandered away to have another look at the car, and to give Sam and Dean a moment of privacy.
---
The pain in Sam’s head was fading rapidly into the distance. In fact, his whole body felt light and tingly.
“You sure you’re okay?” Dean asked.
“Yeah.” Sam straightened up to stand on his own two feet. “Yeah, I’m good.”
Dean spared a glance for the ruined Bentley before running a hand across Sam’s forehead. “Dude, you gotta quit getting in car wrecks. Seriously.”
“Hey. I wasn’t driving this time.”
Dean’s thumb brushed away some of the blood from Sam’s temple. Then he grabbed Sam by the back of the head and crushed their lips together, kissing like he wanted to devour Sam.
“Hey!” Sam pulled away and looked nervously at the other guy—Peter, obviously—who was studiously examining what was left of the steering wheel.
“What?” Dean asked.
“He’ll see,” Sam said, wondering if Dean had recently had a head injury as well.
“Doesn’t matter.”
Dean leaned in to kiss him again, but Sam dodged him. “Maybe not to you, but I don’t really want to have to explain this to Peter.”
“Won’t have to. He knows.” Dean moved to kiss him again, and this time Sam was too shocked to dodge. After a few seconds, Dean must have noticed his complete lack of response, because he pulled away. “That shut you up.”
“Why would you tell someone—?” Sam asked, unable to wrap his mind around this, especially coming from Dean, who never told anyone anything if he could help it.
“I didn’t tell him, Sam. He just knew. Listen, it’s fine. You’re okay.” Dean pulled Sam to him for another kiss, and this time Sam went willingly.
“How’d you get so touchy-feely all of a sudden?” Sam asked, but he wrapped his arms around Dean anyway to return the hug.
“Shut up.” Dean pulled his hands away. “I missed you is all. I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Ha. Missed me? I’m sure you weren’t lonely. Probably kept a lot of local girls from being lonely, too.”
Dean’s answering smile was a bit late, enough for Sam to see the lie in it. “Damn straight.” He punched Sam in the shoulder. “So show me what you brought us.”
When Sam broke the kiss this time, he caught sight of Peter searching by the car, pointedly keeping his back turned. “Nathan,” Sam whispered. “Dean, we have to find Nathan.”
Peter whirled around to look at Sam. He couldn’t possibly have heard that, but Sam gave him a nod anyway, and Peter went over to them.
"So, you must be--." Sam said.
"Oh, yeah. Sam, Peter. Peter, Sam." Dean gestured between them.
"Hey," Peter muttered.
Sam just lifted his chin in greeting. “Find anything?” he asked.
Peter shook his head. “No. What did you see? What do you remember?”
“Just the crash. Nathan and I were talking, then there was this horrible loud sound.”
“What kind of sound?” Peter asked.
“Screeching metal. Glass breaking,” Sam said. He wasn’t sure he understood the question. “Sounded kind of like a car running into a tree. You ever been in a car crash?”
“Not personally. What else?”
Sam threw a do-you-believe-this-guy look at Dean, but he just shrugged. “Nothing else,” Sam said. “That was it. I don’t remember anything else until I woke up.”
Peter turned to Dean. “You think it was the demon?”
“Must have been.”
Sam heard the easy camaraderie in their speech, knew the signs of Dean’s affection, the way he added someone to his confidence like an alpha dog adding to his hunting pack.
“We’ve gotta go after him,” Peter said.
“We will.” Dean put a hand on Peter’s shoulder, and Sam didn’t miss the friendly, reassuring squeeze. “We’ll find him.”
“Dean.” They both turned to look at Sam. “It’s not that simple. We did some research in Baltimore.”
“You were in Baltimore?” Dean asked.
“Yeah, looking for you,” Sam said accusingly. “You didn’t make it very easy.”
Dean and Peter exchanged an unreadable look. “What’d the research say?” Dean asked.
“The demon is some kind of a fallen goddess. She goes after very specific targets. The victims… They’re always…” Sam trailed off. I can’t say it. Not in front of Peter.
“Go on, say it,” Peter said challengingly. “We all know, so say it.”
“Look, it doesn’t matter why she took him,” Dean broke in, and put his arms out between them. “We’ll get him back, end of discussion.”
“There’s something else,” Sam broke in. “The sacrifice. It does the sacrifice to get access to the bloodline. That’s why she doesn’t have to go after the rest of the family personally, like a reaper would. She does the ritual and then she can just take their souls from wherever she it.”
Dean swore under his breath. “Like some sorta crazy remote detonator.”
“She can do this to anyone in the bloodline?” Peter asked.
“Up and down the family tree,” Sam said. “You, too.”
“No no no,” Peter said, suddenly frantic. “I’m not worried about me! Nathan has children.”
Dean paled. “Kids?”
“His boys, Simon and Monty, and…” Peter gripped the sleeve of Dean’s jacket, hard. He looked close to panic. “We can’t let that happen.”
“We won’t. We just have to find them fast.” Dean pulled something out of his pocket. It took Sam a moment to recognize it.
“A lodestone?” he said incredulously. “Does it actually work?”
“Oh yeah.” Dean petted it fondly.
“There’s blood on the steering wheel,” Peter said. “It must be Nathan’s.”
“That’s all we need.”
--
“Nathan. Naaaathan.”
Nathan didn’t recognize that voice. He struggled to open his eyes, but they wouldn’t quite cooperate. His head throbbed, and his mouth tasted like copper.
“Are you awake, darling?” A warm hand snaked down his chest, followed by a sharp line of pain.
Nathan’s eyes flew open with a gasp. Above him stood the demon, dark eyes and lovely dark hair, smiling and holding an ornate silver knife, already wet with blood.
“There. I knew you’d want to get up and play. I was so glad I could find you and littlest Winchester. Dark spots of anger, all seeped in love. It made pretty colors to follow.”
“Where’s…?” Nathan’s throat was dry, and the words scraped like sandpaper.
“Darling Sammy? I didn’t need him for this, so I just left him,” she explained. “But don’t worry, sweetest. He’ll get his. After what the two of you did to my brother, I want to make sure he dies slowly.”
“The demon at Greenmount.”
“You were there too? Oh good. That makes this part so much more satisfying. You should really be more careful about sending people’s brothers to hell.”
“Look who’s talking.”
The demon slapped Nathan, and he tasted blood. When he dragged his eyes back to the demon, she was smiling again.
“Nathan, I only wanted to tell you that I’m so happy to have you. I would have settled for your brother—same ending either way—but I always prefer to take the guilty party. Well, guiltier party.”
Nathan tried to relax as the demon ran her knife along his side. She could gut him right now with just a flick of her wrist. Nathan wondered if this was a part of the ritual; if he died too early, would she still be able to hurt his family?
“You were the older one,” she said, pressing the flat part of the blade into Nathan’s side. “You knew better. You should have stopped it.”
“You were the oldest,” Nathan guessed. “You got your brother killed.”
“Do not speak of my brother.” With a quick movement of her arm, she cut a shallow line across Nathan’s belly. He closed his eyes, trying to breathe through the pain until he felt her hand around his throat. “Your brother will not be spared. Nor your parents, nor your children.”
Nathan’s heart ached as he saw Peter leading Simon and Monty through the woods out behind Heidi’s latest house. Peter’s voice carried on the wind. “It looks like the enemy’s got us surrounded,” he was saying. He ducked behind a tree, and Simon and Monty followed. “I’ll distract them, but you guys have to go save the princess.” Simon and Monty nodded earnestly, and set off creeping down a trail.
He heard the soft sound of rustling dead leaves behind him, and turned to see Heidi approaching. She stood silent beside him for a few minutes, watching Peter play the part of the valiant dying comrade, then the bad guy. “He’s great with them,” Heidi said finally. Her tone was even, but Nathan could read the bitterness there.
“He’s family.”
Heidi shook her head. “And you made your choice a long time ago, Nathan.” She raised her voice. “Boys! Come have some supper!” She turned back to Nathan. “This is the last time. When you leave tonight, you and Peter can’t come back. Promise me.”
“Heidi, they’re my boys, too.”
“And if you love them, you won’t hurt them the way you hurt me.”
Down the trail, voices were approaching. Two sets of legs were running to keep up with their Uncle Peter. Heidi’s blue eyes held Nathan trapped and wouldn’t let him look away. “I promise,” he said.
“Don’t,” Nathan choked out, involuntary as his heart beat.
Her hand loosened fractionally around his throat. “Does he beg?”
“Please. Peter. The kids. Don’t…”
“Of course you ask first for your brother’s life.” She pulled her hand away and returned to running her knife gently across Nathan’s skin. “You know, I begged my father for my brother’s life. He refused, of course. Then I begged for my tribe, for I had many children, and they in their turn had multiplied, so that my descendants were many.”
The demon dragged the sharp tip of her knife oh-so-casually down Nathan’s left side, opening up a narrow wound as she spoke. “One great-grandchild in particular was in my mind especially as I begged for their lives. A crawling little boy with dark eyes who was forever trying to escape his mother’s watch. I begged my father not to take him. I thought, if I could save one…” She ran her thumb along the line she’d just cut, tearing the skin open a little wider. Nathan gasped for breath as his vision whited out momentarily.
“You know what my father told me?” When Nathan didn’t answer, the demon shook him by the throat until he looked at her again. “Do you know what he said?”
“No,” Nathan rasped.
“He told me that because I had asked for my brother’s life first, because I had been selfish and wicked, he would not spare even one.” She let go of his throat, letting her hand trail down his bare chest. “So no, Nathan. Your death will give me all of them. And it’s no more than you deserve for what you’ve done.” She slid the flat side of the knife gently across Nathan’s cheek. “I must prepare. You think on your sins.”
Nathan closed his eyes as she moved away. Peter would find him, must find him. Sam would get in touch with Peter, somehow, and they’d get here in time. He trusted them.
--
Part IV
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: Nathan/Peter (Heroes), Dean/Sam (Supernatural), and some cross-pollination.
Warnings: Graphic slash, fictional relatives in lust (consensual incest), violence (really), harsh language
Universe: SPN – vaguely Season 3 (sometime between 3x5 Bedtime Stories and 3x10 Dream a Little Dream of Me). Heroes – vaguely post Season 2 (general spoilers)
Author’s note: Thanks to
redandglenda for the beta and jaunechat for listening to me gripe. I don’t own Heroes or Supernatural.Part I
Part II (A)
Part II (B)
Part III (A)
Thanks to the stop for Impala repairs, Dean and Peter had arrived Youngstown too late to visit the county archive. They’d made an early night of it, checking into the Sunny Valley motel. Dean hadn’t been planning anything (and certainly hadn’t been watching Peter as they’d driven, hadn’t been thinking about how sleek and tight Peter felt, how sweet he tasted). But once they were in the room, all Peter had to do was flash that crooked grin, and Dean resigned himself to not getting much sleep.
Bright and early the next morning, after a stop for coffee (and pancakes, hash browns, and sausage, all smothered with syrup), they were able to weasel their way into the county archive. Dean fed the secretary a line about looking for his long-lost brother, and she let them into the room with the sealed records.
“Jesse and Josh Mueller,” Dean said triumphantly, holding up the folder. “Removed from the home of their father, James Patterson, four years ago. Abuse and neglect, blah blah blah.” Dean jotted down the last known address from the report, and they were off.
Turned out James Patterson lived in a crappy part of town in a crappy little house with weathered, peeling paint and a rusty pick-up truck parked in the driveway. Dean drove around the block once, then parked the Impala a few houses down. “This look like the home of an abusive alcoholic bastard to you?” Dean asked.
“I guess so,” Peter said.
“Well, is he inside?” Dean asked. Peter looked at him blankly. “Can’t you do your mind-reading thing?”
“Oh,” Peter said. “I guess, yeah. I could try that.” He got a look of concentration on his face, as if he was listening very hard. “He’s in there. I mean, I’m pretty sure he’s in there. Watching soap operas.” Peter shuddered.
“Great,” said Dean. “Then we wait.” And that’s how the afternoon passed. And the early evening. Dean sent Peter out to get them some dinner, and a few hours later he left to get coffee, but aside from that, it was the typical mind-numbing stakeout.
Around nine, Peter started to get twitchy. “What if the demon’s already inside?” Peter asked.
“Then he wouldn’t still be alive. Or the only thoughts you could read would be ‘oh God help me I’m gonna die.’ Trust me, she hasn’t been here.”
“When she does show up, what’s your plan?”
“To make sure you don’t get shot again.”
“Ha ha. I just wish there was something more we could do.”
“Is this your first stakeout?”
“No,” Peter grumbled.
“Then shut up. We’re watching for demons.”
Peter was only able to sit quietly for six minutes before he pestered Dean again. “You and Sam do this a lot?”
“Sometimes.”
“How do you pass the time?”
“We’ve got ways.”
“I’ll bet.” Peter gave a long-suffering sigh.
Sam squirmed in the passenger seat of the Impala, trying to find a more comfortable position. “Werewolf won’t come out for another hour at least. We’ve got time,” Sam said. His eyes had sort of a hopeful glint in them.
Dean shook his head in mock-disappointment. “That’s not enough time for what I want to do.”
“An hour’s not enough time?” Sam asked.
“Nope. I was really in the mood to lay you down and suck your brains out through your cock,” Dean said matter-of-factly. “Then finger you until you begged to get fucked. Just a thought I had.” Dean returned to tapping his fingers against the steering wheel along with the radio.
Sam stared at him, open-mouthed. “You play dirty,” he said at last.
Dean grinned. “Only way to play.”
Dean took another sip of his coffee—it was only lukewarm by now, but it was still caffeinated. Peter took advantage of Dean’s momentary distraction to slip a hand down his leg, to the inside of his thigh. Dean managed not to dump his coffee, but it was a near thing.
“I heard some of that,” Peter said softly. “Be careful, or you’ll give a guy ideas.”
Dean sucked in breath through his teeth as Peter’s hand splayed over the crotch of Dean’s jeans. “What ideas are those?”
“Bad ones,” Peter purred. “We’re supposed to be working.” He returned to staring out the window at the house, but his hand stayed where it was, rubbing in gentle little circles against the denim.
“Yeah. Can’t get distracted,” Dean said, but he spread his legs just the tiniest bit further. He saw Peter smile out of the corner of his eye, and bit his lip as Peter began applying more pressure, pressing his palm firmly against jeans that were rapidly becoming too tight. “Must… Stay alert.”
“No falling asleep on the job,” Peter agreed. Deftly, he popped the button on Dean’s jeans with one hand. With the right hand, he picked up his styrofoam coffee cup and took a casual sip, while his left hand moved on to unzipping Dean’s jeans one notch at a time.
“Demon could get here any minute,” said Dean. He dug his fingers into the edge of his seat as Peter ran his knuckles up the length of his cock, skin separated only by the thin fabric of Dean’s boxers.
“I’m watching for her,” Peter said smugly, and sure enough he hadn’t once looked away from the house. “Are you?”
“Yeah-h,” Dean said, but his answer trailed into an embarrassing moan as Peter slipped his hand inside Dean’s boxers to squeeze him lightly.
“Good,” Peter said. He began to move his hand, jacking Dean slowly and leisurely and never once looking at what he was doing. Dean worked to keep from letting his hips rise up to meet Peter’s strokes. “You know, in the dark like this, it’s a wonder we can see anything.”
Dean schooled his voice into normalcy. “Don’t need much light just to sit around and drink coffee.” Determined to give as good as he was getting, Dean reached over, only to find Peter already rubbing himself through his jeans. “You are a bad influence,” Dean chuckled.
Peter responded by tightening his hand around Dean’s cock, and that was pretty effective at shutting him up. Still, Dean valiantly worked at getting Peter’s pants partially off, not stopping until his hand was wrapped around Peter’s erection, skin to skin. As Dean squeezed, he noticed Peter’s strokes becoming more erratic. He smiled, feeling smug. And he had an idea to level the playing field.
“You know, you’re not the first to have sex in this car,” Dean said. “Not by a long shot.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Nope. This baby’s good for getting anyone’s pants off, believe me.” He swiped one fingernail along the underside of Peter’s cock, and Peter shuddered. “You still watching for demons?”
Peter’s eyes snapped open, going immediately to the house. “Yeah. Yes I am.”
“Good. Keep watching.” Dean realized this was going to be a battle of wills to see who would get distracted first.
“You’ve done this before?” Peter asked. “Jacked off in the car?”
“Oh yeah,” Dean said immediately. Even when he was a teenager, he’d go out to the Impala for a little private time while Sammy was in the motel room doing his homework.
“Girls love cars,” Peter said with a little sigh. “Bet you’ve had some girl on her knees sucking you off out there against the hood.”
“That too,” Dean said easily. The details of the event were lost in a hundred similar encounters, but Dean remembered the feel of the bumper digging into the back of his knees, the smooth, warm metal of the hood under his fingers.
“Ever fucked in the backseat?” Peter asked. He sounded breathless, and Dean wondered if he was close.
“Yeah.”
“Ever… You and Sam?”
Dean’s thought process ground to a halt. Yeah, he knew Peter knew about that. Yeah, it seemed stupid to be shy about this when Peter’s hand was all over his dick. Still… He never talked about Sammy, not the way he’d talk about hooking up with some nobody cocktail waitress. This wasn’t about that, though… Wasn’t macho talk. He didn’t have anything to prove to Peter.
Peter ran his thumb gently over the head of Dean’s dick, maybe sensing his reluctance. “I got Nathan a Bentley, about three months back,” he said. “First night we had it, we drove out into the middle of nowhere Montana, under the stars, and he fucked me in the backseat.”
Dean swallowed hard. “Sam’s too damn tall,” he said, and he slid his hand up Peter’s cock. “But if I’m feeling generous…” He slid his index finger up over the tip, where Peter was leaking pre-come, and the slid the finger down behind Peter’s balls, pressing gently against his hole. “I’ll suck him. Let him lay there on his back and lick him, tease him…”
Peter’s hand tightened around Dean’s cock; Dean had almost forgotten it was there. His hips jerked on their own, and he started to stroke Peter faster, determined not to be the first to finish.
“I’ll eat him until he’s absolutely begging me, then I’ll take him all the way down, deep, let him fuck my throat ‘till he comes.”
Peter bucked, his hand closing over Dean’s to milk himself through the orgasm, splattering come on his shirt and on both their hands. As soon as he had his breath back, Peter lunged for Dean, wrapping his mouth around the head of Dean’s cock and stroking with his other hand. It was only the work of a few seconds before Dean was shooting into Peter’s mouth with a satisfied groan.
Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, Peter sat back up, returning his eyes immediately to Patterson’s house as he buttoned up his pants.
Dean let himself bask in the afterglow for a few more seconds before putting his clothes to rights. He felt sated, relaxed and, strangely, not that freaked out about letting Peter jerk him off to a description of sex with Sam.
“More coffee,” Peter said, breaking through Dean’s happy haze. “If I’d known the stakeout was going to be this exhausting, I’d have brought some Red Bull.”
“I’ll go,” said Dean. A walk would wake him up. “Just… seriously, keep an eye out, okay?”
“I will.”
Dean walked the three blocks to the convenience store and got two coffees, a bag of pork rinds, Pringles, and a Playboy, just in case they got to wrap up early tonight. He was halfway back before he realized he was humming to himself. He forced himself to shut up; no use letting Peter feel too pleased with himself. When he made it to Patterson’s block, he got an on-edge feeling that something might be wrong. Halfway up the block, he saw a dark shape lying across the sidewalk next to the Impala. He dropped the coffee and the bag from the store and ran.
Peter lay unconscious a few feet from the car. Dean looked around wildly, expecting the demon to jump out at any moment, but there was no movement anywhere. The whole block was quiet except for the normal sounds of city traffic in the distance. “Peter!” Dean crouched next to him and tried to shake him awake. Nothing.
“Damn it, Peter.” He leaned closer to listen for breathing and felt Peter’s warm breath against his cheek. Still alive, at least.
Then Peter’s eyes snapped open, and he sat up with a start, almost headbutting Dean.
“Jesus, dude!” Dean said. “Can’t I leave you alone for five minutes?”
“Dean!” Peter grabbed Dean’s shoulders. His eyes were wide and wild. “We have to get out of here. We have to go.”
“What are you talking about? Why the hell are you lying on the sidewalk?”
Peter stumbled to his feet, and Dean followed, holding him tightly by the arm in case he decided to collapse again. “Vision. I had a vision. I just—I got out of the car because I thought I heard… And then this vision came, just knocked me out.” He pressed a hand to his head, as if in pain. “We have to get going.”
“Going where?”
“Sam and Nathan… There’s going to be an accident.”
Dean only had to look at Peter to see there was no question in his mind; what he’d seen in that vision was going to come true, sure as Sammy’s visions. “Get in the car,” Dean said.
--
Sam felt a little like he and Nathan were playing chicken with their silence. A million questions clamored for attention in Sam's head: what was the deal with Nathan's aversion to technology, why had he let Sam call those people, and just who was Nathan, anyway? Of course, as soon as he opened that door, he was sure Nathan would respond with questions of his own, and Sam wasn't sure he was prepared to fully explain the whole most-wanted thing. As the road rolled away under them, Sam's curiosity finally won out over his reticence. “Who were those people?”
“Friends.”
Sam hadn't really expected a straight answer, but that was hardly informative. “And how did they know where to find Dean?”
“Molly’s a very gifted little girl.”
“Gifted...” Sam wondered if there might be another younger generation of psychics out there that the yellow-eyed demon had been preparing. That was not a happy thought. But the yellow-eyed demon was gone, and anyway, this Molly girl wasn’t the first weird thing connected with Nathan. “Why wouldn’t you let me use a telephone until now? What did they mean by 'wireless?'”
“It’s a person. Sort of." Nathan didn't seem too sure. "She can monitor electronic communications.”
“A person who can intercept e-mails and phone calls." Sam stared at him. "You know you’re sounding like a crazy mountain man unabomber guy right now.”
“You want to get out?” Nathan asked. “I can pull over.”
“What exactly do you and Peter do?”
“Why is your brother wanted for murder?”
Sam had been preparing for this since Parkman brought it up. “It was a mistake.” True, and as good an explanation as any.
“But has he killed anyone?”
Sam couldn't help getting a little defensive. Dean may have done lots of things that weren't acceptable in polite society, but he'd done them all for good reasons, and Sam wouldn't hear him criticized for it. “Has your brother?”
“That’s different.”
Sam paused, processing that. "So Peter has killed people."
"And so had Dean."
"What of it? Are you trying to say you're perfectly innocent?"
"No. I'm not making excuses for myself. You've never believed I was some knight in shining armor, anyway. But you told me I could count on Dean to keep my brother safe."
"That's the truth. And considering the kind of trouble you and your brother attract, you should be glad Dean's armed and dangerous."
"Great. We're all bad-asses. Thanks for that revelatory insight. I just was hoping for a little more reassurance."
"I thought you said Peter could take care of himself."
"He can."
"And from what we saw yesterday, I'd say Dean has him in hand just fine."
"Or vice versa."
Sam fumed. Arguing with a lawyer was maddening. “Why do you always want the last word?”
“Why do you?”
"Fuck this. Let me out of the car. I'm finding Dean, and I don't need your help to do it." He reached for the door handle, and Nathan quickly hit the child locks.
"Sam, if you get us killed when we're two hours from finding Peter--."
"You don’t have all the damn answers, Nathan!” Sam snapped. “If you could stop--."
Sam was interrupted by a tremendous crash, screeching tires, breaking glass, and a jarring impact that sent Sam slamming forward into the dashboard. Then he knew no more.
--
Dean had the gas pedal to the floor, pushing the Impala as hard as she would go down dark county highways.
Hunched in the passenger seat, Peter gripped a ballpoint pen and had a paper napkin salvaged from the Impala floor pressed against the dashboard. He ignored the scenery rushing by and tried to concentrate on Nathan and let the pen move as it would.
“What the hell are you doing?” Dean snapped, jerking Peter back to full awareness. “This isn’t the time for Pictionary, Peter.”
“I’m sketching.” Peter looked up from the napkin to the road and back again. “This is the place. Turn here,” he said. Dean gave him a funny look. “Turn!”
Dean swerved the Impala onto a side road: blacktop that stretched in a straight line out past the reach of the headlights. But there, maybe a hundred yards away, two yellow headlights illuminated part of the ditch at the side of the road. As they got closer, Peter recognized the Bentley, its front end smashed against a tree.
“Jesus,” said Dean. He jerked the car onto the shoulder and slammed on the breaks, just barely throwing it into park before jumping out of the car.
“Sam. Sammy!” Dean ran to the car and dropped to his knees by the passenger side.
Peter followed more slowly, training his eyes on the empty driver’s seat. He looked for Nathan—opened his mind and searched—but he found nothing. He didn’t feel the absolute emptiness of looking for someone who wasn’t there to be found. It was more like static: a low buzz of interference that showed him nothing.
“Damn it.” Peter glanced over to see Dean pulling a tall man from the wreckage of the Bentley. That must be Sam.
“Sammy?” Dean had succeeded in dragging his brother out onto the grass, and how he was cupping Sam’s pale face in his hands, trying to wake him. Peter knelt beside Dean on the grass, and reached past him to run and hand over Sam’s head.
Dean barely bit back a snarl at the intrusion, but Peter ignored him. His finger sank into a soft spot on Sam’s skull, just above the hairline, and his hand came away bloody. “He hit his head,” Peter whispered.
Dean wiped blood off Sam’s face. “It’s not that bad. He’s just unconscious. He’ll wake up in a second.” Please, Sammy. Please wake up.
“Is he…?” Peter reached for Sam’s neck to check his pulse, but Dean slapped his hand away.
“He’s fine. Just give him a minute. Sammy?” Don’t leave me, Sam. I can’t do this without you.
Peter stood and backed away. His brother was missing, and Dean’s brother was bleeding into his brain. He couldn’t let this happen. Dean looked about ready to break.
“Not everything is under your control, Peter. Don’t do this.”
“Why not, Nathan? I can fly, bend space and time. I can heal from any wound. What can’t I do?”
“You are not God. You can’t save everyone.”
“But I can try.” He jumped to the window.
“Peter--.” “If you keep pushing yourself like this, you’re going to burn out. You have to leave something for yourself.” Unspoken, Peter heard, You have to leave something for me.
Peter stepped back into the room. “Okay. Okay, Nathan. I’ll stay.”
“Sammy. Please wake up.”
Peter tore his eyes away from the scene and ran to the car. The crash had warped the frame, so it took Peter three tries to pry open the trunk. Inside, the supplies were a complete jumble, but under a coil of rope Peter spotted what he was looking for: a small black hard case. With a whispered prayer, Peter opened it. All the syringes inside were intact, each filled with a bright red, thick liquid.
“Sam. Wake up. Please, man.”
Peter gently lifted one syringe from the case and hurried back, kneeling on the ground across from Dean. Sam stretched between them, long and limp.
“He’s not waking up,” Dean croaked.
“Here. This’ll help.” Peter took Sam’s left arm and ran a thumb over the inside of his elbow until he found a likely vein. He slid the needle in and emptied the syringe.
“What the hell was that?” Dean asked, suddenly suspicious, his eyes wild in the bright glow of the headlights.
“It’ll help him,” Peter said softly. “It’s a present from a friend.”
“You a doctor now?”
“A nurse, actually.”
Sam groaned, and two sets of eyes snapped to his face.
“Sammy?” Dean smoothed Sam’s unruly hair out of eyes that were fluttering open.
“Hey,” Sam muttered. “Nathan?”
“No, it’s Dean, moron.” Dean managed to sound affronted and relieved in equal measure.
“Hey Dean.” Sam struggled to sit up, but Dean held him down with a hand on his shoulder.
“Take it easy, Sammy. You’ve got a wicked concussion or something.” Thought I’d lost you. Again.
“He’ll be fine,” Peter said softly. “He can probably get up.”
“Okay, come on.” Dean helped Sam to his feet, letting his brother lean on him. “What was that stuff?” He spoke past Sam’s shoulder, pitching his question quietly to Peter.
Peter shook his head. “Doesn’t matter.” He wandered away to have another look at the car, and to give Sam and Dean a moment of privacy.
---
The pain in Sam’s head was fading rapidly into the distance. In fact, his whole body felt light and tingly.
“You sure you’re okay?” Dean asked.
“Yeah.” Sam straightened up to stand on his own two feet. “Yeah, I’m good.”
Dean spared a glance for the ruined Bentley before running a hand across Sam’s forehead. “Dude, you gotta quit getting in car wrecks. Seriously.”
“Hey. I wasn’t driving this time.”
Dean’s thumb brushed away some of the blood from Sam’s temple. Then he grabbed Sam by the back of the head and crushed their lips together, kissing like he wanted to devour Sam.
“Hey!” Sam pulled away and looked nervously at the other guy—Peter, obviously—who was studiously examining what was left of the steering wheel.
“What?” Dean asked.
“He’ll see,” Sam said, wondering if Dean had recently had a head injury as well.
“Doesn’t matter.”
Dean leaned in to kiss him again, but Sam dodged him. “Maybe not to you, but I don’t really want to have to explain this to Peter.”
“Won’t have to. He knows.” Dean moved to kiss him again, and this time Sam was too shocked to dodge. After a few seconds, Dean must have noticed his complete lack of response, because he pulled away. “That shut you up.”
“Why would you tell someone—?” Sam asked, unable to wrap his mind around this, especially coming from Dean, who never told anyone anything if he could help it.
“I didn’t tell him, Sam. He just knew. Listen, it’s fine. You’re okay.” Dean pulled Sam to him for another kiss, and this time Sam went willingly.
“How’d you get so touchy-feely all of a sudden?” Sam asked, but he wrapped his arms around Dean anyway to return the hug.
“Shut up.” Dean pulled his hands away. “I missed you is all. I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Ha. Missed me? I’m sure you weren’t lonely. Probably kept a lot of local girls from being lonely, too.”
Dean’s answering smile was a bit late, enough for Sam to see the lie in it. “Damn straight.” He punched Sam in the shoulder. “So show me what you brought us.”
When Sam broke the kiss this time, he caught sight of Peter searching by the car, pointedly keeping his back turned. “Nathan,” Sam whispered. “Dean, we have to find Nathan.”
Peter whirled around to look at Sam. He couldn’t possibly have heard that, but Sam gave him a nod anyway, and Peter went over to them.
"So, you must be--." Sam said.
"Oh, yeah. Sam, Peter. Peter, Sam." Dean gestured between them.
"Hey," Peter muttered.
Sam just lifted his chin in greeting. “Find anything?” he asked.
Peter shook his head. “No. What did you see? What do you remember?”
“Just the crash. Nathan and I were talking, then there was this horrible loud sound.”
“What kind of sound?” Peter asked.
“Screeching metal. Glass breaking,” Sam said. He wasn’t sure he understood the question. “Sounded kind of like a car running into a tree. You ever been in a car crash?”
“Not personally. What else?”
Sam threw a do-you-believe-this-guy look at Dean, but he just shrugged. “Nothing else,” Sam said. “That was it. I don’t remember anything else until I woke up.”
Peter turned to Dean. “You think it was the demon?”
“Must have been.”
Sam heard the easy camaraderie in their speech, knew the signs of Dean’s affection, the way he added someone to his confidence like an alpha dog adding to his hunting pack.
“We’ve gotta go after him,” Peter said.
“We will.” Dean put a hand on Peter’s shoulder, and Sam didn’t miss the friendly, reassuring squeeze. “We’ll find him.”
“Dean.” They both turned to look at Sam. “It’s not that simple. We did some research in Baltimore.”
“You were in Baltimore?” Dean asked.
“Yeah, looking for you,” Sam said accusingly. “You didn’t make it very easy.”
Dean and Peter exchanged an unreadable look. “What’d the research say?” Dean asked.
“The demon is some kind of a fallen goddess. She goes after very specific targets. The victims… They’re always…” Sam trailed off. I can’t say it. Not in front of Peter.
“Go on, say it,” Peter said challengingly. “We all know, so say it.”
“Look, it doesn’t matter why she took him,” Dean broke in, and put his arms out between them. “We’ll get him back, end of discussion.”
“There’s something else,” Sam broke in. “The sacrifice. It does the sacrifice to get access to the bloodline. That’s why she doesn’t have to go after the rest of the family personally, like a reaper would. She does the ritual and then she can just take their souls from wherever she it.”
Dean swore under his breath. “Like some sorta crazy remote detonator.”
“She can do this to anyone in the bloodline?” Peter asked.
“Up and down the family tree,” Sam said. “You, too.”
“No no no,” Peter said, suddenly frantic. “I’m not worried about me! Nathan has children.”
Dean paled. “Kids?”
“His boys, Simon and Monty, and…” Peter gripped the sleeve of Dean’s jacket, hard. He looked close to panic. “We can’t let that happen.”
“We won’t. We just have to find them fast.” Dean pulled something out of his pocket. It took Sam a moment to recognize it.
“A lodestone?” he said incredulously. “Does it actually work?”
“Oh yeah.” Dean petted it fondly.
“There’s blood on the steering wheel,” Peter said. “It must be Nathan’s.”
“That’s all we need.”
--
“Nathan. Naaaathan.”
Nathan didn’t recognize that voice. He struggled to open his eyes, but they wouldn’t quite cooperate. His head throbbed, and his mouth tasted like copper.
“Are you awake, darling?” A warm hand snaked down his chest, followed by a sharp line of pain.
Nathan’s eyes flew open with a gasp. Above him stood the demon, dark eyes and lovely dark hair, smiling and holding an ornate silver knife, already wet with blood.
“There. I knew you’d want to get up and play. I was so glad I could find you and littlest Winchester. Dark spots of anger, all seeped in love. It made pretty colors to follow.”
“Where’s…?” Nathan’s throat was dry, and the words scraped like sandpaper.
“Darling Sammy? I didn’t need him for this, so I just left him,” she explained. “But don’t worry, sweetest. He’ll get his. After what the two of you did to my brother, I want to make sure he dies slowly.”
“The demon at Greenmount.”
“You were there too? Oh good. That makes this part so much more satisfying. You should really be more careful about sending people’s brothers to hell.”
“Look who’s talking.”
The demon slapped Nathan, and he tasted blood. When he dragged his eyes back to the demon, she was smiling again.
“Nathan, I only wanted to tell you that I’m so happy to have you. I would have settled for your brother—same ending either way—but I always prefer to take the guilty party. Well, guiltier party.”
Nathan tried to relax as the demon ran her knife along his side. She could gut him right now with just a flick of her wrist. Nathan wondered if this was a part of the ritual; if he died too early, would she still be able to hurt his family?
“You were the older one,” she said, pressing the flat part of the blade into Nathan’s side. “You knew better. You should have stopped it.”
“You were the oldest,” Nathan guessed. “You got your brother killed.”
“Do not speak of my brother.” With a quick movement of her arm, she cut a shallow line across Nathan’s belly. He closed his eyes, trying to breathe through the pain until he felt her hand around his throat. “Your brother will not be spared. Nor your parents, nor your children.”
Nathan’s heart ached as he saw Peter leading Simon and Monty through the woods out behind Heidi’s latest house. Peter’s voice carried on the wind. “It looks like the enemy’s got us surrounded,” he was saying. He ducked behind a tree, and Simon and Monty followed. “I’ll distract them, but you guys have to go save the princess.” Simon and Monty nodded earnestly, and set off creeping down a trail.
He heard the soft sound of rustling dead leaves behind him, and turned to see Heidi approaching. She stood silent beside him for a few minutes, watching Peter play the part of the valiant dying comrade, then the bad guy. “He’s great with them,” Heidi said finally. Her tone was even, but Nathan could read the bitterness there.
“He’s family.”
Heidi shook her head. “And you made your choice a long time ago, Nathan.” She raised her voice. “Boys! Come have some supper!” She turned back to Nathan. “This is the last time. When you leave tonight, you and Peter can’t come back. Promise me.”
“Heidi, they’re my boys, too.”
“And if you love them, you won’t hurt them the way you hurt me.”
Down the trail, voices were approaching. Two sets of legs were running to keep up with their Uncle Peter. Heidi’s blue eyes held Nathan trapped and wouldn’t let him look away. “I promise,” he said.
“Don’t,” Nathan choked out, involuntary as his heart beat.
Her hand loosened fractionally around his throat. “Does he beg?”
“Please. Peter. The kids. Don’t…”
“Of course you ask first for your brother’s life.” She pulled her hand away and returned to running her knife gently across Nathan’s skin. “You know, I begged my father for my brother’s life. He refused, of course. Then I begged for my tribe, for I had many children, and they in their turn had multiplied, so that my descendants were many.”
The demon dragged the sharp tip of her knife oh-so-casually down Nathan’s left side, opening up a narrow wound as she spoke. “One great-grandchild in particular was in my mind especially as I begged for their lives. A crawling little boy with dark eyes who was forever trying to escape his mother’s watch. I begged my father not to take him. I thought, if I could save one…” She ran her thumb along the line she’d just cut, tearing the skin open a little wider. Nathan gasped for breath as his vision whited out momentarily.
“You know what my father told me?” When Nathan didn’t answer, the demon shook him by the throat until he looked at her again. “Do you know what he said?”
“No,” Nathan rasped.
“He told me that because I had asked for my brother’s life first, because I had been selfish and wicked, he would not spare even one.” She let go of his throat, letting her hand trail down his bare chest. “So no, Nathan. Your death will give me all of them. And it’s no more than you deserve for what you’ve done.” She slid the flat side of the knife gently across Nathan’s cheek. “I must prepare. You think on your sins.”
Nathan closed his eyes as she moved away. Peter would find him, must find him. Sam would get in touch with Peter, somehow, and they’d get here in time. He trusted them.
--
Part IV
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2008-07-01 09:15 pm (UTC)You are an evil, evil person.
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Date: 2008-07-02 03:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-04 05:24 am (UTC)I loved the part you added about Molly, it was exactly what it needed. :)
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Date: 2008-07-04 11:35 pm (UTC)Ah, what would I do without you to tell me to add the good parts?
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Date: 2008-10-05 09:23 pm (UTC)I love how single minded dean is :D
Great. We're all bad-asses. Thanks for that revelatory insight. I just was hoping for a little more reassurance."
LOL, ohh Nathan, thats all you can hope for in yor crazy world, that you are the better badasses then the evil badasses!
“He’ll see,” Sam said, wondering if Dean had recently had a head injury as well.
“Doesn’t matter.”
hhaha, oboys, you and your secrets are so no more secrets :D
Down the trail, voices were approaching. Two sets of legs were running to keep up with their Uncle Peter. Heidi's blue eyes held Nathan trapped and wouldn't let him look away. "I promise," he said.
damn, that made me bleeding again so hard for nathan, all the things he gave up for peter....
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Date: 2008-10-31 12:50 am (UTC)Hee! Dean has sex on the brain ALL the time. It's a wonder to me that the Winchesters get any monster-slaying done.
And I love that Sam's all worried about Peter finding out about them. Dude, you don't think Nathan's figured it out, too? DOH!
And awww, I had to slip a little of Nathan's family in there. Just to tug at the heart strings. Because I'm a baaad, hurtful person!