Fic: The Secret's in the Telling - Part IV
Jul. 3rd, 2008 08:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brighteyedjillTitle: The Secret’s in the Telling, 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![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
redandglenda for the beta and jaune_chat for listening to me gripe. I don’t own Heroes or Supernatural.
Part I - Part II (A) - Part II (B) - Part III (A) - Part III (B)
Dean scrubbed a hand through his hair and resisted the urge to shove a Metallica tape in the Impala’s cassette player. Metallica might drown out Sam and Peter’s argument, but it probably wouldn’t do much for Dean’s headache.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Sam was saying from the passenger seat. “The demon we wasted in Baltimore was her brother, and he wasn’t interested in Nathan.”
“Are you saying the demon didn’t take him?” Peter asked. Dean recognized the petulant edge in his voice. “That it was something else?”
“No, I’m saying that I don’t understand why. If she didn’t want him before--.”
“That was a different demon,” Peter said quickly. You never actually ran into her, into the demon, did you?”
“No, but--.”
“And you said the one that you met is dead now, so it doesn’t matter who he’s after.”
“Listen, Peter. We did some research.” Sam made the word sound end-all important, and Dean narrowly avoided rolling his eyes. “We know they’ve been working as a team; they’re family, or were, anyway. I don’t want us walking into a trap. It sounds like you guys have been one step behind this demon since we saw it in Albany.”
“You think we should just leave him?” Peter leaned forward from the back, one hand gripping the back of Dean’s seat.
“No! We’re going to get him back. We just have to walk in there prepared.”
“There no time! I can take care of the demon, I just need to find her.”
“Oh right, mighty hunter.” Sam crossed his arms over his chest. “You walk in there guns blazing, you might get Nathan killed.”
“If we sit here and do nothing, she’ll kill him anyway.”
“Hey! Shut it, both of you,” Dean broke in. “You’re not helping anything.” He threw a stern glare over at Sam, and then threw another glare in the rearview mirror. Peter, he thought, concentrating hard on the words. Chill out and let me handle Sam. For a moment, he felt foolish. Then Peter gave a curt nod and settled back in his seat. Okay then. “Sammy, you know anything about the demon that can help us track her down?”
Sam shook his head. “We found out a lot about her history, but nothing that would help us track her. Maybe Bobby might have an idea of how—Ah!” He broke off, clutching his hand to his head.
“Sam?” Dean flicked his eyes away from the road. “Talk to me.”
With a pained whimper, Sam buried his head in his hands.
“What’s wrong? Is it that head wound?” Peter asked. “It shouldn’t be acting up."
Dean slammed on the brakes and guided the Impala onto the shoulder. “It’s a vision.”
“Visions that look like seizures?”
“Don’t ask.” Dean threw the Impala into park and reached over to the passenger side to grab Sam by the shoulder. “Sammy?”
“I thought I was done with these,” Sam muttered.
Dean held Sam closer, not caring that water from the dirty shower tiles was soaking through his jeans. “Hey,” he prompted gently. “It over?”
Sam rubbed at the goose egg on the back of his head, souvenir of his fall. "I guess so."
“You’re turning into an old man. Falling in the shower. Next thing I know you’ll be chasing kids off the lawn with my shotgun.” It was a lame attempt at humor, Dean knew, but he wanted to hear Sam laugh, wanted to wipe away the sound of Sam crying out in fear and pain that had brought him bursting into the bathroom of this run-down motel room.
Sam managed only a weak smile. Dean pulled him to his feet and pushed wet hair out of his eyes. “Why is this happening again?” Sam asked.
“It’s not your fault Sammy."
"Then whose fault is it?"
Dean didn't have a snappy answer for that.
“It’s not a cemetery,” Sam ground out through clenched teeth. His eyes were squeezed shut. Dean kept a grip on his shoulder so Sam wouldn’t jerk forward and hit his head on the dashboard.
“Dark, high ceilings. There’s boxes. Stacks of boxes. Nathan!”
“Nathan?” Peter broke in. “Where is he?”
“Shhh.” Dean waved a hand at Peter.
“She’s not… No,” Sam moaned. Dean didn’t want to know what he was seeing that was so upsetting, but Peter gave a small whimper, though whether from general fear or because his mind-reading was picking up some of Sam’s vision, he didn’t care to know.
Dean tightened his grip on his brother’s arm. “Sammy, it’s okay. I gotcha.”
“There’s machinery. It’s all blue. And a logo. Like some lines, and—ah!” Sam jerked back in his chair, and his eyes snapped open, darting wildly around until they focused on Dean.
“Hey.” Dean said, tightening his grip on Sam. “You back with us?”
“Yeah. She’s definitely got him. We need to hurry.”
“She can’t have gone far. Not like she can fly or anything. Any idea where this place is that you saw?”
“There was a logo. I’ll bet we can find that.” Sam grabbed a napkin from the glove box and a pen from the pocket of his hoodie and began to draw: an upside-down pyramid with three wavy lines above it.
“It’s ice cream,” Dean said suddenly.
“What?” Sam and Peter asked together.
“Handel’s. Ice cream. That’s their logo.”
“How do you…?” Sam started. “Never mind.”
“They’ve got a factory in Cleveland,” Dean said. And he thanked his lucky stars that he’d never underestimated the importance of random knowledge about junk food. “You think the demon went that far?”
“Not a lot of choice, if she’s in a hurry,” Sam mused. “Address?”
“I’ll call 411.” Dean punched the number into his phone. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Peter lean forward from the backseat to put a hand on Sam's shoulder.
“You have visions often?” Peter asked.
“Um…” Sam looked quickly at Dean, but Dean pretended to be absorbed in the phone call. Let the psychic boys fight it out amongst themselves.
“Don’t worry,” Peter said. “I know what that’s like. I mean, not exactly, but close enough.”
“What?” Sam sounded utterly confused.
Dean avoided eye contact, and breathed a sigh of relief when the 411 operator answered. “Cleveland. Handel’s Ice Cream. The distribution center, please.” Dean snapped his fingers, and Sam handed him the pen and the napkin on which he’d drawn the logo. Dean jotted down an address. “Thanks. Got it.”
Sam looked at the napkin. “Dean, even if we floor it all the way…”
He was right. They weren’t sure how much of head start the demon had. Anything could happen in the hour it would take to drive to Cleveland. Dean started the Impala. “We have to try.”
“Get out of the car,” Peter said.
“We don’t have time,” Dean protested. “We’ve gotta go.”
“If we drive, we’ll get there too late. I know what to do.” The special emphasis behind the words permeated Dean’s stubbornness. Oh right. Those ability things. “Get out of the car.”
“Come on, Sammy. Grab your party dress.” Dean killed the engine and climbed out of the Impala. Peter shoved something he’d been holding—a black plastic case—into Dean’s duffel, and tossed the bag to Dean as he climbed out of the backseat. Sam joined them on the shoulder.
“The place you saw in your vision,” Peter said to Sam. “Can you think about what you saw? Concentrate on it?”
“Why?”
“Just do it, Sam,” Dean ordered.
With a roll of his eyes, Sam closed his eyes; his brow furrowed in concentration.
“Okay," Peter said after a moment. "Got it. This might be dangerous.” He grabbed the duffel bag out of Dean’s hands. “You should stay here.”
“First off, no,” Dean said shortly, and snatched back his bag. “You may be a bad-ass, but you don’t know about demons.”
“Can we get going? We’re wasting time,” Sam protested.
“See? Your brother agrees. Get in the car and meet me there,” Peter said.
Dean shook his head emphatically. “Not a chance."
“Why are we still standing here?” Sam asked.
“Peter?” Dean didn’t take his eyes off him. He was pretty sure he knew which of the two of them was more stubborn.
“Fine. When we end up in a post-apocalyptic hell, don’t say I didn’t tell you so,” Peter grumbled.
“Fine,” Dean snapped.
“What?” Sam asked.
Peter grabbed Dean’s arm with one hand and Sam’s arm with the other, and closed his eyes. “Hold on.”
Dean felt an unpleasant little lurch in his stomach, and when he opened his eyes, it was darker. They were no longer on the side of the road. They were inside some warehouse: high ceilings, the distant whir of machinery, and a faint smell of sugar. “Wow,” said Dean.
“What did you do?” Sam pulled away from them.
“Shhh,” Peter hissed. “I don’t know how close we are.”
“What did you do?” Sam repeated. He grabbed Peter by the front of his shirt. “Christos.”
Dean put a firm hand on Sam’s shoulder. “Sam, chill. He’s okay.”
“You know that for sure?” Sam challenged.
“Sam—.”
“Just because he doesn’t flinch means he’s on the good side?”
“I can explain--.” Peter began, his voice low and urgent.
“You of all people should know better, Dean. There are all kinds of creatures who can take human shape.”
“I’m not a creature,” Peter hissed. “Please be quiet.”
“Sam, he’s not evil. Would you let it go?”
Sam pulled his arm out of Dean’s grip. “How could you trust him? That, what just happened there—that was not natural. Do you even know where he brought us?”
“Sam, look.” Dean touched one of the boxes stacked around them. It was stamped with an upside-down pyramid and three wavy lines. “We’re here.”
Sam looked suspiciously from the box to Peter before grabbing him and pushing him against a beam. “How did you do that? What are you?”
“We do not have time for this,” Peter said, pushing back. “You wanted to come, so help me find Nathan or I’ll do it myself.”
“I’m not letting you out of my sight,” Sam said, pointing a warning finger.
“How you gonna stop me?”
“Hey, okay.” Dean jumped between them and pushed them apart. “You,” he said to Sam. “Stop being a bitch.” He turned to Peter. “And you. Stop being…” He searched for the right word. “A bitch.” God save me from any more little brothers. “Sam, I’m telling you he’s not evil. Trust me on this. Peter, we’re here to help, so simmer down. Christ. Never wished I was an only child.”
They glared at each other for a moment more. Peter broke first, nodding his agreement, and then Sam nodded too.
Dean pulled two cans of spray paint from his bag and passed them to Sam. “Give us a trap by all the exits. Peter, go with him and cover his back.”
“And you’ll be…?” Sam asked.
“Doing recon. We need to know where your brother is and where the demon is. And apparently you two can’t shut the hell up for ten seconds, so that makes me the sneakiest.”
“I’m going with you,” Peter said immediately.
“No.” I need you to look after Sammy.
Peter swallowed hard. “Fine.”
Sam looked warily between Dean and Peter, then said, “We’ll see you back here in ten.”
--
This wasn’t the worst pain Nathan had ever been in. Months spent lying in a burn unit had warped his perception of acceptable levels of agony. What worried him now was all the blood he was losing. It oozed from a score of shallow wounds. The demon chanted as she cut, running the flat of her blade through the blood. Nathan didn’t recognize her words; they weren’t any language he’d heard.
He was too weak to protest any more. Even if she untied him right now, he didn’t think he had the strength to stand. His limbs felt very heavy. He’d lost blood before, but he never remembered feeling so damn weak from it. The pulses of pain that wracked him were coming slower now, and felt somehow far away, like the shadows that lurked beyond the reach of the bare light bulb that hung above him.
Nathan’s eyes drifted open, then closed. Time seemed to have a dreamy quality: he wasn’t sure if he’d been lying here for hours or days. Once, when he opened his eyes, he saw a man’s face, at the edge of the circle of light, peeking out from behind a piece of machinery. Nathan blinked, but the face didn’t go away. The man’s eyes were fixed cautiously on the demon as she bent over Nathan, slicing into his flesh. The man didn’t look familiar, but his eyes weren’t black, weren’t demon’s eyes, so that made him a friend in Nathan’s book.
Nathan was just trying to work up the strength to call to the man when there came a tremendous clatter from the dark recesses of the warehouse. The demon’s head snapped up to look. She turned back to Nathan with a grin and laid one finger against his lips. “Shh. I’ll be right back, sweetest. We won’t let those Winchesters ruin our fun.”
The demon strode off into the darkness. Nathan closed his eyes and concentrated on breathing, on not slipping into unconsciousness.
Nathan felt very light. The pain in his chest was a faraway thing: two bright burning spots lodged somewhere inside him, radiating a dull heat. His focus was on Peter. Laying in the circle of Peter’s arms, he felt strangely safe. Around them, people were shouting and pushing. He thought he heard Parkman shouting something, but Peter’s voice cut through it all. “Hold on, Nathan. I’m not going to lose you again.”
Through the haze, Nathan became away of a hand on his shoulder, a voice whispering in his ear. “Hey. Nathan. You’re Nathan, right?”
With effort, he was able to drag his eyes open. Hovering above him was the face he’s seen lurking out in the warehouse. “Hey, yeah, that’s good. I’m Dean. I’m gonna get you out of here.”
--
Peter watched Sam intently as he began to paint a complex design from memory, spraying each line carefully onto the floor. “Demons can’t get out if they walk into one of these things?” he asked.
“That’s the idea.” Et anima, e tuum.
“And how do we kill her?”
“We don’t kill her,” Sam said sharply, pausing in his work to glare briefly at Peter. “There’s still a woman in that body. If we’re lucky we can exorcise her, and there’s a chance the host will live.” If not, there’s always the Colt.
“What about the Colt?”
Sam looked up sharply. “Did Dean tell you about that?”
“Not really. Only to complain that you had it.” That was marginally true, at least. Dean had certainly thought about the Colt, even if he hadn’t said anything to Peter directly. “What does it do?”
“It kills everything,” Sam explained as he painted. “Demons, vampires. Everything.” Slutty emo boys who sleep with my brother.
Peter dropped his flashlight.
Unbelievable. “Hey, Pete. It’s kind of hard to paint in the dark.”
He struggled to wrap his mind around the fact that Sam knew. Dean wouldn’t have said anything, probably. That meant he’d figured it out on his own somehow. And if Sam knew, that meant Nathan probably knew, too. “Don’t call me Pete,” he muttered. Peter felt around the dirty factory floor.
“Stop dropping the flashlight.”
“Whatever you say, Sammy.” Peter’s hand encountered plastic. He grabbed the flashlight and shook it. It flickered on. Peter whirled back around to shine the light at Sam, and his shoulder hit a shelf. Dozens of metal mixing bowls, stacked precariously, wobbled uncertainly for a moment, and then tumbled to the floor in a series of spectacular crashes.
Unfuckingbelievable. Sam jumped up from the half-finished Devil’s Trap. “She heard that for sure.” Sam grabbed Peter’s arm and pulled him away. “Come on. We have to hide.”
“No, don’t hide.” The demon slid out of the shadows in front of them.
Sam and Peter froze like frightened rabbits.
“Sam, Peter. I’m glad you came.”
Peter’s eyes flicked to the silver knife at her side. A drop of dark red blood fell silently and spattered on the floor. Nathan’s blood. She couldn’t have killed him already. He would know.
“Peter. I have to say I’m a little surprised to see you. After what you did for Dean, you look remarkably healthy.”
“It’s a gift.”
What he did for Dean? Sam’s attention flicked briefly to Peter.
“And Sam. You’ve been a naughty boy. You sent my brother away.”
“And I’ll do the same to you.”
“Sam, you’re not a good man. You deserve to be punished.”
“So do you.” Peter saw Sam’s hand move toward his hip, slowly, unobtrusively. Going for the Colt.
“I think it’s time you came off your high horse, don’t you?” The demon threw her head back, and suddenly there was a rush of wind and a sound like a thousand hurricanes. Black smoke poured out of the demon’s mouth. It swirled around Sam, but seemed unable to get too close. Sam screamed something at Peter, but Peter couldn’t hear over the roar. The column of smoke turned in mid air, as if it was a living thing, and rushed toward him.
--
“No!” Sam watched in horror as the demon forced itself into Peter’s body. He dropped the can of spray paint—no time for that now—and paused with his hand on the Colt. He couldn’t shoot Peter. Nathan would never forgive him. He had to find a way to exorcise the demon, and fast.
As the demon stood still, examining its new host, Sam ran. He needed to buy some time. He needed Dean.
“Sam, what have you brought me?” It was Peter’s voice echoing from behind him, but it held a cruel edge. “This is no magic.”
Sam darted around a pile of boxes as silently as he could, and stopped short at the sight of Dean half-supporting, half-dragging a semi-conscious Nathan. Sam ran to help Dean, throwing himself under Nathan’s other arm to take some of his weight. He looked terrible: pale and bloody, eyes fluttering open and closed again as he fought to stay conscious.
“Where’s the demon?” Dean asked, pitching his voice low, below the whir of the machinery.
“She got him,” Sam said grimly.
“Damnit Sam!” Dean kicked the now-unmoving body the demon had inhabited, and stuffed the Colt back in the waistband of his pants.
“It just happened. I’ve never seen a demon jump out of a host like that.” Sam came to stand next to Dean, staring down at the body as if it might provide some revelation.
“That was too close. If you hadn’t gotten ahold of your charm, you’d be walking around as some demon’s meat puppet,” Dean grumbled. “Again.”
“Yeah, well I did have my charm.”
“Barely. Butterfingers.”
“Why are you mad?” Sam turned wide, searching eyes on Dean.
“Because I don’t want you possessed. Is that so hard to understand? I don’t want…” Dean trailed off. “I don’t want to deal with that.”
“I’ve got the charm Bobby gave me. What more do you want, a tattoo?”
Dean’s eyes lit up like a Christmas tree.
“Dean, I was kidding.”
“I can hear you!” Peter’s voice echoed through the building. “I can hear your hearts pounding like little rabbits. Saaaaam!”
“How many of the devil’s traps did you finish?”
“None.”
“Shit.”
“Deeeean! Is that you, Dean?”
“Come on. Let’s buy some time.” Dean dragged Nathan further into the warehouse. Sam caught sight of a large metal door and steered them toward it. “In here.” He wrenched open the door to the freezer.
Dean followed, dragging Nathan along. “You still have the paint?”
Sam patted his jacket, looking for the second can of spray paint, and felt his heart sink when his pockets came up empty. He must have dropped it in his rush to get away. “Gone.”
Dean lowered Nathan to the ground, leaning him against the wall. “Tell me you still have the Colt.”
“Yeah, but Dean, we can’t…” He glanced to Nathan, who had his eyes squeezed shut. Sam couldn’t tell if he was unconscious, but he lowered his voice anyway. “You don’t get it. It’s in Peter.”
“In him? Like in him in him?” Dean’s whispered words made a cloud of breath in the cold air.
“She just went out of her host, and she tried to get into me, but…” He placed a hand on his chest, over the tattoo that protected him from possession. “She went after him instead.”
Dean looked absolutely stricken—more upset than Sam had ever seen him over collateral damage.
“No no no. That’s bad. We gotta get it out.” Dean’s voice was strangely hoarse. “Gotta exorcise it.” He stopped suddenly. “Sammy, when she… Did he do anything?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Peter—he can do stuff. Like the psychic kids. Does that mean when she’s in him, the demon can—?”
The heavy metal door rattled in its frame. “Come on out, boys!”
Dean pulled Nathan to his feet and they retreated further into the vast freezer, turning randomly down rows and aisles of stacked cartons.
“Nathan. Hey, stay with us, man.” Sam put a hand to Nathan’s face, pale and drawn with pain. “Tell us about Peter. What’s this stuff he can do?”
Dean rummaged through Sam’s bag, coming up with a container of rock salt.
“Peter’s all right,” Nathan muttered. “He’s a good person. It all evens out in the end.”
“Yeah, that’s extra useful.” Dean poured a line of salt across the aisle.
“Focus, Nathan,” Sam said. “What is he capable of?”
“Just leave him alone.” Nathan shoved Sam’s hands away weakly. “He’s helped more people than he’s hurt.”
“He’s fading fast,” Dean said softly. “Salt will slow the demon down, but we’re gonna have to find a way out of here. Wait a second.” His face lit up. “Wait, this is perfect. Give me the Colt.” He held out his hand.
“Are you insane?” Sam whispered. “We can’t shoot him, Dean.”
“Trust me on this one. It’ll be okay. Give me the gun.”
“No! We’ll make a run for it.” Sam went to help Nathan to his feet, and Dean pulled him away.
“We’re locked in a freezer, Sammy. There isn’t exactly a back door.”
“Then we’ll stall. I’ll distract him and you find something to draw a devil’s trap.”
“You are not going toe-to-toe with a demon who also has Peter’s freaky powers,” Dean snapped. “Not gonna happen. Give me the damn gun.”
“Where’s Peter?” Nathan asked again.
A tremendous clang echoed through the freezer as something heavy ran into the door. “Boys! Dean! Saaaaaaaaamy!”
“We’re leaving.” Sam moved to pick Nathan up, but Dean stopped him with a hand to his chest.
“This is the best chance we’ve had to waste this demon.”
“Are you deaf? It’s in Peter!”
“Yeah, and if we let it walk out of here, a lot more people are going to die. Gun. Now.”
“No!” Sam glanced cautiously at Nathan, whose eyes were screwed shut in pain, and lowered his voice. “How would you feel if someone wasted me? You wouldn’t shoot me when I was possessed; you can’t shoot Peter.”
“Sam, this is different. Seriously.”
There was another tremendous clang. The demon’s voice—Peter’s voice—was louder now. He must have broken through the door. “Deeean. I hear you.”
“We have to go right now,” Sam said. “Come on.”
Dean dropped to a crouch next to Nathan, and Sam thought for a moment that he’d come to his senses and was going to help him get Nathan out of here. Instead, Dean snapped his fingers in front of Nathan’s face. “Hey, you still with us?”
Sam knelt on Nathan’s other side, his knees protesting as they encountered ice-cold concrete, and pressed two fingers to his neck. A pulse beat there, but it wasn’t strong. “Dean, he can’t answer you.”
“Hey! Nathan! Your brother Peter—what happens if he gets shot?”
“Dean, what the hell?”
“Hey! Dude!” Dean waved his arms in front of Nathan’s face. “Sammy here is gonna shoot your brother. That okay with you?”
“Dean!” He stuffed the Colt further into the waistband of his jeans, almost guiltily.
Nathan’s eyes drifted open, and it took him a moment to focus on Dean. “Not in the head,” he muttered in a white puff of breath. “Just be careful.”
“What?” Sam looked at Nathan in confusion.
“There’s your answer, Sammy. Get the Colt.”
“Dean, he’s out of his mind. Leave him alone.”
“Give me the gun. I’ll do it.” Dean reached for the gun, and Sam dodged.
“Have you gone crazy?” Sam had no idea why Dean suddenly held Peter’s life so cheaply, but he knew for certain that Nathan would never forgive him if he hurt Peter. There had to be another way.
Dean put on his most patient tone. “I do not have time to explain this right now, but I promise I’m not crazy.” He held out his hand for the gun.
“Hey there, Winchesters.”
Peter appeared in the cold light of the freezer aisle, black-eyed and grinning. He gripped the demon’s silver knife in one hand. “Salt. That’s so quaint.” He examined his hands thoughtfully. “Well… I may not be able to cross a line of salt, but then I don’t really need to. Not in this body.”
Peter flung his empty hand out, and Sam found himself flying back into a pile of boxes. “Guess my control isn’t very good. You’ll have to forgive me—this is all so new.” Sam’s limbs wouldn’t cooperate for a moment, but as soon as he did move a little, he gasped in pain. Some ribs were bruised, or possibly broken. He gritted his teeth.
“Now you see why I’d much rather have Peter than you, don’t you, Dean? He’s so… amazing. And you…” As Sam struggled to right himself , he heard Dean grunt in pain. “…Are nothing. As usual. You couldn’t protect Peter before. And now look at what you’ve done. You can’t protect anyone: not your family, and not anyone else’s.” Sam dragged himself upright but was immediately slapped down by an invisible force. “Wait your turn, your highness.”
Sam craned his neck for a glimpse of the demon. Peter was holding Dean by the throat. Dean’s hands clawed desperately at his throat, and his feet dangled in the salt line, scattering it across the floor. Sam began to feel around for the Colt.
“You know, I’m always the most disappointed in the older brothers or sisters. Ruining their family’s lives with their perversion.” He hoisted Dean higher, ignoring the wet choking sounds as Dean struggled to breathe. “Your sin is the worst one, Dean Winchester.” Peter raised the demon’s knife, already dripping with Nathan’s blood, and drew it in a shallow line down Dean’s chest. Dean’s scream was choked off as Peter squeezed his throat. “Your whole life, you tried to drag your brother down to hell with you.”
Finally Sam’s hand closed on the cold metal of the gun. Keeping it down, out of the demon’s line of sight, he looked for an opening. Peter was still holding Dean up with one hand, as if he weighed nothing. They were too close. Maybe Dean could make a shot like that, but Sam had never been as much of a natural marksman.
“Peter?”
Sam turned to see Nathan reaching a hand out to the demon, his eyes wide and glassy. The demon smiled, a crooked grin that might not have been handsome on any other face but Peter’s. He dropped Dean, who fell in an unmoving heap on the floor. Sam pried his eyes away; he had to take care of the demon before he could help Dean.
“Hey, Nathan.” The demon took one slow step toward where Nathan lay. “I didn’t forget about you. We’re not finished, brother.”
Sam took aim and squeezed the trigger. Peter’s head snapped around to face the sound faster than any human should have been able to move. He brought his hands up as if he wanted to stop the bullet in mid-air, but wasn’t sure how.
The round caught Peter in the heart. For a moment nothing happened. The demon’s black eyes stared disbelieving at the wound. Then Peter started to scream: an unearthly, animal sound. Light flashed under his skin. There was a crackle, and a smell of sulfur and smoke, and Peter dropped like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
“Dean.” He rushed to his brother’s side, but Dean was already sputtering and coughing. Sam pulled him more or less upright as he checked broken bones. The cut from the demon’s knife was shallow, and steaming slightly in the cold air.
“You okay?” was the first thing out of Dean’s mouth.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. How’s your neck?”
“Peter.” Dean’s eyes slid past Sam to where Nathan cradled his brother’s body in his arms.
--
Anything. The Colt killed anything. That’s what Sam had said. Vampires, demons, werewolves. Humans. Anything. And Nathan had seen Peter heal from some horrific wounds, but it made him panic every time, not knowing for sure whether Peter would wake up again. This was worse. Peter’s dead eyes stared up at him. They were milky white instead of black now, and there was no spark of life in them.
“Peter?” He smoothed Peter’s damp hair back from his forehead. “Wake up. Come on.”
Suddenly Dean appeared, kneeling on Peter’s other side. “He can heal, right? He’ll heal?”
So Dean already knew. That would save some explaining, and Nathan just wouldn’t think about how Dean had found out. “Peter. Can you hear me?”
“I’m sorry.” Sam was standing a few feet away, the Colt hanging at his side. “I had to.”
“He’s gonna wake up any second now,” Dean said.
Nathan tried again. “Peter?”
“Peter!” He couldn’t see Peter’s face; the wind was whipping his hair around wildly as they flew. Then he coughed, convulsing in Nathan’s arms as he returned to life.
“You’re okay, Peter. I’ve got you.” I don’t want to do this anymore. I can’t keep losing him.
“I’m fine, Nathan. Let me go and we’ll fly together.” He squirmed in Nathan’s arms. Nathan tightened his grip.
“No. This stops, Pete.”
Peter went still in Nathan’s arms, but Nathan had no illusions that the fight was over. “Can we be on the ground for this conversation?”
Nathan wheeled and plummeted toward earth, pulling up at the last minute to perform the graceful landing he’d been practicing, and dumping Peter unceremoniously in the dusty road.
“What is wrong with you?” Peter snapped as he brushed himself off.
“We can’t keep doing this. Running around playing X-Men. It’s too dangerous.”
“Nathan, we have these gifts for a reason,” Peter said. He said the words tiredly, as he’d repeated this to Nathan so many times before. “We’re supposed to—.”
“Help people, right? Fine, only…” We’re a team. Just the two of us.
“So what do you want?”
“To disappear. We can help people on our own, and leave all this baggage behind. No Company, no list, no virus. Just us.”
“Is that what you want?” Peter sounded unconvinced.
“Peter, you’re going to live forever.” Can’t you spend at least a little time with me?
Peter’s voice was little more than a whisper. “This is really what you want?”
Nathan didn’t say anything. Let Peter read his mind if he wanted; he knew what he was asking.
“Okay. Then we’ll do it your way. Just the two of us. Right after this mission.”
“We need to get the bullet out.” Dean pulled a knife from his boot to cut off Peter’s shirt.
“You’re going to cut him up? Dean, he’s gone.” Sam’s voice broke on the last word.
“He should wake up. Something’s wrong,” Nathan said.
“We have to get the bullet out, right? It’s like Highlander.”
Nathan nodded mutely, and he didn’t protest when Dean pulled Peter onto his side. The fingers Dean ran over Peter’s back were proprietary, comfortable with Peter’s body. Nathan looked away. “No exit wound,” Dean reported.
“Dean, Nathan, he’s gone.” Sam said.
“He’s not gone, Sammy.” Nathan caught himself, but he didn’t miss the sharp look Dean threw his way. “Sam. He’s not.”
“Run get the duffel, Sam. There’s a first aid kit,” Dean said.
Nathan swayed, his vision darkening at the edges.
“Hey, Nathan.” Dean was watching him intently. “Don’t you die on us, either.”
“Not until Peter’s okay.” He struggled to his feet, and his vision got dimmer. “I’ll get the others. They can help.” He stumbled forward, hands out in front of him to feel the way.
“Nathan?” That was Sam’s voice.
He was swimming in darkness.
--
Dean knelt beside Nathan to feel for a pulse. The blood was still pumping, but barely. “Nathan!” Sam was back, distracted from his mission by Nathan’s collapse, no doubt. He pushed Dean aside. “Hey, I’ve got you,” Sam said, easing Nathan over onto his back. “You’ll be fine.”
Dean hesitated only a moment before running back to Peter. He laid his hands on Peter’s chest, resting just below the bullet hole the Colt had drilled. “You’ll be fine,” Dean whispered, because he had to believe it. He couldn’t have let Sam really kill Peter.
“Sam! Get me the duffel!”
Sam was shaking Nathan by the shoulders. “Nathan?”
“Sammy! Go get it!”
Sam lurched to his feet and stumbled over to where the duffel had landed in all the confusion, wedged against a shelf.
Dean turned his attention back to Peter. The wound wasn’t gushing blood anymore. That meant the heart wasn’t beating. He heard the duffel hit the ground and turned to see Sam kneeling back beside Nathan. “We’ve gotta keep him from bleeding out,” Sam said. “He’s probably going into shock.”
“Sam! Toss me the damn first aid kit!”
Sam was busy pressing gauze against the worst of Nathan’s wounds. “We were arguing. Just before the crash. It was so stupid to be fighting. God I’m such an ass.”
“Yeah you are.” Dean scrambled across the floor to catch the edge of the duffel strap and pull it over to him. He grabbed bandages and bottles willy-nilly out of the plastic first aid kit until his fingers closed around the cold metal of the tweezers.
“Dean, I think he stopped breathing.”
When Dean spared a glance, Sam was bent over Nathan, listening intently.
Dean couldn’t think about that right now. He grabbed a spare flashlight from the duffel, shook it into illumination, and held it at his shoulder so he had at least a chance of seeing what he was doing. The tweezers went in easily, right through the path of the bullet, but they were hard to hold onto; Dean’s hand was slippery with blood, quickly drying to tacky on his arm in the cold air. Peter’s eyes stared lifelessly at the ceiling while Dean pushed the tweezers further in.
Behind him, he heard Sam begin CPR, counting the compressions. “One-and two-and three-and…”
“Come on,” Dean muttered. The tweezers hit something hard—harder than muscle, at any rate, and Dean prodded harder, trying to get a grip on the bullet. It was surprisingly easy when the subject wasn’t writhing in pain. The bullet came out with a wet squelch.
“Nine-and ten-and…”
“Come on, Peter,” Dean whispered. He wasn’t moving. “Do your freaky magic thing.”
“Dean, he’s gone,” Sam snapped. “Come help me.”
Dean’s mind raced back to the night at the graveyard when he’d seen Peter get shot. There had to be something Dean was missing. Sometimes supernatural stuff needed a trigger, like chanting, or some sort of material component. Dean rubbed a hand over Peter’s forehead, smudging the blood spattered there. “Peter, please man.”
Sam kept not opening his eyes. Dean hadn’t looked away, had barely blinked since he and Bobby had laid Sam on the bed. He didn’t want to miss the moment that Sam’s eyes shot open, that he gasped for air and sat up and asked for coffee. He was going to wake up any minute.
Dean was trying not to think about last night, about the hole punched in Sam’s back by that bastard’s knife… He certainly wasn’t thinking about Sam bleeding out right there in his arms. Those things didn’t happen to the Winchesters. The Winchesters always came out all right, somehow. Dean just had to be patient.
An owl called out in the woods, and Dean had turned to look before he realized what he was doing. Immediately, his eyes snapped back to Sam. Didn’t he look different, somehow? Dean slid to his knees next to the bed and shook Sam by the arm. “Sammy? Hey… Sam?”
Floorboards creaked behind him. Dean tensed up, but he didn’t look away from Sam. Let ghost or demon come for him; it didn’t matter now.
“Who you talking to, Dean?” Bobby. Of course Bobby was here. Dean had forgotten.
“Nobody.” Dean climbed back into his chair to resume his vigil.
“Dean!” Sam was calling him, still trying to save Nathan. Save him, so when he woke up Dean would have to tell him he’d let his little brother die. “Grab your phone. We have to call 911.”
Mechanically, Dean reached for his phone, and that’s when he heard Peter cough.
“Peter?”
Peter’s eyes were open, and no longer glassy and vacant, or opaque black, but their usual warm brown.
“Jesus, you scared me.” Dean gathered Peter in his arms and pulled him into a hug.
“You did the right thing,” Peter rasped, wrapping his arms around Dean. “I’m sorry she hurt you. I tried to stop her, but I couldn’t do anything. I didn’t know—.”
“Hey, it’s okay,” Dean soothed. He’d done his job; he’d kept his family safe. That was all that mattered.
Dean was distracted by a sharp intake of breath behind him, and then Sam counting again. “One-and two-and…”
“Nathan.” Peter pulled away, his eyes going immediately to the still form on the floor next to Sam. He untangled himself from Dean and scrambled across the floor to kneel beside Sam.
“He’s not breathing,” Sam said.
“How long?”
“Two minutes, maybe.”
“Back off,” Peter said. Sam tensed, narrowing his eyes at Peter. “Just for a second.”
Sam pulled his hands away warily. Peter placed his hands on Nathan’s bare chest. There was a brief, bright flash of blue light, and Nathan’s body arched.
“Holy—!” Dean had seen that glow before: the first night he’d met Peter, and again when they’d faced the demon in that warehouse in Baltimore.
“Stop!” Sam grabbed Peter and hauled him off Nathan. “Get away from him.”
“Sam, calm down.” Dean started toward Sam, but he didn’t move fast enough.
Sam pushed Peter onto the ground and planted a knee on his back. “He just tried to kill Nathan. He’s still possessed, Dean.”
“We have to restart his heart,” Peter gasped. “Like a defibrillator.”
Sam paused, letting up a little so that Peter could breathe, and looked to Dean.
“You have a better idea?” Dean asked.
--
As soon as Sam pulled his knee off Peter’s back, Peter jumped up and returned to Nathan’s side. “Come on,” he muttered. He put his hands back in position and concentrated. Another electrical arc tore through Nathan’s body. Peter listened hard, lowering his head to Nathan’s chest. No change. No heartbeat.
Sam shouldered him aside and started compressions again.
“Dean,” Peter said suddenly. “Your bag—there was a little black case.”
“It’s a present. Just take it,” Claire shoved a small black case into his hand and then stuck her mittened hands back in her coat pockets.
“Can I open it now, or do I have to wait for Christmas?”
“Open it, dork.”
Peter snapped the plastic clasps and opened the case. Inside were six glass syringes packed in foam. Each syringe held a dark red liquid. “Is this…?”
“It’s mine. If you’re ever somewhere far away.” She sounded sad. Peter wondered briefly how she’d found out he and Nathan were planning to leave before deciding it didn’t matter. “You won’t need it, but…”
“Someone else might.”
“Please be safe.” She kissed him on the cheek, and he ignored the wetness on her face. “Both of you.”
Dean grabbed the duffel and soon returned with the case. He flipped open the top, and Peter could see the remaining syringes. All three were broken, oozing thick red liquid into the lining of the case.
“Is this blood?” Dean asked.
Peter reached a hand out to touch, and drew it back when the shattered edge of one of the broken syringes cut his finger. “They’re broken…”
“Peter, this is what you used on Sam, right? What is it?”
“It heals. It’s from the source… From the person who gave me the power in the first place. They can’t all be broken.” He grabbed the case from Dean and pawed through it, heedless of the broken glass. There had to be something he could use.
“This isn’t natural,” Sam said suddenly.
“Dude, he’s not a demon,” Dean shouted. Then he turned to Peter. “Or a vampire, right?”
“No, I mean Nathan’s not hurt that badly,” Sam explained, and Peter turned to listen. “Whatever’s killing him, it’s magic.”
“You mean the demon was working some kind of mojo on him?” Dean asked. He knelt next to Sam, who pointed at the cuts that marred Nathan’s skin.
“Yeah. The symbol has some sort of power. It’s connected to his lifeforce somehow.”
“So… Can you fix it?” Dean asked.
“The book… There’s a cleansing ritual, like a protective charm thing her tribe used. If I could read the charm, that might break the symbol’s hold.”
“What do you need?” Peter asked.
“My notes from the library. They were in a backpack. In Nathan’s car.”
“I’ll go get them. Keep his blood pumping.”
Peter concentrated on the Bentley, twisted metal, the big oak tree it was wrapped around, and then he was gone.
--
“Fourteen-and fifteen...” Sam tilted Nathan’s head back and breathed into his mouth, past lips that were already too cold.
“Sammy.” Sam looked up to see Dean standing across from him, watching intently. “You know what you’re doing?”
Sam furrowed his brow in confusion. “You taught me CPR, so if I don’t, it’s your own damn fault.”
“The charm, Sam,” Dean said tightly.
“We’ve gotta try something.”
“But are you sure you’re up for this? You were unconscious with major head trauma like less than an hour ago. You sure you should be messing with dark magic right now?”
“It doesn’t matter. This isn’t just some guy, Dean, some random civilian.” Sam sucked in a breath, surprised at the panicked edge in his voice.
Dean nodded like he actually understood, and maybe he did. “Yeah, okay.”
Sam went back to chest compressions, and Dean shut up.
“This is all I could find.” Peter was back: no bang, no puff of smoke, just there. He had a backpack slung over one shoulder, and his arms were piled with a mess of books and papers that had been in the backseat. “The cops were already there.”
“Would you?” Sam asked, nodding to his brother. Dean knelt down next to Sam and took over CPR while Sam began pulling papers out of Peter’s arms. “It’s a blue notebook.”
Peter dumped the jumble on top of a nearby crate and yanked open the zipper on the backpack. Bits of notes, police records, and newspaper clippings swam in Sam’s eyes as he rooted through the stack: the ruined remains of Nathan’s careful filing.
“This?” Peter held up a blue spiral notebook crammed with loose papers and held closed with a rubber band.
“Yes.” Sam snatched it out of Peter’s hand and pulled the notebook open. Yesterday was a blur: reading and taking notes, so he couldn’t remember where exactly he’d copied the charm—there. Ten lines of verse, phonetically copied from the original: the lost language of the demon’s extinct tribe, finished with an English invocation. Sam raced back to Nathan’s side and gently pushed Dean out of the way.
Sam could sense Peter hovering behind him. He stared down at the words of the charm, trying to remember if the book had held any clues about how this ritual had been performed, and coming up blank.
“Sammy?” Dean prompted.
“We need a focus object for the ritual,” he said finally. That, at least, he remembered. “Something that represents what we’re trying to protect him from. Preferably something of hers, or something she touched.”
“Knife,” Dean and Peter said in unison. They spread out, searching.
Sam went back to studying the words, forming them silently.
“Here we go.” Dean returned, holding the silver knife gingerly by the handle.
Sam took it. The metal was heavy in his hand, and so cold it almost hurt to hold it. The blade was wet with blood: Nathan’s blood, and Dean’s. He gripped the knife tightly in his left hand, and placed his right hand on Nathan’s belly, where the thin red lines of blood formed a nexus. He began to read.
The words were hard and unfamiliar and felt like grit in his mouth. Under Sam’s hand, the cuts began to glow an angry red.
“Is it supposed to do that?” Peter asked.
“I have no idea.” Dean backed up a step, and Peter followed.
Sam ignored them, keeping his entire concentration focused on the words. As he spoke, the knife grew warm in his hand. He kept chanting. A shrill whistle began to sound in his ears. Dean and Peter didn’t seem to hear it.
Sam had reached the end of the text, and he read the English translation of the final invocation loud and clear: “The power of our tribe hold you and keep you safe from harm.” The knife in Sam’s hand grew too hot to hold, and he dropped it with a muffled curse. Under his other hand, Nathan’s cuts glowed a brilliant white for an instant, and then the light faded to nothing, taking the cuts with it.
“Nathan?” Sam shook him gently. Still nothing. “Shock him again.”
Peter rushed forward to place his hands on Nathan’s chest. Sam backed off. Blue lighting flared once more under Peter’s hands, and then Nathan was coughing, gasping for air.
Sam started forward, but Dean stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. He gave a slight shake of his head and pointed to Peter, who was babbling a strange mix of endearments and admonishments to rest.
“Don’t spoil the reunion,” Dean whispered.
--
Nathan didn’t remember much of the drive to the motel. He remembered the cabbie first looking scared, and then getting that dazed look people got after they’d heard Peter’s voice in their head telling them they wouldn’t remember any of this.
He found himself on a bed somehow, with Peter hovering over him. “I’m fine,” he muttered. “What’d you do, anyway?”
“It was Sam,” Peter replied darkly. “Try to rest.”
Nathan closed his eyes, but he could hear the others talking in the corner.
“I’m not leaving the Impala out there overnight.” That must be Dean.
“I’ll go with. We have to go back to the Bentley anyway, do some cleanup.” Good old Peter. Taking care of the family business. Wouldn’t want the cops getting ahold of any of their stuff.
“I’ll stay.” Sam. That was Sam. A silence followed that pronouncement, but the next thing he knew, Nathan heard the door close. The bed dipped as Sam came to sit beside him.
“You asleep?” Sam whispered.
Nathan shook his head, and let his eyes drift open. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine. How are you feeling?”
“Better than I was an hour ago. Peter says you saved me.” Nathan saw a change come over Sam’s face, turning somehow proud and suspicious at once.
“He said that?”
“Guess all your research paid off.”
“Yeah. Hey…” Sam edged a little closer on the bed. “I’m sorry I said those things in the car. Before we crashed.”
“Don’t apologize,” Nathan said. “If you apologize, I have to, and I don’t have the energy right now.”
“Okay.” The silence stretched between them, and Nathan was still feeling too hazy to dredge up something intelligent to say. Finally, Sam stood. “They just went to get the car.” He pushed aside one of the curtains, which was a wretched lavender color. “Shouldn’t be gone long.”
“Sam.” He turned back immediately. “That’s just Peter. He’s not going to take your brother away.” Nathan realized that this might be one of those conversations that only seemed like a good idea immediately following a near-death experience. Still, judging from the way Sam froze helplessly at the words, it was something Sam needed to hear.
“I’m not…” Sam fumbled. “I don’t…”
“He knows he can’t keep Dean. So stop worrying.” Nathan closed his eyes and turned on his side, giving Sam the privacy to process that information how he would.
Nathan wasn’t sure if he slept or not, but he wasn’t aware of anything else until the door opened and closed again. Sam and Dean were mumbling together in the corner, and Peter came to curl up at Nathan’s back.
“It’s your turn to buy me a car,” Peter grumbled.
“I love you,” Nathan said.
Peter wrapped his arms around Nathan’s waist. In the room’s other bed, Nathan could hear the sounds to two bodies settling. “I love you, too. Go back to sleep.”
--
Peter jerked awake when he heard the door close. A quick glance over at the other bed confirmed what he suspected; Sam and Dean were making a break for it. Carefully, he eased out of bed, leaving Nathan asleep, and phased through the door into the parking lot. Dean had just tossed his bag into the back seat of the Impala, and Sam was already settled in shotgun. Peter was stopped for a moment by how at home he looked there.
“Peter?” Dean stopped with his hand on the driver’s side door.
Peter came a few steps closer. “So this is it?”
“Job’s over,” Dean said. He fixed his eyes on the Impala’s hood, studiously avoiding looking at Peter. “Let’s not make a big thing of it.”
Peter didn’t try to read Dean’s mind. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what Dean was thinking at this moment.
“See you around,” Peter said, and managed a brief half-smile.
Dean nodded and slid into the Impala. The purr of the Impala as it rolled out of the parking lot echoed in Peter’s chest and made it ache.
--
Epilogue
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 jaune_chat for listening to me gripe. I don’t own Heroes or Supernatural.Part I - Part II (A) - Part II (B) - Part III (A) - Part III (B)
Dean scrubbed a hand through his hair and resisted the urge to shove a Metallica tape in the Impala’s cassette player. Metallica might drown out Sam and Peter’s argument, but it probably wouldn’t do much for Dean’s headache.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Sam was saying from the passenger seat. “The demon we wasted in Baltimore was her brother, and he wasn’t interested in Nathan.”
“Are you saying the demon didn’t take him?” Peter asked. Dean recognized the petulant edge in his voice. “That it was something else?”
“No, I’m saying that I don’t understand why. If she didn’t want him before--.”
“That was a different demon,” Peter said quickly. You never actually ran into her, into the demon, did you?”
“No, but--.”
“And you said the one that you met is dead now, so it doesn’t matter who he’s after.”
“Listen, Peter. We did some research.” Sam made the word sound end-all important, and Dean narrowly avoided rolling his eyes. “We know they’ve been working as a team; they’re family, or were, anyway. I don’t want us walking into a trap. It sounds like you guys have been one step behind this demon since we saw it in Albany.”
“You think we should just leave him?” Peter leaned forward from the back, one hand gripping the back of Dean’s seat.
“No! We’re going to get him back. We just have to walk in there prepared.”
“There no time! I can take care of the demon, I just need to find her.”
“Oh right, mighty hunter.” Sam crossed his arms over his chest. “You walk in there guns blazing, you might get Nathan killed.”
“If we sit here and do nothing, she’ll kill him anyway.”
“Hey! Shut it, both of you,” Dean broke in. “You’re not helping anything.” He threw a stern glare over at Sam, and then threw another glare in the rearview mirror. Peter, he thought, concentrating hard on the words. Chill out and let me handle Sam. For a moment, he felt foolish. Then Peter gave a curt nod and settled back in his seat. Okay then. “Sammy, you know anything about the demon that can help us track her down?”
Sam shook his head. “We found out a lot about her history, but nothing that would help us track her. Maybe Bobby might have an idea of how—Ah!” He broke off, clutching his hand to his head.
“Sam?” Dean flicked his eyes away from the road. “Talk to me.”
With a pained whimper, Sam buried his head in his hands.
“What’s wrong? Is it that head wound?” Peter asked. “It shouldn’t be acting up."
Dean slammed on the brakes and guided the Impala onto the shoulder. “It’s a vision.”
“Visions that look like seizures?”
“Don’t ask.” Dean threw the Impala into park and reached over to the passenger side to grab Sam by the shoulder. “Sammy?”
“I thought I was done with these,” Sam muttered.
Dean held Sam closer, not caring that water from the dirty shower tiles was soaking through his jeans. “Hey,” he prompted gently. “It over?”
Sam rubbed at the goose egg on the back of his head, souvenir of his fall. "I guess so."
“You’re turning into an old man. Falling in the shower. Next thing I know you’ll be chasing kids off the lawn with my shotgun.” It was a lame attempt at humor, Dean knew, but he wanted to hear Sam laugh, wanted to wipe away the sound of Sam crying out in fear and pain that had brought him bursting into the bathroom of this run-down motel room.
Sam managed only a weak smile. Dean pulled him to his feet and pushed wet hair out of his eyes. “Why is this happening again?” Sam asked.
“It’s not your fault Sammy."
"Then whose fault is it?"
Dean didn't have a snappy answer for that.
“It’s not a cemetery,” Sam ground out through clenched teeth. His eyes were squeezed shut. Dean kept a grip on his shoulder so Sam wouldn’t jerk forward and hit his head on the dashboard.
“Dark, high ceilings. There’s boxes. Stacks of boxes. Nathan!”
“Nathan?” Peter broke in. “Where is he?”
“Shhh.” Dean waved a hand at Peter.
“She’s not… No,” Sam moaned. Dean didn’t want to know what he was seeing that was so upsetting, but Peter gave a small whimper, though whether from general fear or because his mind-reading was picking up some of Sam’s vision, he didn’t care to know.
Dean tightened his grip on his brother’s arm. “Sammy, it’s okay. I gotcha.”
“There’s machinery. It’s all blue. And a logo. Like some lines, and—ah!” Sam jerked back in his chair, and his eyes snapped open, darting wildly around until they focused on Dean.
“Hey.” Dean said, tightening his grip on Sam. “You back with us?”
“Yeah. She’s definitely got him. We need to hurry.”
“She can’t have gone far. Not like she can fly or anything. Any idea where this place is that you saw?”
“There was a logo. I’ll bet we can find that.” Sam grabbed a napkin from the glove box and a pen from the pocket of his hoodie and began to draw: an upside-down pyramid with three wavy lines above it.
“It’s ice cream,” Dean said suddenly.
“What?” Sam and Peter asked together.
“Handel’s. Ice cream. That’s their logo.”
“How do you…?” Sam started. “Never mind.”
“They’ve got a factory in Cleveland,” Dean said. And he thanked his lucky stars that he’d never underestimated the importance of random knowledge about junk food. “You think the demon went that far?”
“Not a lot of choice, if she’s in a hurry,” Sam mused. “Address?”
“I’ll call 411.” Dean punched the number into his phone. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Peter lean forward from the backseat to put a hand on Sam's shoulder.
“You have visions often?” Peter asked.
“Um…” Sam looked quickly at Dean, but Dean pretended to be absorbed in the phone call. Let the psychic boys fight it out amongst themselves.
“Don’t worry,” Peter said. “I know what that’s like. I mean, not exactly, but close enough.”
“What?” Sam sounded utterly confused.
Dean avoided eye contact, and breathed a sigh of relief when the 411 operator answered. “Cleveland. Handel’s Ice Cream. The distribution center, please.” Dean snapped his fingers, and Sam handed him the pen and the napkin on which he’d drawn the logo. Dean jotted down an address. “Thanks. Got it.”
Sam looked at the napkin. “Dean, even if we floor it all the way…”
He was right. They weren’t sure how much of head start the demon had. Anything could happen in the hour it would take to drive to Cleveland. Dean started the Impala. “We have to try.”
“Get out of the car,” Peter said.
“We don’t have time,” Dean protested. “We’ve gotta go.”
“If we drive, we’ll get there too late. I know what to do.” The special emphasis behind the words permeated Dean’s stubbornness. Oh right. Those ability things. “Get out of the car.”
“Come on, Sammy. Grab your party dress.” Dean killed the engine and climbed out of the Impala. Peter shoved something he’d been holding—a black plastic case—into Dean’s duffel, and tossed the bag to Dean as he climbed out of the backseat. Sam joined them on the shoulder.
“The place you saw in your vision,” Peter said to Sam. “Can you think about what you saw? Concentrate on it?”
“Why?”
“Just do it, Sam,” Dean ordered.
With a roll of his eyes, Sam closed his eyes; his brow furrowed in concentration.
“Okay," Peter said after a moment. "Got it. This might be dangerous.” He grabbed the duffel bag out of Dean’s hands. “You should stay here.”
“First off, no,” Dean said shortly, and snatched back his bag. “You may be a bad-ass, but you don’t know about demons.”
“Can we get going? We’re wasting time,” Sam protested.
“See? Your brother agrees. Get in the car and meet me there,” Peter said.
Dean shook his head emphatically. “Not a chance."
“Why are we still standing here?” Sam asked.
“Peter?” Dean didn’t take his eyes off him. He was pretty sure he knew which of the two of them was more stubborn.
“Fine. When we end up in a post-apocalyptic hell, don’t say I didn’t tell you so,” Peter grumbled.
“Fine,” Dean snapped.
“What?” Sam asked.
Peter grabbed Dean’s arm with one hand and Sam’s arm with the other, and closed his eyes. “Hold on.”
Dean felt an unpleasant little lurch in his stomach, and when he opened his eyes, it was darker. They were no longer on the side of the road. They were inside some warehouse: high ceilings, the distant whir of machinery, and a faint smell of sugar. “Wow,” said Dean.
“What did you do?” Sam pulled away from them.
“Shhh,” Peter hissed. “I don’t know how close we are.”
“What did you do?” Sam repeated. He grabbed Peter by the front of his shirt. “Christos.”
Dean put a firm hand on Sam’s shoulder. “Sam, chill. He’s okay.”
“You know that for sure?” Sam challenged.
“Sam—.”
“Just because he doesn’t flinch means he’s on the good side?”
“I can explain--.” Peter began, his voice low and urgent.
“You of all people should know better, Dean. There are all kinds of creatures who can take human shape.”
“I’m not a creature,” Peter hissed. “Please be quiet.”
“Sam, he’s not evil. Would you let it go?”
Sam pulled his arm out of Dean’s grip. “How could you trust him? That, what just happened there—that was not natural. Do you even know where he brought us?”
“Sam, look.” Dean touched one of the boxes stacked around them. It was stamped with an upside-down pyramid and three wavy lines. “We’re here.”
Sam looked suspiciously from the box to Peter before grabbing him and pushing him against a beam. “How did you do that? What are you?”
“We do not have time for this,” Peter said, pushing back. “You wanted to come, so help me find Nathan or I’ll do it myself.”
“I’m not letting you out of my sight,” Sam said, pointing a warning finger.
“How you gonna stop me?”
“Hey, okay.” Dean jumped between them and pushed them apart. “You,” he said to Sam. “Stop being a bitch.” He turned to Peter. “And you. Stop being…” He searched for the right word. “A bitch.” God save me from any more little brothers. “Sam, I’m telling you he’s not evil. Trust me on this. Peter, we’re here to help, so simmer down. Christ. Never wished I was an only child.”
They glared at each other for a moment more. Peter broke first, nodding his agreement, and then Sam nodded too.
Dean pulled two cans of spray paint from his bag and passed them to Sam. “Give us a trap by all the exits. Peter, go with him and cover his back.”
“And you’ll be…?” Sam asked.
“Doing recon. We need to know where your brother is and where the demon is. And apparently you two can’t shut the hell up for ten seconds, so that makes me the sneakiest.”
“I’m going with you,” Peter said immediately.
“No.” I need you to look after Sammy.
Peter swallowed hard. “Fine.”
Sam looked warily between Dean and Peter, then said, “We’ll see you back here in ten.”
--
This wasn’t the worst pain Nathan had ever been in. Months spent lying in a burn unit had warped his perception of acceptable levels of agony. What worried him now was all the blood he was losing. It oozed from a score of shallow wounds. The demon chanted as she cut, running the flat of her blade through the blood. Nathan didn’t recognize her words; they weren’t any language he’d heard.
He was too weak to protest any more. Even if she untied him right now, he didn’t think he had the strength to stand. His limbs felt very heavy. He’d lost blood before, but he never remembered feeling so damn weak from it. The pulses of pain that wracked him were coming slower now, and felt somehow far away, like the shadows that lurked beyond the reach of the bare light bulb that hung above him.
Nathan’s eyes drifted open, then closed. Time seemed to have a dreamy quality: he wasn’t sure if he’d been lying here for hours or days. Once, when he opened his eyes, he saw a man’s face, at the edge of the circle of light, peeking out from behind a piece of machinery. Nathan blinked, but the face didn’t go away. The man’s eyes were fixed cautiously on the demon as she bent over Nathan, slicing into his flesh. The man didn’t look familiar, but his eyes weren’t black, weren’t demon’s eyes, so that made him a friend in Nathan’s book.
Nathan was just trying to work up the strength to call to the man when there came a tremendous clatter from the dark recesses of the warehouse. The demon’s head snapped up to look. She turned back to Nathan with a grin and laid one finger against his lips. “Shh. I’ll be right back, sweetest. We won’t let those Winchesters ruin our fun.”
The demon strode off into the darkness. Nathan closed his eyes and concentrated on breathing, on not slipping into unconsciousness.
Nathan felt very light. The pain in his chest was a faraway thing: two bright burning spots lodged somewhere inside him, radiating a dull heat. His focus was on Peter. Laying in the circle of Peter’s arms, he felt strangely safe. Around them, people were shouting and pushing. He thought he heard Parkman shouting something, but Peter’s voice cut through it all. “Hold on, Nathan. I’m not going to lose you again.”
Through the haze, Nathan became away of a hand on his shoulder, a voice whispering in his ear. “Hey. Nathan. You’re Nathan, right?”
With effort, he was able to drag his eyes open. Hovering above him was the face he’s seen lurking out in the warehouse. “Hey, yeah, that’s good. I’m Dean. I’m gonna get you out of here.”
--
Peter watched Sam intently as he began to paint a complex design from memory, spraying each line carefully onto the floor. “Demons can’t get out if they walk into one of these things?” he asked.
“That’s the idea.” Et anima, e tuum.
“And how do we kill her?”
“We don’t kill her,” Sam said sharply, pausing in his work to glare briefly at Peter. “There’s still a woman in that body. If we’re lucky we can exorcise her, and there’s a chance the host will live.” If not, there’s always the Colt.
“What about the Colt?”
Sam looked up sharply. “Did Dean tell you about that?”
“Not really. Only to complain that you had it.” That was marginally true, at least. Dean had certainly thought about the Colt, even if he hadn’t said anything to Peter directly. “What does it do?”
“It kills everything,” Sam explained as he painted. “Demons, vampires. Everything.” Slutty emo boys who sleep with my brother.
Peter dropped his flashlight.
Unbelievable. “Hey, Pete. It’s kind of hard to paint in the dark.”
He struggled to wrap his mind around the fact that Sam knew. Dean wouldn’t have said anything, probably. That meant he’d figured it out on his own somehow. And if Sam knew, that meant Nathan probably knew, too. “Don’t call me Pete,” he muttered. Peter felt around the dirty factory floor.
“Stop dropping the flashlight.”
“Whatever you say, Sammy.” Peter’s hand encountered plastic. He grabbed the flashlight and shook it. It flickered on. Peter whirled back around to shine the light at Sam, and his shoulder hit a shelf. Dozens of metal mixing bowls, stacked precariously, wobbled uncertainly for a moment, and then tumbled to the floor in a series of spectacular crashes.
Unfuckingbelievable. Sam jumped up from the half-finished Devil’s Trap. “She heard that for sure.” Sam grabbed Peter’s arm and pulled him away. “Come on. We have to hide.”
“No, don’t hide.” The demon slid out of the shadows in front of them.
Sam and Peter froze like frightened rabbits.
“Sam, Peter. I’m glad you came.”
Peter’s eyes flicked to the silver knife at her side. A drop of dark red blood fell silently and spattered on the floor. Nathan’s blood. She couldn’t have killed him already. He would know.
“Peter. I have to say I’m a little surprised to see you. After what you did for Dean, you look remarkably healthy.”
“It’s a gift.”
What he did for Dean? Sam’s attention flicked briefly to Peter.
“And Sam. You’ve been a naughty boy. You sent my brother away.”
“And I’ll do the same to you.”
“Sam, you’re not a good man. You deserve to be punished.”
“So do you.” Peter saw Sam’s hand move toward his hip, slowly, unobtrusively. Going for the Colt.
“I think it’s time you came off your high horse, don’t you?” The demon threw her head back, and suddenly there was a rush of wind and a sound like a thousand hurricanes. Black smoke poured out of the demon’s mouth. It swirled around Sam, but seemed unable to get too close. Sam screamed something at Peter, but Peter couldn’t hear over the roar. The column of smoke turned in mid air, as if it was a living thing, and rushed toward him.
--
“No!” Sam watched in horror as the demon forced itself into Peter’s body. He dropped the can of spray paint—no time for that now—and paused with his hand on the Colt. He couldn’t shoot Peter. Nathan would never forgive him. He had to find a way to exorcise the demon, and fast.
As the demon stood still, examining its new host, Sam ran. He needed to buy some time. He needed Dean.
“Sam, what have you brought me?” It was Peter’s voice echoing from behind him, but it held a cruel edge. “This is no magic.”
Sam darted around a pile of boxes as silently as he could, and stopped short at the sight of Dean half-supporting, half-dragging a semi-conscious Nathan. Sam ran to help Dean, throwing himself under Nathan’s other arm to take some of his weight. He looked terrible: pale and bloody, eyes fluttering open and closed again as he fought to stay conscious.
“Where’s the demon?” Dean asked, pitching his voice low, below the whir of the machinery.
“She got him,” Sam said grimly.
“Damnit Sam!” Dean kicked the now-unmoving body the demon had inhabited, and stuffed the Colt back in the waistband of his pants.
“It just happened. I’ve never seen a demon jump out of a host like that.” Sam came to stand next to Dean, staring down at the body as if it might provide some revelation.
“That was too close. If you hadn’t gotten ahold of your charm, you’d be walking around as some demon’s meat puppet,” Dean grumbled. “Again.”
“Yeah, well I did have my charm.”
“Barely. Butterfingers.”
“Why are you mad?” Sam turned wide, searching eyes on Dean.
“Because I don’t want you possessed. Is that so hard to understand? I don’t want…” Dean trailed off. “I don’t want to deal with that.”
“I’ve got the charm Bobby gave me. What more do you want, a tattoo?”
Dean’s eyes lit up like a Christmas tree.
“Dean, I was kidding.”
“I can hear you!” Peter’s voice echoed through the building. “I can hear your hearts pounding like little rabbits. Saaaaam!”
“How many of the devil’s traps did you finish?”
“None.”
“Shit.”
“Deeeean! Is that you, Dean?”
“Come on. Let’s buy some time.” Dean dragged Nathan further into the warehouse. Sam caught sight of a large metal door and steered them toward it. “In here.” He wrenched open the door to the freezer.
Dean followed, dragging Nathan along. “You still have the paint?”
Sam patted his jacket, looking for the second can of spray paint, and felt his heart sink when his pockets came up empty. He must have dropped it in his rush to get away. “Gone.”
Dean lowered Nathan to the ground, leaning him against the wall. “Tell me you still have the Colt.”
“Yeah, but Dean, we can’t…” He glanced to Nathan, who had his eyes squeezed shut. Sam couldn’t tell if he was unconscious, but he lowered his voice anyway. “You don’t get it. It’s in Peter.”
“In him? Like in him in him?” Dean’s whispered words made a cloud of breath in the cold air.
“She just went out of her host, and she tried to get into me, but…” He placed a hand on his chest, over the tattoo that protected him from possession. “She went after him instead.”
Dean looked absolutely stricken—more upset than Sam had ever seen him over collateral damage.
“No no no. That’s bad. We gotta get it out.” Dean’s voice was strangely hoarse. “Gotta exorcise it.” He stopped suddenly. “Sammy, when she… Did he do anything?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Peter—he can do stuff. Like the psychic kids. Does that mean when she’s in him, the demon can—?”
The heavy metal door rattled in its frame. “Come on out, boys!”
Dean pulled Nathan to his feet and they retreated further into the vast freezer, turning randomly down rows and aisles of stacked cartons.
“Nathan. Hey, stay with us, man.” Sam put a hand to Nathan’s face, pale and drawn with pain. “Tell us about Peter. What’s this stuff he can do?”
Dean rummaged through Sam’s bag, coming up with a container of rock salt.
“Peter’s all right,” Nathan muttered. “He’s a good person. It all evens out in the end.”
“Yeah, that’s extra useful.” Dean poured a line of salt across the aisle.
“Focus, Nathan,” Sam said. “What is he capable of?”
“Just leave him alone.” Nathan shoved Sam’s hands away weakly. “He’s helped more people than he’s hurt.”
“He’s fading fast,” Dean said softly. “Salt will slow the demon down, but we’re gonna have to find a way out of here. Wait a second.” His face lit up. “Wait, this is perfect. Give me the Colt.” He held out his hand.
“Are you insane?” Sam whispered. “We can’t shoot him, Dean.”
“Trust me on this one. It’ll be okay. Give me the gun.”
“No! We’ll make a run for it.” Sam went to help Nathan to his feet, and Dean pulled him away.
“We’re locked in a freezer, Sammy. There isn’t exactly a back door.”
“Then we’ll stall. I’ll distract him and you find something to draw a devil’s trap.”
“You are not going toe-to-toe with a demon who also has Peter’s freaky powers,” Dean snapped. “Not gonna happen. Give me the damn gun.”
“Where’s Peter?” Nathan asked again.
A tremendous clang echoed through the freezer as something heavy ran into the door. “Boys! Dean! Saaaaaaaaamy!”
“We’re leaving.” Sam moved to pick Nathan up, but Dean stopped him with a hand to his chest.
“This is the best chance we’ve had to waste this demon.”
“Are you deaf? It’s in Peter!”
“Yeah, and if we let it walk out of here, a lot more people are going to die. Gun. Now.”
“No!” Sam glanced cautiously at Nathan, whose eyes were screwed shut in pain, and lowered his voice. “How would you feel if someone wasted me? You wouldn’t shoot me when I was possessed; you can’t shoot Peter.”
“Sam, this is different. Seriously.”
There was another tremendous clang. The demon’s voice—Peter’s voice—was louder now. He must have broken through the door. “Deeean. I hear you.”
“We have to go right now,” Sam said. “Come on.”
Dean dropped to a crouch next to Nathan, and Sam thought for a moment that he’d come to his senses and was going to help him get Nathan out of here. Instead, Dean snapped his fingers in front of Nathan’s face. “Hey, you still with us?”
Sam knelt on Nathan’s other side, his knees protesting as they encountered ice-cold concrete, and pressed two fingers to his neck. A pulse beat there, but it wasn’t strong. “Dean, he can’t answer you.”
“Hey! Nathan! Your brother Peter—what happens if he gets shot?”
“Dean, what the hell?”
“Hey! Dude!” Dean waved his arms in front of Nathan’s face. “Sammy here is gonna shoot your brother. That okay with you?”
“Dean!” He stuffed the Colt further into the waistband of his jeans, almost guiltily.
Nathan’s eyes drifted open, and it took him a moment to focus on Dean. “Not in the head,” he muttered in a white puff of breath. “Just be careful.”
“What?” Sam looked at Nathan in confusion.
“There’s your answer, Sammy. Get the Colt.”
“Dean, he’s out of his mind. Leave him alone.”
“Give me the gun. I’ll do it.” Dean reached for the gun, and Sam dodged.
“Have you gone crazy?” Sam had no idea why Dean suddenly held Peter’s life so cheaply, but he knew for certain that Nathan would never forgive him if he hurt Peter. There had to be another way.
Dean put on his most patient tone. “I do not have time to explain this right now, but I promise I’m not crazy.” He held out his hand for the gun.
“Hey there, Winchesters.”
Peter appeared in the cold light of the freezer aisle, black-eyed and grinning. He gripped the demon’s silver knife in one hand. “Salt. That’s so quaint.” He examined his hands thoughtfully. “Well… I may not be able to cross a line of salt, but then I don’t really need to. Not in this body.”
Peter flung his empty hand out, and Sam found himself flying back into a pile of boxes. “Guess my control isn’t very good. You’ll have to forgive me—this is all so new.” Sam’s limbs wouldn’t cooperate for a moment, but as soon as he did move a little, he gasped in pain. Some ribs were bruised, or possibly broken. He gritted his teeth.
“Now you see why I’d much rather have Peter than you, don’t you, Dean? He’s so… amazing. And you…” As Sam struggled to right himself , he heard Dean grunt in pain. “…Are nothing. As usual. You couldn’t protect Peter before. And now look at what you’ve done. You can’t protect anyone: not your family, and not anyone else’s.” Sam dragged himself upright but was immediately slapped down by an invisible force. “Wait your turn, your highness.”
Sam craned his neck for a glimpse of the demon. Peter was holding Dean by the throat. Dean’s hands clawed desperately at his throat, and his feet dangled in the salt line, scattering it across the floor. Sam began to feel around for the Colt.
“You know, I’m always the most disappointed in the older brothers or sisters. Ruining their family’s lives with their perversion.” He hoisted Dean higher, ignoring the wet choking sounds as Dean struggled to breathe. “Your sin is the worst one, Dean Winchester.” Peter raised the demon’s knife, already dripping with Nathan’s blood, and drew it in a shallow line down Dean’s chest. Dean’s scream was choked off as Peter squeezed his throat. “Your whole life, you tried to drag your brother down to hell with you.”
Finally Sam’s hand closed on the cold metal of the gun. Keeping it down, out of the demon’s line of sight, he looked for an opening. Peter was still holding Dean up with one hand, as if he weighed nothing. They were too close. Maybe Dean could make a shot like that, but Sam had never been as much of a natural marksman.
“Peter?”
Sam turned to see Nathan reaching a hand out to the demon, his eyes wide and glassy. The demon smiled, a crooked grin that might not have been handsome on any other face but Peter’s. He dropped Dean, who fell in an unmoving heap on the floor. Sam pried his eyes away; he had to take care of the demon before he could help Dean.
“Hey, Nathan.” The demon took one slow step toward where Nathan lay. “I didn’t forget about you. We’re not finished, brother.”
Sam took aim and squeezed the trigger. Peter’s head snapped around to face the sound faster than any human should have been able to move. He brought his hands up as if he wanted to stop the bullet in mid-air, but wasn’t sure how.
The round caught Peter in the heart. For a moment nothing happened. The demon’s black eyes stared disbelieving at the wound. Then Peter started to scream: an unearthly, animal sound. Light flashed under his skin. There was a crackle, and a smell of sulfur and smoke, and Peter dropped like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
“Dean.” He rushed to his brother’s side, but Dean was already sputtering and coughing. Sam pulled him more or less upright as he checked broken bones. The cut from the demon’s knife was shallow, and steaming slightly in the cold air.
“You okay?” was the first thing out of Dean’s mouth.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. How’s your neck?”
“Peter.” Dean’s eyes slid past Sam to where Nathan cradled his brother’s body in his arms.
--
Anything. The Colt killed anything. That’s what Sam had said. Vampires, demons, werewolves. Humans. Anything. And Nathan had seen Peter heal from some horrific wounds, but it made him panic every time, not knowing for sure whether Peter would wake up again. This was worse. Peter’s dead eyes stared up at him. They were milky white instead of black now, and there was no spark of life in them.
“Peter?” He smoothed Peter’s damp hair back from his forehead. “Wake up. Come on.”
Suddenly Dean appeared, kneeling on Peter’s other side. “He can heal, right? He’ll heal?”
So Dean already knew. That would save some explaining, and Nathan just wouldn’t think about how Dean had found out. “Peter. Can you hear me?”
“I’m sorry.” Sam was standing a few feet away, the Colt hanging at his side. “I had to.”
“He’s gonna wake up any second now,” Dean said.
Nathan tried again. “Peter?”
“Peter!” He couldn’t see Peter’s face; the wind was whipping his hair around wildly as they flew. Then he coughed, convulsing in Nathan’s arms as he returned to life.
“You’re okay, Peter. I’ve got you.” I don’t want to do this anymore. I can’t keep losing him.
“I’m fine, Nathan. Let me go and we’ll fly together.” He squirmed in Nathan’s arms. Nathan tightened his grip.
“No. This stops, Pete.”
Peter went still in Nathan’s arms, but Nathan had no illusions that the fight was over. “Can we be on the ground for this conversation?”
Nathan wheeled and plummeted toward earth, pulling up at the last minute to perform the graceful landing he’d been practicing, and dumping Peter unceremoniously in the dusty road.
“What is wrong with you?” Peter snapped as he brushed himself off.
“We can’t keep doing this. Running around playing X-Men. It’s too dangerous.”
“Nathan, we have these gifts for a reason,” Peter said. He said the words tiredly, as he’d repeated this to Nathan so many times before. “We’re supposed to—.”
“Help people, right? Fine, only…” We’re a team. Just the two of us.
“So what do you want?”
“To disappear. We can help people on our own, and leave all this baggage behind. No Company, no list, no virus. Just us.”
“Is that what you want?” Peter sounded unconvinced.
“Peter, you’re going to live forever.” Can’t you spend at least a little time with me?
Peter’s voice was little more than a whisper. “This is really what you want?”
Nathan didn’t say anything. Let Peter read his mind if he wanted; he knew what he was asking.
“Okay. Then we’ll do it your way. Just the two of us. Right after this mission.”
“We need to get the bullet out.” Dean pulled a knife from his boot to cut off Peter’s shirt.
“You’re going to cut him up? Dean, he’s gone.” Sam’s voice broke on the last word.
“He should wake up. Something’s wrong,” Nathan said.
“We have to get the bullet out, right? It’s like Highlander.”
Nathan nodded mutely, and he didn’t protest when Dean pulled Peter onto his side. The fingers Dean ran over Peter’s back were proprietary, comfortable with Peter’s body. Nathan looked away. “No exit wound,” Dean reported.
“Dean, Nathan, he’s gone.” Sam said.
“He’s not gone, Sammy.” Nathan caught himself, but he didn’t miss the sharp look Dean threw his way. “Sam. He’s not.”
“Run get the duffel, Sam. There’s a first aid kit,” Dean said.
Nathan swayed, his vision darkening at the edges.
“Hey, Nathan.” Dean was watching him intently. “Don’t you die on us, either.”
“Not until Peter’s okay.” He struggled to his feet, and his vision got dimmer. “I’ll get the others. They can help.” He stumbled forward, hands out in front of him to feel the way.
“Nathan?” That was Sam’s voice.
He was swimming in darkness.
--
Dean knelt beside Nathan to feel for a pulse. The blood was still pumping, but barely. “Nathan!” Sam was back, distracted from his mission by Nathan’s collapse, no doubt. He pushed Dean aside. “Hey, I’ve got you,” Sam said, easing Nathan over onto his back. “You’ll be fine.”
Dean hesitated only a moment before running back to Peter. He laid his hands on Peter’s chest, resting just below the bullet hole the Colt had drilled. “You’ll be fine,” Dean whispered, because he had to believe it. He couldn’t have let Sam really kill Peter.
“Sam! Get me the duffel!”
Sam was shaking Nathan by the shoulders. “Nathan?”
“Sammy! Go get it!”
Sam lurched to his feet and stumbled over to where the duffel had landed in all the confusion, wedged against a shelf.
Dean turned his attention back to Peter. The wound wasn’t gushing blood anymore. That meant the heart wasn’t beating. He heard the duffel hit the ground and turned to see Sam kneeling back beside Nathan. “We’ve gotta keep him from bleeding out,” Sam said. “He’s probably going into shock.”
“Sam! Toss me the damn first aid kit!”
Sam was busy pressing gauze against the worst of Nathan’s wounds. “We were arguing. Just before the crash. It was so stupid to be fighting. God I’m such an ass.”
“Yeah you are.” Dean scrambled across the floor to catch the edge of the duffel strap and pull it over to him. He grabbed bandages and bottles willy-nilly out of the plastic first aid kit until his fingers closed around the cold metal of the tweezers.
“Dean, I think he stopped breathing.”
When Dean spared a glance, Sam was bent over Nathan, listening intently.
Dean couldn’t think about that right now. He grabbed a spare flashlight from the duffel, shook it into illumination, and held it at his shoulder so he had at least a chance of seeing what he was doing. The tweezers went in easily, right through the path of the bullet, but they were hard to hold onto; Dean’s hand was slippery with blood, quickly drying to tacky on his arm in the cold air. Peter’s eyes stared lifelessly at the ceiling while Dean pushed the tweezers further in.
Behind him, he heard Sam begin CPR, counting the compressions. “One-and two-and three-and…”
“Come on,” Dean muttered. The tweezers hit something hard—harder than muscle, at any rate, and Dean prodded harder, trying to get a grip on the bullet. It was surprisingly easy when the subject wasn’t writhing in pain. The bullet came out with a wet squelch.
“Nine-and ten-and…”
“Come on, Peter,” Dean whispered. He wasn’t moving. “Do your freaky magic thing.”
“Dean, he’s gone,” Sam snapped. “Come help me.”
Dean’s mind raced back to the night at the graveyard when he’d seen Peter get shot. There had to be something Dean was missing. Sometimes supernatural stuff needed a trigger, like chanting, or some sort of material component. Dean rubbed a hand over Peter’s forehead, smudging the blood spattered there. “Peter, please man.”
Sam kept not opening his eyes. Dean hadn’t looked away, had barely blinked since he and Bobby had laid Sam on the bed. He didn’t want to miss the moment that Sam’s eyes shot open, that he gasped for air and sat up and asked for coffee. He was going to wake up any minute.
Dean was trying not to think about last night, about the hole punched in Sam’s back by that bastard’s knife… He certainly wasn’t thinking about Sam bleeding out right there in his arms. Those things didn’t happen to the Winchesters. The Winchesters always came out all right, somehow. Dean just had to be patient.
An owl called out in the woods, and Dean had turned to look before he realized what he was doing. Immediately, his eyes snapped back to Sam. Didn’t he look different, somehow? Dean slid to his knees next to the bed and shook Sam by the arm. “Sammy? Hey… Sam?”
Floorboards creaked behind him. Dean tensed up, but he didn’t look away from Sam. Let ghost or demon come for him; it didn’t matter now.
“Who you talking to, Dean?” Bobby. Of course Bobby was here. Dean had forgotten.
“Nobody.” Dean climbed back into his chair to resume his vigil.
“Dean!” Sam was calling him, still trying to save Nathan. Save him, so when he woke up Dean would have to tell him he’d let his little brother die. “Grab your phone. We have to call 911.”
Mechanically, Dean reached for his phone, and that’s when he heard Peter cough.
“Peter?”
Peter’s eyes were open, and no longer glassy and vacant, or opaque black, but their usual warm brown.
“Jesus, you scared me.” Dean gathered Peter in his arms and pulled him into a hug.
“You did the right thing,” Peter rasped, wrapping his arms around Dean. “I’m sorry she hurt you. I tried to stop her, but I couldn’t do anything. I didn’t know—.”
“Hey, it’s okay,” Dean soothed. He’d done his job; he’d kept his family safe. That was all that mattered.
Dean was distracted by a sharp intake of breath behind him, and then Sam counting again. “One-and two-and…”
“Nathan.” Peter pulled away, his eyes going immediately to the still form on the floor next to Sam. He untangled himself from Dean and scrambled across the floor to kneel beside Sam.
“He’s not breathing,” Sam said.
“How long?”
“Two minutes, maybe.”
“Back off,” Peter said. Sam tensed, narrowing his eyes at Peter. “Just for a second.”
Sam pulled his hands away warily. Peter placed his hands on Nathan’s bare chest. There was a brief, bright flash of blue light, and Nathan’s body arched.
“Holy—!” Dean had seen that glow before: the first night he’d met Peter, and again when they’d faced the demon in that warehouse in Baltimore.
“Stop!” Sam grabbed Peter and hauled him off Nathan. “Get away from him.”
“Sam, calm down.” Dean started toward Sam, but he didn’t move fast enough.
Sam pushed Peter onto the ground and planted a knee on his back. “He just tried to kill Nathan. He’s still possessed, Dean.”
“We have to restart his heart,” Peter gasped. “Like a defibrillator.”
Sam paused, letting up a little so that Peter could breathe, and looked to Dean.
“You have a better idea?” Dean asked.
--
As soon as Sam pulled his knee off Peter’s back, Peter jumped up and returned to Nathan’s side. “Come on,” he muttered. He put his hands back in position and concentrated. Another electrical arc tore through Nathan’s body. Peter listened hard, lowering his head to Nathan’s chest. No change. No heartbeat.
Sam shouldered him aside and started compressions again.
“Dean,” Peter said suddenly. “Your bag—there was a little black case.”
“It’s a present. Just take it,” Claire shoved a small black case into his hand and then stuck her mittened hands back in her coat pockets.
“Can I open it now, or do I have to wait for Christmas?”
“Open it, dork.”
Peter snapped the plastic clasps and opened the case. Inside were six glass syringes packed in foam. Each syringe held a dark red liquid. “Is this…?”
“It’s mine. If you’re ever somewhere far away.” She sounded sad. Peter wondered briefly how she’d found out he and Nathan were planning to leave before deciding it didn’t matter. “You won’t need it, but…”
“Someone else might.”
“Please be safe.” She kissed him on the cheek, and he ignored the wetness on her face. “Both of you.”
Dean grabbed the duffel and soon returned with the case. He flipped open the top, and Peter could see the remaining syringes. All three were broken, oozing thick red liquid into the lining of the case.
“Is this blood?” Dean asked.
Peter reached a hand out to touch, and drew it back when the shattered edge of one of the broken syringes cut his finger. “They’re broken…”
“Peter, this is what you used on Sam, right? What is it?”
“It heals. It’s from the source… From the person who gave me the power in the first place. They can’t all be broken.” He grabbed the case from Dean and pawed through it, heedless of the broken glass. There had to be something he could use.
“This isn’t natural,” Sam said suddenly.
“Dude, he’s not a demon,” Dean shouted. Then he turned to Peter. “Or a vampire, right?”
“No, I mean Nathan’s not hurt that badly,” Sam explained, and Peter turned to listen. “Whatever’s killing him, it’s magic.”
“You mean the demon was working some kind of mojo on him?” Dean asked. He knelt next to Sam, who pointed at the cuts that marred Nathan’s skin.
“Yeah. The symbol has some sort of power. It’s connected to his lifeforce somehow.”
“So… Can you fix it?” Dean asked.
“The book… There’s a cleansing ritual, like a protective charm thing her tribe used. If I could read the charm, that might break the symbol’s hold.”
“What do you need?” Peter asked.
“My notes from the library. They were in a backpack. In Nathan’s car.”
“I’ll go get them. Keep his blood pumping.”
Peter concentrated on the Bentley, twisted metal, the big oak tree it was wrapped around, and then he was gone.
--
“Fourteen-and fifteen...” Sam tilted Nathan’s head back and breathed into his mouth, past lips that were already too cold.
“Sammy.” Sam looked up to see Dean standing across from him, watching intently. “You know what you’re doing?”
Sam furrowed his brow in confusion. “You taught me CPR, so if I don’t, it’s your own damn fault.”
“The charm, Sam,” Dean said tightly.
“We’ve gotta try something.”
“But are you sure you’re up for this? You were unconscious with major head trauma like less than an hour ago. You sure you should be messing with dark magic right now?”
“It doesn’t matter. This isn’t just some guy, Dean, some random civilian.” Sam sucked in a breath, surprised at the panicked edge in his voice.
Dean nodded like he actually understood, and maybe he did. “Yeah, okay.”
Sam went back to chest compressions, and Dean shut up.
“This is all I could find.” Peter was back: no bang, no puff of smoke, just there. He had a backpack slung over one shoulder, and his arms were piled with a mess of books and papers that had been in the backseat. “The cops were already there.”
“Would you?” Sam asked, nodding to his brother. Dean knelt down next to Sam and took over CPR while Sam began pulling papers out of Peter’s arms. “It’s a blue notebook.”
Peter dumped the jumble on top of a nearby crate and yanked open the zipper on the backpack. Bits of notes, police records, and newspaper clippings swam in Sam’s eyes as he rooted through the stack: the ruined remains of Nathan’s careful filing.
“This?” Peter held up a blue spiral notebook crammed with loose papers and held closed with a rubber band.
“Yes.” Sam snatched it out of Peter’s hand and pulled the notebook open. Yesterday was a blur: reading and taking notes, so he couldn’t remember where exactly he’d copied the charm—there. Ten lines of verse, phonetically copied from the original: the lost language of the demon’s extinct tribe, finished with an English invocation. Sam raced back to Nathan’s side and gently pushed Dean out of the way.
Sam could sense Peter hovering behind him. He stared down at the words of the charm, trying to remember if the book had held any clues about how this ritual had been performed, and coming up blank.
“Sammy?” Dean prompted.
“We need a focus object for the ritual,” he said finally. That, at least, he remembered. “Something that represents what we’re trying to protect him from. Preferably something of hers, or something she touched.”
“Knife,” Dean and Peter said in unison. They spread out, searching.
Sam went back to studying the words, forming them silently.
“Here we go.” Dean returned, holding the silver knife gingerly by the handle.
Sam took it. The metal was heavy in his hand, and so cold it almost hurt to hold it. The blade was wet with blood: Nathan’s blood, and Dean’s. He gripped the knife tightly in his left hand, and placed his right hand on Nathan’s belly, where the thin red lines of blood formed a nexus. He began to read.
The words were hard and unfamiliar and felt like grit in his mouth. Under Sam’s hand, the cuts began to glow an angry red.
“Is it supposed to do that?” Peter asked.
“I have no idea.” Dean backed up a step, and Peter followed.
Sam ignored them, keeping his entire concentration focused on the words. As he spoke, the knife grew warm in his hand. He kept chanting. A shrill whistle began to sound in his ears. Dean and Peter didn’t seem to hear it.
Sam had reached the end of the text, and he read the English translation of the final invocation loud and clear: “The power of our tribe hold you and keep you safe from harm.” The knife in Sam’s hand grew too hot to hold, and he dropped it with a muffled curse. Under his other hand, Nathan’s cuts glowed a brilliant white for an instant, and then the light faded to nothing, taking the cuts with it.
“Nathan?” Sam shook him gently. Still nothing. “Shock him again.”
Peter rushed forward to place his hands on Nathan’s chest. Sam backed off. Blue lighting flared once more under Peter’s hands, and then Nathan was coughing, gasping for air.
Sam started forward, but Dean stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. He gave a slight shake of his head and pointed to Peter, who was babbling a strange mix of endearments and admonishments to rest.
“Don’t spoil the reunion,” Dean whispered.
--
Nathan didn’t remember much of the drive to the motel. He remembered the cabbie first looking scared, and then getting that dazed look people got after they’d heard Peter’s voice in their head telling them they wouldn’t remember any of this.
He found himself on a bed somehow, with Peter hovering over him. “I’m fine,” he muttered. “What’d you do, anyway?”
“It was Sam,” Peter replied darkly. “Try to rest.”
Nathan closed his eyes, but he could hear the others talking in the corner.
“I’m not leaving the Impala out there overnight.” That must be Dean.
“I’ll go with. We have to go back to the Bentley anyway, do some cleanup.” Good old Peter. Taking care of the family business. Wouldn’t want the cops getting ahold of any of their stuff.
“I’ll stay.” Sam. That was Sam. A silence followed that pronouncement, but the next thing he knew, Nathan heard the door close. The bed dipped as Sam came to sit beside him.
“You asleep?” Sam whispered.
Nathan shook his head, and let his eyes drift open. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine. How are you feeling?”
“Better than I was an hour ago. Peter says you saved me.” Nathan saw a change come over Sam’s face, turning somehow proud and suspicious at once.
“He said that?”
“Guess all your research paid off.”
“Yeah. Hey…” Sam edged a little closer on the bed. “I’m sorry I said those things in the car. Before we crashed.”
“Don’t apologize,” Nathan said. “If you apologize, I have to, and I don’t have the energy right now.”
“Okay.” The silence stretched between them, and Nathan was still feeling too hazy to dredge up something intelligent to say. Finally, Sam stood. “They just went to get the car.” He pushed aside one of the curtains, which was a wretched lavender color. “Shouldn’t be gone long.”
“Sam.” He turned back immediately. “That’s just Peter. He’s not going to take your brother away.” Nathan realized that this might be one of those conversations that only seemed like a good idea immediately following a near-death experience. Still, judging from the way Sam froze helplessly at the words, it was something Sam needed to hear.
“I’m not…” Sam fumbled. “I don’t…”
“He knows he can’t keep Dean. So stop worrying.” Nathan closed his eyes and turned on his side, giving Sam the privacy to process that information how he would.
Nathan wasn’t sure if he slept or not, but he wasn’t aware of anything else until the door opened and closed again. Sam and Dean were mumbling together in the corner, and Peter came to curl up at Nathan’s back.
“It’s your turn to buy me a car,” Peter grumbled.
“I love you,” Nathan said.
Peter wrapped his arms around Nathan’s waist. In the room’s other bed, Nathan could hear the sounds to two bodies settling. “I love you, too. Go back to sleep.”
--
Peter jerked awake when he heard the door close. A quick glance over at the other bed confirmed what he suspected; Sam and Dean were making a break for it. Carefully, he eased out of bed, leaving Nathan asleep, and phased through the door into the parking lot. Dean had just tossed his bag into the back seat of the Impala, and Sam was already settled in shotgun. Peter was stopped for a moment by how at home he looked there.
“Peter?” Dean stopped with his hand on the driver’s side door.
Peter came a few steps closer. “So this is it?”
“Job’s over,” Dean said. He fixed his eyes on the Impala’s hood, studiously avoiding looking at Peter. “Let’s not make a big thing of it.”
Peter didn’t try to read Dean’s mind. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what Dean was thinking at this moment.
“See you around,” Peter said, and managed a brief half-smile.
Dean nodded and slid into the Impala. The purr of the Impala as it rolled out of the parking lot echoed in Peter’s chest and made it ache.
--
Epilogue
no subject
Date: 2008-10-06 09:53 pm (UTC)hheee, Dean forgot! god, he has a memory like a sieve!
just a day ago, he saw peter awaken from death, and now, OHH the abilites! right, LOL
"Hey, okay." Dean jumped between them and pushed them apart. "You," he said to Sam. "Stop being a bitch." He turned to Peter. "And you. Stop being…" He searched for the right word. "A bitch." God save me from any more little brothers. "Sam, I'm telling you he's not evil. Trust me on this. Peter, we're here to help, so simmer down. Christ. Never wished I was an only child."
OMG, dean must be so HAPPY, he is surrounded by his bitches, *cracks up*
“Demons, vampires. Everything.” Slutty emo boys who sleep with my brother.
OMG you will kill me with your fuN!
poor sammy, your brother is too hot for his own good !!
“Have you gone crazy?” Sam had no idea why Dean suddenly held Peter’s life so cheaply, but he knew for certain that Nathan would never forgive him if he hurt Peter. There had to be another way.
awwe sammy so caring for Peter life , because he is heads over hell into Nathan :D
Sam started forward, but Dean stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. He gave a slight shake of his head and pointed to Peter, who was babbling a strange mix of endearments and admonishments to rest.
awww Peter sooooooo cute!
Dean nodded and slid into the Impala. The purr of the Impala as it rolled out of the parking lot echoed in Peter’s chest and made it ache.
awww men, they are going apart!!!
no subject
Date: 2008-10-31 12:52 am (UTC)Hee. Sam's thoughts are funny when he doesn't know he's being overheard. And Sammy's even cuter when he's taking care of Peter ONLY because he knows it's what Nathan wants.
And yes, I had to end this with a not happily-ever-after ending. Because that's what the epilogue is for!