Fic: My Brothers' Keepers - Part Nine
Apr. 26th, 2009 08:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brighteyedjillTitle: My Brothers' Keepers - Part Nine
Authors:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jaune_chat and brighteyed_jill
Art: byxkelorosiamano is at her graphics community.
Pairings: Every combination of Nathan and Peter Petrelli and Sam and Dean Winchester
Rating: NC-17
Warning: See Part One for full list
Spoilers: Supernatural--though 4x16. Heroes--vague ones for Season 2
Authors' notes: Written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
sncross_bigbang. This is a sequel to The Secret's in the Telling. Beta and snuggles from the intrepid redandglenda
Summary: Sam and Dean discover demons have been possessing people with special abilities that have nothing to do with magic. Peter draws a future that reunites him and Nathan with the Winchester brothers. Together they find out that specials--people whose powers come from an unusual inherited gene-- are being targeted for possession by a woman who is on the verge of breaking one of the sixty-six seals.
In the gathering shadows of the evening, Sam and Peter crept into the cellar. Peter kept a tight hold on Sam's hand to render them both invisible. The room was entirely dark except for a sullen red glow from behind the throne.
"Hiding is not going to help," Sam whispered. Peter didn't miss the edge of irritation in his voice. "We're going to have to fight." He yanked his hand out of Peter's. "If it were Nathan she were threatening, you wouldn't be hiding in the basement."
"We're not hiding." Peter grabbed Sam's wrist again and pulled him further into the room. "We're going to exorcise all the demons."
"We are?"
"You are. Then Caroline will have no army. We can figure out how to keep her contained and save the seal."
"One problem," Sam broke in. "Her whole army's not here. If we just take out the ones here, the others would know and bring back-up. They'd lay siege to this place. Caroline is--."
"We're not killing Caroline," Peter snapped. "Here." He led them around the throne to where the seal spread out across the stone. "The seal has a kind of energy. The demon inside me can feel it. He's tethered to it. The other demons must be, too."
"Great. All the more reason to cut off the source. The person who brought them through the seal in the first place."
"You can exorcise them all. Send them back through the seal."
"Peter, I don't think driving the car in reverse will turn back the odometer."
"It might." Peter turned away and began lighting the candles in sconces around the walls with a tongue of fire from his fingertip.
Sam narrowed his eyes in suspicion. "Do you know something? Did you read something?"
Peter kept his face turned away. He really didn't want Sam interrogating him right now. "We need to send all the demons back through the seal. If I channel Molly Walker's power--."
"Did you lie to me about the information in that book?"
Peter ignored him. He hated having to be deceptive about this, but if they were going to pull this off, Sam couldn't know the details of the ritual. "We have to get as many as we can before they figure it out. How many can you take at once? Two? Three?"
"Peter. You lied to me?"
"Come on. We have to get the remote ones first." Peter sat down inside of the circle of runes that marked the boundaries of the seal. "Sam, come on. You're the only one who can do this."
Sam stalked over to the seal and lowered himself stiffly to the ground.
Peter nodded in satisfaction. He didn't need Sam to be excited about this; he only needed Sam to do it. "Try to feel the energy of the seal."
"This isn't guided meditation, Peter."
Peter reached forward and slid his hands into Sam's, bridging the distance between them. "I know. But our abilities are not quite the same thing, so for us to pull this off--."
"Oh." Sam rocked back, but he kept hold of Peter's hands. "I see what you mean."
"Good. Okay." Peter broke contact for a moment to pull a folded piece of paper out of his pocket and study it. He was pretty sure he'd memorized the words, but he wanted one last reminder.
"Is that a page from a book?" Sam asked warily.
"Yes..."
"Please tell me you didn't rip a page out of an ancient manuscript." Sam looked pained.
"She would have noticed if I'd taken the whole book," Peter said meekly.
"Well what the hell is so important?"
"It's the second part of the ritual that she used when we... When I... You know."
"Oh. Yeah."
"If you can exorcise the demons, I can recite the ritual to send them back through the seal."
"We're going to do this from here?"
"Yeah. I think I can use Molly's power to find them, and Matt's power to show you what I'm seeing."
"And at the same time recite from memory a dark magic ritual in an ancient language?"
"Well...Yes." It hadn't sounded like such a ludicrous plan until Sam put it that way. Peter slid the manuscript page back into his pocked and took Sam's hand again. "I need to look into your mind to see where the energy from the seal is leading, okay?"
"You want to read my mind?"
"I'm not going to go digging around."
Sam gritted his teeth. "Fine."
"Sam," Peter said seriously. "I'm not going to rape your mind."
"I know that."
"I have secrets, too. So does Nathan. There are things he would never tell me, and I would never try to find out. I understand."
"I'm not scared of you."
What was frightening was how thoroughly Sam meant that. "Okay. Then let me in."
Sam closed his eyes, and Peter followed suit. Peter opened his mind, gently steering his consciousness toward Sam, trying to see what he saw, feel what he felt. At first, there was nothing. Then he started to feel the red hot glow of the seal beneath them. Through Sam, he could see the red lines leading off in all directions: more than a dozen of them.
"Those must be Caroline's scouts," said Sam.
Peter concentrated on the energy of one of the tether-lines, using it and Molly's power to provide an image of the demon; he saw the neon lights of a bar, and the flash of a cigarette lighter.
"I see him!" Sam said eagerly. His grip on Peter's hands tightened.
Peter began to recite the words of the text he'd memorized. The words might sound like gibberish to Sam, but he knew their meaning, knew that the demon was compelled to answer the call of someone with power like Sam's.
They couldn't hear the demon scream, but the body the demon wore began to tremble, and he clutched his throat as if choking.
"It's working!" Sam squeezed Peter's hand even harder. Miles away, black smoke leaked out of the mouth of a man in a dive bar while the other patrons looked on in horror.
Peter continued his chanting as Sam ripped the demon from its body with the power of his mind.
A foul wind sprung up from out of nowhere as the image of the bar disolved. Peter kept up reciting the spell with his eyes squeezed shut. Below him, the seal burned with unnatural heat.
"Peter," Sam said warningly. "Now!"
Peter rushed through the last words. The roaring wind disappeared into the seal, and the stone they were sitting on was suddenly freezing cold.
Peter opened his eyes to see Sam looking down at the seal with a feral, wolfish grin. "That was amazing," he panted.
"Are you okay?" Peter asked slowly. "It's not too much?"
Sam shook his head. "No. We should hurry. Before Caroline figures out what we're doing."
That was no more than the truth. The scene around them was set: the candles, the seal, and the two of them were exactly as Peter had painted them. Whatever happened next was in the hands of fate. Peter closed his eyes again and reached for Sam.
+++++
Dean could feel Nathan's breathing getting more labored as they flew through the pre-dawn air. Of course, he not only had Dean, who was no lightweight, but between them they were carrying half of Nathan's gear plus everything Dean had had in Nathan's car. They had no idea what they were going to find when they got to Caroline's, and Nathan had opted for preparedness instead of running off without a plan.
Even so, they'd managed to cover the distance to Lake End in record time, and Dean was peering through the morning mist trying to locate the Abernathy mansion. From above, the place was blindingly obvious, with trees dead in a peculiar pattern, fires burning here and there, birds acting strangely. It looked like a demonic crop circle, with the decaying manse in the center of it all.
The place was invisible to angel eyes, impenetrable to demons unless they'd been invited, and unknowable to anyone who hadn't been escorted in. Caroline had thought she'd covered all her bases. But she'd tied her spells to the earth, the only way her book told her how. Never had whatever ancient demonologist who'd written that stuff down ever think that one day there would be people who could fly.
So, from above, Caroline's place was just a old, run-down house, not an invisible bastion of arcane power.
"There!" Dean bellowed, and Nathan began rocketing downwards, both of them ready to save their brothers from damnation.
+++++
It was going better than Peter could have hoped. He'd had no way to predict how fast Sam would have been able to exorcise the demons, especially at a distance like this, but Sam seemed to be having no trouble. In fact, Sam seemed almost to be enjoying himself.
Vetis, however, was starting to make things difficult for Peter. As more and more demons were sent back into the seal, Vetis raged all the harder. Peter was having trouble concentrating enough to keep reciting the ritual, holding onto Molly's power, and keeping in sync with Sam via Matt's power. When he heard feet pounding down the stairs, he lost his grip on Sam's mind and his hands and found himself struggling to bring reality back into focus.
He heard voices approaching, but it took him a few precious seconds to make out what they were saying.
"What are you doing?" Caroline wailed. "You're ruining everything!"
Sam was already on his feet, stepping in front of Peter.
"Back off," he growled. "Don't come any closer."
Peter got carefully to his feet as Rourke, Tamara, and Aaron all formed ranks behind Caroline. He wasn't sure if Sam was up to exorcising three demons at once, but he certainly didn't feel in any condition to take on three angry specials in a fight. Diplomacy sounded like a good option right about now.
"Sam, what are you two playing at down here? You know that seal is dangerous," Caroline said.
"I think I know that better than you," Sam said. "You don't know what you're playing with."
"I've read all the ancient literature," she said, drawing herself up to her full height. "I know all the old--"
"You don't know anything about it, Caroline. There's a war between heaven and hell, and you can't begin to know what's at stake."
"Are you saying... You knew about this?" Caroline asked in dismay. "You came here because of the seal?"
"Like I said, you don't know what you're playing with."
"Sam!" Caroline looked genuinely wounded. "You lied to me?"
"Not exactly," said Sam. "But I don't think you really want to do this."
"We were supposed to do this together," Caroline said. "How can you throw all that away?"
"Get back," Rourke snarled. He stepped up beside Caroline, and his hands glowed with angry orange light. Aaron stepped up beside him. "You're not going to stop what we're doing."
From behind them, Tamara held up a hand.
"Sam, be careful," Peter called. "She--."
Aaron jumped for Peter, and as he went down he saw Rourke go for Sam. Aaron tackled Peter to the ground with a thump, and all the air rushed out of Peter's lungs. When he went to draw breath, he found that there was none to draw. His eyes went to Tamara, whose hand was swirling with what looked like wind. He tried again to breathe, but Tamara had drained the room of all air. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sam wrestling silently with Rourke.
Peter's lungs screamed for air even as he tried to concentrate his power to shove Aaron off. If he suffocated, he would come back to life when the air was restored, but Sam had no such advantage.
Silently begging the poor posessed man's forgiveness, Peter wrapped his hands around Aaron's arms and sent out radioactive energy. Aaron pulled back in pain, leaving an opening for Peter to fling his hand out and knock Tamara to the ground with telekinesis. With her concentration broken, the air rushed back into the room.
"Okay." From across the room, Sam rose to his feet. He looked angrier than Peter had ever seen him. The demons shrunk back as he thrust out his hand. "My turn."
+++++
"Think you can do a running dismount?" Nathan called over the rushing wind.
"Like jumping off a motorcycle!" Dean yelled in his ear.
Nathan came in low to the ground and slowed down. He zeroed in on a figure standing on the front porch of the mansion. It wasn't Sam or Peter, which meant it was an enemy. "Now!"
Dean jumped off, Nathan rolled in mid-air to correct the imbalance, and then he collided at speed with the demon on the front steps. Momentum sent them crashing through the door of the house and into the living room.
Nathan barely had time to pull himself out from the tangle of limbs and splintered wood before Dean burst into the room with a shotgun in each hand. "Nice work Flyboy!" he shouted, and tossed the sawed-off shotgun to Nathan.
Two possessed rushed toward them. Dean leveled his shotgun--filled with rock salt bullets--at the nearest one and squeezed the trigger. Then Nathan was busy with his own problems. More possessed poured into the room, swarming like ants protecting their nest. Nathan readied his shotgun, but before he could act, the man running toward him screamed and collapsed with black smoke rushing from his mouth. A moment later, the woman behind him did likewise.
As Nathan watched, the now ex-possessed jumped up and looked like they were torn between fight and flight.
Dean, who was closer to the door, motioned them in that direction. "Damn it, get the hell out of here. Move, move move!" he roared. From across the room, Dean shouted at Nathan, "I'll take care of these guys. Find Sam!"
Nathan clocked the next oncoming demon in the face with the butt of his shotgun, and plunged further into the house. In the next room, several bodies lay breathing but unmoving. Nathan spared them only a glance as he went on. He kept his shotgun readied in front of him, and took each corner quickly but cautiously. The sounds of battle faded behind him until he could hear shouting that sounded like it came from somewhere below him. He started looking for the stairs.
+++++
Caroline shrank back a little from the anger in Sam's eyes. "Careful, Sam," she said warily. "You know my friends are loyal. They won't let anything happen to me." Her friends stepped between her and Sam protectively.
"Your little army's not going to help you," Sam sneered. When he reached for his power, he realized he could still feel the warm, red lines of power leading to the demons in the house. He reached beyond the boundaries of this room and pulled back the kicking and screaming demons who were still tethered to the seal. Four lines, stronger than the rest, fought against his control, but the rest snapped back to the seal. Black smoke swirled around him as half a dozen more demons poured back into the seal.
"No!" Caroline shouted. Rourke, the first to recover from Sam's attempt, lunged at him.
Sam flung his hand out. Caroline stumbled to the side as the three possessed specials, plus Peter, were pushed back off the dais. Repelling demonic force was only a step to the side from keeping a demon pinned in a body; he'd realized that the night of the bonfire. They were shoved across the room and tumbled to the ground like dominos. Sam was left standing in the middle of the seal facing a wide-eyed Caroline.
"Sam..." she quavered. "What are you doing?"
"I'm doing what has to be done," he said grimly. Across the room, in the shadows beyond the candlelight, he could barely make out the struggling forms of Caroline's three remaining companions clashing with Peter. He dragged his eyes away: Peter would have to take care of himself.
"Sam," Caroline said sadly. "Have you been lying to me since the beginning?"
"I can't let you break this seal." Sam lunged for her, but when he grabbed her wrist, a fierce pain rushed through him, a harsh burning that dropped him to the floor with its intensity. It reminded him of nothing so much as how demons reacted when splashed with holy water.
"So you are their lap dog after all," Caroline said bitterly. She kicked Sam where he lay, and another burning pain seared him, half-crippling him. "You think I wouldn't protect myself from attack? This precaution is a little spell I read about. To protect myself from demonic... things that might wish me harm.
"They warned me about you," Caroline continued. "But I was so sure... Do you really want to go back to Dean? To always being feared and mistrusted and stifled? Having no one to talk to because you're different? Having the angels hunt you down like a beast? Dean will never accept you for who you are. He'll never really be on your side."
She stalked to an alcove in the wall and grabbed a book from the stack. "You're like me, Sam. You just want to be accepted. I've seen it. You know you can be more than they see. You know you're meant for something greater."
Sam wiped the blood from his mouth. "I know," he said. "That's why I don't need you."
+++++
Nathan pounded down the steps toward the sound of fighting. The stairs opened up into a large, mostly empty room that seemed to be carved out of rock. Most of the room was shrouded in darkness, but the far end glowed and flickered with candlelight. As Nathan stepped into the room, a body came flying out of the darkness to tumble ungracefully at his feet.
"Peter?"
Peter looked up. His face immediately flooded with relief. "Nathan!" He jumped to his feet. "I've got this. Go get Sam. But be careful. He's--."
A man appeared out of the darkness, swinging a metal pipe, and Peter moved to intercept him.
Nathan left Peter to his work and glanced around for Sam. He headed for the other end of the cavernous room, where the light was the brightest. A massive chair stood on a raised dais. As soon as Nathan passed the chair, he saw Sam lying flat on his back. Above him stood a woman in a white dress holding a book and chanting. And if those weren't bad associations, he wasn't sure what were.
"Sam!" Nathan gathered himself and flew, tackling the woman off of Sam and pinning her to the floor.
"Careful," Sam called. "She's got some kind of wards protecting her." Sam knelt beside them. "We have to figure out how to spill her blood to close the seal permanently."
"What? Sam! It's not true," Caroline protested frantically. "He's lying. Please don't let him kill me!"
"It's the only way, Nathan," Sam said earnestly. "A sacrifice closes the seal. Help me get her up." He grabbed Caroline's arm, and she screamed.
"No, please! You just have to send all the demons back in through the seal. There's an invocation to seal up the whole thing. I can show you!"
"I thought you already exorcised them all?" Nathan said slowly.
"Four left." Sam sat back on his heels. "There's still one sealed inside Peter."
"What?"
"Relax. He can handle it. Where's Dean?" There was something a little off about Sam, but Nathan chalked it up to the strain of the past few days.
"Getting some confused ex-possessed to run for their lives," Nathan reported. "He's okay."
"Good. Hold her while I finish this." Sam grabbed a piece of chalk from the floor and began to add to an elaborate geometric outline on the floor.
"Please," Caroline whispered to Nathan. "Don't let him kill me. I was wrong. I don't want the seal open. What I was doing was stupid. It was a mistake. I never wanted someone like him to control its power."
"Watch it lady," Nathan said. "That's my friend you're badmouthing."
Nathan hadn't heard him move, but Sam was standing right behind him, looming over them both. "Caroline," he said softly. "If you tell any more lies, we'll have to cut out your tongue."
Caroline turned pale as death. Nathan didn't blame here. There was something in Sam's voice that gave Nathan pause. "Sam," he said as he watched him return to his drawing. "We can't kill her."
"We have to."
Nathan climbed off of Caroline. "Stay," he said. He grabbed his rifle from where it had fallen to the floor and kept it trained on her as he inched closer to Sam. "She's not a demon."
Sam paused from his work to look up at Nathan. "Does that excuse what she's done?"
"No, but... Let's just get out of here. We can turn her over to people who deal with her kind. We'll grab Peter, help Dean with--."
Sam stood up abruptly. It was times like this that Nathan was reminded of exactly how large the youngest Winchester was when he wasn't slouching. "We're not going anywhere."
Inside, Nathan was panicking, but he was an expert at hiding his fear. "Come on, Sam." He clapped Sam's shoulder in a brotherly way. "Dean needs some back-up."
"Stop trying to handle me, Nathan. You know I'm not stupid. You know I'm not your weak-willed little brother."
"And you know I'm not your head-in-the-sand big brother," Nathan shot back, "So cut the crap. You are not going to murder this woman."
Sam flung his hand out, and Nathan was suddenly, viscerally reminded of Peter on his worst days, when he was channeling Sylar. Invisible power flung Nathan against the wall and pinned him there.
Sam snarled, "Don't tell me what to do."
+++++
"Run, damn it!" Dean shouted.
The recently possessed man threw Dean one last frightened look before bolting for the outside. Dean scanned the room, but he didn't see any more wide-eyed civilians who'd recently been relieved of demons.
At least now, if all hell broke loose, none of Caroline's playthings would get caught in the crossfire. The house was eerily silent now, and Dean raced into the next room. "Sam!" he called. His voice echoed against the bare walls. In his mind's eye he saw Sam's yellow eyes, rendered in color pencil. Peter's drawings always come true, Nathan had said. "Sam!" he yelled again.
Then he heard, not his brother, but Peter, shouting, "No!"
It took Dean a few precious seconds to orient himself, but then he dashed for the door from whence the sound had come. The door led down a dark staircase. Dean took the steps two at a time. At the bottom of the stairs, Peter was fighting two men Dean didn't recognize. Another woman lay on the floor, unmoving.
"Duck!" Dean called. Peter dropped into a crouch, and Dean fired his shotgun, spraying rock salt at the two oncoming men.
They howled and fell back, but Dean knew the salt wouldn't deter them for long. "Possessed specials," Peter said. "We have to get them exorcised!"
"How the hell we supposed to do that without a devil's trap?"
The demons came back swinging. Dean clocked the smaller one in the face, and he saw the larger man step up to Peter with his hands glowing.
"Good idea, Rourke," Peter said. His hands began to glow, and then suddenly a luminous circle appeared on the floor, encompassing Peter, the two demons, and the unconscious woman. The circle glowed muzzily for a moment, and then resolved itself into the lines and sigils of a devil's trap. An honest to God, made out of pure light devil's trap.
Dean quickly backed out of the circle. "Neat trick," Dean said.
Peter tried to cross the line after Dean, but came up short at the edge. "Shit," he said.
Of course. Peter still had a demon inside him; he couldn't escape his own devil's trap.
The two demons dragged Peter back away from the edge of the circle. With inhuman strength, Peter shoved them off and turned back to Dean. "A little help," Peter called. "Like an exorcism? Please!"
"Peter," one of the demons shouted. His hands flashed with light, but it wasn't bright enough to blot out the brilliant glow of Peter's devil's trap. "There's nowhere to run now."
"Okay," Dean said. He could do this. It just would have been nice if he had put in the same number of Latin hours as Sam. "Regna terrae, cantate Deo... Uh... psallite Domino. And..."
"Dean, hurry!"
"Okay. Guess we'll skip the window dressing," Dean muttered. "Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus!"
The smaller man laid his hands on Peter, and the rock salt wounds vanished from his body, reappearing on Peter's. Peter cried out in pain, and his knees buckled under him. "That's right," the demon said nastily. "Don't forget, you're one of us."
"Uh..Vade, Satana, inventor et magister omnis fall... falluh... phallus... uh... fallaciae."
"DEAN!"
"Hostis humanae salutis," Dean recited. "Vade retro satana, nunquam suade mihi vana. Sunt mala quae libas, ipse venena bibas!"
The two men released Peter and stumbled back with black smoke flowing out of their mouths. A third burst of smoke came from the fallen woman on the floor.
Peter quickly shouted a few words in a language Dean didn't recognize, and the smoke veered, billowing toward the other end of the room, presumably back into the seal. The light devil's trap vanished.
Dean ran up to Peter and pulled him to his feet. "Where's Sam?"
"Up there. Careful, Dean. He's not himself."
"Yeah. I got that. Come on."
"I can't!" Peter said. "I have to get them out of here." He gestured to the three unconscious specials. "Get them clear of the house. Then I have to finish the ritual. It's the only thing keeping the demons from coming back out of the seal."
"Peter!" Nathan's voice echoed across the room. "Pete!"
"Go help him. Please, Dean."
Dean ran toward the sound of Nathan's voice. Candals glowed and flickered at that end of the room. And in front of them, rimmed with a halo of red light, stood Sam.
He was holding onto the arm of a waif-thin girl with mousy brown hair, and his other hand was outstretched, pinning Nathan to the wall. Across the floor stretched some elaborate arcane symbol. It wasn't a devil's trap.
"Sam," Dean called.
Sam's head snapped to the side, and he fixed Dean with a yellow gaze.
"No," Dean whispered.
"Get out of here, Dean," Sam said. "This doesn't concern you."
"The hell it doesn't. What is this?"
"Don't you get it, Dean? This little mouse," he shook the girl like a rag doll, "Came closer to true power than either of us has ever been in our lives. She's calling demons, controlling them to do her bidding. And we're still driving around like a couple of ameteurs, offing demons one and two at a time. It's like spitting on a wildfire."
"Dean--." Nathan tried to speak, but Sam curled the fingers of his hand, cutting off his air supply with invisible power.
"Imagine fighting fire with fire," Sam continued. "An army of demons at our backs, all following my will."
Dean had to fight past a lump in his throat to choke out his reply. "I don't think the angels would go for that."
"The angels aren't in charge, Dean. They're losing this fight. Hell is coming unless we do something about it."
"Not like this." He took a step closer to Sam, and Nathan gurgled in distress as Sam's telekinesis squeezed his throat tighter. Dean stopped and put his hands up. "Sam," he tried again. "Your eyes are yellow."
"Dean, you don't know how much power is right here for the taking. Let me do this, and we can stop fighting. We'll be able to finish this."
"Your eyes, Sam--"
"It doesn't matter."
"You really gonna do this?" Dean asked. He'd seen this moment in nightmares, but he couldn't quite believe that this was real, that this was Sam. "After all we talked about. I thought you actually gave a shit about staying on the righteous side."
"Well that's all well and good for the angels' favorite little soldier boy, but some of us have to live in the real world."
"Just stop!" Dean called.
"I can't," Sam said grimly, but Dean heard I don't want to.
Dean slowly set his gun on the floor and, keeping his every move slow and steady, started to approach Sam. "You used to have nightmares about the yellow-eyed demon. You remember?"
"No."
"You were young. Three or four, maybe. You'd wake up screaming, and you'd say a monster had come to get you, and his eyes were yellow. Dad couldn't stand to tell you they were just dreams. He knew the monsters were real. But I knew what to say. I told you I'd protect you from him. That if you were ever scared, you could come find me, and I'd save you."
"I'm not a little kid anymore, Dean." Sam straightened up, and the girl he was holding cowered even more.
"Sam," Dean pleaded. He didn't know what else to say. He didn't know how else to save his brother. "Don't do this to yourself. Don't to this to us."
"Dean." Sam shook his head. "I have to."
"No, you don't." Dean was close now, just at the edge of the red-glowing circle. Almost close enough to touch. "You're big bad Sam Winchester, demon prince. All the time you told me that wasn't what you wanted... Were you lying to me?"
"No. You don't understand."
Dean laughed: a dry, humorless sound. "I don't?"
"You don't."
"You know who does understand? That guy." He pointed to Nathan. "He knows what it's like to have a brother with dangerous powers, and what it's like to see him almost destroy the damn world."
Sam dropped his hand, and Nathan tumbled to the floor, gasping for air. "We're not the same as them," Sam said. "This isn't some random genetic coincidence. This is destiny. I'm supposed to do this!"
"Fine. Then kill her." Dean grabbed the trembling Caroline away from Sam and dragged her up beside him. He pulled his hunting knife out of his belt and extended it to Sam. "If that's the kind of man you are, then do it."
Caroline closed her eyes. Over by the wall, Nathan gathered himself, moving as silently as he could. Dean's attention didn't waver from his brother.
Sam took the knife. "You'll see," he said. "This is for the best."
He grabbed Caroline's arm to haul her out of Dean's reach. He pulled back his arm and struck.
+++++
"No!" Nathan's shout was a distant echo. Sam couldn't tear his eyes away from the knife protruding from Dean's belly. Dean had moved so fast, Sam hadn't been able to stay his hand.
"Dean?" The name came out like a whisper.
"Ouch, Sammy." Dean's brave laugh disolved into a grimmace.
Blood dripped onto the handle of the knife, and Sam's hand slipped off. Caroline stumbled back, away from them.
"Dean, I--."
"This is how it has to be, Sam," Dean said flatly. "If you're going to destroy the world, you've gotta start with me."
"No."
Dean started to waver, and Sam caught him with an arm around his waist. All the boiling, righteous rage he'd felt a moment ago had evaporated, leaving him weak and strangely achy. His anger had been replaced with all-consuming fear. Dean was bleeding.
Sam had done that. He'd stabbed his brother.
"Hey," Dean said. He coughed. It sounded wet. "Your eyes are back to brown."
+++++
Nathan dragged himself up, using the wall as a crutch. Sam was crouched on the floor next to Dean, making distressed, haf-coherent noises. Caroline was cowering at the edge of the circle. Despite the fact that they were underground, a wind had sprung up, and with it, a guttural howling sound that seemed to come from the seal itself. And it was getting louder.
Nathan stood over Dean and Sam, but kept his gun trained on Caroline. "Peter!" he yelled. The seal kept making that awful howling noise.
Nathan closed his eyes and concentrated. Peter!
Peter appeared before him like a genie. He held on tightly to a battered book with both hands.
"This thing's gonna blow," Nathan said, nodding toward the seal.
Peter turned to look. His eyes widened when he saw the knife in Dean's belly, and the blood on Sam's hands.
Nathan shook his head. "What do we have to do?" he asked.
"He has to finish it," Peter said, nodding at Sam. "The last demon is the one inside me. He has to exorcise it and finish the ritual." Peter pulled at the waistline of his jeans. An ugly brand marred the smooth skin of his hip, but as Nathan watched, the scar faded away.
Peter clutched at Nathan's arm. "Okay," he said tightly. "Now I'm ready. It's up to Sam."
"Sam." Nathan knelt next to Sam. "Sam, we need you."
"Dean." Sam didn't pull his eyes away from this brother. "I'm sorry."
"Sam," Nathan said, more sharply this time. "Get up. You have to close the seal."
Sam shook his head weakly.
"Are you really going to let Dean get sucked into Hell? Because I got the impression he didn't have such a good time down there. Are you going to let him go back?"
Sam finally looked up at Nathan, and now there was anger mingled with the grief in his eyes. "I can't fix it," he said tightly. "I thought I could control it..."
"Listen." Nathan grabbed Sam's shoulder and prevent him from drifting off into his own world with Dean. "You did this, and now you have to fix it. You can't start thinking of yourself as a monster, Sam. You can finish this."
The wind in the chamber whipped around them, and now Nathan had to shout to be heard over the roaring of the seal. "Sam! If you let it end like this, you will never forgive yourself. Get. Up." He shoved Sam back, breaking his hold on Dean.
Sam stumbled to his feet, as if fighting against a heavy weight. He looked over at the center of the seal, where Peter stood, holding onto Caroline. Sam lurched toward them, and Nathan caught him by the arm to hold him up.
"Nathan! Get out," Peter called over the horrible noise. "Get Dean, get out. We'll be right behind you."
"Peter, are you sure you can--?"
"We have to do this together. Go on. Dean needs you."
Nathan nodded grimly. He gathered Dean, trying not to jostle him any more than necessary as he hauled him up the stairs; it was too narrow to fly out. He risked one look back at the seal, where Peter was left facing an unstable special and a grief-crazed Sam and preparing to seal a gateway to Hell. Love you he thought at his brother. Then he carried Dean out.
+++++
"Where is it?" Peter demanded. Caroline stared at him, wide-eyed for a moment, until he waved the book in her face. "The spell to close the seal. Where is it?" Understanding dawned on her face, but she made no move. "Caroline, if you don't show me how to stop this seal from breaking, we're going to try Sam's human sacrifice plan, okay?"
Caroline paled and nodded quickly. She snatched the book from Peter's hand and flipped through the pages. Soon enough, she found the page she needed, and passed the book back to Peter. He skimmed the title: The Seal of Arashmahar and Its Enemies. Good enough. Peter let go of Caroline. Weak-kneed, she slid to the floor. He didn't have any attention to spare for her right now, anyway. "Sam," he said. "One last exorcism, okay?"
"I wasn't myself," Sam said. Peter could barely make out his words over the clamor of the seal. "You were right. My powers...These abilities...They made me something else."
"Wrong." Peter grabbed Sam by the shoulder and shook him. "You are what you are, Sam. You have your powers, I have my powers, and we can either become monsters, or we can fight."
"I stabbed Dean." Sam sounded forlorn, lost, and he looked through Peter as if he were invisible.
Peter knew that haunted look. He'd seen it in the mirror while Nathan lay broken in his bed, covered in burns.
"Yes you did. You did. But you can't worry about that now."
Peter felt the demon inside him fighting, howling as the energy from the seal grew. He shoved it back and tried again. "Sam, hurry."
Sam looked down at hands that were covered with blood. "I did that..."
"Sam, you have to close the seal. The book said that a righteous man had to send the demons back. There was no other way."
"A righteous man?" Sam looked pained. "Peter, I'm not--."
"You are. And you're going to prove it when you close the seal."
"I can't!"
"Sam--" As Peter's mind raced to find a way to get through to Sam, the demon took advantage of his lapsed concentration and broke through Peter's control. "Sam!"
Peter dropped the book and let go of Sam. He clawed against the demon's control, but Vetis was strong, and he would not be unseated. He dropped to one knee, and looked up into Sam's startled face. "It's all right, Sam. Let it happen."
Sam's expression blew right past confusion and into anger when he saw that Peter's eyes were black. "You," he growled.
"I knew this would happen. I believe in you, Sam. I don't care what the others said. You've done the right thing in the end."
+++++
"Sam, it's not P-Peter," Caroline stammered.
The demon unflinchingly slapped her hard across the face, hand sizzling against her protections, before turning back to Sam. "You know that. Boy king. Sammy. You're one of us. You couldn't save the seal now even if you wanted to. That takes a righteous man..." He looked around the room. "Caroline over there isn't a man, so that leaves who?" He gestured to himself. "Hell's whore? Or you." He chuckled, and the wind in the room seemed to echo the sound. "Sam Winchester."
"I'm one of the good guys," Sam said, but it sounded weak, even to his own ears.
"The good guys ran for safety. Well, after you stabbed one of them. Come on, Sam. You knew you could never be a good little soldier for the angels like big brother. You never really wanted to be."
"You're wrong. Dean and I are on the same side. The righteous side."
"Are you? That's not the way it looks. You're becoming who you're meant to be."
Sam looked down at the demon kneeling before him in Peter's body, and stretched out his hand. "I'm already who I'm meant to be," he said. The demon jerked in pain as Sam began to pull at him. "Caroline," Sam said calmly. "Pick up the book. Now."
Caroline grabbed the book off the floor and flipped back to the page she'd showed Peter. "Read, Caroline." Quickly, she began to read aloud.
The demon writhed as Sam continued to draw it out. "Don't, Sammy," he gasped. "This isn't what you want. You belong with us. You can't go back to Dean, not after what you've done."
"I'd rather have Dean live and hate me than sacrifice him for a throne in Hell." Sam pulled, hard, and Vetis came tearing out of Peter's throat and down into the seal. Caroline shouted the last of the incantation, and the room went deathly still and pitch dark. Then the room began to shake.
Peter fell to his hands and knees coughing. Sam was at his side immediately. "Come on," he said. "We've gotta get out of here."
"We've got to bury it," Peter coughed. He pulled himself up with Sam's help and his hands began to glow softly, shedding some light in the darkness. "Make sure it can't be used again."
"How do we--?"
The house began to tremble along with the ground.
"Get Caroline, and stand close," Peter said.
Sam hauled Caroline up by the arm and dragged her over toward Peter. The book fell from her nervous hands. She wailed wordlessly, and groped after it.
"Sam, come on!" Peter called.
No time to find the book. Sam crabbed Caroline and hauled her toward the sound of Peter's voice. Peter reached out blindly. He clutched Sam's shirt and closed his eyes as pieces of wood and rock began to fall around them.
"Peter... Anytime," Sam said nervously.
Peter held on even more tightly, Sam had a disorienting moment of vertigo, and then they were standing in the pre-dawn light in the yard.
+++++
Nathan had just gotten Dean laid out on the grass beside the garden wall when the roaring that had been coming from the house resolved itself into a rumble, and then a crash. He stood and watched in horror as the house collapsed in on itself. "Peter!" he screamed. He had already taken a few stumbling steps towards the rubble when he heard a shout behind him.
"Nathan!"
He turned to see Peter, Sam, and Caroline standing in the yard a few feet away. Caroline sank to her knees right away, and Peter looked nearly ready to collapse himself, but Sam went right to Dean's side.
"Peter..." Sam said brokenly. He pressed a hand to Dean's belly, trying to stay the flow of blood. "Please...Aaron's power, Dean..."
"That a new one Pete?" Nathan broke in quickly, glad Dean was probably too out of it to hear.
"I can help him," Peter said, but when he took a step, he swayed dangerously.
Nathan jumped in to catch him. "Not so fast." Nathan made a quick decision. Between using a new power and a practiced one, using the practiced one took less out of Peter. And right now there was a faint translucent glow to Peter's skin that Nathan knew was a danger sign. "Take Dean and get him to a hospital, now. I'll take care of Sam and Caroline."
"I am not leaving you here with him." Peter's voice was adamant.
"Peter it's okay," he soothed.
"He just stabbed his brother," Peter hissed. "It is definitely not okay."
"I can handle this." And I know you can handle Dean, Pete. He needs help now. Go. Nathan thought at him hard.
Peter staggered over to where Dean lay, and gathered him up in his arms with an assist from Sam. For a moment, Sam and Peter stood facing each other, holding Dean's bleeding body between them.
If you hurt him, I don't care how much demon mind mojo you use, I will tear off your head and stick it on a pike to mark the entrance to hell. Got it? Peter thought at Sam, letting Nathan "eavesdrop."
"Yeah," Sam croaked.
"Okay then." Peter stepped clear of Sam, shifted Dean so he had a firm grip on him, and they disappeared.
+++++
"Sam."
He looked up with effort, finding Nathan towering over him, Caroline, shoulders hunched and hands bound, at his side.
"She has protections," Sam mumbled pointlessly.
"Apparently ancient spells don't cover plastic." Sam looked again, and realized Caroline's hands were bound with zip ties.
"Oh."
"Come on Sam, we have to get out of here."
Nathan's voice was brisk and matter-of-fact, maybe the best antidote to all of the screaming and raging that had been going on today. But even as Sam stood, he realized his hands and clothing were still covered in dried blood. Dean's blood. He swayed, vision going gray, as Nathan caught his elbow.
"Sam, he's going to be fine. Peter will take care of him."
"I should have..." Sam trailed off, closing his eyes in anguish.
"I should have listened to Peter weeks earlier than I did when he had his first dreams, but I didn't, and now I'm living this life and making the best of it I can. Use it Sam, don't let it eat at you. I think we're all too far into this to give up in despair." Nathan cut off Sam's angsting before it could even begin.
It brought him up short, and while it solved nothing, it broke him out his sharp downward spiral. Sam shook his head and looked up with more determination. It was a brittle, fragile strength, little more than a facade, but it would do until he had a chance to set things straight with Dean, somehow.
"Ok.... ok," Sam said, taking a deep breath.
"Sam..." Nathan started, and hesitated a long moment, glancing at Caroline. "At one time I held a lot of power in my hands. I was in a position to let a lot of people die, starting with Peter, for the sake of the greater good. I might have been able to save the world if I had gone through with it, but I wouldn't have been able to live with myself."
Sam put that together with what Peter had told him about himself, and swallowed hard. "Was it worth it?" Sam asked.
"So far? Yes. I'm living with myself now, for the first time in a while."
Sam didn't know what to say to that, but Nathan didn't seem to mind. He started steering Caroline toward the car.
"Come on," he said. "We need to get going. I want to get out of this place." He looked back over his shoulder at Sam. "Ready?"
Sam closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again to see the sun peeking over the rubble of the ruined mansion. "Ready," he said, and followed.
Next part
Previous part
Master Post
Authors:
jaune_chat and brighteyed_jillArt: by
xkelorosiamano is at her graphics community.Pairings: Every combination of Nathan and Peter Petrelli and Sam and Dean Winchester
Rating: NC-17
Warning: See Part One for full list
Spoilers: Supernatural--though 4x16. Heroes--vague ones for Season 2
Authors' notes: Written for
sncross_bigbang. This is a sequel to The Secret's in the Telling. Beta and snuggles from the intrepid redandglendaSummary: Sam and Dean discover demons have been possessing people with special abilities that have nothing to do with magic. Peter draws a future that reunites him and Nathan with the Winchester brothers. Together they find out that specials--people whose powers come from an unusual inherited gene-- are being targeted for possession by a woman who is on the verge of breaking one of the sixty-six seals.
In the gathering shadows of the evening, Sam and Peter crept into the cellar. Peter kept a tight hold on Sam's hand to render them both invisible. The room was entirely dark except for a sullen red glow from behind the throne.
"Hiding is not going to help," Sam whispered. Peter didn't miss the edge of irritation in his voice. "We're going to have to fight." He yanked his hand out of Peter's. "If it were Nathan she were threatening, you wouldn't be hiding in the basement."
"We're not hiding." Peter grabbed Sam's wrist again and pulled him further into the room. "We're going to exorcise all the demons."
"We are?"
"You are. Then Caroline will have no army. We can figure out how to keep her contained and save the seal."
"One problem," Sam broke in. "Her whole army's not here. If we just take out the ones here, the others would know and bring back-up. They'd lay siege to this place. Caroline is--."
"We're not killing Caroline," Peter snapped. "Here." He led them around the throne to where the seal spread out across the stone. "The seal has a kind of energy. The demon inside me can feel it. He's tethered to it. The other demons must be, too."
"Great. All the more reason to cut off the source. The person who brought them through the seal in the first place."
"You can exorcise them all. Send them back through the seal."
"Peter, I don't think driving the car in reverse will turn back the odometer."
"It might." Peter turned away and began lighting the candles in sconces around the walls with a tongue of fire from his fingertip.
Sam narrowed his eyes in suspicion. "Do you know something? Did you read something?"
Peter kept his face turned away. He really didn't want Sam interrogating him right now. "We need to send all the demons back through the seal. If I channel Molly Walker's power--."
"Did you lie to me about the information in that book?"
Peter ignored him. He hated having to be deceptive about this, but if they were going to pull this off, Sam couldn't know the details of the ritual. "We have to get as many as we can before they figure it out. How many can you take at once? Two? Three?"
"Peter. You lied to me?"
"Come on. We have to get the remote ones first." Peter sat down inside of the circle of runes that marked the boundaries of the seal. "Sam, come on. You're the only one who can do this."
Sam stalked over to the seal and lowered himself stiffly to the ground.
Peter nodded in satisfaction. He didn't need Sam to be excited about this; he only needed Sam to do it. "Try to feel the energy of the seal."
"This isn't guided meditation, Peter."
Peter reached forward and slid his hands into Sam's, bridging the distance between them. "I know. But our abilities are not quite the same thing, so for us to pull this off--."
"Oh." Sam rocked back, but he kept hold of Peter's hands. "I see what you mean."
"Good. Okay." Peter broke contact for a moment to pull a folded piece of paper out of his pocket and study it. He was pretty sure he'd memorized the words, but he wanted one last reminder.
"Is that a page from a book?" Sam asked warily.
"Yes..."
"Please tell me you didn't rip a page out of an ancient manuscript." Sam looked pained.
"She would have noticed if I'd taken the whole book," Peter said meekly.
"Well what the hell is so important?"
"It's the second part of the ritual that she used when we... When I... You know."
"Oh. Yeah."
"If you can exorcise the demons, I can recite the ritual to send them back through the seal."
"We're going to do this from here?"
"Yeah. I think I can use Molly's power to find them, and Matt's power to show you what I'm seeing."
"And at the same time recite from memory a dark magic ritual in an ancient language?"
"Well...Yes." It hadn't sounded like such a ludicrous plan until Sam put it that way. Peter slid the manuscript page back into his pocked and took Sam's hand again. "I need to look into your mind to see where the energy from the seal is leading, okay?"
"You want to read my mind?"
"I'm not going to go digging around."
Sam gritted his teeth. "Fine."
"Sam," Peter said seriously. "I'm not going to rape your mind."
"I know that."
"I have secrets, too. So does Nathan. There are things he would never tell me, and I would never try to find out. I understand."
"I'm not scared of you."
What was frightening was how thoroughly Sam meant that. "Okay. Then let me in."
Sam closed his eyes, and Peter followed suit. Peter opened his mind, gently steering his consciousness toward Sam, trying to see what he saw, feel what he felt. At first, there was nothing. Then he started to feel the red hot glow of the seal beneath them. Through Sam, he could see the red lines leading off in all directions: more than a dozen of them.
"Those must be Caroline's scouts," said Sam.
Peter concentrated on the energy of one of the tether-lines, using it and Molly's power to provide an image of the demon; he saw the neon lights of a bar, and the flash of a cigarette lighter.
"I see him!" Sam said eagerly. His grip on Peter's hands tightened.
Peter began to recite the words of the text he'd memorized. The words might sound like gibberish to Sam, but he knew their meaning, knew that the demon was compelled to answer the call of someone with power like Sam's.
They couldn't hear the demon scream, but the body the demon wore began to tremble, and he clutched his throat as if choking.
"It's working!" Sam squeezed Peter's hand even harder. Miles away, black smoke leaked out of the mouth of a man in a dive bar while the other patrons looked on in horror.
Peter continued his chanting as Sam ripped the demon from its body with the power of his mind.
A foul wind sprung up from out of nowhere as the image of the bar disolved. Peter kept up reciting the spell with his eyes squeezed shut. Below him, the seal burned with unnatural heat.
"Peter," Sam said warningly. "Now!"
Peter rushed through the last words. The roaring wind disappeared into the seal, and the stone they were sitting on was suddenly freezing cold.
Peter opened his eyes to see Sam looking down at the seal with a feral, wolfish grin. "That was amazing," he panted.
"Are you okay?" Peter asked slowly. "It's not too much?"
Sam shook his head. "No. We should hurry. Before Caroline figures out what we're doing."
That was no more than the truth. The scene around them was set: the candles, the seal, and the two of them were exactly as Peter had painted them. Whatever happened next was in the hands of fate. Peter closed his eyes again and reached for Sam.
+++++
Dean could feel Nathan's breathing getting more labored as they flew through the pre-dawn air. Of course, he not only had Dean, who was no lightweight, but between them they were carrying half of Nathan's gear plus everything Dean had had in Nathan's car. They had no idea what they were going to find when they got to Caroline's, and Nathan had opted for preparedness instead of running off without a plan.
Even so, they'd managed to cover the distance to Lake End in record time, and Dean was peering through the morning mist trying to locate the Abernathy mansion. From above, the place was blindingly obvious, with trees dead in a peculiar pattern, fires burning here and there, birds acting strangely. It looked like a demonic crop circle, with the decaying manse in the center of it all.
The place was invisible to angel eyes, impenetrable to demons unless they'd been invited, and unknowable to anyone who hadn't been escorted in. Caroline had thought she'd covered all her bases. But she'd tied her spells to the earth, the only way her book told her how. Never had whatever ancient demonologist who'd written that stuff down ever think that one day there would be people who could fly.
So, from above, Caroline's place was just a old, run-down house, not an invisible bastion of arcane power.
"There!" Dean bellowed, and Nathan began rocketing downwards, both of them ready to save their brothers from damnation.
+++++
It was going better than Peter could have hoped. He'd had no way to predict how fast Sam would have been able to exorcise the demons, especially at a distance like this, but Sam seemed to be having no trouble. In fact, Sam seemed almost to be enjoying himself.
Vetis, however, was starting to make things difficult for Peter. As more and more demons were sent back into the seal, Vetis raged all the harder. Peter was having trouble concentrating enough to keep reciting the ritual, holding onto Molly's power, and keeping in sync with Sam via Matt's power. When he heard feet pounding down the stairs, he lost his grip on Sam's mind and his hands and found himself struggling to bring reality back into focus.
He heard voices approaching, but it took him a few precious seconds to make out what they were saying.
"What are you doing?" Caroline wailed. "You're ruining everything!"
Sam was already on his feet, stepping in front of Peter.
"Back off," he growled. "Don't come any closer."
Peter got carefully to his feet as Rourke, Tamara, and Aaron all formed ranks behind Caroline. He wasn't sure if Sam was up to exorcising three demons at once, but he certainly didn't feel in any condition to take on three angry specials in a fight. Diplomacy sounded like a good option right about now.
"Sam, what are you two playing at down here? You know that seal is dangerous," Caroline said.
"I think I know that better than you," Sam said. "You don't know what you're playing with."
"I've read all the ancient literature," she said, drawing herself up to her full height. "I know all the old--"
"You don't know anything about it, Caroline. There's a war between heaven and hell, and you can't begin to know what's at stake."
"Are you saying... You knew about this?" Caroline asked in dismay. "You came here because of the seal?"
"Like I said, you don't know what you're playing with."
"Sam!" Caroline looked genuinely wounded. "You lied to me?"
"Not exactly," said Sam. "But I don't think you really want to do this."
"We were supposed to do this together," Caroline said. "How can you throw all that away?"
"Get back," Rourke snarled. He stepped up beside Caroline, and his hands glowed with angry orange light. Aaron stepped up beside him. "You're not going to stop what we're doing."
From behind them, Tamara held up a hand.
"Sam, be careful," Peter called. "She--."
Aaron jumped for Peter, and as he went down he saw Rourke go for Sam. Aaron tackled Peter to the ground with a thump, and all the air rushed out of Peter's lungs. When he went to draw breath, he found that there was none to draw. His eyes went to Tamara, whose hand was swirling with what looked like wind. He tried again to breathe, but Tamara had drained the room of all air. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sam wrestling silently with Rourke.
Peter's lungs screamed for air even as he tried to concentrate his power to shove Aaron off. If he suffocated, he would come back to life when the air was restored, but Sam had no such advantage.
Silently begging the poor posessed man's forgiveness, Peter wrapped his hands around Aaron's arms and sent out radioactive energy. Aaron pulled back in pain, leaving an opening for Peter to fling his hand out and knock Tamara to the ground with telekinesis. With her concentration broken, the air rushed back into the room.
"Okay." From across the room, Sam rose to his feet. He looked angrier than Peter had ever seen him. The demons shrunk back as he thrust out his hand. "My turn."
+++++
"Think you can do a running dismount?" Nathan called over the rushing wind.
"Like jumping off a motorcycle!" Dean yelled in his ear.
Nathan came in low to the ground and slowed down. He zeroed in on a figure standing on the front porch of the mansion. It wasn't Sam or Peter, which meant it was an enemy. "Now!"
Dean jumped off, Nathan rolled in mid-air to correct the imbalance, and then he collided at speed with the demon on the front steps. Momentum sent them crashing through the door of the house and into the living room.
Nathan barely had time to pull himself out from the tangle of limbs and splintered wood before Dean burst into the room with a shotgun in each hand. "Nice work Flyboy!" he shouted, and tossed the sawed-off shotgun to Nathan.
Two possessed rushed toward them. Dean leveled his shotgun--filled with rock salt bullets--at the nearest one and squeezed the trigger. Then Nathan was busy with his own problems. More possessed poured into the room, swarming like ants protecting their nest. Nathan readied his shotgun, but before he could act, the man running toward him screamed and collapsed with black smoke rushing from his mouth. A moment later, the woman behind him did likewise.
As Nathan watched, the now ex-possessed jumped up and looked like they were torn between fight and flight.
Dean, who was closer to the door, motioned them in that direction. "Damn it, get the hell out of here. Move, move move!" he roared. From across the room, Dean shouted at Nathan, "I'll take care of these guys. Find Sam!"
Nathan clocked the next oncoming demon in the face with the butt of his shotgun, and plunged further into the house. In the next room, several bodies lay breathing but unmoving. Nathan spared them only a glance as he went on. He kept his shotgun readied in front of him, and took each corner quickly but cautiously. The sounds of battle faded behind him until he could hear shouting that sounded like it came from somewhere below him. He started looking for the stairs.
+++++
Caroline shrank back a little from the anger in Sam's eyes. "Careful, Sam," she said warily. "You know my friends are loyal. They won't let anything happen to me." Her friends stepped between her and Sam protectively.
"Your little army's not going to help you," Sam sneered. When he reached for his power, he realized he could still feel the warm, red lines of power leading to the demons in the house. He reached beyond the boundaries of this room and pulled back the kicking and screaming demons who were still tethered to the seal. Four lines, stronger than the rest, fought against his control, but the rest snapped back to the seal. Black smoke swirled around him as half a dozen more demons poured back into the seal.
"No!" Caroline shouted. Rourke, the first to recover from Sam's attempt, lunged at him.
Sam flung his hand out. Caroline stumbled to the side as the three possessed specials, plus Peter, were pushed back off the dais. Repelling demonic force was only a step to the side from keeping a demon pinned in a body; he'd realized that the night of the bonfire. They were shoved across the room and tumbled to the ground like dominos. Sam was left standing in the middle of the seal facing a wide-eyed Caroline.
"Sam..." she quavered. "What are you doing?"
"I'm doing what has to be done," he said grimly. Across the room, in the shadows beyond the candlelight, he could barely make out the struggling forms of Caroline's three remaining companions clashing with Peter. He dragged his eyes away: Peter would have to take care of himself.
"Sam," Caroline said sadly. "Have you been lying to me since the beginning?"
"I can't let you break this seal." Sam lunged for her, but when he grabbed her wrist, a fierce pain rushed through him, a harsh burning that dropped him to the floor with its intensity. It reminded him of nothing so much as how demons reacted when splashed with holy water.
"So you are their lap dog after all," Caroline said bitterly. She kicked Sam where he lay, and another burning pain seared him, half-crippling him. "You think I wouldn't protect myself from attack? This precaution is a little spell I read about. To protect myself from demonic... things that might wish me harm.
"They warned me about you," Caroline continued. "But I was so sure... Do you really want to go back to Dean? To always being feared and mistrusted and stifled? Having no one to talk to because you're different? Having the angels hunt you down like a beast? Dean will never accept you for who you are. He'll never really be on your side."
She stalked to an alcove in the wall and grabbed a book from the stack. "You're like me, Sam. You just want to be accepted. I've seen it. You know you can be more than they see. You know you're meant for something greater."
Sam wiped the blood from his mouth. "I know," he said. "That's why I don't need you."
+++++
Nathan pounded down the steps toward the sound of fighting. The stairs opened up into a large, mostly empty room that seemed to be carved out of rock. Most of the room was shrouded in darkness, but the far end glowed and flickered with candlelight. As Nathan stepped into the room, a body came flying out of the darkness to tumble ungracefully at his feet.
"Peter?"
Peter looked up. His face immediately flooded with relief. "Nathan!" He jumped to his feet. "I've got this. Go get Sam. But be careful. He's--."
A man appeared out of the darkness, swinging a metal pipe, and Peter moved to intercept him.
Nathan left Peter to his work and glanced around for Sam. He headed for the other end of the cavernous room, where the light was the brightest. A massive chair stood on a raised dais. As soon as Nathan passed the chair, he saw Sam lying flat on his back. Above him stood a woman in a white dress holding a book and chanting. And if those weren't bad associations, he wasn't sure what were.
"Sam!" Nathan gathered himself and flew, tackling the woman off of Sam and pinning her to the floor.
"Careful," Sam called. "She's got some kind of wards protecting her." Sam knelt beside them. "We have to figure out how to spill her blood to close the seal permanently."
"What? Sam! It's not true," Caroline protested frantically. "He's lying. Please don't let him kill me!"
"It's the only way, Nathan," Sam said earnestly. "A sacrifice closes the seal. Help me get her up." He grabbed Caroline's arm, and she screamed.
"No, please! You just have to send all the demons back in through the seal. There's an invocation to seal up the whole thing. I can show you!"
"I thought you already exorcised them all?" Nathan said slowly.
"Four left." Sam sat back on his heels. "There's still one sealed inside Peter."
"What?"
"Relax. He can handle it. Where's Dean?" There was something a little off about Sam, but Nathan chalked it up to the strain of the past few days.
"Getting some confused ex-possessed to run for their lives," Nathan reported. "He's okay."
"Good. Hold her while I finish this." Sam grabbed a piece of chalk from the floor and began to add to an elaborate geometric outline on the floor.
"Please," Caroline whispered to Nathan. "Don't let him kill me. I was wrong. I don't want the seal open. What I was doing was stupid. It was a mistake. I never wanted someone like him to control its power."
"Watch it lady," Nathan said. "That's my friend you're badmouthing."
Nathan hadn't heard him move, but Sam was standing right behind him, looming over them both. "Caroline," he said softly. "If you tell any more lies, we'll have to cut out your tongue."
Caroline turned pale as death. Nathan didn't blame here. There was something in Sam's voice that gave Nathan pause. "Sam," he said as he watched him return to his drawing. "We can't kill her."
"We have to."
Nathan climbed off of Caroline. "Stay," he said. He grabbed his rifle from where it had fallen to the floor and kept it trained on her as he inched closer to Sam. "She's not a demon."
Sam paused from his work to look up at Nathan. "Does that excuse what she's done?"
"No, but... Let's just get out of here. We can turn her over to people who deal with her kind. We'll grab Peter, help Dean with--."
Sam stood up abruptly. It was times like this that Nathan was reminded of exactly how large the youngest Winchester was when he wasn't slouching. "We're not going anywhere."
Inside, Nathan was panicking, but he was an expert at hiding his fear. "Come on, Sam." He clapped Sam's shoulder in a brotherly way. "Dean needs some back-up."
"Stop trying to handle me, Nathan. You know I'm not stupid. You know I'm not your weak-willed little brother."
"And you know I'm not your head-in-the-sand big brother," Nathan shot back, "So cut the crap. You are not going to murder this woman."
Sam flung his hand out, and Nathan was suddenly, viscerally reminded of Peter on his worst days, when he was channeling Sylar. Invisible power flung Nathan against the wall and pinned him there.
Sam snarled, "Don't tell me what to do."
+++++
"Run, damn it!" Dean shouted.
The recently possessed man threw Dean one last frightened look before bolting for the outside. Dean scanned the room, but he didn't see any more wide-eyed civilians who'd recently been relieved of demons.
At least now, if all hell broke loose, none of Caroline's playthings would get caught in the crossfire. The house was eerily silent now, and Dean raced into the next room. "Sam!" he called. His voice echoed against the bare walls. In his mind's eye he saw Sam's yellow eyes, rendered in color pencil. Peter's drawings always come true, Nathan had said. "Sam!" he yelled again.
Then he heard, not his brother, but Peter, shouting, "No!"
It took Dean a few precious seconds to orient himself, but then he dashed for the door from whence the sound had come. The door led down a dark staircase. Dean took the steps two at a time. At the bottom of the stairs, Peter was fighting two men Dean didn't recognize. Another woman lay on the floor, unmoving.
"Duck!" Dean called. Peter dropped into a crouch, and Dean fired his shotgun, spraying rock salt at the two oncoming men.
They howled and fell back, but Dean knew the salt wouldn't deter them for long. "Possessed specials," Peter said. "We have to get them exorcised!"
"How the hell we supposed to do that without a devil's trap?"
The demons came back swinging. Dean clocked the smaller one in the face, and he saw the larger man step up to Peter with his hands glowing.
"Good idea, Rourke," Peter said. His hands began to glow, and then suddenly a luminous circle appeared on the floor, encompassing Peter, the two demons, and the unconscious woman. The circle glowed muzzily for a moment, and then resolved itself into the lines and sigils of a devil's trap. An honest to God, made out of pure light devil's trap.
Dean quickly backed out of the circle. "Neat trick," Dean said.
Peter tried to cross the line after Dean, but came up short at the edge. "Shit," he said.
Of course. Peter still had a demon inside him; he couldn't escape his own devil's trap.
The two demons dragged Peter back away from the edge of the circle. With inhuman strength, Peter shoved them off and turned back to Dean. "A little help," Peter called. "Like an exorcism? Please!"
"Peter," one of the demons shouted. His hands flashed with light, but it wasn't bright enough to blot out the brilliant glow of Peter's devil's trap. "There's nowhere to run now."
"Okay," Dean said. He could do this. It just would have been nice if he had put in the same number of Latin hours as Sam. "Regna terrae, cantate Deo... Uh... psallite Domino. And..."
"Dean, hurry!"
"Okay. Guess we'll skip the window dressing," Dean muttered. "Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus!"
The smaller man laid his hands on Peter, and the rock salt wounds vanished from his body, reappearing on Peter's. Peter cried out in pain, and his knees buckled under him. "That's right," the demon said nastily. "Don't forget, you're one of us."
"Uh..Vade, Satana, inventor et magister omnis fall... falluh... phallus... uh... fallaciae."
"DEAN!"
"Hostis humanae salutis," Dean recited. "Vade retro satana, nunquam suade mihi vana. Sunt mala quae libas, ipse venena bibas!"
The two men released Peter and stumbled back with black smoke flowing out of their mouths. A third burst of smoke came from the fallen woman on the floor.
Peter quickly shouted a few words in a language Dean didn't recognize, and the smoke veered, billowing toward the other end of the room, presumably back into the seal. The light devil's trap vanished.
Dean ran up to Peter and pulled him to his feet. "Where's Sam?"
"Up there. Careful, Dean. He's not himself."
"Yeah. I got that. Come on."
"I can't!" Peter said. "I have to get them out of here." He gestured to the three unconscious specials. "Get them clear of the house. Then I have to finish the ritual. It's the only thing keeping the demons from coming back out of the seal."
"Peter!" Nathan's voice echoed across the room. "Pete!"
"Go help him. Please, Dean."
Dean ran toward the sound of Nathan's voice. Candals glowed and flickered at that end of the room. And in front of them, rimmed with a halo of red light, stood Sam.
He was holding onto the arm of a waif-thin girl with mousy brown hair, and his other hand was outstretched, pinning Nathan to the wall. Across the floor stretched some elaborate arcane symbol. It wasn't a devil's trap.
"Sam," Dean called.
Sam's head snapped to the side, and he fixed Dean with a yellow gaze.
"No," Dean whispered.
"Get out of here, Dean," Sam said. "This doesn't concern you."
"The hell it doesn't. What is this?"
"Don't you get it, Dean? This little mouse," he shook the girl like a rag doll, "Came closer to true power than either of us has ever been in our lives. She's calling demons, controlling them to do her bidding. And we're still driving around like a couple of ameteurs, offing demons one and two at a time. It's like spitting on a wildfire."
"Dean--." Nathan tried to speak, but Sam curled the fingers of his hand, cutting off his air supply with invisible power.
"Imagine fighting fire with fire," Sam continued. "An army of demons at our backs, all following my will."
Dean had to fight past a lump in his throat to choke out his reply. "I don't think the angels would go for that."
"The angels aren't in charge, Dean. They're losing this fight. Hell is coming unless we do something about it."
"Not like this." He took a step closer to Sam, and Nathan gurgled in distress as Sam's telekinesis squeezed his throat tighter. Dean stopped and put his hands up. "Sam," he tried again. "Your eyes are yellow."
"Dean, you don't know how much power is right here for the taking. Let me do this, and we can stop fighting. We'll be able to finish this."
"Your eyes, Sam--"
"It doesn't matter."
"You really gonna do this?" Dean asked. He'd seen this moment in nightmares, but he couldn't quite believe that this was real, that this was Sam. "After all we talked about. I thought you actually gave a shit about staying on the righteous side."
"Well that's all well and good for the angels' favorite little soldier boy, but some of us have to live in the real world."
"Just stop!" Dean called.
"I can't," Sam said grimly, but Dean heard I don't want to.
Dean slowly set his gun on the floor and, keeping his every move slow and steady, started to approach Sam. "You used to have nightmares about the yellow-eyed demon. You remember?"
"No."
"You were young. Three or four, maybe. You'd wake up screaming, and you'd say a monster had come to get you, and his eyes were yellow. Dad couldn't stand to tell you they were just dreams. He knew the monsters were real. But I knew what to say. I told you I'd protect you from him. That if you were ever scared, you could come find me, and I'd save you."
"I'm not a little kid anymore, Dean." Sam straightened up, and the girl he was holding cowered even more.
"Sam," Dean pleaded. He didn't know what else to say. He didn't know how else to save his brother. "Don't do this to yourself. Don't to this to us."
"Dean." Sam shook his head. "I have to."
"No, you don't." Dean was close now, just at the edge of the red-glowing circle. Almost close enough to touch. "You're big bad Sam Winchester, demon prince. All the time you told me that wasn't what you wanted... Were you lying to me?"
"No. You don't understand."
Dean laughed: a dry, humorless sound. "I don't?"
"You don't."
"You know who does understand? That guy." He pointed to Nathan. "He knows what it's like to have a brother with dangerous powers, and what it's like to see him almost destroy the damn world."
Sam dropped his hand, and Nathan tumbled to the floor, gasping for air. "We're not the same as them," Sam said. "This isn't some random genetic coincidence. This is destiny. I'm supposed to do this!"
"Fine. Then kill her." Dean grabbed the trembling Caroline away from Sam and dragged her up beside him. He pulled his hunting knife out of his belt and extended it to Sam. "If that's the kind of man you are, then do it."
Caroline closed her eyes. Over by the wall, Nathan gathered himself, moving as silently as he could. Dean's attention didn't waver from his brother.
Sam took the knife. "You'll see," he said. "This is for the best."
He grabbed Caroline's arm to haul her out of Dean's reach. He pulled back his arm and struck.
+++++
"No!" Nathan's shout was a distant echo. Sam couldn't tear his eyes away from the knife protruding from Dean's belly. Dean had moved so fast, Sam hadn't been able to stay his hand.
"Dean?" The name came out like a whisper.
"Ouch, Sammy." Dean's brave laugh disolved into a grimmace.
Blood dripped onto the handle of the knife, and Sam's hand slipped off. Caroline stumbled back, away from them.
"Dean, I--."
"This is how it has to be, Sam," Dean said flatly. "If you're going to destroy the world, you've gotta start with me."
"No."
Dean started to waver, and Sam caught him with an arm around his waist. All the boiling, righteous rage he'd felt a moment ago had evaporated, leaving him weak and strangely achy. His anger had been replaced with all-consuming fear. Dean was bleeding.
Sam had done that. He'd stabbed his brother.
"Hey," Dean said. He coughed. It sounded wet. "Your eyes are back to brown."
+++++
Nathan dragged himself up, using the wall as a crutch. Sam was crouched on the floor next to Dean, making distressed, haf-coherent noises. Caroline was cowering at the edge of the circle. Despite the fact that they were underground, a wind had sprung up, and with it, a guttural howling sound that seemed to come from the seal itself. And it was getting louder.
Nathan stood over Dean and Sam, but kept his gun trained on Caroline. "Peter!" he yelled. The seal kept making that awful howling noise.
Nathan closed his eyes and concentrated. Peter!
Peter appeared before him like a genie. He held on tightly to a battered book with both hands.
"This thing's gonna blow," Nathan said, nodding toward the seal.
Peter turned to look. His eyes widened when he saw the knife in Dean's belly, and the blood on Sam's hands.
Nathan shook his head. "What do we have to do?" he asked.
"He has to finish it," Peter said, nodding at Sam. "The last demon is the one inside me. He has to exorcise it and finish the ritual." Peter pulled at the waistline of his jeans. An ugly brand marred the smooth skin of his hip, but as Nathan watched, the scar faded away.
Peter clutched at Nathan's arm. "Okay," he said tightly. "Now I'm ready. It's up to Sam."
"Sam." Nathan knelt next to Sam. "Sam, we need you."
"Dean." Sam didn't pull his eyes away from this brother. "I'm sorry."
"Sam," Nathan said, more sharply this time. "Get up. You have to close the seal."
Sam shook his head weakly.
"Are you really going to let Dean get sucked into Hell? Because I got the impression he didn't have such a good time down there. Are you going to let him go back?"
Sam finally looked up at Nathan, and now there was anger mingled with the grief in his eyes. "I can't fix it," he said tightly. "I thought I could control it..."
"Listen." Nathan grabbed Sam's shoulder and prevent him from drifting off into his own world with Dean. "You did this, and now you have to fix it. You can't start thinking of yourself as a monster, Sam. You can finish this."
The wind in the chamber whipped around them, and now Nathan had to shout to be heard over the roaring of the seal. "Sam! If you let it end like this, you will never forgive yourself. Get. Up." He shoved Sam back, breaking his hold on Dean.
Sam stumbled to his feet, as if fighting against a heavy weight. He looked over at the center of the seal, where Peter stood, holding onto Caroline. Sam lurched toward them, and Nathan caught him by the arm to hold him up.
"Nathan! Get out," Peter called over the horrible noise. "Get Dean, get out. We'll be right behind you."
"Peter, are you sure you can--?"
"We have to do this together. Go on. Dean needs you."
Nathan nodded grimly. He gathered Dean, trying not to jostle him any more than necessary as he hauled him up the stairs; it was too narrow to fly out. He risked one look back at the seal, where Peter was left facing an unstable special and a grief-crazed Sam and preparing to seal a gateway to Hell. Love you he thought at his brother. Then he carried Dean out.
+++++
"Where is it?" Peter demanded. Caroline stared at him, wide-eyed for a moment, until he waved the book in her face. "The spell to close the seal. Where is it?" Understanding dawned on her face, but she made no move. "Caroline, if you don't show me how to stop this seal from breaking, we're going to try Sam's human sacrifice plan, okay?"
Caroline paled and nodded quickly. She snatched the book from Peter's hand and flipped through the pages. Soon enough, she found the page she needed, and passed the book back to Peter. He skimmed the title: The Seal of Arashmahar and Its Enemies. Good enough. Peter let go of Caroline. Weak-kneed, she slid to the floor. He didn't have any attention to spare for her right now, anyway. "Sam," he said. "One last exorcism, okay?"
"I wasn't myself," Sam said. Peter could barely make out his words over the clamor of the seal. "You were right. My powers...These abilities...They made me something else."
"Wrong." Peter grabbed Sam by the shoulder and shook him. "You are what you are, Sam. You have your powers, I have my powers, and we can either become monsters, or we can fight."
"I stabbed Dean." Sam sounded forlorn, lost, and he looked through Peter as if he were invisible.
Peter knew that haunted look. He'd seen it in the mirror while Nathan lay broken in his bed, covered in burns.
"Yes you did. You did. But you can't worry about that now."
Peter felt the demon inside him fighting, howling as the energy from the seal grew. He shoved it back and tried again. "Sam, hurry."
Sam looked down at hands that were covered with blood. "I did that..."
"Sam, you have to close the seal. The book said that a righteous man had to send the demons back. There was no other way."
"A righteous man?" Sam looked pained. "Peter, I'm not--."
"You are. And you're going to prove it when you close the seal."
"I can't!"
"Sam--" As Peter's mind raced to find a way to get through to Sam, the demon took advantage of his lapsed concentration and broke through Peter's control. "Sam!"
Peter dropped the book and let go of Sam. He clawed against the demon's control, but Vetis was strong, and he would not be unseated. He dropped to one knee, and looked up into Sam's startled face. "It's all right, Sam. Let it happen."
Sam's expression blew right past confusion and into anger when he saw that Peter's eyes were black. "You," he growled.
"I knew this would happen. I believe in you, Sam. I don't care what the others said. You've done the right thing in the end."
+++++
"Sam, it's not P-Peter," Caroline stammered.
The demon unflinchingly slapped her hard across the face, hand sizzling against her protections, before turning back to Sam. "You know that. Boy king. Sammy. You're one of us. You couldn't save the seal now even if you wanted to. That takes a righteous man..." He looked around the room. "Caroline over there isn't a man, so that leaves who?" He gestured to himself. "Hell's whore? Or you." He chuckled, and the wind in the room seemed to echo the sound. "Sam Winchester."
"I'm one of the good guys," Sam said, but it sounded weak, even to his own ears.
"The good guys ran for safety. Well, after you stabbed one of them. Come on, Sam. You knew you could never be a good little soldier for the angels like big brother. You never really wanted to be."
"You're wrong. Dean and I are on the same side. The righteous side."
"Are you? That's not the way it looks. You're becoming who you're meant to be."
Sam looked down at the demon kneeling before him in Peter's body, and stretched out his hand. "I'm already who I'm meant to be," he said. The demon jerked in pain as Sam began to pull at him. "Caroline," Sam said calmly. "Pick up the book. Now."
Caroline grabbed the book off the floor and flipped back to the page she'd showed Peter. "Read, Caroline." Quickly, she began to read aloud.
The demon writhed as Sam continued to draw it out. "Don't, Sammy," he gasped. "This isn't what you want. You belong with us. You can't go back to Dean, not after what you've done."
"I'd rather have Dean live and hate me than sacrifice him for a throne in Hell." Sam pulled, hard, and Vetis came tearing out of Peter's throat and down into the seal. Caroline shouted the last of the incantation, and the room went deathly still and pitch dark. Then the room began to shake.
Peter fell to his hands and knees coughing. Sam was at his side immediately. "Come on," he said. "We've gotta get out of here."
"We've got to bury it," Peter coughed. He pulled himself up with Sam's help and his hands began to glow softly, shedding some light in the darkness. "Make sure it can't be used again."
"How do we--?"
The house began to tremble along with the ground.
"Get Caroline, and stand close," Peter said.
Sam hauled Caroline up by the arm and dragged her over toward Peter. The book fell from her nervous hands. She wailed wordlessly, and groped after it.
"Sam, come on!" Peter called.
No time to find the book. Sam crabbed Caroline and hauled her toward the sound of Peter's voice. Peter reached out blindly. He clutched Sam's shirt and closed his eyes as pieces of wood and rock began to fall around them.
"Peter... Anytime," Sam said nervously.
Peter held on even more tightly, Sam had a disorienting moment of vertigo, and then they were standing in the pre-dawn light in the yard.
+++++
Nathan had just gotten Dean laid out on the grass beside the garden wall when the roaring that had been coming from the house resolved itself into a rumble, and then a crash. He stood and watched in horror as the house collapsed in on itself. "Peter!" he screamed. He had already taken a few stumbling steps towards the rubble when he heard a shout behind him.
"Nathan!"
He turned to see Peter, Sam, and Caroline standing in the yard a few feet away. Caroline sank to her knees right away, and Peter looked nearly ready to collapse himself, but Sam went right to Dean's side.
"Peter..." Sam said brokenly. He pressed a hand to Dean's belly, trying to stay the flow of blood. "Please...Aaron's power, Dean..."
"That a new one Pete?" Nathan broke in quickly, glad Dean was probably too out of it to hear.
"I can help him," Peter said, but when he took a step, he swayed dangerously.
Nathan jumped in to catch him. "Not so fast." Nathan made a quick decision. Between using a new power and a practiced one, using the practiced one took less out of Peter. And right now there was a faint translucent glow to Peter's skin that Nathan knew was a danger sign. "Take Dean and get him to a hospital, now. I'll take care of Sam and Caroline."
"I am not leaving you here with him." Peter's voice was adamant.
"Peter it's okay," he soothed.
"He just stabbed his brother," Peter hissed. "It is definitely not okay."
"I can handle this." And I know you can handle Dean, Pete. He needs help now. Go. Nathan thought at him hard.
Peter staggered over to where Dean lay, and gathered him up in his arms with an assist from Sam. For a moment, Sam and Peter stood facing each other, holding Dean's bleeding body between them.
If you hurt him, I don't care how much demon mind mojo you use, I will tear off your head and stick it on a pike to mark the entrance to hell. Got it? Peter thought at Sam, letting Nathan "eavesdrop."
"Yeah," Sam croaked.
"Okay then." Peter stepped clear of Sam, shifted Dean so he had a firm grip on him, and they disappeared.
+++++
"Sam."
He looked up with effort, finding Nathan towering over him, Caroline, shoulders hunched and hands bound, at his side.
"She has protections," Sam mumbled pointlessly.
"Apparently ancient spells don't cover plastic." Sam looked again, and realized Caroline's hands were bound with zip ties.
"Oh."
"Come on Sam, we have to get out of here."
Nathan's voice was brisk and matter-of-fact, maybe the best antidote to all of the screaming and raging that had been going on today. But even as Sam stood, he realized his hands and clothing were still covered in dried blood. Dean's blood. He swayed, vision going gray, as Nathan caught his elbow.
"Sam, he's going to be fine. Peter will take care of him."
"I should have..." Sam trailed off, closing his eyes in anguish.
"I should have listened to Peter weeks earlier than I did when he had his first dreams, but I didn't, and now I'm living this life and making the best of it I can. Use it Sam, don't let it eat at you. I think we're all too far into this to give up in despair." Nathan cut off Sam's angsting before it could even begin.
It brought him up short, and while it solved nothing, it broke him out his sharp downward spiral. Sam shook his head and looked up with more determination. It was a brittle, fragile strength, little more than a facade, but it would do until he had a chance to set things straight with Dean, somehow.
"Ok.... ok," Sam said, taking a deep breath.
"Sam..." Nathan started, and hesitated a long moment, glancing at Caroline. "At one time I held a lot of power in my hands. I was in a position to let a lot of people die, starting with Peter, for the sake of the greater good. I might have been able to save the world if I had gone through with it, but I wouldn't have been able to live with myself."
Sam put that together with what Peter had told him about himself, and swallowed hard. "Was it worth it?" Sam asked.
"So far? Yes. I'm living with myself now, for the first time in a while."
Sam didn't know what to say to that, but Nathan didn't seem to mind. He started steering Caroline toward the car.
"Come on," he said. "We need to get going. I want to get out of this place." He looked back over his shoulder at Sam. "Ready?"
Sam closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again to see the sun peeking over the rubble of the ruined mansion. "Ready," he said, and followed.
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![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-05-10 02:17 pm (UTC)*faints again*
no subject
Date: 2009-05-12 04:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-10 09:18 pm (UTC)Awesome!
Sam sounded forlorn, lost, and he looked through Peter as if he were invisible.
Peter knew that haunted look. He'd seen it in the mirror while Nathan lay broken in his bed, covered in burns.
It's perfect. :)))
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Date: 2009-05-12 04:07 pm (UTC)