always_enduphere | (no subject)

(no subject)

The chapel is small. Built for mourners on the edge of the dead, its walls are clean and white, sturdy, meant for shelter. Wood and brick, not meant to contain the darkness now held within them, twitching in the form of the body strapped prone to a hasty trap made of splintered pews.

It's quiet inside, removed enough from the city that the only sounds are rattling breaths from the body in chains, snatches of anxious voices and the occasional rumble of the floor, creaking and groaning from unseen onslaught, but holding.

There's an energy in the air, an electricity that raises hackles along with hairs, pouring from the ravaged body in an angry throb, but within the trap it can't do more than rattle walls, beneath the chains that smoke its skin, it can't do more than hiss curses on borrowed breath, and promise agonies yet to come.

In the center of the trap, the thing wearing Dean Winchester bares its teeth, blinking black towards any with stomach left to look at him.

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The space of time between when I lay crumpled on the floor of that dirty alleyway, and bursting through the doors of this chapel, is a jumbled mess of fragments. I know that I got up and ran, I know that Mike was there with me. I know that I called Sam-- there's even proof of it on the call log of my phone. I know that I doubled over and puked behind a gravestone just yards from the front door. That was probably disrespectful or something.

I'll be sorry later.

It's quiet now. The murmur of voices are barely a hum, and all that rot and profanity spewing from him, sitting there in the middle of all this, has died down. I sit down on a pew, knife in hand, and think about what Cas said: There's a brand that has to be cut. We're gonna have to find it.

Luckily, I gotta little bit of strength left. I look up at him and I know this is gonna be over, soon. We'll make this right, 'cause if we don't... by the look of things, he's not gonna be able to hold out much longer.

Edited 2013-04-15 21:46 (UTC)

He's been moving, because staying still is difficult. Making slow, wide sweeps around the edge of the chapel, watching everything, feeling the hum in the air, the potential release of energy. But there's a center that always draws him back and it does now, and it's not Dean.

He stops in front of Neil, drops into a crouch and lays his hands over the knife. He doesn't say anything. There's only so much he could say.

I didn't even hear him coming. It's like, all the sudden he's just there, filling up my entire field of vision, his hand warm and solid atop my own.

I blink, shaking myself out of whatever the fuck daze I just settled into, clearing my throat and pressing my lips together into something I hope looks reassuring.

"He doesn't look good," I croak, my free hand lifting to cover Mike's. "He's so fuckin' thin. I just... What the fuck is it even doing?"

"Torturing us." He knows torture when he sees it, complex torture, endless interwoven layers of pain and power. The thing is a master at it. Of course. "All it can do now is make us watch it and it knows it."

He almost smiles. It's a thin, twisted thing. He lifts one hand and palms the side of Neil's face, tugging him gently closer. "Gotta be honest, I'm pretty much fucking sick of things using how much we love each other against us."

"More trouble than it's fuckin' worth," I mutter, but I turn to press my lips against his palm, shifting toward him when I'm pulled closer.

"What did Cas say?" I ask, nodding toward him. I watched them talk, just a few feet away, but I didn't have it in me to go over and listen.

"We have to take care of the brands. Both of us, at the same time Sam's doing the actual exorcism shit." He pulls in a breath. Of course this won't be easy. Of course it never could be.

"He said we get one shot at this. Or it's gonna kill Dean."

Snorting out a bitter laugh, I say, "Go team."

An angel, a bouncer at a strip club, two sex toy peddlers and a blood drinking demon hunter. I guess there've been worse odds.

He laughs too, though it's not bitter. Tired, maybe, but he's past bitterness.

He's not sure when he last felt that, either.

"We're gonna do this." He sighs and tips their foreheads together. This is giving him strength, like it always does. "It's gonna be okay."

"We fuckin' better," I say, managing a crooked smile, free hand settling on the side of his face.

"I love you," I murmur, knowing we can't stay like this for much longer, but I can't bring myself to pull away.

He closes his eyes. Part of him wants to stay. All of him is fed up, tired, ready to be done. But in the midst of the darkness that's choking this place there are these little islands of light.

"I love you too." He smiles faintly. "So there's that."

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