![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nilchanceTitle: All Children Touch the Sun
Authors:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nilchance and beanside
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: The Winchesters don't belong to us (and I think they're kinda grateful for that, cause we're mean.) No infringement intended. No lawsuit preferred.
Summary: Consider this a little teaser for the upcoming sequel, Sins of Our Fathers (which we're several chapters into--and actually have a clue where we're going with it now!)
A/N: Thanks to our wonderful betas, especiallycoiledsoul, who has provided handholding and sounding board services. We couldn't do it without you.
Father is screaming.
Wendy woke. As always, there was the jarring moment where her mind scrabbled to catch up, caught between her pallet and the searing light from which her father had called. She laid a hand over her mouth, stilling the whimpers, quieting the sickening pain behind her eyes. Stared at the folds in the rock close above her head until she found the patterns that father had showed her. See, there. It’s like an open mouth. See there, it’s like a scroll. You’ll live in here with your sisters, safe as bears. Don’t try to run, my sweet girl.
I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I won’t- please don’t hurt me anymore.
Wendy. His voice, strong and pure as God’s. Darlin’, don’t make me.
Now. Now, in the quiet, with the January winds howling low across the rocks outside. Now in the silence of father’s absence. Her sisters curled around her, whimpering in the vicious cold. Tiny hands dig at her bare arms, little bodies trying to crawl inside her and live there until this cold snap passes.
They were still new. They wanted their mothers. In a few years, they would forget mothers and soft rooms that fostered weakness. They were young; they would learn.
Wendy was their mother now. So she soothed them, soft throaty noises, little bits of songs she heard on the radio coming in and out of town. Nonsense about yellow submarines. The restless ones quieted, and Wendy got up to find Logan.
As usual, all she had to do was follow the screaming.
The older children were still up, gathered tight around a guttering campfire. The firelight cast dancing shadows around the folded, wind-worn rocks. Fox danced in and out of the fire, their wild child with his dark hair sticking up in gel-shellacked spikes and his bare feet in the embers. Fires didn’t burn Fox; they never had. Not their lovely boy, who could start a bonfire in the pouring rain, who could coax a spark from the wet places deep under the skin. He ignored her as he ignored everyone since Father left them, his expression drawn tight and shadowed.
Out in the dark, Wendy could see a small pale shape moving. She heard the occasional whimper, the sharp sound-scent of flesh being torn. Daddy’s little angel was out on the hunt. Then again, she always was.
The Badlands crouched around them, sheltering them with coyotes and snakes, shadows and banshee winds. The boys watched her evenly as someone in Logan’s tent screamed and begged. Some of them smiled, shyly bending their fingers in a child’s wave.
Father is dead, she thought as she looked at their young faces. He’s dead, and we’re alone. They’ll come for us now. We’re going to die out here.
When she saw the boys start to suspect, Wendy smiled back. Then she pulled her boots on and clomped across the rocks to the black tent. There were wet noises coming from within, soft choking. Slick sounds.
Wendy pulled the tent flap aside, and wasn’t surprised to see Logan already there, blocking her view. Logan knew everything.
Over Logan’s shoulder, Wendy could see Craig. His empty, burnt-out eyes were rolled back in his head, and he was shivering the way he did when he made his dreams play out, dancing lights on the canyon walls. Pretty illusions for the children. Less pretty dreams for Logan, especially lately.
Every night, Logan had taken Craig aside. Every night, Craig made the same stranger scream and die in Logan’s cabin. Again, again, again. Wendy knew the stranger’s name. They all did. He was one of them now, and they knew their own.
Dean Winchester. Prodigal, traitor, murderer.
“Bad dream?” Logan asked quietly. He was older than Wendy, oldest of any of them. Oldest brother Logan, who was there before Meg or Tom came along. Logan, who was always third, their father’s unquestioning shadow.
Looking up into his patient eyes, Wendy felt her heart flutter in her throat. She swallowed hard, feeling her face start to crumple. “Father,” she whispered. “You… you told me not to try to find him. I didn’t even mean to, I-“
Logan gave her his slow smile. “It’s okay. I thought you might.” His eyes found hers, a question in them. For all his gentleness, he shared the desperation they all felt. “Did you find him?”
Wendy trembled. Her mind felt like a brimming cup, full of that horrible light. That woman in the red dress, father’s heart in her slick hands, laughing. “The nightmares were right. Father is lost to us,” she whispered. “He’s dead.”
Logan closed his eyes. Sorrow touched his face, bent his head in silence. Then he sighed. “So that’s it, then.”
“When should we tell the others?” Wendy asked.
“We aren’t.” Logan raised his head. The firelight reflected in his dark eyes as he pinned Wendy with them. “They don’t have to know.”
“But when Father doesn’t come back-“
“Tell them that it’s a test of our faith. We’ve displeased him. Failed him. We have to prove ourselves worthy of his love.” As another wet noise came from behind him, Logan’s fists clenched at his side. Logan looked away from her, speaking to the dry earth beneath them. “We have to continue his mission. We have to keep gathering our brothers and sisters to us.”
Wendy thought of her sisters, tucked away in their cribs to wait for madness to prey on them. To wait for rough men to come and bind them up in white coats, shock and drug them until their minds were broken back into dust. She thought of the brother that was still lost to them, how the enemy had twisted him, until he didn’t know what was best for him anymore. Of pretty, hard-eyed Sam, hurting so badly when he didn’t even have to.
She nodded, slowly, though she was afraid.
“Good,” Logan murmured. Then he gave her his gentle smile and reached out, folding her up in his arms. “Oh, Wendy. Everything’s going to be all right. We’ll make it.”
Grasping his shirt in her fists, Wendy gave in to the urge to bury her face in her brother’s shirt. Logan was wise. He would protect them. But- “I miss Father. I miss Meg and Tom.”
“I know. I do, too. But I know they’d want us to be brave.” Logan shook her a little, gently, then held her out at arms length. “There will be no more dying. Not for us. Okay?”
Wendy nodded, sniffling. From behind Logan, something gurgled. Wendy thought of the woman with father’s heart in her hands, and felt her mouth curve on a tight not-smile. She reached behind her, tugging the tent-flap closed, and said, “I want to watch with you.”
Logan considered her, a funny look on his face. Then he looked over his shoulder at Craig and said, “Play it again, man. One more time. Unless you’re tired-“
Craig shook his head and settled in deeper in Logan’s jacket, which hung huge on his shoulders. Logan gave Craig a smile that the boy didn’t see and turned Wendy, oddly gracious, towards his cot. She climbed on his lap, though she was too big for it now. Logan held her loosely, his chin resting on her shoulder.
As the vision flickered to life, their prodigal brother strung up and beginning to bleed, Logan murmured in her ear, “I wish father hadn’t died before he could explain. Why that one? Why him, when all father talked about before was Sam?”
“I don’t know.” Wendy studied the clean, handsome lines of Dean Winchester’s face. Watched them twist and distort as he began to suffer. She knew the geography of Sam’s dreams; she’d walked them again and again, scouting out territory, reporting to Father. Dean was a mystery, closed to her, and she did not want to walk his mind. She did not want to feel his hate, his darkness. To take Father’s power, to have Father touch him, to know that pleasure… and to turn on him?
Don’t try to run.
Father, why would I? Kiss me again.
So good. His hands on her, reward. So very good.
No. Wendy did not want to touch that diseased mind, to peel back layers and see the sticky darkness within. It turned her stomach. He turned her stomach. Liar. Murderer. Traitor.
“Wendy,” Logan whispered. “Honey. I need you to-“
“I know.” Wendy watched as an invisible hand ruined one pretty green eye. She didn’t blink, storing it up in her memory to rub like a comfort stone. “I’ll do it. Him and Sam. I’ll start tomorrow.”
“That’s my girl,” Logan crooned. His hand rubbed her stomach, gently, soothing, like he did when they were children. “Shallow cuts, remember. Just to weaken them. We need Sam alive. He’s our brother. He can still be saved.”
Wendy smiled, curling her fingers with Logan’s. After a moment, she slid their twined hands lower on her stomach, beneath the waistband of her sweatpants. “Tell me,” she said breathlessly, “what we’re going to do to Dean. Tell me.”
Logan smiled against her throat, curling his fingers against her. He crooned violence in her ear, stroking lightly, teasing.
As the illusion’s blood spilled wet and hot over their coiled bodies, Wendy came screaming her father’s name: Belial, Belial, Belial.
Authors:
nilchance and beansideRating: NC-17
Disclaimer: The Winchesters don't belong to us (and I think they're kinda grateful for that, cause we're mean.) No infringement intended. No lawsuit preferred.
Summary: Consider this a little teaser for the upcoming sequel, Sins of Our Fathers (which we're several chapters into--and actually have a clue where we're going with it now!)
A/N: Thanks to our wonderful betas, especially
coiledsoul, who has provided handholding and sounding board services. We couldn't do it without you.Father is screaming.
Wendy woke. As always, there was the jarring moment where her mind scrabbled to catch up, caught between her pallet and the searing light from which her father had called. She laid a hand over her mouth, stilling the whimpers, quieting the sickening pain behind her eyes. Stared at the folds in the rock close above her head until she found the patterns that father had showed her. See, there. It’s like an open mouth. See there, it’s like a scroll. You’ll live in here with your sisters, safe as bears. Don’t try to run, my sweet girl.
I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I won’t- please don’t hurt me anymore.
Wendy. His voice, strong and pure as God’s. Darlin’, don’t make me.
Now. Now, in the quiet, with the January winds howling low across the rocks outside. Now in the silence of father’s absence. Her sisters curled around her, whimpering in the vicious cold. Tiny hands dig at her bare arms, little bodies trying to crawl inside her and live there until this cold snap passes.
They were still new. They wanted their mothers. In a few years, they would forget mothers and soft rooms that fostered weakness. They were young; they would learn.
Wendy was their mother now. So she soothed them, soft throaty noises, little bits of songs she heard on the radio coming in and out of town. Nonsense about yellow submarines. The restless ones quieted, and Wendy got up to find Logan.
As usual, all she had to do was follow the screaming.
The older children were still up, gathered tight around a guttering campfire. The firelight cast dancing shadows around the folded, wind-worn rocks. Fox danced in and out of the fire, their wild child with his dark hair sticking up in gel-shellacked spikes and his bare feet in the embers. Fires didn’t burn Fox; they never had. Not their lovely boy, who could start a bonfire in the pouring rain, who could coax a spark from the wet places deep under the skin. He ignored her as he ignored everyone since Father left them, his expression drawn tight and shadowed.
Out in the dark, Wendy could see a small pale shape moving. She heard the occasional whimper, the sharp sound-scent of flesh being torn. Daddy’s little angel was out on the hunt. Then again, she always was.
The Badlands crouched around them, sheltering them with coyotes and snakes, shadows and banshee winds. The boys watched her evenly as someone in Logan’s tent screamed and begged. Some of them smiled, shyly bending their fingers in a child’s wave.
Father is dead, she thought as she looked at their young faces. He’s dead, and we’re alone. They’ll come for us now. We’re going to die out here.
When she saw the boys start to suspect, Wendy smiled back. Then she pulled her boots on and clomped across the rocks to the black tent. There were wet noises coming from within, soft choking. Slick sounds.
Wendy pulled the tent flap aside, and wasn’t surprised to see Logan already there, blocking her view. Logan knew everything.
Over Logan’s shoulder, Wendy could see Craig. His empty, burnt-out eyes were rolled back in his head, and he was shivering the way he did when he made his dreams play out, dancing lights on the canyon walls. Pretty illusions for the children. Less pretty dreams for Logan, especially lately.
Every night, Logan had taken Craig aside. Every night, Craig made the same stranger scream and die in Logan’s cabin. Again, again, again. Wendy knew the stranger’s name. They all did. He was one of them now, and they knew their own.
Dean Winchester. Prodigal, traitor, murderer.
“Bad dream?” Logan asked quietly. He was older than Wendy, oldest of any of them. Oldest brother Logan, who was there before Meg or Tom came along. Logan, who was always third, their father’s unquestioning shadow.
Looking up into his patient eyes, Wendy felt her heart flutter in her throat. She swallowed hard, feeling her face start to crumple. “Father,” she whispered. “You… you told me not to try to find him. I didn’t even mean to, I-“
Logan gave her his slow smile. “It’s okay. I thought you might.” His eyes found hers, a question in them. For all his gentleness, he shared the desperation they all felt. “Did you find him?”
Wendy trembled. Her mind felt like a brimming cup, full of that horrible light. That woman in the red dress, father’s heart in her slick hands, laughing. “The nightmares were right. Father is lost to us,” she whispered. “He’s dead.”
Logan closed his eyes. Sorrow touched his face, bent his head in silence. Then he sighed. “So that’s it, then.”
“When should we tell the others?” Wendy asked.
“We aren’t.” Logan raised his head. The firelight reflected in his dark eyes as he pinned Wendy with them. “They don’t have to know.”
“But when Father doesn’t come back-“
“Tell them that it’s a test of our faith. We’ve displeased him. Failed him. We have to prove ourselves worthy of his love.” As another wet noise came from behind him, Logan’s fists clenched at his side. Logan looked away from her, speaking to the dry earth beneath them. “We have to continue his mission. We have to keep gathering our brothers and sisters to us.”
Wendy thought of her sisters, tucked away in their cribs to wait for madness to prey on them. To wait for rough men to come and bind them up in white coats, shock and drug them until their minds were broken back into dust. She thought of the brother that was still lost to them, how the enemy had twisted him, until he didn’t know what was best for him anymore. Of pretty, hard-eyed Sam, hurting so badly when he didn’t even have to.
She nodded, slowly, though she was afraid.
“Good,” Logan murmured. Then he gave her his gentle smile and reached out, folding her up in his arms. “Oh, Wendy. Everything’s going to be all right. We’ll make it.”
Grasping his shirt in her fists, Wendy gave in to the urge to bury her face in her brother’s shirt. Logan was wise. He would protect them. But- “I miss Father. I miss Meg and Tom.”
“I know. I do, too. But I know they’d want us to be brave.” Logan shook her a little, gently, then held her out at arms length. “There will be no more dying. Not for us. Okay?”
Wendy nodded, sniffling. From behind Logan, something gurgled. Wendy thought of the woman with father’s heart in her hands, and felt her mouth curve on a tight not-smile. She reached behind her, tugging the tent-flap closed, and said, “I want to watch with you.”
Logan considered her, a funny look on his face. Then he looked over his shoulder at Craig and said, “Play it again, man. One more time. Unless you’re tired-“
Craig shook his head and settled in deeper in Logan’s jacket, which hung huge on his shoulders. Logan gave Craig a smile that the boy didn’t see and turned Wendy, oddly gracious, towards his cot. She climbed on his lap, though she was too big for it now. Logan held her loosely, his chin resting on her shoulder.
As the vision flickered to life, their prodigal brother strung up and beginning to bleed, Logan murmured in her ear, “I wish father hadn’t died before he could explain. Why that one? Why him, when all father talked about before was Sam?”
“I don’t know.” Wendy studied the clean, handsome lines of Dean Winchester’s face. Watched them twist and distort as he began to suffer. She knew the geography of Sam’s dreams; she’d walked them again and again, scouting out territory, reporting to Father. Dean was a mystery, closed to her, and she did not want to walk his mind. She did not want to feel his hate, his darkness. To take Father’s power, to have Father touch him, to know that pleasure… and to turn on him?
Don’t try to run.
Father, why would I? Kiss me again.
So good. His hands on her, reward. So very good.
No. Wendy did not want to touch that diseased mind, to peel back layers and see the sticky darkness within. It turned her stomach. He turned her stomach. Liar. Murderer. Traitor.
“Wendy,” Logan whispered. “Honey. I need you to-“
“I know.” Wendy watched as an invisible hand ruined one pretty green eye. She didn’t blink, storing it up in her memory to rub like a comfort stone. “I’ll do it. Him and Sam. I’ll start tomorrow.”
“That’s my girl,” Logan crooned. His hand rubbed her stomach, gently, soothing, like he did when they were children. “Shallow cuts, remember. Just to weaken them. We need Sam alive. He’s our brother. He can still be saved.”
Wendy smiled, curling her fingers with Logan’s. After a moment, she slid their twined hands lower on her stomach, beneath the waistband of her sweatpants. “Tell me,” she said breathlessly, “what we’re going to do to Dean. Tell me.”
Logan smiled against her throat, curling his fingers against her. He crooned violence in her ear, stroking lightly, teasing.
As the illusion’s blood spilled wet and hot over their coiled bodies, Wendy came screaming her father’s name: Belial, Belial, Belial.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-25 03:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-28 05:44 pm (UTC)