The Hollow Hills - A fic. Part One
Jul. 21st, 2010 02:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amberdreamsSet between On the Head of a Pin and It's a Terrible Life - this is Season 4 so all is not well between our boys.
There is swearing, no sex but talk of it; Dean gets whumped and Sam gets angry.
One shot (but longish): 13000 words give or take. COVER ART HERE
The Hollow Hills
By
Amberdreams
If you do not come too close, if you do not come too close,
On a summer midnight, you can hear the music
Of the weak pipe and the little drum
And see them dancing around the bonfire
T S Elliot
-*-*-*-
After nearly three days and nights of fruitless searching, Sam finally rang Bobby. He didn’t know what else to do. Ruby had failed him; her burning map trick had produced nothing but ashes this time, and he had nearly blasted her back to Hell in frustration and rage. That was two days ago, he hadn’t seen her since, and she wasn’t answering her cell.
His veins were still humming with a thousand volts of electricity from his last dose of Ruby’s blood, taken the night Dean went missing. He knew this feeling would last for a couple of weeks, but the demon-blood high wasn’t helping his concentration. He was unravelling and needed something more human to hold himself together; Bobby was the only person he could trust. The only person who was smart enough and wise enough to find the solution he was blatantly overlooking, and find his stupid, reckless, pain in the ass brother...
“You stay put, boy, don’t do anythin’ stupid. I’ll be with ya in less than two days.”
-*-*-*-
“This Cave of Kelpies is for real then? I thought you were making it up,”
Dean took a left as instructed, Sam’s long finger on the map commanding them through the maze of Philadelphia suburbs that surrounded the green oasis of the Wissahickon Valley. The Wissahickon, as Sam helpfully informed him, was a small tributary of the Schuylkill River that ran down to join the mighty Allegheny as it wove its way through the heart of the City of Brotherly Love.
And wasn’t that just ironic, Dean thought bitterly, given the current state of the sibling relationship of the Winchesters. Only two days after discharging himself from hospital in Cheyenne, Dean’s external injuries from the beating Alastair had administered were still clearly visible, which made sweet-talking diner waitresses a little more difficult than usual. So it was just as well his heart wasn’t in it. He left Sam to wield his potent weapon of puppy dog charm, and concentrated on – well, nothing very much really – except staying awake while he was driving, and not thinking too much. Not thinking was good, in the circumstances.
He was finding it difficult to muster up any enthusiasm for this job Sam had dug up like some dusty archaeological relic. His still-healing ribs ached in the persistently cold damp winter air, and he felt old and weary.
Both brothers were still silently aching and bruised from the fight the siren had instigated before they got to Cheyenne, and although those physical injuries had all healed weeks ago, there was a lingering internal bleeding of the spirit neither Winchester was willing to acknowledge. The silence in the Impala had been deafening as they had passed back through Iowa, carefully bypassing Bedford.
Dean didn’t need to spare a sideways glance to see if Sam was making the expected bitch-face at his deliberate mangling of the place-name, he could hear the expression in Sam’s voice as he impatiently corrected his older brother.
“Cave of Kelpius, Dean, not kelpies, kelpies are water-spr…”
“I know what a freakin’ kelpie is Sam! Saved your lily-white butt from one back in Lake Lansing, if you remember.”
Dean found his grip tightening on the steering wheel and made a conscious effort to relax. Being with Sam these days was like chewing silver paper on metal fillings, like the scrape of fingernails on a blackboard, it set his teeth on edge and he hated that feeling. It was wrong in so many ways, and he wanted – no – longed – to restore the easy banter they had shared before.
Before Hell. Before the entrance of Ruby the two-faced bitch demon. Before the lying and the secrets and the whole heap of crap that had been heaped on their shoulders. Before words had been spoken that could not be recalled, no matter how badly they both wished it. Before Alastair had beaten the living crap out of him and left him a bleeding mess on the floor. Before Sam had killed a high powered demon, the Torquemada of Hell, with nothing but the power of his mind.
Before a demon had told him it was all his fault, and an angel had said that only he could stop it. The Apocalypse.
There was an awkward silence for a few moments, not even slightly filled by the raw tones of James Hetfield as the cassette tape launched into Until it Sleeps. The two-day drive had been filled with too many of these painful moments, Dean thought, wearily. He swung the Impala hard right as they reached an official-looking sign announcing the Fairmont Park main trail, and below it a hand-painted billboard advertising the Forbidden Drive Motel. He bit back a joke about fair (and forbidden) mounts he had known, feeling that it would not help lighten the atmosphere, laden as it was with guilt and anger.
It was hard to see how they were doing more than papering over the cracks…and the fucking holes just kept getting wider and wider every day. More like the Grand Canyon than hairline cracks in flaking plaster.
The dense woodland of Fairmount Park closed in around them, making it feel as though the low winter sun had already set, even though it was barely 3pm. The dark, damp scent of rotting leaves and earth filtered through the Impala’s air vents, pushing away the more industrial smells of exhaust and concrete, replacing the man-made with something infinitely more atavistic. Primeval. Like that British TV show with the dinosaurs he’d seen one time on cable; he half expected a ginormous pterodactyl to come swooping down over the tree tops to pick up the Impala in its giant claws…
“You aren’t fantasising about dinosaurs again are you, Dean?” Sam interrupted his train of thought with shocking prescience. Sometimes it was less about Sam being psychic and more about his little brother being under Dean’s skin in a way he didn’t even like to think about. So he blustered something incoherent in denial, perfectly aware that Sam wasn’t fooled one little bit. Again he didn’t need to look to feel the grin on Sam’s face at catching his big brother out, and somewhere deep inside Dean’s chest, a knot loosened and his shoulders relaxed, just a fraction.
He pulled into the Motel car park and shared a brief raised eyebrow with Sam as they took in the cutesy pseudo-period décor. The building looked as though it hadn’t been able to make a decision between a genuine 17th century inn (which it’s signs claimed it to be) and the ginger-bread cottage from Hansel and Gretel. Dean felt a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“Shit, I hope this place is run by the wicked witch from Snow White, dude – she was hot…”
Sam snorted, and Dean was secretly delighted to see him unable to suppress a laugh.
“I assume you mean the porn version,” Sam made a feeble attempt at sounding disapproving.
“And you said you never watched it…I knew you were lying!” Dean crowed, as Sam blushed.
As they unloaded their duffels from the trunk after checking in, Dean didn’t even notice how he was absently fingering his bruised ribs as he basked in the warmth of being shoulder to shoulder with his little brother in a way they hadn’t experienced for days (or maybe longer).
Sadly that old habit of easy camaraderie was all too short-lived.
-*-*-*-
It was with some relief that Sam watched Dean slowly unwind. His brother had been as tangled and sharp-edged as a razor-wire fence since Cheyenne – since Alastair had revealed Dean’s part in breaking the first seal, and then Castiel had added to his burden by feeding him that Nostradamus crap about the righteous man being the one to end it all. When Sam thought about it, his heart ached for Dean. The enigmatic angel had been conspicuous by his absence since dumping his revelation on the elder Winchester while refusing to heal him. Sam had been left alone to cope with a shattered wreck of a man, helpless to do anything but watch as his once indomitable big brother tried to painfully piece himself back together both physically and mentally.
And all the while, underneath the genuine pity and compassion he felt, ran a fiery undercurrent of resentment, rage and a barely acknowledged contempt for the weakness he saw in every glance of his brother’s shadowed hazel eyes. Sam was like a volcano these days, full of slow moving molten lava overlaying an ominously building pressure, just waiting for the right trigger to be released. Every now and again Sam caught himself wondering if Ruby’s blood was exacerbating the simmering undercurrent that tingled through him like electricity, then he’d dismiss the idea as a sign of his own weakness. Man up, Sam Winchester, he’d think angrily, you know it is all up to you now, you gotta be strong.
Sam loaded the small fridge with Team Winchester essentials, a crate of bottled beer and a couple of pints of milk. He chucked their other supplies, a box of Lucky Charms and some bread, onto the worktop next to the sink, then flung himself into the room’s single semi-comfy chair, that was clearly intending to be a sofa but failing miserably.
He watched in silence as Dean methodically unpacked his duffel, laying out his favourite .45 on a piece of newspaper on the small kitchen table, ready for the daily weapon-cleaning ritual. Dean was moving with a degree of stiffness that telegraphed to Sam that he was still in a fair amount of pain, though of course the stubborn ass had stopped taking the pain-killers the doctor had prescribed the minute he walked out of the hospital doors in Wyoming. “Can’t take that shit and drive, Sammy” had been the response to Sam’s protests, and the younger man hadn’t bothered to point out the obvious answer was to let him shoulder some of the burden and drive the Impala, because he knew it would be wasted breath.
He thought about the last time he’d seen Ruby. The last time he’d dosed himself up on demon blood. It had been over a week now, and he could feel the tug (insistent, ever present, insidious) of want, of need. He knew he wasn’t addicted; this was a necessary evil. In fact, he wasn’t entirely convinced it was even evil, not if it meant he would be ready to kill Lilith when the time came. After all, the angels were a bunch of douche-bags, even Dean said so. Why worry what a bunch of douche-bags thought or said…?
“So, we checking this cave out later tonight then?” Dean asked, as he pulled an oily rag that might once have been a Metallica t-shirt out of his bag with a flourish.
Sam nodded in reply. He’d probably swing by the cave himself after he’d met up with Ruby, so it wasn’t an out and out lie.
While Dean settled down to dismantle his guns, Sam slipped into the bathroom with Dean’s untouched tub of heavy-duty painkillers and a bottle of beer. This was for Dean’s own good. Sam knew his big brother hadn’t been sleeping – the lingering pain of his recent injuries combined with the ever present nightmares from Hell meant the elder hunter rarely slept for more than an hour at a time these days; and since leaving Cheyenne, Sam didn’t think Dean had hardly even managed a straight hour, let alone two consecutive ones. The results were clear to see in the increased pallor of his brother’s skin, emphasising the dark shadows around tired eyes.
Sam crushed three tablets into a fine powder and carefully dosed the cold beer, trickling the powder in slowly to stop the tell-tale fizz. He didn’t think about how much easier it was getting each time to lie to his brother, or how freaky smooth he was becoming at subterfuge and deception.
An easy smile plastered on his face, he strolled over to the fridge and made a show of pulling out two cold ones and pretending to flip the caps off both before offering Dean the pre-prepared bottle. Absorbed in the pleasantly mechanical task of weapons maintenance, Dean took his bottle absently and downed half of it in a couple of thirsty gulps. Sam sipped his own beer thoughtfully and slowly, surreptitiously watching his brother over the top of his laptop as he tapped in a few random searches, waiting for the drugs to take effect. It didn’t take long.
He saw Dean’s sure hands falter over reassembling the colt, felt a brief satisfaction as he saw those long lashed eyelids begin to droop. He snapped the lid of the laptop closed and made a show of yawning. He glanced at his watch. 8pm.
“Don’t know about you, but I’m whacked. Think I’ll grab a few minutes before we go out.” He made his way over to the bed he’d claimed earlier, beating Dean to the one nearest the door for a change, and stretched himself out, arms behind his head. He studiously kept his gaze fixed on the cracks in the ceiling and listened with silent amusement as Dean followed suit, muttering something about Sam being a wuss, not having the stamina of lettuce in a microwave and…
His brother’s mumblings tailed off and after the briefest of pauses were followed by a dull thump as Dean planted himself face-first into his pillow. After a few seconds, Sam was greeted by a soft snore, and he smiled. He should have a few hours grace before Dean would be stirring again.
Sam sat up. Time to go. Ruby would be waiting for him.
-*-*-*-
It was the scream let out by that pretty blonde chick (who was always running round in her underwear… mmm) as the pterodactyl dive-bombed her that finally woke him. He was face down, half smothered in a downy pillow now unpleasantly soggy with drool where he’d been sleeping with his mouth open. He lay there for a second, trying without much success to gather his thoughts together into some sort of sensible order. His head felt as if it was stuffed with cotton wool and his mouth tasted like crap. He fumbled under the pillow with one hand and came up empty – no gun, no knife. And the room was too quiet, had that unmistakeable hollow feel of unoccupied.
What the hell? Where was Sam?
He sat up in a hurry, and instantly regretted it as his head swam alarmingly. He recognised that feeling and found his brain clearing rapidly as a wave of adrenaline, fuelled by angry realisation, swept over him. Sam must have slipped him a mickey in his beer. Knocked him out to get him out of the way – and he had a very good idea why.
Ruby.
Little brother had sneaked off to cosy up to his hell-whore. Fuck.
Dean glared around the empty Motel room, registered the time – just gone midnight. He’d been out for the count for nearly four hours.
A look of determination settled on his face. Sam had said they’d check out that cave tonight, so check it out he would; on his own as Sam had seen fit to find his entertainment elsewhere. Controlled fury in every movement, he stuffed his duffel with everything he could think of that might be needed for a recon – holy water, salt loads and shot gun, bags of goofer dust, knives – and tooled himself up to match with his reassembled colt 911 down the back of his jeans, knife in his boot, the usual. Grabbing a flashlight, he stomped out of the Forbidden Drive Motel and headed for the trail to the Cave of Kelpius on foot, grimly noting the absence of the Impala in the Motel lot as another black mark in Sam’s copy-book.
As the wooded darkness swallowed him up, he muttered under his breath “He’d better not be banging that demon in the backseat of my baby, that’s all…”
-*-*-*-
It was darker on the trail that he had anticipated, and he had to use the flashlight nearly the whole way to the cave, which rather messed up his plan to arrive inconspicuously. But there was no moon, the sky was heavy with cloud, and the woodland was packed with massive rocks and a dense undergrowth of tangled evergreen vines, so in spite of the fact that most of the venerable oaks were bare of leaves, it felt oppressive and was virtually devoid of any ambient light. The sense of closeness was emphasised by the lack of any breeze; the air was very still and very cold, so all Dean could see when he did switch on the flashlight was black shadows and the whiteness of his own breath clouding in front of his face. He left Forbidden Drive for Hermit Lane and then spent some time crashing about up the hill in the mass of Japanese knotweed that was overgrowing the trails before he finally stumbled across the right track to the ancient chamber.
By the time he reached the cavern, his bright magnesium flare of anger was largely burned out. He was regretting his hasty decision to come alone, though he’d never have admitted it. The painkillers had left a residual fuzziness in his head that was dangerous when hunting alone, and if he hadn’t been so mad with Sam, it would have made him think twice about this being such a good idea.
The white beam of his flashlight swept over a tall rectangular stele with some lettering carved on it standing next to the extra-dark man-made doorway to Kelpius’ cave. He didn’t bother reading it. He’d seen the information about the Rosicrucians on the website Sam had found, and he knew as much, if not more than he wanted to, about Joseph Kelpius and his Germanic meditations on the Second Coming, thank you very much.
The night was very still, nothing was stirring as Dean dumped his duffel on the earth by the monument and swiftly loaded the shotgun with salt cartridges before shouldering the bag again in preparation for entering the cave. As he snapped the shotgun closed, he thought he heard something and froze. After a few seconds, his face creased in puzzlement.
Music. It was music he was hearing, and it appeared to be coming from inside the cave.
Dean shouldered his bag and cautiously approached the gaping stone doorway, flicking off the flashlight as he did so. No point in announcing his entrance by lighting himself up like an amateur dramatics performance. Holding the shotgun locked and ready in his right hand, he used his left to track his progress through the doorway into the pitch-dark chamber beyond, trailing his fingers over the rough stone surface of the wall as he went. The music he had heard outside was definitely getting louder, and as his eyes began to adjust, he thought he could see a faint golden light - more of a glow, really - coming from the rear of the chamber. His puzzlement grew as he moved closer to the source of the light, which seemed to indicate that there was another room off this one – totally contrary to the information they had garnered about the Cave, all of which only mentioned a single chambered area. Just as he reached the back wall, he heard voices. He quickly pressed himself into the darker shadows to one side, as their owners suddenly tumbled into the room, laughing and talking animatedly, and seemingly totally oblivious to his presence.
He lowered the shotgun and concealed it by his side as he saw the two revellers outlined against the outside doorway – they were clearly kids – giggling and kissing each other as they ran out into the night. He sighed as he realised this excursion was now most definitely a bust. Evidently he had run slap bang into the middle of a student slumber party, as he could still hear the sounds of revelry coming from the backroom. They must have come over from the nearby University of Philadelphia, whose grounds were just over the Wissahickon river from here.
The couple who had just fled outside hadn’t gone far and were getting more loudly amorous, the girl having apparently allowed herself to be caught by her pursuer just on the doorstep, from the sound of it. Dean carefully broke the shotgun and put it away in the duffle. Time to make a quick exit of his own, he thought ruefully. And there was no way he was telling Sam what a waste of time this solo trip had been. His brother would be insufferable with ‘told-you-so’s if he found out.
He had only taken one step towards the doorway when he realised he was no longer alone in the room. He felt a breath of cool air touch his cheek as someone slipped out of the inner chamber alongside him, and automatically slid his hand round to grasp the colt from the back of his jeans. Then his hand fell away from the gun as a warm, slim fingered hand gently touched his cheek and equally warm, soft lips were pressed against his partly opened mouth. Whoever she was, she was nearly as tall as he was, smelled sweetly of flowers, and kissed him with a familiarity that took his breath away. His heart that had been beating quickly in fight or flight mode a moment before, was now beating fast for an entirely different, more enjoyable reason.
After a few seconds of pure pleasure that tingled through his body from lips to groin, Dean reluctantly disengaged from the unseen woman. She made a small inarticulate moan of protest and he closed his eyes, hardly believing that he was turning down a beautiful willing woman in favour of getting some sleep – he must be getting old, but he really couldn’t face the shrieking that was bound to ensue when she realised she wasn’t kissing the frat-boy she thought she knew, but a hardened hunter instead.
Well, maybe he wasn’t that old, but he was probably too way old for her anyway, he thought as he neatly side-stepped out of her embrace. She followed him, pressing warm curves up against him provocatively.
“Oh unfair,” he protested in a whisper as he felt his own body respond against his will. It had, after all, been a long while since the backseat of the Impala had been graced by an angel, and even longer since the very lovely Jamie had given him his happy ending, and abstinence wasn’t really a habit for Dean Winchester. He tried again to move out of her range by taking a step back – and found himself falling in an undignified manner onto his ass as the wall gave way into a second doorway that should not have been there.
As he landed on the hard ground, he was suddenly overtaken by a wave of dizziness. The music that had been a constant undercurrent since he’d entered the cave became momentarily loud and discordant, and he was briefly dazzled by a blaze of light. Disorientated, somewhere in the proceedings he had lost his grip on the duffle bag (and more oddly, his leather jacket), and as he shuffled backwards on his bottom into the rear chamber, the unknown woman followed closely, her hands fluttering over him as she made as if to help him regain his feet. He was surrounded by a flurry of movement and voices as the students gathered curiously around him. Then the flare of light died down to more reasonable levels that allowed his eyes to recover, and he was finally able to see where he was.
-*-*-*-
The demon took a long time to die. Throughout its writhing, gibbering and screaming Sam felt nothing but a grim satisfaction at its pain. He knew deep down that taking his frustrations out on a demon’s helpless host was not something he should be feeling happy about doing, but right now, he didn’t care. Ruby’s fresh blood was fizzing through his veins and he could still taste iron mixed with a hint of sulphur on his lips. He felt strong, powerful and alive, and it all felt too good to worry about why those particular thoughts reminded him of something Dean had told him ages ago - what Pa Bender had said when describing the deranged joy of hunting humans…
Besides, he knew that with each dose of tainted blood, every time he practiced, the exorcisms got easier and easier, and his confidence was growing exponentially. When he finally faced Lilith, he would be ready. More than ready. Hell, if she walked in right now he knew he could blast her to oblivion with one flex of his fingers. He smiled, and Ruby smiled right back, a look of pleased pride at her pupil’s prowess clear in those dark sultry eyes.
The demon finally tore free of its host in a writhing column of black smoke, and the man’s body crumpled to the floor with a soggy-sounding thud. Sam made a cursory show of checking for a pulse, knowing that it was pointless. This demon’s human body had clearly been damaged beyond repair long before Sam and Ruby had found him. He felt a brief regret for another human life cut short by Lucifer’s unholy horde’s plans, then sternly thrust the thought away. He could not afford to be weak. Weak - like Dean. Not now, when so much rested on his shoulders.
Dean. Damn. He looked at his watch, grimaced. This little outing had taken him away from his drugged and sleeping brother longer than he had planned. He hoped that Dean would still be out for the count, but he couldn’t guarantee it. He knew his big brother too well, even unconscious he was a stubborn ass, and would in all likelihood struggle his way out of the drugged stupor at least an hour earlier than a normal person would.
He took a brusque leave of his own personal demon, ignoring her parting bitchy dig about being in big brother’s pocket still, and jumped into the Impala. He had a feeling in his gut as he pulled up at the Forbidden Drive Motel that their room would be empty, and it gave him no satisfaction to find that he was right.
It took him a couple of minutes to find Dean’s hastily scrawled note confirming Sam’s fear that his idiot of a brother had gone hunting alone, with bruised ribs and probably still groggy from his unasked for dose of meds – my fault…. but damn it, Dean! Can’t you just take care of yourself for a little bit, just for a little while… and trust me?
Distracted, Sam ran an agitated hand through his hair. It was just gone 1am and he didn’t think even Dean would have come round from three of those powerful suckers much before four hours was up, so he probably hadn’t been gone that long. With any luck Sam would catch him up somewhere on the trail.
God, but he hated going into a situation half cocked like this, research only part done and no real pointers as to what they were dealing with here. Bobby had had a few theories when he’d tipped them off to this job, and Sam had his own ideas but he knew full well Dean hadn’t given it any thought at all; the elder Winchester liked to do his research with a more personal touch, liked to see and touch and smell everything for himself – hands on. So he would have gone straight to the place all the victims (if they were indeed victims and not just people who had had their own reasons for wanting to disappear from their lives) had all apparently gone missing – the Cave of Kelpius.
Just as Dean had done earlier, Sam made sure he was equipped with every kind of supernatural weapon he could think of before heading out into the night after his errant brother.
-*-*-*-
Sam promptly encountered the same problem as Dean had faced earlier that night in navigating Fairmount Park. The gloom under the trees was still as deep and impenetrable, the winter dawn was still hours away, and Sam wasted precious time stumbling frustrated around in the dark with his inadequate maglite, trying to find the right trail. As a result, he didn’t reach the Cave until nearly 2.30am, tired, angry and ready to swing for Dean when he found him.
All his fire was leached away when instead of his brother, all he found was Dean’s duffle, neatly zipped up with Dean’s favourite pistol (the pearl handled Colt 911) sitting on top of the bag, next to Dean’s favourite knife, the bowie he liked to sleep with under his pillow. Dean’s beloved battered leather jacket was on the ground next to the bag.
Sam stared in cold disbelieving silence at the small heap that represented Dean Winchester’s prized possessions before casting the thin but bright beam of the maglite round the small, silent chamber, as if Dean might suddenly materialise out of the shadows, shouting “Gotcha!”. Nothing greeted his increasingly anxious gaze but blank rock walls and dust and a dark earthen floor. The cave was too small to conceal anything even as large as a rat, let alone a six-foot tall, well-muscled hunter.
Sam had to acknowledge the cold hard fact that wherever Dean was, it was not here.
-*-*-*-
First impressions were that he had stumbled into a midnight Goth-cum-renaissance student festival. The curious faces that surrounded him, blocking out the light, were almost uniformly pale, with long dark hair and eyes that appeared to be outlined with eye-liner, they were so dark-lashed. At first glance, with only faces to go on, he would have been hard pressed to say which were male and which were female, all of them were so very – beautiful. There was no other word for it. Male or female, they were all dressed in black; rich velvets, leather, silks and satins laced here and there with bright ribbons of colour - scarlet, azure, aquamarine or violet.
It didn’t take much longer for the realisation to hit him.
“Oh holy crap. This isn’t a student thing, is it?” He muttered, as he pushed with his hands and sprang as gracefully as possible to his feet, while feeling behind him in his waistband for the comfort of his gun – which was no longer there. He risked a quick glance on the floor but there was no sign of the pearl-handled colt. Or his weapons bag. Or his heavy leather jacket. Feeling somewhat exposed and vulnerable, hands outstretched he fended off the strangers’ seemingly non-aggressive physical advances – whoever (whatever) they were, they were much too touchy-feely for comfort and obviously had even less idea than Cas about the concept of personal space.
He began to take in more details about the group that were crowding round him, murmuring with low musical voices as they touched his face and tugged at his plaid overshirt with gentle but insistent hands. It was becoming evident that there were definitely both men and women here, though all seemed to be slim and well muscled and at least as tall as he was. The men were largely clad in leather trousers with either waistcoats or an arrangement of straps barely covering their sculpted torsos. Most had one or more intricate tattoos, some were also sporting various piercings of gold and silver, so as they moved the flickering light made them spark and glitter.
The women were showing a fraction less bare flesh than the men, but none of them looked any the less sultry for it. There was less leather and more satin and velvet in evidence, with dresses cinched tight round the bodices and criss-crossed with the colourful ribbons in a way that accentuated both slim waists and full breasts until Dean didn’t know where to look that wasn’t likely to get him into a lot of trouble. Well, a lot more trouble than he was already in, that is, he thought ruefully.
“Whoa, careful with the merchandise!”
He jumped back involuntarily as several pairs of hands found their way between his layers of clothing to touch flesh, and was relieved when the crowd backed away. A relief that was short-lived, as it became apparent they had only backed off in order to allow an imposing newcomer to make a grand entrance. They parted ranks for an alpha-male who seemed to epitomise everything that was alluring about these people. As the man approached, Dean found his breath getting short and his heart-beat increased exponentially with the strange man’s proximity. At that moment, he would have been hard put to say whether it was fear or excitement that was running through his veins.
The man was as tall as Sam, though more slender in build. His skin was warmer toned than the others, and he sported a complex pattern of red and black tattoos all down his left arm and side. His long straight dark hair hung over one eye, shadowing his face and giving him an air of menace that Dean felt could not bode well. It was hard to read the expression on his face in the deep shadows that were being cast by the veil of hair and the flickering lights in the cavern. The hunter found himself quite literally with his back to the wall, having unconsciously backed up as far as he could go.
The man stopped in front of Dean, like Cas, right inside his personal space, but the hunter didn’t feel inclined to tell the guy to back the hell off, like he would do his personal angel. Instead he made a conscious attempt to relax and ready his body for anything, even though he felt more naked than the half-clothed guy in front of him without any of his normal weapons to hand.
“Who allowed this human into my court?” The man asked, glaring around at the now silent crowd, his low voice full of scorn and anger combined. Cowed, the rest of the gathering backed off, finally giving Dean some air to his silent relief. It didn’t last long. The one who had spoken didn’t wait for a reply from the mob before returning his dark gaze back to immobilise Dean against the wall with a single look.
“I am Lugh of the Long Hand, and this is my Queen, Buí. What is your name, mortal?”
Dean had been barely able to still an inadvertent snort of laughter when the man embellished his name, and was severely tempted to make a flippant remark about the length of an intimate part of his own anatomy in response. Yeah, well I’m Dean of the Long … Especially as he realised that Queen Buí was the woman who had virtually pushed him through the doorway into this strange place whilst very enthusiastically feeling up his manly attributes. Although some innate warning bell was ringing in his head about not gifting supernatural beings with the power of true names, Dean somehow found himself unable to lie in the face of that black burning gaze, and blurted out “Dean Winchester” in one breath.
This whole thing was taking on a surreal quality that had him half wondering if he’d ever left the motel at all, and wasn’t still sprawled out on his bed where Sam had left him, having a really trippy dream on his painkillers.
He decided it was about time he took the initiative, and straightened his shoulders aggressively.
“Who the hell are you guys anyway? Holed up in some cave dressed like refugees from a Goth convention.”
Lugh smiled. The young hunter did not like the look of that smile, not one little bit. There was nothing happy about that smile. It promised a whole world of cruelty, and Dean would know all about that. He was an expert on cruelty since Hell, after all. He swallowed convulsively, wondering once again what he had got himself into.
“We are the Aes Sídhe, and this,” Lugh gestured with his ‘long hand’, “this is Tír na nÓg. Humans know it as the Land of the Young.”
Dean’s gaze was caught by the regal sweep of Lugh’s arm and he was able take his first real good look at this inner chamber that Buí and her gang had brought him to. He was momentarily stunned by the sheer impossible scale of the place. If he had had any doubts previously about the unnatural nature of his surroundings, he was immediately disabused. The cave was vast, far bigger than the low hill above the Wissahickon he had seen from the outside. Huh, like Dr Who’s Tardis, it’s bigger on the inside, he thought, randomly. The roof of the cavern swept up and up until all was lost in deep shadow and darkness and an impression of almost infinite height. It seemed to be supported by great sweeping arches of stone that twisted in organic shapes reminiscent of a Gaudi cathedral he’d once seen on the info channel. The space was lit by hundreds of golden lamps, some of which seemed to be hanging suspended in thin air, others from metal chains that glinted in the flickering light.
Dean being Dean, a sense of wonder did not impair his ability to process information, or stay alert to anything that would be of use to him in his constant fight for survival against the odds. Two key facts were clamouring for his attention right now – firstly (and worryingly) he couldn’t see any exits – no windows, doors, archways, anything that even remotely resembled a way out of there. There was not even any visible sign of the doorway Buí had pushed him through from the Cave of Kelpius. Secondly, Aes Sídhe definitely rang a bell.
“So,” he said slowly, “Not Goths (obviously), or vampires, or demons…” he rolled the name around silently on his tongue, waiting for his brain to sort through his mental hunting catalogue of the supernatural (he might call Sam a walking Encyclopaedia of Weirdness, but it takes one to know one) to find the reason for the nagging familiarity of it - Aes Sídhe. Then he had it, and the incongruity of it made him laugh out loud, much to the evident displeasure of the Lord of Tír na nÓg.
“Oh my god, you’re fairies. Fucking Fairies!”
Part two in next post, here amber1960.livejournal.com/15248.html
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-07-22 11:46 pm (UTC)