crowroad: (Default)
[personal profile] crowroad
Title: For the Deserters
Characters: Sam, Dean, Cas, others
Rating: Gen
Spoilers/Warnings: 12 x 19!, post-possession syndromes
Notes: Written for [livejournal.com profile] ohsam's Celebrating Sam birthday event, for  [livejournal.com profile] lennelle 's prompt, "aliferous" (how could I resist one with wings?)
Summary: God in a ghost. That was what angels were.

When you were young, you believed in angels. Like your mother before you, but you didn't know that, not until you were far into the dimensions you'd grow through, ones that brought your mother back in the first place. But: when you were young and bright-faced as a moon in your brother's orbit, you looked heavenward. Even at that church in Providence, where you saw god in a ghost. But that was what angels were anyway, wasn’t it. Your shoulders itched when you knelt to pray.

*

A memory:

There's a splinter in your brain, and every twist breaks a soul loose.

"Listen,” Crowley says, turns his screw, while your brother winces, Cas crouches, looks at what used to be you in the place where your eyes were.

You can see out. Eyes like rose windows in a terrible sun; neo-eco-techno-vision. Your brother's face in winter colors.

"Listen," Crowley says,

The angel says his name.

"Wall of God,” Cas says, "that's what it means."

"Well ain't that--" says Dean, "how do we get him out of my brother?"

*

You left your brother behind, and it wasn't first time. Flew. Fled, that is. Flagstaff, California, hell, Texas; heaven too, in a way.

Today:  you haven’t slept; up two nights reading on grace, genes and veins fizzing with it; eons of seraph-crossed blood. He’s still in there, sometimes, speaking his name tiniest-vibration, stereocilia, telling you not to say it, not to say it. Speak only the light of my end and not all those steps with your own heels and the way I held your hands out, murder-grace. Just say the way your shoulders ached, like you’d lift off; sky or die, like you’d live.

*

Dispossession was a dream once; more than once.

Before the splinter and the window there was a walk in the park. Or a garden fraught with roots, white trunks stretching to sky. You walked, and there was a path, and someone held your hand. Or two held your hands, your brother and an angel, or two angels, and you were swung between, loose and looped as a skip-rope.

There was a strange playground, abandoned clown-carousel, where a door to heaven tore air like teeth.

A snow-Wyoming. Snow-Stull. A dog made of snow. A blade.

The angel could breathe fire. Could tell the future. Blew out a ceiling of snow and pinned you to it.

Who are you, you said, but the angel didn't answer, and your brother was a five-times ghost, and gone, and in the snow the angel sketched with the ash of his wings:

Six sigils.

Fire. Knife. Hellhound. Cage.

*

Today: you thought about your mother, looked red-eyed at your old reflection, tore up the road after an angel and a gun. Your brother brought you, for the road, something made from fruit, called you beautiful, in a way.  You walked (just to the car, that is) too-close-to-the-sun, shivering with spring.

*

Remember: you're not alone in here. 

Someone told you that once. More than one someone.

There’s snow outside the window, or there was. A sash you might scratch at if you could remember.

Your brother is an iceman, cheerleader, ghoul.

Stay with me, the angel says.

Your name is Gadreel, the other angel says, deserter, insider, riser, covered hand.

You will leave a vacancy.

*

That was then.

You and your brother are in the wrong car now, tearing up the road through heaven. Or no, just a road through Kansas, through home, and all the roads that have been walked through you, demon and angel and devil and god.  Angels nested in angels. Humans held close. The way grace wants to go up, up, burst out through blades and heads and pull, mass-migration, to the midnight of the firmament.

Your brother wants you to sleep, way you used to. But you’ll dream.

Angel in angel in angel, traveling on and on.
 

Date: 2017-05-01 04:48 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] amypond45.livejournal.com
*Love* Is the "god in a ghost" line from "Houses of the Holy"? At any rate, that's what it makes me think of. I love the idea of angels possessing angels (even if I wasn't crazy about what the show did with Cas and Lucifer). I love the line about Sam's shoulders itching, as if he can feel the wings there still.

Thanks for this!

Date: 2017-05-03 03:48 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] crowroad3.livejournal.com
Yeah, I was thinking about Sam and angels all the way back to Houses...think I made up that "god in a ghost' thing, tho, heh. I don't know what to make of angels on/in angels either! Not sure how that works, but am very interested in, I dunno, the ghosts of grace. What's left behind when/if you've let an angel in...!

Date: 2017-05-01 05:15 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lennelle.livejournal.com
Gosh. Your writing is always so beautiful, I can barely understand how anyone can write so beautifully. I feel quite honoured that you picked my prompt. This was heart-achingly gorgeous!

Date: 2017-05-03 03:50 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] crowroad3.livejournal.com
That was a great prompt--and looks like it inspired some great art too (I mean actual art, by amber and kuwlshadow)! I couldn't resist a prompt with wings... <3

Date: 2017-05-01 05:25 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] amberdreams.livejournal.com
Nesting angels like Russian dolls inside Sam is an ominous thought. Makes me wonder when consequences might hit home, sometime in the future.

Date: 2017-05-03 03:52 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] crowroad3.livejournal.com
I was thinking about Russian dolls, and nesting (angels in angels and angels in humans and on and on), and the paths angels walk through us (if they do) and what's left behind,and what happens when, well, you can't totally shed the aftermath of grace, or the grace itself. So many possibilities!

Date: 2017-05-03 07:50 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] amberdreams.livejournal.com
That was one idea I really loved in the show - that angelic possession left a residue of grace - I'd so love for them to explore that!

Date: 2017-05-01 06:39 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] badbastion.livejournal.com
I'm waaay behind on my SPN and don't like spoilers, so I'm gonna comment here as a bookmark for when I can actually read this fic : )

Date: 2017-05-03 03:53 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] crowroad3.livejournal.com
Aw, thanks for that! ( : I'm up to date so I can read yours!

Date: 2017-05-01 06:40 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] caranfindel.livejournal.com
Remember: you're not alone in here.

Someone told you that once. More than one someone.


Oh, the most painful bit, maybe? But it's all painful and beautiful.

Date: 2017-05-03 03:54 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] crowroad3.livejournal.com
Came out more painful than I meant, even. I'm sure you know what I mean. What is it with those of us who like to write Sam-angst?

Date: 2017-05-02 12:44 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] wetsammy.livejournal.com
Your writing reminds me of floating down a beautiful river and these images move past so quickly. young and bright-faced as a moon in your brother's orbit These glimpses of young Sam mixed with what's happening today are lovely.

Date: 2017-05-03 03:55 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] crowroad3.livejournal.com
Am a big fan of rivers--I like that analogy! And it helps give non-linearity a cohesive path, too! ( :

Date: 2017-05-02 04:29 am (UTC)
laughablelament: (ColtDean)
From: [personal profile] laughablelament
Wow, yes. Wings and ghosts, and ghosts of wings, and you know--like always, the pictures. Snow sculptures giving me Shining feels, extra creepy. Oh and the rose window... Ouch. No surprise I love this. You got my number. ^_^

Date: 2017-05-03 03:56 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] crowroad3.livejournal.com
you got *my* number! ( :

Date: 2017-05-02 12:35 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] madebyme-x.livejournal.com
So beautiful and haunting! I especially loved the way Sam's shoulders itch, like he can still feel the wings there, and the angels inside angels. Thank you for sharing :)

Date: 2017-05-03 03:55 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] crowroad3.livejournal.com
Kept thinking about all the permutations of angelic possession, and the paths walked-through, you know? The grace trails. So much possibility! <3

Date: 2017-05-12 08:18 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ruslan74356.livejournal.com

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Date: 2017-05-25 03:37 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kazluvsbooks.livejournal.com
So beautiful and lyrical <3
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