The Thrice-Raised Man
Ξ June 25th, 2008 | → | ∇ Supernatural, fanfic, gen, pg13 |
Title: The Thrice-Raised Man
Author: astrothsknot
Fandom: SPN
Rating: PG13 for disturbing themes, Gen
Characters: Sam, OFC
Disclaimer: I don’t own a TV show.
A/N How Sam might get Dean out of Hell
Countess Marie inspects the bones from where she sits. They’re clean, reddish stains indicating where muscles once clung. Her face is impassive in the jarring electric light.
He stands opposite her, the bones between them. “Can you do it?”
She gets up and walks around them. He does not step back, withdraw from her space. Her skirts brush his jeans, filthy with the soil that he’s dug through and his t-shirt is rank with the sweat of his labours. “Not afraid of hard work. You come straight from the graveyard?”
“Yes.” His voice sounds hoarse, like it hasn’t been used for a while.
“You get right to the point.”
“I don’t have time for anything else.” Countess Marie can feel the frustration and anger under his unreadable countenance. It’s an aura that stands out like armour from his body.
Worse; she can hear the hope.
“Pandora was cruel. She didn’t let hope get away,” says the Countess. “I can do it.”
He relaxes, a little. He stands upright, almost militarily so, but he doesn’t seem as tall as she’s heard. “How’d you hear ‘bout me? Just curious.”
“Bela Talbot.”
“Before or after she died?”
“Before. We burned your rabbit’s foot and she shot me.”
Countess Marie nods. “The body complete?”
“Dean’s all there.” That slight release that came with the news she’d do it has gone. The armour has returned. “What’s the price?”“A favour.”
“What do you want me to do?” No hesitation. Countess Marie knows that whatever she asks, at this moment, he will do.
“Not now. In the future.” She looks at the bones before her. “What I bring back, won’t be who left. He’ll have seen horrors.”
“I can live that. Bring him back.”
“You might be able to live with it, but can he?” She looks him straight in the eye and he doesn’t flinch. “How many times has he been raised?”
“What?”
“Brought back from the brink.”
“Twice. Reapers, both times. What do you need?”
The Countess nods like it’s something important, before rapping on the floor with her heel. The shifter walks into the room, terrified and not really managing to hide it. There’s something like awe on its face when it sees the bones.
“The Thrice-Raised Man,” it whispers, dropping to its knees.
“I’ve brought everything I need,” she tells Sam, as she takes a knife from her bag and slits the shifter’s throat.
